Photo by Anderson Mancini

The three wise monkeys are a pictorial maxim. Together they embody “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”. Twisting this a bit to product management, one can create a perfect recipe for Product Manager moron who:

• Refuses to see the emerging trends, competition, change in market dynamics
• Refuses to speak to stakeholders and keep them informed
• Refuses to listen to explicit and tacit needs of customers

When it comes to “evil” – every human must try to emulate the wise monkeys. However when we speak of “products”, Product Managers must keep their ears and eyes wide open – pretty antithetical to what the above pictorial maxim denotes.