Why difficult to be a Product Manager

I came into Product Management, because of my own interest.  I always wanted to define what to do.  I used to dream of defining the work, when I was actually doing a defined work.  As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, my Director gave me the opportunity and I jumped into this new role with lots of excitement.

But, believe me.. it is not easy to be a Product Manger.  Apart from the most commonly known skill, "communication", two important skills, one should work hard to have/acquire are :

Reading:  One of the toughest tasks on the earth, huh??  Any school-boy or college-girl agrees with me.  One should be reading a lot about the market -- blogs, articles, emails, e-books, client-issues, competitors etc.   

• Your task is not just to merely read the sentences.   Obviously, you will have to understand every bit of it.
• You can easily get carried away with this reading task, if you don't pay enough concentration.
• You tend to assume that you understood it, though you did not go through it completely.
• You don't feel like reading certain articles.  You feel that they are boring.
• You cannot become a good reader, on day 1.  It needs some time and patience.  Keep trying it and you will get there.
• Do not go through lot of things on the same day.  Have certain time in your calendar dedicated for it.
• If you did not understand or if you are not able to concentrate on a certain topic, flag it for future and continue with the next one.

Listening:  This is not easy either.  Hearing is a physical thing, where your ears can hear anything which is audible.  But, listening includes mental-work of understanding what you are hearing.  There are different sources of information, Software Engineers, Quality Engineers, Customers, Customer-representatives, market researchers, other Product Managers, etc.

• No matter what, you should listen to each and everything that is conveyed to you, as part of the product improvements/suggestions.
• If you pay too much interest in noting down what you are hearing, you may lose to listen it properly.
• If you come to a conclusion OR if you start to think about the solution -- while discussing an issue, you are not doing a good job of listening.
• Repeating whatever you have understood in your own words, is a very good idea, if you have even 1% of doubt in your mind.
• Preparing an email and circulating it across all the participants, is another good idea to confirm complete understanding.