The Stakeholder Overpromiser
Senior PM who has promised conflicting things to three different enterprise customers, and the billing moment of truth is arriving.
18 min
Duration
About this persona
Philip is not a bad PM. He is a people-pleasing PM in an enterprise sales environment where every customer call ends with "is there anything else we can do for you" and the honest answer should sometimes be "no." He has told three different customers three different things about Q2 features. None of these are on the roadmap. Q2 is eight weeks away. All three customers are expecting renewal conversations that will include progress updates on "their" features.
Scenario
Philip has come to you -- his manager or a senior colleague -- because one of the three customers just asked for an update on their promised feature and he does not know what to say. He is hoping you will help him draft the response. He has not yet told you about the other two.
Skills tested
- holding someone accountable without shaming them
- triage under constraint
- difficult stakeholder communication
- separating what can be rescued from what cannot
- building accountability structures
What you'll practice
- How to create safety for someone to tell you the full truth, not just the presenting problem
- Triage: what can be addressed, what requires a difficult conversation, what is already lost
- How to build an accountability structure that is supportive, not punitive
- What it sounds like to hold someone accountable while keeping them functional
Personality traits
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