Learn your stakeholder’s interests in a product

If you work for a business or institution, you will be working for stakeholders. Your stakeholders have power over the life of your product. They can disapprove of your creation, forcing you to start over. If you want your product to survive, find out how your bosses are compensated. Knowing what motivated them allows you to formulate a solid argument against them.

There are a few techniques you can utilize to persuade stakeholders. The first is convincing your stakeholders your idea was theirs all along by guiding your stakeholders’ thoughts when presenting your research and user goals. Another technique is the contrast effect. The contrast effect is when you offer a high and low option before showing the option you want. Lastly, discuss the bad things about not taking risks or the action you want. People frequently don’t like missing out or losing things.

However, there will be times when you need to sacrifice your product but won’t accept it. Your stubbornness is the sunk cost fallacy. Sunk cost fallacy is when we spend an abundance of resources (like time or money) on a product or marketing plan we believe is valuable, regardless of evidence proving otherwise. Instead of holding on, we need to let go. The author claims, “If failure equals knowledge and knowledge equals power, then failure equals power by transitive property.” I elaborate on this more in the “Seek other perspectives over your product” takeaway.