When I join a team and am starting to figure out the landscape of stakeholders, there’s one key thing I listen for: an “I wish” song. After I heard This American Life episode 259: Promised Land, I started to notice “I wish” songs everywhere, as Ira Glass predicted. In just about every Disney movie and most musical theater shows, the main character reveals what they most desire in the form of an “I wish” song, which sets the whole story arc in motion.
Moana declares her desire to explore beyond the bounds her family defined for her in “How Far I’ll go”.
Tevye wishes to come upon a small fortune and escape the toil of a dairy farmer when he sings “If I were a Rich Man”.
Stakeholders often do this too, though not usually in the form of a song. I once had a stakeholder tell me that she hadn’t been a product manager for very long, but she had deep knowledge of the business we were working in. She wanted the team to take her knowledge into account when making product decisions.
If you can identify someone’s “I wish” song and support it, they will be your biggest ally.