SUNDAY REWIND: In my humble opinion by Thor Mitchell

This week’s Sunday Rewind is an #MTP Engage Manchester talk from Thor MItchell, currently a Head of Product at Miro, on the importance of humility for product managers.

Thor begins by saying that product management is a diverse role. His advice when hiring for a product role is to ‘prioritise that which you can not teach’. He describes the spectrum of skills and attributes someone in a product manager role would need.

It’s easy, says Thor, for product managers to believe that they are important, but for a variety of reasons they aren’t. Many organisations get along fine without them.

To be a great product manager, you should recognise what you know and what you have yet to learn, says Thor. Understand that, in reality, you’re not all that. You should be ready to learn from anyone and everyone, says Thor,  each of us has something to teach. You should recognise when you’re wrong and when things are your fault.

In conclusion, Thor says that humility has to come from within. If you don’t have it already, it will take a conscious effort to change and become a better person. You can save a lot of time and emotional energy by practising humility and by asking yourself these questions:

• What assumptions am I making?
• What are the limits to my understanding?
• Why am I wrong?

The reasons to do this are simple – embracing humility will make you a better product manager, a better person and will ultimately be better for your mental health.

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