PM Dominated Culture to PM Guided Culture: How to Make this Shift

Shreyas Doshi · 4m · transcribed 9h ago

Section Insights

# 0:00

Influencing Company Culture as a PM

How can a PM influence the culture of their organization?

To influence a company's culture towards being more PM-guided, one must have a certain level of authority, typically starting from a senior PM role. Individual contributors may need to switch teams or companies to effect change.

Influence in company culture is tied to one's role and authority.
Senior PMs are expected to build skills for cultural influence.
Switching teams or companies may be necessary for lower-level PMs.

# 0:49

Identifying Cultural Issues in PM Dominated Teams

What should a PM do when they identify issues in a PM dominated culture?

After assessing the team dynamics through conversations, a PM should express their observations about the excessive influence of PMs and suggest a more balanced approach among team members.

Recognizing cultural issues is the first step towards change.
Surprising stakeholders with observations can provoke necessary discussions.
A balanced power dynamic is essential for sustainable team success.

# 1:39

Engaging Team Leaders in Cultural Change

How can a PM engage leaders to support cultural change?

A PM should present their observations to leaders and seek their agreement, encouraging a shift towards a more equal distribution of influence within the team.

Engaging leaders is crucial for initiating cultural change.
Provoking reactions can help validate observations.
Creating a culture of equals fosters better collaboration.

# 2:29

Elevating Non-PM Voices in Product Discussions

How can a PM elevate the voices of non-PM team members?

A PM should identify skilled non-PM team members and include them in discussions and meetings typically reserved for PMs, thereby diversifying input and perspectives.

Non-PM team members can contribute valuable insights.
Inclusion in meetings can empower other roles.
Diversity in perspectives leads to better product outcomes.

# 3:19

Addressing Learned Helplessness in Teams

What is a common misconception about addressing team issues?

Simply sending team members to customer meetings is not enough to combat learned helplessness; a more comprehensive approach is needed to empower them to recognize and address customer pain points effectively.

Customer meetings alone do not solve deeper team issues.
Empowerment requires more than exposure to customer pain.
A multifaceted approach is necessary for effective team engagement.

Transcript

0:02 basically there are two levels at which this can happen one is you can stay in your current company or team or org and then move that culture to being more PM guided you very likely cannot do that if you are an individual contributor PM if you're like an associate PM PM 1 pm2 you cannot do that but the moment your title is senior PM I expect you to start building this skill to be able to do it

0:24 and this is essentially a skill of influence if you are an associate pm and you are in a PM dominated culture or a PM service culture and you want to move to a PM guided culture the best way to do it is to switch ORS or switch companies if that is not the case if you're senior PM group PM director VP SVP whatever you have a lot of influence first think about the inner World versus the outside and focus on the inner focus

0:48 on what you can control within that I'll give you the main tip particularly if say you're in a PM dominated culture and you're seeing all the problems of the PM dominated culture even though everybody listens to you you're seeing all the problem so what do you do to move it to PM guided I've done this multiple times I did it at Twitter once I did it at stripe once or twice at least once where I became responsible for a team that I

1:12 realized within the first week that oh this is PM dominated and I don't like that let's take the scenario you're new to the team you do that after you've done your first round your listening tour you done your one-on ones with PMS Engineers designers within the team etc etc then at some point you share the following with your other functional counterparts you basically say look I'm just amazed at how much this team has accomplished with all of this and I

1:37 really enjoyed all the conversations I did want to point out one theme that came out very clearly to me as part of these conversations frankly I think PMS have too much influence and too much power within this team the reason you want to say it like that is because it should feel surprising to the other person wait what did he just say what did she just say yeah I feel PMS have wield too much power the reason it's

2:03 surprising is because they're usually used to working with PM leaders who are happy that PM wield so much power so you're seeing something odd then you might want to give some examples of what you've heard what you've observed but you want to follow that up with saying I don't think that this is a sustainable place for us to be and what I would like is for this to be more of a Turf of equals rather than to have such a

2:28 hierarchical relationship around who gets a say in the product so that is the setup and as you go through this at some point you want to ask them does this make sense does this feel aligned with what you think or you you might even want to ask okay how wrong am I in this observation you want to provoke their reaction in most cases if you do the right setup they'll say yeah of course you're right so that's one step

2:51 obviously you have to do this with some class and finesse but the point is once you get the leaders on board here's the next thing I want you to do in any team say the team has 15 engineers two designers and a few PMS 3 4 PMS let's just say in any such team of this size anywhere you'll have at least two or three people out of the 20 people who are not PMS who are actually pretty good

3:10 at product so I want you to start elevating them I want you to start elevating their voice I want you to have them join the meetings that typically only PMS go to that's the other kind of tactic at that level that I want you to do as I did that I found that the other Engineers notice and then we ask Engineers more we ask designers more what should we build etc etc now the typical solution that tends to

3:32 get shared for this which works but it's not the only or even the best solution is well just take them to customer meetings and then they will notice the pain of the customer and all of that the thing is yes they'll notice the pain of the customer but they also have learned helplessness so you need to get them out of that learn helplessness just sending them to customer meetings which is the solution 90% of times that's get shared

3:52 is not actually the main thing it is helpful but you have to do some of these other things first a

Summary

To transition a team culture from being PM-dominated to PM-guided, senior PMs must leverage their influence and focus on fostering a collaborative environment. This involves recognizing the imbalance of power within the team and actively promoting the voices of non-PM members to create a more equitable decision-making process.

- Senior PMs should aim to influence team culture, especially when holding higher titles.
- If in a PM-dominated culture, consider switching teams or companies if unable to effect change.
- Conduct a listening tour to understand team dynamics before addressing power imbalances.
- Frame observations about PM influence in a way that surprises and engages other team leaders.
- Propose a shift towards a "turf of equals" to promote balanced contributions from all team members.
- Elevate the voices of capable non-PM team members by including them in key meetings.
- Avoid relying solely on customer meetings for insights; address learned helplessness among team members first.
- Foster an environment where engineers and designers feel empowered to contribute to product decisions.