Understanding Product Life in Midsized & Large Companies
Learn why middle and upper management think their main job is to try and decipher what the CEO wants done and align their organization with it. Evaluate how much of your career and life you want to spend in alignment with another party.
Shreyas Doshi
Led a couple of Stripe's most successful products from their early days. Led & grew several products at Twitter, Google, Yahoo. Now advising, coaching, teaching
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Product life in midsized & large companies starts making a lot more sense when you understand that a large % of middle & upper management thinks their main job is to (i) try & decipher what the CEO wants done (ii) align their org with it (iii) propose a plan that the CEO approves
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023 -
This is instead of *often* telling the CEO what actually needs to be done, in a way that is grounded in (a) deep insight into customers & market (b) creative product & GTM solutions
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023
Many in middle & upper management will of course blame incentives set by the company for this. -
And they are not wrong. But it is worth evaluating how much of one’s career (and life) one wants to spend in aligning perfectly with incentives set by another party.
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023
20% or 50% or 70% or 90% or 99% or 100%?
What is your answer? -
The right answer will be different for each person. No one is going to judge you for your choice.
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023
But you should realize that, as a senior person who is already far along in your career, you *do have a choice here*. -
And when you realize that, you might just find that you also do have the ability to not always submit to external incentives and instead you can create much greater clarity on the truth and you can exercise your influence to help your CEO see what actually needs to happen.
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023 -
And if you consider this topic seriously enough, you might even discover the secret that, in the majority of cases, your CEO wants to see exactly this ownership attitude & behavior from the company's middle & senior management.
— Shreyas Doshi (@shreyas) March 30, 2023
Thats it.
What you do with this info is up to you.