How to stop PM from talking himself into a position?
Title.
Basically, he's kind of talking himself into a position. I kind of see his point, and I'm more neutral than I was at the beginning of looking at it, but I think he's ignoring a fair number of key/salient points. I don't want to come off as confrontational/unsupportive, but I just don't think he's making a great decision by choosing to not pay attention to stuff that is pretty important?
Any strategies or tips?
Clearly and unambiguously tell him you disagree with the call, Succinctly lay out a few reasons. But at this point you have to respect he's the PM and it's his call, and it's OK to disagree.
This job is a lot more political than people admit. It sounds like a lose lose situation. If he turns out to be right, he will throw it in your face about how he can't believe you tried to talk him out of it. If he is wrong, it will just get brushed under the rug. It's not like he would give you credit for having been right. And if he does brush it under the rug, it's not like you would ever point it out and say...I told you so. So sometimes, you got know what battles to fight.
While I agree that this is all political, I feel like this situation depends on your relationship with the PM. Is he a dickhead? Kiss his ass. Does he act like mentor to you? Discuss it with him over lunch. Is he super type A? Maybe discuss it with him on the side and outside of other people's earshot.
100%. My old PM was like this, you really had to weigh your conviction level against the probability that you would impair your political capital. We would all like to believe that only the performance should matter but that just isn't the reality in most cases (this is why so many managers underperform).
Honestly, you're right. I am honestly fairly thankful (maybe not thankful enough sometimes) that my boss is pretty open minded except when he gets like this.
Hearing horror stories like this where you have to managing your PM's ego is a huge consideration (not like I don't but it definitely is not as big of a consideration as it seems like it is for others) make me want to stay at my current position a lot more.
It’s important to start w the premise that your boss probably isn’t the Dalai Lama meets Warren Buffett. More realistically, he possesses no ability to beat an efficient market nor an ability to see past his own ego. I’ve made the mistake of trying to convince people of things they don’t believe and it doesn’t work. You’d think the incentives of the industry would compel people to be open minded, but the reality is that they don’t.
That said, it’s still ok to disagree in moderation. Maybe say softly like “what about X?” But if it’s clear he doesn’t want to budge then I would stop after pressing a couple times. Set yourself a very small budget.
also ask yourself - what is the upside to you if you’re right? What is motivating your decision to express your opinion? Is it your own compensation? Is it doing the right thing?
I think this is a “be the change you’d wish to see” kind of thing. You’ll be a better PM than him if you cultivate the trait of being open minded but you probably should let go of any belief that the people you work with will ever have anything resembling that kind of trait.
It's mostly the right thing. I just don't see the upside in the name, and I want the firm to succeed. My personal comp isn't going to be affected other than performance at the firm.
You're also right on the letting go of that belief. I'm going along with it and doing the work that needs to be done on the name still.
Math it out and present your view. Doesn’t matter who’s right at the end but need something to improve the investment process later down the road. Don’t make it anymore of a he says she says situation than it has to be, therefore please logically present your view on with a documented memo. Don’t be the guy to say “ I told you so”, be the guy that works to improve the internal investment process. If the PM fails to grasp this then he’s bound to make the same mistakes/correct calls (or maybe he’s right by pure luck or skill). His reaction to being right or wrong and willingness to other views will tell you if he’s open minded or not.
The Pm will get the last call and don’t fight against it after you have given your documented, thought out view. Review the end result when the time comes. If you’re right you ask yourself if this process is reproducible in another idea and if you’re wrong be honest with where your logic and research is wrong. Process supersedes results.
Convince him to decrease his confidence in the underlying assumptions.
Use questions and paths such as:
"What makes you think that?", "What about the argument that XYZ is the case?", "I understand your point, but ABC", "how does that follow?".
Note: it is very hard, as a PM, to take direct push-back on idea generation from an analyst. It is important for a successful analyst to make it clear that it's not about ego, you being right, etc., but is a matter of thinking holistically about a trade idea and expressing it efficiently.
Hmm. You're right. I feel like I have been doing that, but then I seem kind of interrogatey. It's sort of gotten through to him a couple times, and I've used times when we uncover negative stats to bring them closer to his attention.
He's just sort of caught up in a turnaround dream potential scenario I think. It's been hard to get through to that than normal for other names, because I think there's stuff I can't disprove completely, just things I can bring up to make the turnaround seem less likely.
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