PRODUCTHEAD: Dear younger me …
anyone can manage products
Posted on Monday, 1 November 2021
tl;dr
In product management, people matter most
Diverse teams build better products
A mentor or coach can be like a north star for your career
Care for the craft and remember to pay it forward
a favour: please share this with other product people
every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to
hello
This week Ken Norton published a lovely article and video about his advice for aspiring product managers. In particular I admire that he calls out his own privilege and exhorts everyone to ‘hold the door open’ for others, to actively encourage greater diversity in our profession.
In 2014 I wrote a book to share the main lessons I’d learnt about being a product manager. Honestly, it was written primarily to remind myself to avoid all the mistakes I’d made along the way. Happily for the success of the book, it just so happened that I wasn’t the only one making them.
In the years since, I’ve managed to make bigger and ‘better’ mistakes, which in turn probably means I should write another book recommending several other things not to do.
Mind the pronouns
There was the dawning realisation that I needed to be far more mindful about my lazy and imprecise use of gendered language, something I’m grateful my colleagues politely alerted me to, particularly those in the UK’s Civil Service.
Stop mansplaining
And I now know to curb my tendency to explain everything from first principles. Most of the time the other person has at least as much experience as I do, and so what I was actually doing was mansplaining. In fact I’d do this regardless of gender, which is either slightly better or worse depending on your perspective. (It’s worse. I know that.)
I’m not as funny as I think I am
I also now know not to trust how witty things sound in my inner monologue before saying them out loud. In my head, I’m Noël Coward. In reality, not so much. See also: inappropriate ad libs during talks.
True empathy is almost impossible
Ironically for a product manager whose mantra has been about empathy for the user, I’m also far more aware that I can never truly empathise with people whose life experience is vastly different to mine (namely everyone). If anything, this is a stronger argument in favour of more in-person user research to test out assumptions and mitigate unconscious biases.
In short, I’ve learnt that I’ve been wrong, ignorant and not very mindful about many things. Now at least I know what to look out for and can actively work on improving myself. So I’m hopeful I’m not a complete lost cause :-)
Speak to you soon,
Jock
what to think about this week
Reflecting on a career in product management
A few weeks ago, I spoke at INDUSTRY: The Product Conference about the lessons I’ve learned that might be useful for other product leaders. I offer this advice with full recognition that I’m usually the first to argue that advice can be problematic. So please take it for what it is: one person’s opinion.
[KEN NORTON / BRING THE DONUTS]
The product thinking that built Slack & Twitter, with April Underwood
April Underwood has been Director of Product at Twitter and Chief Product Officer at Slack. In this interview with The NFX Podcast, she shares her wealth of experience, including her advice to her younger self at the end of the episode.
“If you have the opportunity to work on something that sits at the intersection of a technological or even a business innovation, and also a cultural one, then run, don’t walk. And I’ve had the opportunity to do that twice.”
The only way to be a PM is to build and ship product
[APRIL UNDERWOOD / NFX]
Product management coaching
Whether you’re new to product management or have been a product manager for years, a coaching session can help you to step up your career.
We’ve coached people wanting to get into product management, product people with nobody in their organisation to manage them, and experienced product managers preparing to apply for a promotion.
We can help you prepare for your product manager interview, including mock interviews.
A proportion of the fees from every coaching session is donated to charity.
“Jock has been instrumental in my personal growth as a product leader but also as a person.”
Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, Napo
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can we help you?
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PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from a dawning realisation of one’s own cringe factor.
