Leadership meetup: Leading product teams in times of change

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“My identity is not my job at a particular place, but instead focusing on always discovering new things.” Chris Butler, Lead Product Manager at Google

This month’s Mind the Product leadership meetup in San Francisco, which took place at Foreign Cinema (a popular San Francisco restaurant), brought together attendees across the Bay Area, from companies big and small. Three speakers joined us to discuss all things leadership during difficult times, and times of change. Here’s what we learned from Dan Olsen (product management author, trainer, and speaker), Chris Butler (Lead Product Manager at Google), and Tiffany Chin (VP of Design at Pendo).

Don’t fall prey to ‘shiny new objects syndrome’

We all know that we are currently facing a difficult time in the economy. So when a ‘shiny new object’, like ChatGPT, comes along, we learned that it’s important to not get carried away with immediately restructuring all of your plans around it. As a company, you must be rooted in your objectives and your customers first and foremost, but do not throw your plan out the window just because of a new technology. When it comes to ‘shiny new objects’, allowing your team to experiment is important, but keep in mind, experiments tend to fail more often than not. It’s great to have new tools introduced to the market, but focusing on what problem this tool will solve for your team or product is key. Far too often people expect the shiny new object to be a disruptive innovation, but can this object solve the problem better than what you had before, and how much better?

Optimism is a choice

Sometimes choosing the extinction event over the slow burning house fire is necessary. But, what should the split of your focus be when it comes to being informed vs. being bogged down by the news and changes in the market that we’re all witnessing and experiencing? No matter how good or bad it is out there, optimism is a choice. Optimistic thinking is necessary, however never lose sight of the landscape that you’re operating in because oftentimes the landscape will eat you alive faster than your competition will. Also, understanding the shape of the future can be far more interesting than focusing on what your competitor is doing. For example, when ChatGPT came out, many companies had to change a lot of their future plans, exemplifying why you always need to be planning for the future, but paying close attention to your landscape at the same time. In fact, no matter what new technology comes out, you must always be solving something for someone at all times.

You can’t buy your way into product-market fit…anymore

In the early aughts, you may have been able to buy your way into product-market-fit, but no more. Once seen as easier-to-maneuver interests, VCs have gotten increasingly savvier over the years. Gone are the days of investing off of faith and belief in a company, now we need data and retention numbers. With a massive shift towards efficiency, organizations may not be able to try everything under the sun anymore, and leaders will have to make hard decisions (that’s why they get paid the big bucks).

Building a case for product management

What if your leadership aren’t product people? One thing product leaders will need to prepare for is defending their org sizes and hires. Most of this will come down to how product management savvy your C-suite is. We know that product management is routinely understaffed, but be careful and be prepared that leadership may quickly view product management as a cost center. Remember, CEOs care about business outcomes – so all work must be tied to that. Focus on roadmaps, shipping, and hitting KPIs. Hopefully, in most cases, there’s an A/B test with demonstrable results of input to outcome. If you need headcount, how will you tie this product hire to actual income and saved time? This is what leadership will care the most about.

Motivation during difficult times

As a leader, think about what you would want and how you would feel if you were on the receiving end. You must be the person people want to talk to, advocating for shifts in power, and trying to orchestrate how the process impacts the people affected by it. Will people feel overburdened anyways? Yes they will. But saying “no” will be the most important thing to you as a leader. It will build trust with your team, and allow you to focus on things that benefit your team the most. Even if things are trending down and some things are negative, there are still things that are positive. Part of your unofficial role as a leader is to be a cheerleader for your team. Just because the environment is negative, doesn’t mean your team’s local experience should be.

If you want to elevate your product management game and witness inspiring and actionable keynotes at one of our #mtpcon conferences then you can secure your place at #mtpcon San Francisco today! Happening on June 14 – join us in-person or online.