The Three Tenets of PM Stakeholder Collaboration
A mantra for working with stakeholders: surface issues, not yourself; drive decisions, don't hoard them
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 93%
Three tenets that define working well as a product manager with other stakeholders — the operating-model core. They counter the 'mini-CEO' folklore that leads PMs to become difficult, self-important, or decision-hoarding. Easy to say but hard to embody day-to-day, and they remain the central struggle at every level of a PM's career.
Origin
Defined by Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek) as the three tenets of his 'operating model' W within the Three Ws framework.
Core principles
- 01Being right is not enough if you're impossible to work with
- 02The topic matters, not your ownership of it
- 03A PM orchestrates decisions rather than making them all
How to run it
- 1
Raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with
Surface the hard problems, blockers, and disagreements that need airing — but do it in a way that makes you a value-adder, not an obstacle or a hindrance. Keep the intent on advancing the product and unblocking the team.
Pro tip Bring the conversation down from an emotional to a logical space so discussion happens on more equal footing. War cries and high energy are fine sometimes, but not as a default mode.
Watch out If you push back constantly and the manner is combative, you get labeled as difficult and a hindrance regardless of how right you are.
- 2
Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself
Elevate what matters for the product without making it about your own visibility or status. Channel attention to the topic, not to your role in raising it.
Pro tip Frame contributions around what unblocks the team and advances the direction, not around demonstrating you were the one who spotted it.
- 3
Get decisions made without making all the decisions yourself
Your job is to ensure decisions happen — to orchestrate the process — not to be the person who personally decides everything. You are one cog in the wheel, the core collaborator across data, design, tech, and strategy, not the whole wheel.
Pro tip Sometimes it is literally your job to push back and stop the team doing stupid or soon-to-change work; recognize when your influence obligates you to intervene.
Watch out The 'mini-CEO' narrative tempts PMs to hoard decisions — this erodes stakeholder relationships.
In the wild
A product leader Lenny worked with saw his business unit pushed into a bunch of pointless work, and only later realized it had been his job to push back on doing it. Having the influence and forgetting the responsibility that comes with it is the failure mode the tenets guard against.
→ Realizing that in a senior role, pushing back on bad work is a core duty, not an optional extra.
Common mistakes
Operating in emotional space by default
Emotional urgency has its place, but PMs who can't bring the tempo to a logical, equal footing come across as difficult and grow slower.
Falling for the mini-CEO folklore
Believing the PM is the whole wheel leads to self-importance and decision-hoarding, damaging cross-stakeholder relationships.
Is it for you?
Best for
Mid-senior PMs working with executives and cross-functional stakeholders who need to influence without authority
Not ideal for
Contexts requiring a single decisive owner in a crisis where fast unilateral calls genuinely matter
From the transcript
“Number one is raise difficult issues without being difficult to work with. Bring out important topics without drawing importance to yourself. And finally, you are…”
“These three tenets are easy to say, but they become very very hard to embody and display on a day-to-day basis”
“they are also able to bring the tempo of the conversation to a more logical space from an emotional space.”
“you are one part of the cog of a wheel, you're not the entire wheel yourself.”
From the episode
A framework for PM skill development
Vikrama Dhiman (Gojek)