Dear Leah #1: Getting buy-in for product changes

How do I introduce anything against resistance - why does noone listen to me?

“Dear Leah” is my advice column where I tackle questions from the community. It’s a perk intended for my paid subscribers to get more focused, operational advice. Questions might be edited lightly for clarity. Today’s Question is from Larry about how to overcome resistance as someone who changed jobs.

Cluess about how to get into the picture… Midjourney V4

“Dear Leah,

First of all, thanks for the article where you called out everyone to go out and start mentoring, I took it to heart and I have a great time helping others. 

[…]A new VP/CPO comes to a company. The company is doing okay, nothing extraordinary. Growth is above CAGR, sales hits their numbers, customers are happyish based on anecdotes.

The company talks to customers fairly regularly and measures high level metrics like retention, but usage and other lower level metrics are completely absent.

The company doesn't know how/if features are used. The new VP/CPO wants to introduce product analytics to better understand customers and quantitatively measure the success of features/initiatives.

The CEO and other execs are a bit sceptical, since the company is doing okay they don't want to take away focus from how the company is working right now.

Question: how can the new VP/CPO convince the CEO/other execs?”

Regards,

Larry

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Dear Larry,