Submerged Synergies: Navigating Product Management Through a Scuba Diver’s Lens
As Product Director at?Apploi , the leading platform for healthcare hiring, my coworkers know me as someone who comes to work curious, determined, and always looking for ways to improve as a team. What they might not know is that these are qualities I’ve honed in a very different environment: the shallows and depths of the ocean.
For as long as I can remember, scuba diving has piqued my curiosity. Over the past five years, I’ve taken a plunge to embrace this passion, allowing it to reshape my perception of myself and my capabilities. Scuba diving has not only expanded my world but also my approach to my everyday life, career, and work in product management.
Why Dive?
As much as I love diving, I understand why it’s not for everyone. Why would someone spend their precious vacation time scuba diving, which others may see as strenuous and risky?
Well, I can only speak for myself. But here are some of the most important reasons why I dive.
Learning on the Job
I’ve seen some incredible things in my career as a diver. The oceans are full of mind-boggling life. I’ve gotten the chance to see tiger sharks, great whites, humpbacks, massive lobsters, whales, gorgeous nudibranchs, and elusive seahorses (those are incredibly hard to find — after more than 200 dives, I’ve only spotted two).
But dives don’t always go perfectly, and I’ve seen plenty of bad things happen, too. I’ve seen divers getting low on air, getting stuck in currents, getting lost, ascending too quickly, experiencing sea sickness, and encountering inclement weather. I’ve been a part of dives that had to be aborted altogether.
That brings me to storytime. Here’s one dive I learned a lot from — and which, in hindsight, had a major effect on my attitude and behavior.
A Tumultuous Dive
This happened on the island of Komodo in Indonesia. I was there as a new diver, preparing to complete the final dive of my advanced open-water certification.
The currents were already very choppy by the time my team arrived at the dive site. I wasn’t nervous, but I knew that I had to be prepared for a negative entry — meaning that I would need to backroll into the water and dive straight down. The descent itself would have to be quick. If we dove too slowly, we were in danger of flying straight over the reef.
With the support of my dive buddy and my amazing instructor, I felt ready. We did the negative entry and began our descent.
But just thirty feet down, I started to panic.
Alarm Bells
It was like I was in a nightmare. I was kicking as hard as I could, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. My dive instructor seemed so far ahead of me, and in my rising panic, I was breathing so hard it felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest.
Looking for help, I made eye contact with my buddy, a rescue diver. As soon as he saw my face, he knew something wasn’t right. He rushed towards me and grabbed my arms, shaking me and telling me to calm down. But at this point, I was fully panicking. I had pins and needles in my limbs and intense ringing in my ears, and when I looked around myself, it was as if I was peering out of a long dark tunnel.
My dive instructor returned and, seeing what was happening, immediately signaled to abort the dive. The three of us ascended. I broke through the surface of the water, shaken but relieved, and asked: what happened? Luckily, my instructor had an answer.
Understanding the Problem
At this point in my diving career, I was wearing split fins — a common type of fin for new divers. These fins had served me well on easier dives, but in a place like Komodo, with extremely strong currents, they simply weren’t able to propel me strongly enough. If we hadn’t aborted quickly, these fins could have resulted in a much more grave situation.
Thanks to my panic, I’d gone through a ridiculous amount of oxygen in the short time we were underwater. But because my instructor was able to assess the situation so quickly (and because I had time to calm down and regroup), all was not lost. I strapped on a new oxygen tank, and we were able to restart the dive and completed it successfully. To this day, I remember this as one of the most challenging dives I’ve ever done.
On my way home from that dive, one thing was clear to me: I would never put myself in that situation again. I got home, purchased fins that were appropriate for the kinds of dives I wanted to do, and I’ve never had the same issue since.
5 Lessons Diving Has Taught Me About Product Management
Even though I’ve had my challenging moments while diving, I’m so grateful to myself and my support team for pushing me to be brave and stay curious. Diving has fundamentally changed my understanding of what I’m capable of — and has even affected how I approach my work.
Here are five of the most important lessons diving has taught me about product management.
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1. Have a Plan
When I’m planning a dive, I sometimes work out the logistics years in advance. Am I going to be on a boat for the duration of the trip? Will I need hotel accommodations? What season will I go? What do I want to see? Who’s my dive buddy? What are the risks associated with this dive? Is there a hyperbaric chamber close by? Do I need to be a more advanced diver? Will there be strong currents/drift dives? Do I have the technical knowledge and the right equipment? To make the trip a success, I need to answer all these questions as early as possible.
No matter how well you plan a dive, there’s always something to improve. I have a retrospective meeting after every single diving trip. That’s my opportunity to review whether I met my objectives and if my plan was a success. Getting that holistic view really helps mitigate future issues — both in scuba, and in product.
2. It’s a Team Effort
We can’t get anywhere alone, whether we’re going deep underwater or deep into a product sprint. In diving, this is a golden rule. Even if you know your locations, even if you’ve completed thousands of dives, there are just too many things that can go wrong. You always dive with a buddy, whether that’s someone you’ve known for years or a stranger whose nuances and communication style you need to learn on the spot.
As product and tech teams, we embark on new initiatives and new journeys together. We don’t leave each other behind whether we’re stuck. We really are there to ensure each other’s safety and the safety of the product. We’re lucky to know each other’s quirks — but we also have to offer support even when we don’t fully understand what our teammates are going through.
3. Communicate Early and Often
In scuba diving, it’s extremely important to have a communication plan already in place because once you’re in the water, you’re relying on gestures and hand signals. Whether you’re just checking in with your buddy or sharing distress, you need to be able to communicate quickly and clearly.
My diving buddy and I have had many disagreements in the water. But as we’ve grown to know each other better, we’ve really refined our nonverbal communication. You need those lines of communication open as early as possible so you’ll be better prepared to respond if there is an issue.
It’s the same thing in product management. If you don’t communicate about your status, that can lead to missed deadlines, misunderstandings, and customer churn. But by keeping your team up to date, you’re in a better position to stay on track without putting yourself in danger.
Your team is there to help keep track of objectives while also ensuring your shared safety. We’ve all encountered bottlenecks and situations where we needed to pivot and adjust. But when we share these concerns, it’s not just for our own sake. It’s a way of protecting everyone else on our team.
4. Keep Sight of Your Objectives — But Be Prepared to Adapt
Whenever we roll out a new product feature, there’s an element of risk. Sometimes rollouts don’t go as planned. We might face a bottleneck or a delay. Or, we might just not get the reaction we anticipated from our customers.
The important thing, in product and in scuba, is to remember why you’re doing what you’re doing. We need to be flexible — but we also can’t be distracted by every change of events. Balancing adaptability and determination is tricky, but it’s absolutely essential.
This is obvious on practically every dive. Sometimes, you plan a whole trip just to see something that won’t appear for the first 30 minutes of the dive. You might be descending past amazing sea life, just trying to get down 140 feet because you wanted to see one thresher shark for 30 seconds. Along the way, lots of other things might happen — both good and bad. You might pass a tiger shark, who lives in shallower water, or you might get a leg cramp that prevents you from making it all the way to the thresher. When divers see that something is going wrong, they might panic, which can quickly make the situation even more dangerous. Being able to adapt and respond quickly without panicking is extremely important.
Similarly, in product management, unexpected situations arise all the time. Navigating changes in the market, shifting customer needs, and unexpected competition can feel like swimming through choppy waters. Just like in scuba, there’s continuous learning to be done, and there’s always an opportunity to improve.
Making adjustments in real time is never comfortable. But when you get yourself in the practice of doing this (in other words, when you get comfortable with being uncomfortable), you’ll be able to keep your objective in sight without creating a dangerous situation for yourself or your team.
5. Stay Curious
I want to share something that inspires me in both my product and scuba careers.
Sylvia Earl is a scientist and diver who is still actively diving. According to her, the best scientists and explorers share one thing: they have the attributes of children. They’ve held onto their sense of curiosity and wonder, and they’re always asking questions — the who, what, where, and when.
As product people, we really need to hold these same values. We should always ask who, what, where, when, why, and how. That curiosity is exactly what pushes our innovation forward and holds us accountable as explorers. It’s also the source of most of our passion and creativity. What better reason to come to work?