#26 📘 Core PM Skills - The Book of ADHD Product Management

A series overview on the basics of product management and ADHD.

Welcome to Tech Atypically👋 a weekly blog about ADHD, product management, and a neurodiverse life. Each issue includes science, stories, and strategies for regulating ADHD and the general chaos of being a PM.

Part 1 of the Book of ADHD Product Management

🌋Takeaways

• The book of product management is very small.

• There is no one “book of product management”.

• People with ADHD can have a heightened sense of emotions which can help them either be more or less empathic to others.

• All PMs have different superpowers and learning which one yours is, enables you to find the best role for you.

🐼Connect with me for free ADHD help

I’m not writing a real book on the subject, I promise.

⭐Introduction

Today starts a new series I’m calling “The Book of ADHD Product Management”. A series on relating core product management concepts and traits with how someone with ADHD might excel or fail at them. I’m not trying to write a real book about how to be a product manager. I’m no Marty Cagan nor do I want to be.

Rather, my intent is to write a series of stories that helps you understand how to cope and exploit the common challenges of being a PM (or any role) with ADHD. I'll present the perspective I've developed to bridge the two worlds for myself, with the hope that you'll be able to create your own.

🦊Story - Missing basic product management skills

This series is inspired by one of my most memorable PM interview experiences.

Once upon a time, I was interviewing for a role that had nothing to do with my current product domain. In a meeting with the CPO, I asked them why they had reached out to me. Their response was:

“I saw a PM missing basic product management skills with an interesting background”.

Ouch. Missing basic product management skills? I’d been a PM for almost 5 years and was up for promotion to Senior PM at Amazon. That was a deep cut and I felt insecure. I had never been a PM anywhere else besides Amazon and questioned whether or could succeed elsewhere. I questioned whether I should take continue the interview and if I was a “real” PM.

🦄Science - It’s hard to coach empathy

I told the story to my manager at Amazon at the time and asked for their opinion. Their response was direct and inspiring. (Disclaimer, I pieced this quote together as best I could from my memory)

“The book of product management is very small. I can coach and teach that. It’s very hard for me to coach the ability to empathize or find insight with people. That is your superpower. Don’t ever let anyone tell you you’re not a good product manager. You’re a great one”

There are a couple of things to unpack here.

• People with ADHD can have a heightened sense of emotions which can help them either be more or less empathic to others. You can have big feels or very little. Regardless of where you fall on the empathy scale, empathy and emotional regulation are learned skills that can be improved with regular practice.

• There is no one “book of product management”. It’s a new discipline that’s a soft science. Its nature is ambiguity, creation, death, and rebirth. You can coach the core concepts easily but truly great product managers vary widely in their approaches and abilities because the challenges they face are all different.

• I was very lucky that I had a manager I could openly talk to about finding a new job. I cannot express how big a difference one’s experience at any job with the right manager. They remain one of the kindest, most hardworking, and most inspiring managers I’ve ever worked with. I wish more leaders were like them.

• At its core, product management is about connecting with people. The industry uses so many terms like frameworks, vision, metrics, and funnels to describe how things are done and to measure your abilities. However, if you can’t connect and understand your customer, it doesn’t matter what you build, it’ll probably fail.

• All PMs have different superpowers and learning which one yours is, enables you to find the best role you. For me, I’m a voice of the customer and user experience PM. I might not be good at designing partner APIs but I’m damn good at turning around a product that’s failing. Find your PM shape with this visual assessment.

🔥Topics - The very small book of product management

Here’s a list of the topics I’ll be covering over the coming weeks in no particular order. If you have your own ideas or desires about topics you want to write, leave them in the comments.

• Empathy

• Navigating the Unknown

• Ambiguity

• Amplifying others

• Communication

• Playing nice with others

• Curiosity

• The Practice of Failure

• The Practice of Success

• Measuring Outcomes vs Outputs

• Mastering effective learning inefficiently

• The first to get blamed, the last to get praised

• Silent Drowning

• Dreaming

✨Conclusion

I ended up accepting an offer from the manager that told me I was “missing core product management skills”. They left the company before I joined and I am sad I never got a chance to learn more from them.

My self-doubt and their opinion were right though. I joined the new company and I learned I was missing certain skills for that role. I struggled and eventually left. I thought it was my lack of skills and ADHD self-doubt. It wasn’t.

Everyone, especially product managers, is going to be missing skills when going to a new role. Sometimes the new skills align with how you want to grow, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes expectations align and sometimes they don’t. You keep moving forward and learning though until one day, you find the place that needs your superpowers.

Or at least an inspiring manager. Thanks, B.

It’s all chaos, be kind. - Patton Oswalt

🐼Need a nudge toward your dreams?

⏭️Next Week

The importance of curiosity in being a PM and having ADHD.