sean.horgan.net

Attributes of a Product Manager

Culture

Sean Horgan

“Culture—no matter how defined—is singularly persistent” — Peter Drucker (often misquoted as “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”)

Summary

Culture is the set of shared values, goals, and rituals that characterizes an institution or organization. Culture is the collective way that the organization’s values are brought to life in order to achieve its strategic objectives. Culture drives your company in the absence of specific guidance — it’s what happens when no one is looking.

Culture can be thought of as the collective character of the organization, where character is the outward expression of an individual’s values. If the culture isn’t deliberately designed and fostered, the organization’s values and practices will be drawn from the character of each team leader. This can make leadership transitions especially challenging as teams aren’t simply adjusting to a change in personnel, they will need to adjust to a change in values.

While the culture at your company should reflect its values, here are a few that have resonated my own personal values over the years:

Purpose: Being driven by a clear vision to make meaningful contributions in every action.

Focus: Prioritizing what matters most to achieve impactful results.

Customer Obsession: Putting customers at the heart of every decision to exceed their expectations.

Accountability: Taking ownership of actions and outcomes, fostering a culture of reliability and integrity.

Transparency: Fostering open communication and sharing information to build trust and accountability.

Product Excellence: Committing to high-quality, innovative products that meet and exceed standards.

Curiosity: Encouraging continuous learning and exploration to drive growth and innovation.

Trust: Believing in each other’s intentions and creating a safe environment for collaboration.

Introspective: Reflecting regularly on actions to grow and improve individually and collectively.

Respect: Honoring diverse perspectives and treating everyone with dignity and fairness.

Loyalty: Committing to the mission and standing by the team and goals.

Empowerment: Providing individuals with the resources and authority to take initiative and drive success.

Adaptability: Embracing change with agility, ready to innovate and respond to new challenges.

References

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https://hbr.org/2021/02/company-culture-is-everyones-responsibility⁠

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https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-long-does-it-take-to-improve-an-organizations-culture⁠

Culture matters most in chaos

From:

Top Takeaways from Andy Grove’s High Output Management⁠

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(Chapter 10) — Manage teams by setting expectations and cultural values. When Complexity, Uncertainty and Ambiguity (“CUA”), is low, a team’s performance is influenced by expectations (via role definitions, setting objectives, checking-in and reviewing performance). When CUA is high, behavior is influenced by cultural values (as articulated and exemplified by the manager). Managers need to choose which mode to use depending on context.

This model assumes individuals share group interests, if individuals are too highly self-interested their behavior will be influenced very differently. In low CUA situations they’ll behave based on incentives (a.k.a “free market forces”, like commission rewards for selling certain products).

In high CUA situations individuals with high self-interest and low group-interest will be unmanageable, like people panicking on a sinking ship. People’s mix of self-interest and group-interest can shift over time. It’s a manager’s responsibility to align team members to group interests.

Examples

Apple

Core values

Accessibility: Apple believes that technology is most powerful when it's accessible to everyone.

Education: Apple believes that education is a source of opportunity for all.

Environment: Apple aims to leave the planet better than it found it.

Inclusion and diversity: Apple is committed to making Apple and the world more just.

Privacy: Apple designs products to protect users' privacy and give them control over their information.

Racial equity and justice: Apple has a long-term initiative to help ensure more positive outcomes for communities of color.

Supplier responsibility: Apple considers supplier responsibility a core value.

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https://investor.apple.com/our_values/default.aspx⁠

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Google

Core values

Respect for the user

Respect for the opportunity

Respect for each other

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https://about.google/intl/en_US/philosophy/⁠

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Commitments

Protecting users

Building belonging

Expanding opportunity

Responding to crises

Advancing sustainability

Patagonia

Core values

Quality. Build the best product, provide the best service and constantly improve everything we do. The best product is useful, versatile, long-lasting, repairable and recyclable. Our ideal is to make products that give back to the Earth as much as they take.

Integrity. Examine our practices openly and honestly, learn from our mistakes and meet our commitments. We value integrity in both senses: that our actions match our words (we walk the talk), and that all of our work contributes to a functional whole (our sum is greater than our parts).

Environmentalism. Protect our home planet. We’re all part of nature, and every decision we make is in the context of the environmental crisis challenging humanity. We work to reduce our impact, share solutions and embrace regenerative practices. We partner with grassroots organizations and frontline communities to restore lands, air and waters to a state of health; to arrest our addiction to fossil fuels; and to address the deep connections between environmental destruction and social justice.

Justice. Be just, equitable and antiracist as a company and in our community. We embrace the work necessary to create equity for historically marginalized people and reorder the priorities of an economic system that values short-term expansion over human well-being and thriving communities. We acknowledge painful histories, confront biases, change our policies and hold each other accountable. We aspire to be a company where people from all backgrounds, identities and experiences have the power to contribute and lead.

Not bound by convention. Do it our way. Our success—and much of the fun—lies in developing new ways to do things.

https://www.patagonia.com/core-values/⁠

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