🛠️ Achievements: The Engine Room of Your Product Career
How I developed Achievement Deficit Disorder..and why you should try and avoid it.
Last week I explored Catalysts—the environmental factors that make success more likely. This week, we're diving into the second zone of the Vital 9 and the most critial for your career growth: Achievements..
Before I talk about them - a bit of my own career history to put Achievements in context.
How I developed Achievement Deficit Disorder
I worked at the Guardian for 14 years (1996 - 2010).
For about the first 10 of those years, I was on an achievement hot streak. I learned a ton, and we were knocking it out of the park in terms of both audience and revenue numbers - with a healthy array of awards to show for our efforts. I was a genuine industry expert in what was at the time a pretty hot domain of (to give it its old name) 'Digital Publishing'. Job offers came thick and fast.
To make things better - I worked in a great environment, and was paid well. Overall, my Vital 9 picture was about as Green as it's ever been.
But for the final four years things changed. I was kicked upstairs/ promoted to Group HQ and given a job title with the word 'Strategy' in. I still worked with great people, was well supported by my boss, had lots of autonomy, and pulled a great salary. So all was nice and Green on Catalysts and Rewards, but my actual level of achievement was low. Or if I'm honest, pretty much zero.
When it came time to leave, I really struggled to find a role. The market had moved. The domain I was in wasn't that hot any more. The last few years of my CV might have been able to boast of a nice sounding job title, but there was little in the way of achievement to go with it. (I remember a particularly painful interview with the CEO of a media company who kept asking ‘yes, but what do you actually do..?’)
Now here's the context: during those four years, we'd had three children (yes..twins!), my mother had died and we'd moved out of London. While not traumatised, I was definitely knackered. The fact I had a steady, well-paid job somewhere that I didn't have to go in and prove myself every day, was probably the thing that mattered to me most.
I unwittingly made a trade-off. In the days when I was really struggling to sort out my next role, I regretted it. I kicked myself for developing Achievement Deficit Disorder.
Looking back now, and seeing how things have ended up, those regrets have long since passed. But I also realise that that trade-off had got me into a hole that took some digging out of. (Spoiler: thanks to a chain of co-incidences I ended up at LOVEFiLM, focused on Product Management and never looked back - a move which I think these days, I'd find almost impossible to make)
if Achievements == "Red": Act
Enough of my story. What's the point?
* If you're not Achieving, you're stalling. There are times when that might be right, but it will take an effort to get going again.
* Achievements have a half life: you can't trade on the stuff you did five years ago, let alone a decade ago.
* If you have accidentally developed Achievement Deficit Disorder - you need to ask yourself why and act.
The Three Achievement Ingredients
That's enough vague talk about 'Achievement' - what do I mean specifically? I break it down into three Ingredients.
🎯 Meaningful Impact: the measurable difference your work has made. It's about moving the needle on outcomes in ways that can be clearly communicated and understood by those both inside and outside of your organisation. This is really the currency of career progression: the things you can shout about in your CV, use in your case for promotion, and talk about in job interviews.
📈 Skills Growth There are lots of different skills frameworks out there for product people (I did a write of a few here). Almost all cover similar bases that go from Product Vision and Strategy through to Delivery with additional ratings for how you work with others. Exactly which one you use (and I'll go through mine in a future week) isn't as relevant as the fact that you use one, preferably with your manager, and that you're clear on what you need to work on. None of us are perfect - but we can all get better and ensure that we build on our strengths while making sure our weaknesses don't hold us back.
🏆 Domain Expertise represents the experience you've built across specific sectors/markets, company types, and product areas. Right now the hot domain is AI, but your domain can also be B2B SaaS, or 'Start Ups' or 'Big Tech' or 'Marketplaces' or 'Academic Publishing'. There's a perfectly valid argument that this isn't that important, and what really matters are two ingredients above, but whether we like it or not, it's how the market tends to badge us (often in combinations eg: 'Fintech Start-up PM/ B2B SaaS Scale Up), and it shapes which roles we're seen as suitable for.
The simple Achievement test
Step back for a second and ask yourself how you're doing.
Think back over the last year, and ask..what meaningful impact have you had? What skills have you developed? What domain have you developed experience in? Do things look stronger now than they did 12 months ago?
Now look 12 months ahead. Based on what you know now - what do you think the situation will be ? Or to put it another way - imagine you're writing your CV today, and your CV in 12 months time will the one you write in 12 months time be more compelling?
If you don't feel you're looking stronger now than you did a year ago, or if you're not feeling good about the year ahead...it looks like Achievement Deficit Disorder is settling in. At the very least it's worth asking if you're happy with that, and if not, you need a plan to change things, before it's too late.
But that's enough for this week!
Next Week: Rewards
Achievements create the foundation for everything that follows, but Rewards are what make the journey sustainable. Next week, I'll explore Financial Progress and Market Value—how to think strategically about compensation and building wealth through your product career.
Quick plug: if you’d like to see how you’re doing for Catalyst, Achievements and Rewards…you can get a free Assessment if you sign up for my Vital 9 beta program.