Should every company be Product Led?

0:07 It turns out I get this question in events everywhere in the world. And as with most things, I have a somewhat different opinion than what you'll usually read online. I'll start with the first point, which is like, well, who says your company has to be product led? Why does your company have to be product led? Is Is it always the right answer? And turns out it is not always the right answer. Because if you understand that your job as a product person, as a product manager, your main job is to make your product successful. You now understand that your main job is not to convert your product organization into a product led organization. So, it is entirely possible. There are so many companies that have been built that are highly successful that are not like product led. Not every company has to be product led.

0:58 Right? To give you an example, I don't think Oracle has been a very product led company. I don't think Salesforce is a very product led company. And there are many many many examples. These are not just exceptions. Google, yes, was a product led. But product led is not same as PM led, right? Google was engineering led for many years. For like up to first 15 years of its history, Google was engineering led. Engineers decided. PMs were just supporting. PMs were not like leading in any way, really.

1:27 You had to listen to your engineering manager. If your engineering manager disagreed with you, you're not winning. Your engineering manager is winning. It was very clear. If you want to survive at Google, you better say yes. If you fight with your engineering manager, you're out. They didn't used to fire, they would just give you bad ratings. So, Google was engineering led. It was not PM led. But at Google, always thought about the product and the user.

1:50 Sadly, they lost it in this latter part of their journey. But Google has been tremendously successful. Anyway, the point is product led is not the goal. Product success and business success is the goal. Now, in some cases you might achieve product success and business success by making your company more product led. In some cases, not in all cases. So, I want you to think hard about what is what is it that you're really trying to do here? That's the first point I'll make. Second point, sometimes there is like an individual contributor PM, say they're part of a 50,000 person company that's global. You are a PM, maybe part of a telco or a bank or something else.

2:32 And clearly you can tell that your organization is not product led. You're not thinking in product terms, you're thinking delivery terms and whatever. Okay, fine. Well, I have some bad news for you. There is nothing you can do to change it. If you are an individual contributor IC product manager in this highly bureaucratic 50-year-old company with 50,000 employees, there is nothing you can do to make your company product led. No amount of complaining is going to solve it. So, stop wasting energy on it, okay? Again, like almost everywhere you read people will say, "Oh yeah, you should do this and that." And no, it is not going to work. If you work for General Motors and you work on some website or some procurement product or something else, I'm sorry, you're not making General Motors, which is more than 100 years old, product led. It is not going to happen.

3:26 And again, it's likely not even the right answer for the company. If you work for Bank of America, sorry, it's not going to be product led. It's not going to happen. Now, you can make your team more product led. That is where I want you to focus your energy. Here's why I say this, right? It's not like I want to deliver bad news to you. I want you to focus your energy on something you can actually do. Look, in any company, any organization, you can say the following things and they will always be true. So, I'll say a few things. We need better processes. If I want to sound smart in any team and I have zero context about the company, I can sit through a meeting and in in 15 minutes I can say, "So, it sounds to me from our conversation thus far in this meeting that we need more scalable and better processes." And then everybody will nod, yes, right? We need to be product led is another such thing. Or we need to be more customer-oriented, customer obsessed, right? You can say this anywhere.

4:19 And you are right. But just because you're right doesn't mean this company is going to change because there are 60 other things this company also needs. And it all comes with trade-offs. We have to understand their trade-offs. Now, if on the other hand you are a senior leader within this company, then you actually do have the ability to make this company product led. How do you do that? Your job will be to convince the very senior executive team that a change is needed.

4:48 That is the only way. And for that I'll reference you to a book Marty Cagan recently wrote called Transformed. So, that Transform book is basically about how you take your company through a journey from being not product led to adopting some of the core practices and principles of product led organizations. I highly recommend that book. I want you to understand that you'll only be able to do that if you are a senior enough leader, number one, and that you are going to put your personal reputation and take some career risk to convince your CEO and your executive team and your board even about a new way of doing work. It's a very high degree of risk.

5:29 And I would say, yes, you should take that risk if you truly believe that that's what your company needs at this point. For the specific tactics and what you can do, again, I'll refer you to Transform because Marty has written an entire book on it. So, better read that book instead of listening to me about the the But the main point that doesn't get shared is product led is not the goal. If you're an individual contributor PM, it's useless anyway.

5:54 And if you hate the environment, learn what you can in that environment for a few years. Upgrade your skills, figure out your LMS, upgrade your skills to the right levels, and then go to a company that actually understands how to do product better. That's really your only option if you're an individual contributor PM. And then lastly, if you are a senior leader or executive level person who wants to make your company more product led, then yes, you can do it. And your main job is going to be how you influence others into adopting this new model. And you'll frankly have to take some personal career risk for that. So, better be ready for that.