Think like a product owner
My Senior Manager lesson
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When I was a Senior Manager of the tech team, my VP said: "You need to take more ownership of the product.”
His advice, to start thinking like a product owner, drove me to Vice President.
His statement to take ownership of the product meant, "see yourself as more than just the engineer. Start thinking about what should be built, not just how to build it."
Executives must be seen as strategic leaders. Very few make it to VP or higher only through execution.
The challenge is, execution gets you to Senior Manager or Director.
A Senior Manager in our Level Up newsletter community asked:
"How do I start off in a new role in a way that positions me as a strategic leader and not only an excellent “doer”?"
We all begin as Individual Contributors (ICs). In these roles, performance is about skill in your discipline and your ability to work with others to deliver results.
If we go into management, we shift to organizing others to deliver. We communicate, coordinate, unblock, and inspire.
The trap with these valuable skills is that they will take us up a level or two, just as strong craft skills will take us up as ICs, but they will usually not take us to executive leadership.
Most executives are chosen for their ability to grow the business.
This means seeing what needs to be done, what products will sell, what problems are coming far in advance, and how to shape the organization to deliver the right products to make a lot of money in the market so that the company succeeds.
To position yourself for such a role, you must begin to both look beyond your current skills and beyond your assigned function.
I was a "VP of Technology," at Amazon, but I needed to know and understand finance, product management, customer service, design, market competition, and more.
None of those come directly from either being a good developer or a good manager who can ship what others tell me to build.
You do not have to learn all these skills at once.
I started with product and UX design. Thinking about why customers used Prime Video, why they did not, and how to get more people to use it eventually led me to all the other disciplines.
The skills executives need are all intertwined. Product features come from customer needs. Customer needs are what lead customers to pay. The bigger the need and the better the solution, the more they might pay. What they pay leads to looking at the finances. Can you build and deliver the product for less than what they pay?
Actions:
Start thinking about the strategy, the why.
Ask questions of others and learn.
Start sharing and proposing high impact ideas.
You show that you have good ideas beyond execution to be seen as a potential executive.
You must be a problem solver and thought leader.
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Level Up is your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans. If you’d like to become a paid member, see the benefits here, and feel free to use this expense template to ask your manager.
Love this!
Start thinking like a product owner.
Start thinking about what should be built, not just how to build it.
Executives must be seen as strategic leaders. Very few make it to VP or higher only through execution.
The challenge is, execution gets you to Senior Manager or Director.
Love this post! Twenty years as a legislative advisor taught me that strategic thinking is everything, whether it’s in legislation, career planning, or life design.