Empowering Product Teams for Success

Empowered product teams quickly identify and solve business challenges. However, neglecting the professional growth of your team and modern product practices can hinder their effectiveness. Product leaders must coach their teams to ensure they are truly equipped and gain the trust of the entire organization. Founders and CEOs should ensure their new product leader serves as both a coach and a mentor, focusing on deep product knowledge, robust processes, and strong interpersonal skills. Without coaching in these areas, team effectiveness can decline, leading to talent loss. Here are the FOUR key areas for prioritizing coaching to enhance your product organization:

1. Right Person, Right Role, Right Timing
2. Relationship Building in Product Management
3. Prioritizing Coaching in Product Leadership Recruitment
4. Developing a Product Leader Coaching Plan

Right Person, Right Role, Right Timing

Placing the right person in the right role at the right time is crucial. A product manager who excels in a company's early stages may not be suitable for guiding it through growth phases. In her article on the "3 Types of Leaders," Shea Reyes elaborates on this concept. Visionaries excel at launching initiatives but may struggle with scalability. Craftsmen refine and expand product features, while Operators thrive in scaling established efforts. I've created a visual recap of her article below, highlighting her spot-on insights.

To identify the right fit, consider using personality assessments like the Enneagram, DISC, and Myers-Briggs, along with methodologies such as the “Thinking Wavelength.” These tools help pinpoint the right person for the right role and foster empathy within the organization, making them valuable investments. Below is a visualization of the Thinking Wavelength popularized by Tom Patterson.

Relationship Building in Product Management

Effective product management goes beyond technical expertise; it’s about building strong relationships to establish trust and credibility. Product managers must connect with executives and key stakeholders to enhance their ability to deliver exceptional products. This is vital for driving revenue growth through product performance.

As a product coach, I emphasize the importance of relationship-building during the initial 90 days of onboarding. I proactively engage with executives and stakeholders to gather insights, laying the foundation for our coaching plan. Feedback from executives focused on outcomes is inevitable, and addressing these concerns through proactive engagement creates a conducive environment for coaching.

By collaborating with direct reports to emphasize this process, I’ve seen it expedite the building of a strong reputation and foster collaboration within the business.

Key Questions for Building Relationships

• What are your thoughts on the level of trust and credibility that [name] has established with you?
• Has [name] proactively sought your input by asking questions such as, "What is your perspective on this issue?" or "Can you walk me through your approach to addressing this challenge?"
• How clear is your understanding of where [name's] team is headed with their roadmap? Are you comfortable expressing concerns or proposing alternatives? How do you anticipate their response if you were to critique their decisions?
• Can you recall an instance when [name] effectively resolved conflicts or disagreements with you? If so, who initiated that conversation?

Prioritizing Coaching in Product Leadership Recruitment

Founders should prioritize recruiting VPs of Product or Chief Product Officers with outstanding reviews from their previous teams, particularly for their coaching and mentoring abilities. It’s surprising how often the hiring process overlooks feedback from those directly led by the candidate.

While founders grasp the complexities of building and marketing a product—including execution, customer insight, product strategy, and influence—no one inherently possesses all these skills. The breadth of skills required for a product manager is best illustrated by Ravi Mehta’s "Product Leader Competency Model," shown below. Given this wide range of skills, it's crucial for product leaders to diversify and develop their team’s skill sets. With a skilled coach to address skill gaps and nurture product diplomats, founders can confidently build and cultivate a pipeline of future senior leaders within the organization.

Developing a Product Leader Coaching Plan

Product executives must establish a coaching plan to identify skill gaps and support their teams through onboarding and beyond. This plan should highlight gaps in product knowledge, process techniques, and relationship skills. Mastery in these areas is crucial for advancing to roles like Senior Product Manager, Group Product Manager, and Director of Product. Without such a plan, there's a risk of losing high-performing talent to companies that offer clear career progression.

Below is a screenshot of a coaching plan I developed for my product leaders, inspired by Marty Cagan's book Empowered. I work with each team member in product management, design, research, and marketing, focusing on the 3 Ps: product, process, and people. In a market where the average tenure of a PM is 12-24 months, I retained product leadership talent for an average of 4 years. I attribute this to my team's hard work, curiosity, and a robust, intentional tool to track their progress and contributions.