Navigating Inter-Team Negotiations: Shreyas Doshi’s Strategy for Product Managers

In a recent LinkedIn post, Shreyas Doshi offers a strategic approach for product managers navigating high-stakes negotiations, particularly within companies populated by highly competitive individuals. Doshi highlights a common dynamic where product managers, especially in top-tier companies, can exhibit significant ego and combativeness, creating friction when collaborating with peers from other teams.

Doshi suggests a counter-intuitive but effective tactic for product managers aiming to achieve better outcomes when dealing with similarly assertive counterparts. Instead of engaging in direct negotiation with another ‘Type-A’ product manager, Doshi advises facilitating the discussion through engineering managers, tech leads, or designers from the respective teams.

“So if you are trying to convince another team to do something, a nice trick for you as a PM is to get the negotiation to happen via the EMs / TLs (or at times the Designers) of the 2 teams rather than leading the negotiation yourself with your Type-A combative PM counterpart on the other team.”

This method, as Doshi points out, requires operating more discreetly and “behind-the-scenes” than might be typical for inter-team collaboration. However, he argues that this indirect approach can lead to superior results compared to the standard scenario of two assertive product managers clashing.

The Ego Factor in Product Management Negotiations

Doshi delves into the underlying reasons why some product managers may shy away from this strategy, even when its effectiveness is evident. He posits that a primary obstacle is not a lack of skill, but rather a misplaced priority: a greater concern for ego-centric validation than for actual product or team outcomes. While these PMs may profess to care deeply about outcomes, Doshi suggests their underlying motivation is often more about personal status or winning arguments.

“What prevents some PMs from practicing this technique, even though the most talented PMs already know it works, is that they don’t care about product / team outcomes as much as they profess to,” Doshi writes. He elaborates that while outcomes are important, “they care a lot more about something else, something that’s more ego-centric than business outcomes.”

The Art of the Excuse

This observation leads Doshi to a candid and, as he admits, potentially uncomfortable conclusion: the more intelligent an individual, the more sophisticated their justifications for avoiding such truths or strategies. This phenomenon, where individuals create elaborate rationalizations to avoid confronting ego-driven behaviors, is a key point in Doshi’s analysis.

Intelligence and Rationalization

According to Doshi, those who find his assertion “unbearably uncomfortable will instinctively manufacture a dozen clever objections against this truth.” This highlights a pattern where intellectual prowess can be employed not to solve problems, but to defend existing, ego-serving behaviors. The implication is that recognizing and overcoming this tendency is crucial for personal and professional growth, especially for those in leadership positions where collaboration and outcome-driven decisions are paramount.

Doshi’s insights provide a valuable framework for product managers seeking to enhance their effectiveness in cross-functional collaborations. By understanding the psychological dynamics at play, PMs can adopt more nuanced strategies to achieve shared goals, prioritizing collective success over individual posturing.