Episode 25: Dear Melissa - Answering Questions About Evaluating Strong Product People and Organizations
In this Dear Melissa segment, Melissa answers subscribers’ questions about hiring CPOs, career management, and how to research a company you’re considering joining.
Have a product question for Melissa? Submit one here and Melissa may answer it in a future episode.
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Q: I have been offered a senior leadership role, but part of me feels I still haven’t proven myself with any actual company outcomes as an individual contributor. Should I take the role, where I’d be fairly hands-off, or spend more time honing my craft? [0:46]
A: It's so hard to tie your success as an individual to the company's outcomes when you don't have full control over them… Some companies move very slowly, others move quickly; sometimes there's so much baggage in the vision and the strategy and the leadership levels that you as a team member or individual contributor couldn't possibly be able to make those differences… Ask yourself, “Can I make a bigger impact as an individual contributor or a senior leader?” [2:15]
Q: Is there a way to evaluate an organization before applying? [7:04]
A: It's really hard to understand if the company is a good product management company from the outside, but there are some things that I look for, especially when companies ask me to come in. The biggest thing that I look at is what the customers are saying about the company and the products; there, you can kind of see how much work needs to get done… You can learn a lot from customer reviews… I also look at how long people have worked for the company, especially in the product management positions. [7:33]
Q: Do you have any tips for finding a good VP of product for a growth stage startup? [12:18]
A: I have experience in hiring VPs of product and CPOs for growth stage companies. What we would do was sit and put together a scorecard of what we needed in the product person, and look at all the challenges that the company was actually going through… We would ask very specific questions regarding the criteria we needed [during the interview process]. [12:52]
Ask questions about difficult executive teams and how they dealt with them. Those types of things set apart a great product leader from just an average product leader… The product leaders who fail are the ones who don't want to work with the executive team, have a problem communicating with them, and don't want to help drive the agendas forward. [17:48]
Resources
Melissa Perri on LinkedIn | Twitter
CPOaccelerator.com
ProductInstitute.com