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“Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products” By Marty Cagan is a highly recommended read for Product Leaders - leaders and managers of product management, product design and engineering.
“Leadership is about recognizing that there’s greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge.”
This book is all about identifying what makes such an environment.
This blog is the second part of a series of the key points from the book that resonated with me. You can find Part1 here.
Coaching
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Coaching is an ongoing dialog, with the goal of helping the employees reach their potential.
Coaching is what turns ordinary people into extraordinary product teams. - Bill Campbell.
This part of the book highlights the most important areas of coaching and development for member of product teams.
The Coaching Mindset
Coaching is more essential than mentoring. Whereas mentors dole out words of wisdom, coaches roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. They don’t just believe in our potential; they get in the arena to help us realize our potential. They hold up a mirror so we can see our blind spots and they hold us accountable for working through our sore spots. They take responsibility for making us better without taking credit for our accomplishments. - Bill Campbell
This section focuses not on people the manager is trying to coach, but rather, on the necessary mindset of the manager as a coach. A coaching mindset provides a foundation of intent.
Developing People is Job#1
Most managers see their accountability for aggregate product outcomes as their most important job and treat their teams as a means to an end. If you are a manager, you should be spending most of your time and energy on coaching your team.
You should measure your own job performance on the successes of your team members, even more than the success of your products.
Empowering People Produces the Best Results
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Empowering means creating an environment where your people can own outcomes and not just tasks. You must step back to create this space, while stepping in to remove impediments, clarify context and provide guidance.
Beware your own insecurities.
Insecure managers have a particularly hard time empowering people.
The insecure manager is so worried about being recognized for their contributions, they can see their team’s success as a threat to that recognition, rather than the confirmation of the contribution that it truly is.
Be aware of your insecurities and understand how your behavior can interfere with empowering your team.
Cultivate Diverse Points of View
An insecure manager may suppress opinions that are different from her own.
Nurturing a team that allows for diverse points of view begins with the hiring process where you consider your team as a portfolio of strengths and backgrounds. It continues with creating a space where alternative points of view can flourish.
Seek out Teaching Moments
Many people are not aware of their own potential. As a coach, you are in a unique position to help them see it.
Reaching potential requires working through adversity. As a coach, you are always looking for opportunities that encourage your people to stretch beyond their comfort zone.
Continually Earn the Trust of your Team
None of your coaching efforts will be effective without trust.
Trust comes from continually demonstrating through your actions your genuine commitment to the success and development of each member of your team.
It is very important to be honest with them in both praise and criticism.
Have the Courage to Correct Mistakes
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you can’t find a path for a team member to become successful. When you reach this point, it’s important that you act decisively.
For many managers, this is the hardest principle to follow. It can feel easier to avoid the painful conversation. But this hurts you, your team and the person herself.
The Assessment
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This assessment is structured in the form of a gap analysis. The purpose is to assess the product person’s current level of competence along each of the several necessary dimension and then compare that with the level of competence that’s expected for this particular role.
The difference dimensions are:
| Product Knowledge | Process Skills and Techniques | People Skills and Techniques |
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| User and Customer knowledge | Product discovery techniques | Team collaboration skills |
| Data Knowledge | Product Optimization techniques | Stakeholder collaboration skills |
| Industry and Domain knowledge | Product Delivery techniques | Evangelism skills |
| Business and Company knowledge | Product development process | Leadership skills |
| Product Operational Knowledge |
The list above can be customizes faced in the industry and company.
The Gap Analysis
The manager and the PM should review the set of criteria and assign 2 ratings to each skill:
- Expectations - where the employee needs to be in in this skill.
- Current Capability - where the employee performs on this scale.
The Coaching Plan
The manager then create a coaching plan based on the results of the assessment, choosing first the top-three areas with the biggest gaps.
In the book, the author gives a guidance on how to resolve each gap.
Integrity
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Empowered product teams are predicated on trust - with executives, stakeholders, customers, and your own product team. This trust is based on competence and character. And integrity is at the heart of the necessary character.
3 essential behaviors to focus on: dependability, the company’s best interests and accountability.
Dependability
if the PM misleads the executives, customers or stakeholders - even with the best of intentions - she may permanently damage her reputation in the company and prevent establishing the trust that is so essential to effective product teams.
This means not making a commitment unless and until her product team has had the opportunity to do sufficient product discovery to reasonably consider the risks of value, usability, feasibility and viability.
The company’s best interest
The PM need to be perceived as always acting in the best interests of the company - not only protecting her or her team’s interests.
To be entrusted and empowered, it is essential that the product team and especially the product manager, be perceived as not only understanding the overall objective of the company but as sincerely committed to doing everything in her power to help the company succeed.
Accountability
Accountability for a product manager of an empowered product team means a willingness to take responsibility for mistakes. Even when fault may lie with others, she always asks what she could have personally done to have better managed the risk or achieved a better outcome.
“If the product team succeeds, it’s because everyone on the team did what they needed to do, but if a product team fails, it’s the product manager”.
Decisions
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Right-size decision analysis
It’s critical to acknowledge that not all decisions are equally important or consequential. PMs should consider the level of risk and associated level of consequence.
Collaboration-based decision making
If the decision is primarily about enabling technology, it needs to be deferred to the tech lead. If the decision is primarily about user or customer experience, it needs to be deferred to the product designer. If the decision is primarily about business viability, it will depend on the PM collaborating with the relevant stakeholders.
The hardest decisions are usually around value, as value is a function of the whole.
Resolving Disagreements
When there is disagreement within the team, it’s critically important for the product team to know when and how to run a test.
If you make collaboration-based decisions, and run tests for cases with disagreements, there will be very few situations for the product manager needing to override her team or escalate a decision up to senior management.
Transparency
It’s important to be transparent on the rationale for the decisions. It is to make sure everyone is aware that we are not making uninformed decisions, or ignoring important concerns, or pursuing our own agenda.
Disagree and Commit
A team could often disagree even after runnning a test and collecting evidence. We need the team - especially the product manager-to go one step further and agree to commit to the decision that was made, even if they disagree with it.
A final note on decision making by Jim Barksdale
- If you see a snake, kill it
- Don’t play with dead snakes
- All opportunities start out looking like snakes.
Hope you found these notes helpful. Do checkout Part1 of this series too. Stay tuned for more.