PB 31/5: If you're the product, what's your strategy?
Preview of my first course: how to use best in class product thinking to help plan your career.
In my first wave of coaching conversations, I’ve noticed a real trend.
Lots of those I’m speaking with are in two career states - often both at the same time.
They’re trapped on the hamster wheel of incremental improvement: working hard and not feeling like they’re getting anywhere.
And/or
They’re lost without a map in the gaping chasm between the vision of the product career they want; and the reality of what they’ve got.
My insight - not one that I’m expecting to get a Nobel Prize for - is that this experience is like a product without a strategy. Lots of activity, but ultimately leading to frustration.
So, I’ve been working on a course/ program that helps people apply the best Product Strategy thinking to their own careers.
It’s a simpler (and. yes cheaper!) alternative to coaching…but the premise is that same - helping people take a structured approach to something that can often feel a bit random and chaotic.
Hopefully it’ll launch in the next couple of weeks, but I’m going to talk about the general idea this week, and then go deep on a few aspects in the next few newsletters.
Of course, it starts with a book..
The best book about product strategy, is one that isn’t specifically about product - it’s Richard Rumelt’s: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy; and its follow up The Crux.
His entire premise is that strategy isn’t some lofty vague aspiration; but something that’s based on clear insight and which results in a focussed and credible plan. Or as he puts it:
“The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action.”
The Discovery bit..
The ‘diagnosis’ is like a discovery phase. It’s where you get to really understand what you’re working with. Now, when this comes to business or a product strategy - this means getting to grips with your product/ company’s strengths and weaknesses and understanding the macro/ market trends that impact you.
When it comes to planning a product career - this Discovery phase is equally critical. And there are three real parts to it.
First there’s a bit of thinking about You..
Your Vision: What are you looking to achieve (your vision)
Your Principles: What really matters to you
Your Strengths: The stuff that is going to help you compete
Your Weaknesses: Current gaps in your knowledge or skill set
The truth is that when you’re working hard, you might well get constant feedback about your strengths and weaknesses; but you don’t get to really think about Your Vision and Your Principles.
As a result, your career thinking gets very reactive. It’s limited to weighing up opportunities that land in your lap. They might be great, or might not: but in truth, you just don’t know…because you haven’t really taken the time to think what you want, and what really matters to you.
It’s not all about you..
The next two bits of the diagnosis are really about Your job (similar to my earlier posts about ‘are you in the right place’ and the importance of impact and trajectory in a career) . Where you have to think about your team/ boss; your company; and your sector.
Then more broadly you have see what’s going on in the Market. Because you need to make sure you’re selling what people are buying.
Right now, the simplistic statement is that the market is ‘tough’. But it’s more complex than that. There’s a few more trends going on, but two in particular that affect how everyone needs to present themselves.
A lot of focus on domain expertise (both in terms of sector and company stage/ size)
A need to demonstrate successful business outcomes from your most recent work
Building out a plan..
All of this Discovery though is just getting ready for the hard bit - your Policy and your Plan (ie: the ‘coherent action’ mentioned above). Here’s another quote from Rumelt
Good strategy works by focusing energy and resources on one, or a very few, pivotal objectives whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favorable outcomes
And so yes - the next stage is all about working out the outcomes you want to achieve are; the objectives you need and the plan you need to put in place to get there. (yes: this is basically building an outcome-focussed roadmapping for you!)
For most people I’ve been speaking to, the work they have to do tends to fall into four broad buckets.
Build a Network: Building the connections to help you not just now, but throughout your career
Evidence Base: Make sure you have done stuff that’s going to help you sell yourself
Personal development: Where you can - close any gaps in terms of knowledge or capability that might be holding you back.
GTM: Sorting out your CV, your LinkedIn profile, think how you might want to approach a set of target companies.
The end result is that our Dall-e generated lost souls pictured above..now reach a state of career happiness and nirvana..
OK - that’s the quick summary. I’m going to talk a lot more about this in coming weeks…and like I said hopefully the course will be available sometime in June.
If you’d like to know more about the course, or how coaching can help - just get in touch via https://simonwaldman.uk or LinkedIn..or just reply to this.