Taking and retaining ownership as Product Managers

"Shipping high-quality products to clients fast" requires PMs to make good decisions, and to own / standby those decision.

Turn The Ship Around is a military leadership book that highlights how we, as product managers, can take and retain ownership.

From blindly taking orders to 'Captain, I intend to ...'

The author was a Captain assigned to an underperforming battle ship. Crew members made a lot of mistakes.

When the author / Captain asked why, crew members typically respond with: 'I was told to do X. I was following instructions'.

One day, the author asked his Lieutenant Commander (LC) to increase the ship speed. Although the LC knew this wasn't technically possible, LC still gave the order to the team.

Unsurprisingly, the ship's speed did not change. The author pulled the LC aside, and asked

“Why did you order it?” - Author

“Because you told me to” - LC

“What?” - Author

“I thought you’d learned a secret at school that they only tell the Captains about” - LC

So the author implemented a small language change on the ship. Instead of using passive follower language:

• I request permission to
• I'd like to
• what would I do about
• Do you think we should ..
• could we ...

The ship began using 'empowered phrases':

• I intend to...
• I plan on...
• I / we will ...

How does this apply to Product Management?

At CB Insights, we ask each other to come up with recommendations and back it up with logic. This is the same as 'I intend to...'.

For example, when a PM asks 'Should we launch the product at this state?" or "a few customers requested X feature, should we prioritize this?", I'm responsible to point out to the PM that he / she is relinquishing independent thinking, sense of ownership, and decision making power.

In most situations, the individual PM have more context / data on the situation any manager. The quality and speed of decision increases when person making the call has full context.

Now, we practice using language such as

• I ran into this situation / challenge.
• I intend to / my recommendation is to do X,
• and here's why... <-- show me your due diligence & research

This retains the PM's sense ownership, while giving the audience, boss/stakeholder/peer etc., a chance to understand and pressure-test the PM's thinking.

This article was originally written for CB Insight's product team as part of 'Product Nerd Talk Fridays'