“Something to learn, not something to prove”: A PM’s favorite quotes from Jefferson Fisher's book

Within the role of product manager, there’s often a lot of people management too. PMs have to engage various stakeholders, and have conversations with people in all kinds of different areas to move their ideas forward. 

The difference between success and failure, particularly for product leaders, often boils down to your people skills. Product leadership coach Joy Adamson, whose career has spanned digital banking, fintech, and commerce for retail fashion, has found one book a great source of inspiration for this: The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher.

It’s a helpful resource for developing your understanding of workplace psychology, and as the subtitle “argue less, talk more” implies, the core learning is that conversations are not to be won. If you approach them in that way, you might just ‘win’ the singular conversation, but lose the relationship.

Jefferson’s practical teachings are both accessible and deeply applicable for product managers navigating complex stakeholder environments. In the book, he offers just as much context as advice, which makes it all the more powerful.

Here, Joy shares her favorite quotes, and why all product leaders can learn from them.

What makes The Next Conversation so useful for product leaders?

While this book speaks to our shared humanity more broadly, there’s so much we can take from it that applies specifically to product managers’ craft. For example, consider the pressure we often put on ourselves, and on single moments.

How do you apply that lesson to different situations?

Building on that “something to learn” idea, having multiple conversations can also develop a bond and strengthen understanding. So if you’re a product manager speaking with a stakeholder, it’s important to thoroughly understand what function they fulfil. There’s no point going in with details of product metrics or user experience metrics they won't grasp. Instead, you need to cater your language and your message to what matters to them – and that’s something you can often only learn through multiple interactions.

Alternatively, let’s say you’re speaking with finance. In that case, it can be helpful to do some projections and find out what concerns are top of mind for them. As PMs, we may not drive revenue directly, but we need to understand how our work impacts revenue and especially the costs we are running for the organization.

Or are you speaking at the C-level to a group that was the founding team, perhaps even the company’s original product managers? You might find that it’s difficult to build trust in that situation, for them to hand over more control over product decisions. It can be an emotional process, and one that’s only going to happen through repeated interactions.

So you need to manage your expectations depending on the other party’s viewpoint and experiences, as well as the data?

Exactly. The common error of focusing on the “single conversation” demonstrates not only the pressure many PMs feel, but also the trap of unrealistic expectations into which we might fall. Many of us walk into a meeting or presentation assuming a first-shot success is the only acceptable outcome. But meetings and presentations are conversations too, and important ones.

By setting realistic expectations like this, you’re not abandoning a product-led mindset, you’re staying open to understanding resistance. You’re showing up curious, not combative. That always helps. And ultimately, lowering expectations helps us connect better with stakeholders in the same way we connect with users.

This mindset builds bridges. It also protects us from disappointment. 

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What does the book have to say about more difficult conversations, where your efforts at connection aren’t leading to useful outcomes?

Even when we show up for a conversation with an open mind, we can face strong opposition, sometimes to the point of challenging our values around innovation, autonomy, or how great teams make decisions. And here, Jefferson makes an important distinction:

It’s not about silence or self-censorship. It’s about timing, delivery, and knowing at what point you need to—respectfully—stand up for yourself and your values.

And that brings us to another crucial insight: timing. When we ask if now is the right moment to decide, we create space for better judgment and to understand why urgency is perceived differently by others. To use Jefferson’s words again:

This can go both ways: delaying a decision when your team lacks confidence; or negotiating space to complete discovery before committing.

Could you elaborate on that idea of standing your ground when needed?

The ideas of voicing your disapproval when necessary and actively managing the timing of conversations and decisions lead to one more key concept in The Next Conversation: boundaries. Or as we product managers like to call it, “saying no.” It’s hard when it’s a senior leader asking, but boundaries protect what really matters: focus.

Jefferson notes the vital importance of boundaries and what they can teach us, as in these two quotes:

To summarize, what are the key points you think product leaders can take from this book?

There is a lot that product managers can learn from The Next Conversation. In this piece we’ve explored the downsides of putting too much pressure on one meeting or conversation; building relationships rather than ‘winning’ single conversations; setting realistic expectations; and when to build bridges, define boundaries and stand your ground. But there’s much more to explore in its pages – and it’s well worth doing so.

After all, we spend more time managing communication than roadmaps. So why not master the thing we use the most?

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Leveraging
Product Strategy

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