Reading the preface and first chapter of this book were a great way for me to connect the examples given by LeMay to my own personal experience as an employee. As a non-traditional student, I view product management through the lens of the dozens of jobs and teams I’ve experienced in my 14 year working history. I’ve found that, regardless of the work, there are some foundational similarities in how good managers manage. I like that the reading called out the high level of responsibility that managers have, even when they don’t necessarily have the authority to back it up. Whether it’s reflecting on my time working as a tow yard receptionist, SWE, or dog groomer, the managers I’ve thrived under all advocated on my behalf, were willing to get into the dirty work with me, and shielded me from upper management while making sure I had the resources and connections I needed. The quote “fighting for incremental improvements on products that are facing much more fundamental challenges” brought me back to my time as a hairstylist in a busy shop. I had an amazing manager that was able to find concrete areas of focus in which we could prioritize incremental improvements for the 8 hours of our shift. If they wanted us to focus on getting our average haircut time from 28 minutes to 26 minutes, they would give us explicit instructions on how to improve: “You spend a lot of time double checking your haircuts; here is how you can use diagonal cross-checking to cut down the process of checking horizontally and vertically each time”. They would next try to match individual stylists to haircuts they were experienced and efficient at as a way to improve our overall team metrics. Maybe there were bigger fundamental challenges (lack of skill, poor communication, etc.) at play, but she would give us bite-sizes tasks that we could take action against. I think the product managers job is to be an expert in the realm (tech, business, etc.) with the ability to zoom out and connect the team to the necessary internal and/or external resources.
Two questions I would ask the author: “What advice would you give a PM who seems to do everything ‘by the book’ but still fails to produce results?”, “Why do you think PMs who don’t have a hunger for prestige/authority end up doing better than the mini-CEOs you discussed on page 18?”
