I spent months trying to get my head of product to do what I wanted him to do.

I spent months trying to get my head of product to do what I wanted him to do.
I could see the problem. I had the solution. So I told him what to do.
He didn't listen. 😂

I had a session last week with a client who was facing the same thing - exhausted, overwhelmed, working twice as hard as she should've been.

When we slowed down and looked at it together, we figured out why: she was handing people instructions instead of asking them to problem solve with her.

Telling people what to do rarely works: their only motivation for doing the thing is to make you happy or follow instructions. Oh, and P.S. now you own all the outcomes, yours and theirs.

When I stopped telling my head of product what to do and started asking him questions, he not only listened - we solved the problem together.

He didn't choose the exact path I would have… which was the whole point. He was the expert on his job, I was the expert on mine. And we were finally pulling our expertise together.

What's one thing you wish you'd figured out earlier in your career about working with other teams?