Not Being the CEO
Product managers are not the CEO.
However, does this also mean the reverse? The CEO is no the product manager? No. They can act like that sometimes. The responsibility of the roles heavily intersect. A large part, in my estimation, is due to both positions having visibility company-wide, and the requirement of working with everyone in a company in order to get your job done.
See, it’s a funny thing. I’ve heard stories from PM’s getting chewed out for walking into meetings thinking they run the show. In reality, a PM runs very little of a show, even if they have their own team. They greatly rely on key players to help get their job done - and they don’t have authority over those people!
Don’t get me wrong - we play a key part in a company. Truth be told, it’s probably one of the hardest jobs out there to be successful at. Trying to ensure everything stays on track (especially if you are a PM in charge of Services execution as well, which is becoming more & more common) without a) being part of senior management and/or b) having direct authority over other key folks in the company to drive things through.
First point: you have to build relationships. Strong ones. You must be able to consider all members of management your ally, since they will need to help prop & support you. This is much like the CEO. Both of you do in fact need to have (in a startup, anyway) daily interaction with all members of management, or if the company is of a smaller size, the whole company.
There’s nothing wrong with this. So long as you aren’t an arrogant ass, but know what you are doing and how you want to help the company be successful, you’ll be fine. Especially so long as you don’t pretend to know how to do each member’s of management’s job better than they do. That’s a no-no. We are jacks of all trades, but the idea is not to be better salesman than our Sales leaders, or developers than our CTOs. That’s crazy talk.
Second, get some wins. This is so key, especially for new PM’s. You want to get some wins under your belt and build up your cred internally. If you can’t do this, you’re known trust & ability will drop significantly.
Third: you are not setting vision nor strategic direction. You take your cues from management & the CEO. You help to supplement their choices, and make recommendations - and may in fact define a large portion of detail, but you are not running the company.
There may be a lot of personal conflict for PM’s there around this matter — I know there is for me. However, at the end of the day I know that I’m not the CEO and i respect that.
There’s one MAJOR lesson I’ve learned for dealing with this. Use the following words religiously:
“It’s my recommendation…”
If you feel strongly that something should be done in someway, offer up to the CEO, “I recommend (based on A, B, C) that we do this.” Why is this so important? Because this way, you aren’t being an arrogant jerk by saying, “do it this way, because I want you to, and I am the all-powerful product guy / gal!” to your CEO. That’s a recipe for trouble.
There’s a lot of relationship building that goes into being a good product manager. Nevermind also displaying cross-functional leadership, execution, vision, planning, and functional aptitude (can sell, understand marketing, basic finance, etc…), you have to get things done on a daily basis to and actually ship products.
So while PM’s are not the CEO of the company, they are the role closest to being the case - that much is true. Just respect the structure and understand that it’s there for a reason.
Happy shipping!
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:43 pm
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April 11th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Adam, your post makes the most sense of anything I’ve read about product management in a long time. I’m new to your blog and learning about what you talk about but I can tell already that I’m going to forward your link to my program office and product managers.
Product management is one of those hard jobs to define and even harder jobs to do. In some respects, I consider my role as a CTO as a “part-time” product manager, working side-by-side our product management team. So many things come down to really being business decisions, and that’s why I’ve found that product managers who “own” everything usually fail because of either mis-steps or not having the right constituents on board. The real “owners” are those who own the P&L, which can be the CEO, division EVP/VP or General Manager, etc. I think that’s your point about product managers aren’t CEOs.
What I want from a product manager is someone who knows and learns the domain, the market, customers and the executives and company culture for accomplishing things. Then building the decision making process, consensus building, specifing the requirements in detail, and then pulling it all together into an executable plan and enrolled team to make it happen.
That says a lot about why product management is such a heard job. Product managers are “soft” leaders; most of what has to be done is in othr organizations for which they no direct control or authority. It takes a specially talented person to do this job well, and have others feel that they do it well. Those that do, get all my respect
Lots more I could say but I’ll leave it at that for now. I hope we get to continue this conversation over time.
April 11th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Mitchell -
It is a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for the great comment.
You hit the nail on the head for me. PM’s that are in control of too much can start to feel like they are drowning, or get “importance” syndrome and start trying to make decisions they shouldn’t, which can negatively impact the business.
There’s a lot to be said for those at the top of companies. PM’s definitely need to be up there & in communication regularly for a company to succeed with a product-centric structure. However, they aren’t the ones setting strategic direction / vision.
That being said, PM’s play key roles in making sure those that are setting the overall vision have the data they need (and as I mention, recommendations from Product Mgmt) to set that vision / direction.
One of the biggest joys I get from the job is to be able to work with everyone in the business. I’m not a master at any of these functional areas, but have amassed enough knowledge to be effective. I’ve worked hard to learn to separate vision from detail, and I do have a fair handle on both.
The devil is always in the details though. It’s one thing to say from a high-level, “let’s do this” - but the PM can be the one that offers a reality check.
My PM philosophy has always been, you serve as a proxy between the products and the customers. To be a successful product-centric company, a PM group doesn’t have to run everything, but they should be touching / aware of everything. And they should be afforded the chance to lead those groups that are front-line. This helps build the, “how can we build products that solve pain?” into the culture of the organization.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
@Adam
Just wanted to give you props for your post. I posted a similar one this week on my blog and then found yours with much the same sentiment as mine, only 9 months earlier. Sadly, I subscribe to your blog, but had somehow missed this post when writing up mine.
I’m spending quality time catching up on all of my blog reading, so hopefully, it won’t happen again.
January 6th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Hey Ivan -
Thanks for the note! I enjoyed your post on the topic this week as well. Very insightful, and I think the more this message gets out, the less PM’s will get their heads taken off by senior management…
–Adam