How do I get executives to agree on product direction?

You lay out the product direction and the executives will not line up behind it. One wants this, another wants that, and the meeting ends without a real decision. It is frustrating and it stalls everything downstream. But their disagreement is usually not stubbornness. It is a signal you have not yet found what they each care about. Executives align when they can see how a direction serves what they are responsible for, and when they trust the person steering it. Trying to win them all in one room, with a deck, rarely works, because no one wants to concede in front of the others. The real alignment happens before that room. So start meeting them one at a time. Ask each what worries them about the direction and what they need it to deliver, and listen more than you pitch. Then shape the direction to carry as many of those needs as it honestly can. When you walk into the group meeting, you want most of the agreement already built.