The art of influence: The single most important skill that AI can’t replace | Jessica Fain (Webflow, ex-Slack)

As product managers, one of our best sets of skills is curiosity and empathy and trying to understand our users. But the moment That we're talking to an executive, we forget those skills and those talents. It's your fault if the leaders didn't buy into your idea. People completely misunderstand how executives make decisions, what is going on in the heads. I describe an executive's calendar as a strobe light going off. You wake up at 8 a.m., you've already got a huge list of urgent things going on they have not had The time, the energy, the wherewithal to center your problems. What are their goals? What are they trying to do? How are they measured connect the thing you're pitching them with that success? There's ways for us to ask. Much more interesting questions of our executives. Tell me what the board is pushing you on. Excepts want to be successful, too. They want to be good at their jobs. Sometimes you have the best idea and they just don't bite. One of the biggest things you can do to build trust.

is kill things, deprioritize things. If you're thinking about how do you be more senior, how do you show up in a way that is in a leadership mindset, you get paid to be a domain expert. Your executive Is looking for you to be the deepest person in the room. Bringing your expertise to bear is absolutely crucial. You have to act like a CPO. Today my guest is Jessica Fayne. Who's been a product leader at Box and Slack and Brightwell and now at Webflow. And she has gotten very, very

Uniquely good. At the art and science of influence. And in particular, influencing executives. Influence might be the single highest leverage skill for product leaders outside of AI. We actually get into how AI is changing the skill of influence.

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