Empowered [Executive Digest]

We all know companies like Amazon, Tesla, Google and Netflix. They are global leaders on innovation but how can they keep a consistent record of innovation? Most people think this is because they attract the best talent but in reality it is not so much on who they hire but how they enable their employees to collaborate and create amazing products. Empowered will help you understand how to create an innovative environment and how to lead this change.

You Will Learn 

• The difference between “feature” teams and empowered product teams.
• Why coaching is essential to innovating at scale—and how to do it.
• To redefine the relationship of product teams to the rest of the company.
• To transform your organization into empowered product teams

Feature Teams vs Empowered Teams 

It is common in many companies, including tech companies, that product teams are not allowed to work the way they need to. There are great differences between great companies and the rest in the ways they work. One main problem is that many companies have the old IT mindset when it comes to technology. In this scenario IT is viewed as a cost and not a core business enabler like it should. 

There is little if any active coaching of the people on technology teams. And even if they wanted to coach, the managers often don't have the experience themselves, so problems arise. Most of these companies recognize they do not have the best staff but have very misguided ideas about how to correct that and what to look for in product staff. 

Behind Every Great Company

How the company views technology: A strong product company views technology not as an expense but as core business. The product team serves customers by creating products customers love, yet work for the business. 

The role of the product team leaders: In most companies the role of product leaders is largely missing, there is no product strategy. In strong product companies on the other hand, product leaders are some of the most impactful leaders in the company. They are empowered, and empowered product teams need skilled people. This is the job of the product leader to find and recruit a team. 

How the company views the purpose of the product teams: In strong product companies, teams are instead given problems to solve rather than features to build, and most importantly, they are empowered to solve those problems in the best way they see fit. And they are then held accountable to the results.

Coaching is Essential for Innovation 

The logic is simple: Your company depends on successful products. And successful products come from strong product teams. Coaching is what turns ordinary people into extraordinary product teams.

The Coaching Mindset 

• Developing people is Job #1
• Empowering people produces the best results
• Beware your own insecurities
• Cultivate diverse points of view
• Seek out teaching moments
• The One-on-One 
• Onboarding
• Frequency
• Sharing context
• Homework
• Thinking and acting like a product person
• Providing feedback

Creating Empowered Product Teams

Staffing is one of the clear and essential differences between strong product companies and the rest. The best product companies hire competent people of character and then coach and develop them into members of amazing teams. In far too many companies, the leaders equate staffing with hiring and this will reduce the chances of building the organization you need. It is also important to realize that staffing is the responsibility of the hiring manager not the HR department. 

Product Vision and Principles 

• A good product vision keeps us focused on the customer.

• A good product vision serves as the North Star for the product organization so that we have a common understanding of what we are hoping to accomplish together.

• A good product vision inspires ordinary people to create extraordinary products.

• A good product vision provides us with meaningful work.

• A good product vision leverages relevant industry trends and technologies that we believe can help us solve problems for our customers in ways that are just now possible

Product Strategy

Product strategy means, how do we make the product vision a reality while meeting the needs of the company. Why is it so hard? Because it requires four things that are not easy for most companies. 

1. Be willing to make tough choices on what is really important
   
   
2. Generating, identifying, and leveraging insights 
   
   
3. Converting insights into actionable items 
   
   
4. Active management without resorting to micromanagement

The Role of Product Leaders 

Moving the product teams from the subservient feature team model to the collaborative empowered product team model begins with trust––especially between the product organization and the rest of the leaders of the business. The keys to that trust are the product leaders, especially the head of product.

In any case, the product leaders must establish a direct relationship with the CEO (or general manager in a very large company) and the other key executives. That’s usually the heads of sales, marketing, service, finance, legal, and business development. But this list varies at each company. The basis of this relationship is that the executives need to believe the product leaders have a deep understanding of the business and are committed to ensuring that the solutions provided will work for the various aspects of the business.

• Business Results
• Product Strategy 
• Product Teams 

Conclusion 

It becomes clear that there are a substantial amount of differences between the top product companies and the rest, which enables them to become the companies they are today. The main issue is not that companies do not want to be like top product companies, it is that they do not understand how to get there from where they currently stand. More often than not when an attempt is made it is made incorrectly because of the lack of understanding on how to actually build an amazing product company.