Episode 59: Striving for Mindful Leadership With Sam McAfee
Melissa Perri welcomes Sam McAfee to this episode of the Product Thinking Podcast. Sam is the founder of Startup Patterns, where he coaches teams and leadership how to attain the human skills necessary in successful product transformations. Melissa and Sam discuss how to strengthen emotional intelligence, how to hone your leadership skills as an IC, and what a truly courageous leader looks like.
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Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Sam talk about:
Sam talks about his induction into the field of product management and his professional background. [2:00]
Mindful leadership is being able to grow and collaborate with your teams while also paying attention to what you're thinking and feeling as a product leader, and using that information to enhance and enrich your interactions with others. [8:46]
The biggest red flag in terms of leadership skills, Sam cautions, is overworked employees. "The reason why that would be a red flag is that it is an indication that there isn't a clear prioritization, or there isn't a clear vision.” This can lead to burnout. [10:43]
The first step in building mindful leadership skills is taking time out of each day to reflect. Reflection builds emotional intelligence, which helps build empathy. Leaders who reflect often slow down and observe their own thoughts and behaviors, making them proactive rather than reactive. [15:00]
To practice mindfulness as a leader, start observing people's behavior and words. During your interactions with others, try to see things from their perspective, and imagine what they might be thinking or feeling in those moments. Having the courage and compassion to ask others how they're feeling is also an important part of mindful leadership. [21:00]
One of the key things in helping product management hone leadership skills is making sure that the product team is aligned in their purpose and objectives. Building relationships is another important aspect. "A product manager needs to have a really good relationship with everyone on the team; they need to understand what people skills are, what their motivations are," Sam tells Melissa. Having curiosity about your people and being intentional with gathering information about everyone's strengths in order to leverage them properly will do wonders for you as a product leader. [27:20]
Leaders have to know when to relinquish control. This requires courage and vulnerability but it is important in order to properly transform the work culture within organizations. [32:44]
One vital part of courageousness in leadership is saying no to what isn't essential. It is the job of senior management to figure out the vision, decide strategy and then convey that to the rest of the organization, and also to prioritize what is important and what isn't. [35:57]
Sam shares what leaders should be looking for when trying to grasp strategy and product initiative. He shares the importance of observing the markets you're in when deciding on strategy. [38:16]
Resources
Sam McAfee | LinkedIn | Twitter
Transcript:
Melissa:
Hello and welcome to the product thinking podcast. Today, we have a great episode for you all about transformations and how leadership skills can really make your transformation successful. And I'm joined by Sam McAfee, who is a founder of startup patterns, a consultancy that really specializes in mindful leadership. Welcome Sam.
Sam:
Hi Melissa. Thanks for having me.
Melissa:
Yeah, I'm excited for you to be here. So can you tell me a little bit about, you know, how did you get into this kind of leadership work, dealing with transformations and also what is mindful leadership?
Sam:
All right. No, I'd love to, I'd love to, so I, I guess, um, I I've been in the tech and product scene for, for some time now. Um, and so it's been a trajectory that's led me to the topic of mindful leader. Um, that in retrospect seems really like a clear progression. I, I never, obviously you can never sort of tell this stuff ahead of time. Um, but I, I basically, uh, built my first website in 1999. And so I guess that, that puts me at about 22 years of, uh, of doing this kind of stuff. Um, originally I, uh, was a software engineer of the, uh, of the three, uh, legs of the product stool. Um, I'm, I'm originally on the engineering side of things, um, that I have done a fair amount of product work as well. Um, I'm a terrible design, so don't, don't put me in that, that box, but, um, I really respect designers mostly cuz I can't do it.
Uh, but yeah, I did a lot of engineering for a long time. And so mostly my career has been around, uh, building products as a, as a consultant or as a contractor for other people. So I went from being kinda a freelancer in the, in the crazy days of the.com boom. Um, and that gradually moved into spinning up my own boutique web development agency that I ran for for about a decade, um, hiring my own team of other developers, uh, working alongside them, coding as well, myself and really the first part of my career was really learning how to build software the right way. And I, I consider myself fortunate that I started doing this kind of work at the same time that, uh, what we now think of as agile software development, uh, was also really getting started and getting popular. And so I, I learned how to put a team together and how to build software products from, you know, the agile methods early on.
And so I went through this phase of really wanting to be a good engineer and really learning good engineering practices, um, not just how to code, but also the, the tool chains and workflows of building good software. So like test driven development and continuous integration and those sorts of things. So once I had that engineering baseline, I think the next phase of my career was figuring out how, uh, how a team works collaboratively to build technical products, right? So most products are not built by a single engineer alone in a basement. Yes, we have examples of that, but by and large, that's not how it happens in our industry. And so building products is really a team sport that involves a lot of collaboration and a lot of, and so I learned a lot about how teams work and how to ship to the customer together.
Um, and then as we were doing that one, one of the things that that was becoming more popular, uh, about a decade in, um, is the work around what we now think of lean startup. Uh, I was, I was exposed early on to the work of, of Steve blank and Eric Reese, uh, before there was a lean startup book. But, um, in reading Steve Blank's work, it really hit me right away that this whole idea of building a lot of really good software that no one actually wants to use because as you didn't really have a bead on your customer or what their needs were, um, was a real visceral, uh, pain that I I'd seen and experienced or seen my clients experience many, many times. And so right away, it was a no brainer that we should be really understanding our customers and making sure that there's actually a market for this, this product that we we're building.
Um, and I think, you know, you and I, uh, met through that, that movement, uh, going to those conferences and things. Um, and so I think that really brought my attention more into the world of product management and, uh, you know, business models and thinking about not just the software itself, not just the usability of it, but also how's, it fit within the needs of the customer and building a successful business to be able to service their needs. Um, so all of this were like building blocks that were coming together for me as, um, as I was coming up in my career. Um, I, I finally got to a point where I was doing a lot of, uh, I had a few few lead leadership roles in a row at other companies, uh, as a senior technical person, about four different, um, roles in a row, uh, you know, head of engineering here, uh, kind of CTO of a startup there.
And finally ended up going out back on my own and doing coaching and consulting for product teams. So when I say product teams, I'm including, you know, product engineering, design, data science, any other supporting functions, but basically cross-functional teams in these companies that are trying to get products out the door. And by then I was pretty well versed in sort of the processes and, and practices and formulas that you could use to, uh, combine a, a customer centric way of thinking about what to build with, you know, so all the prioritization and things that, that involves and getting the team to be able to ship in agile way, uh, shipping small increments and then testing them and all that's great. And then there was still something missing, which kind of brings us to the leadership part is that I had a number of experiences, um, at different companies where I was working as a coach or consultant that no matter how well we were able to get a team to the point of being really high performing and really effective trusting each other good communication skills, all of this was happening inside of an organization and that organization might not have the best culture or the best leadership styles to enable this team to really succeed.
And I think that that was something that really hit me, uh, three or four years ago, um, and really became, uh, a barrier that I wanted to break through. How do you actually help the entire organization, uh, think agile have a product mindset, um, and really embrace, uh, ideas. The at, I had come to believe were really effective in building healthy teams, um, like good emotional intelligence and openness and transparency, and being really clear about your vision and your priorities. And so for the last few years, I've been obsessed with, uh, really going around and teaching as many people as I can, uh, better leadership skills and that, that can be anyone in the organization. It doesn't have to be working just with the senior leadership in an organization. I think anyone on a team, uh, has the opportunity to lead in various ways. So you can, you can be a manager, you can have people reporting to you.
And then of course that's a leadership opportunity, but if you don't have people reporting to you, there's still an opportunity, uh, to lead as well. And so, um, that's, that's basically what I primarily am focused on is teaching leadership skills for folks who are in a context of building successful products and when mindfulness comes into it. So our, our program at startup patterns has really centered around what we call mindful leadership. And basically if you look up the definition of mindfulness, uh, it's really just a matter of, of focus and self-awareness right. So like, you know, it's a term that's gaining, you know, a lot of ground in, in our Western culture here. And, uh, you know, it's been around for a long time, but it has a lot of popularity, but really for me, it's about achieving clarity and being able to grow in yourself by paying attention to what you're thinking about and how you're feeling at any given time and using that information to improve your human, uh, interaction skills with other people. And because product development is a team sport. Most of the work is communicating with our peers and collabo and sharing the workload and making decisions with each other when we, we don't always agree. And so those human skills have really emerged for me as, uh, a number one area of challenge that a lot of organizations are going in, uh, going through as they're trying to adopt a product mindset and be more agile and all of those good things. So that's where mindful leadership comes from.
Melissa:
Yeah. I can't agree with you more Sam. I think leadership skills are so important at every level of these organizations, especially when it comes to transformation, because there's so much change that's needed, uh, across these organizations to make this successful. So I'm curious from your perspective, when you go into work with organizations that are embarking on a transformation and trying to get there, what are the signs that you look for that say, Hey, this isn't actually like a product management or a product development process problem. Like this is a leadership skills problem. What are those red flags?
Sam:
There are so many that you'll probably have to stop me at some point, but I'm just gonna pop off as a few that I can think of right away. Um, when I go into an organization, uh, some of the red flags that I see are one that are people feeling stressed, are they overworked? In other words, are people working on too many things at the same time? And the reason why that would be a red flag, um, is that it is an indication that there isn't a clear prioritization or there isn't a clear vision. So it usually means that people might be getting directives from different parts of the organization and trying to satisfy all of those voices. And it really leads to a lot of overwork and ultimately low performance and frustration and burnout. So that's one thing that I look for another red flag is the disparity in the view of the organization, between the senior leadership and the folks in the trenches.
So if I go and talk to an organization and I will ask the folks, building the products, uh, if they have a clear sense of what the senior leadership wants and what is the vision and strategy right now for the company. And a lot of times I will hear that they, they're not sure they don't think there is one, or if there is one, they haven't been told what it is. They just kind of have orders coming down from above and senior leadership might say, oh yeah, we've, we've, we totally have an idea. And we've been perfectly clear this whole time and why aren't they shipping things faster? So the disconnect between the, the kind of top and bottom of the organization is another real clear sign of, uh, a poor leadership culture that needs help. Um, I think, you know, one more other point I would, I would add to the pile is I try to sniff out conflict and see what it looks like.
And, and that doesn't mean that you can't have conflict in your organization. I actually think that conflict, uh, done sort of constructively and with, with, with empathy can, you know, there always are gonna be disagreements. And so I'm not looking for zero conflicts, but I'm looking for how they handle conflict. And so if I hear stories or anecdotes about, you know, long held grudges or unresolved problems, or these two departments have just never gotten along, that's also an indication to me that the senior leadership is not really getting everyone into alignment and that there's a lot of work to be done to bring those two groups or those two individuals back together and have them resolve their differences so that they can work on a team. So, so those are some of the big things. Like people are really savagely, overworked, there's a bad sign, um, that there's disconnect between what leadership is saying they want and what the rest of the team actually understands that they want. And whether there's long running, um, silos or disfunctions of conflict between different groups of people or individuals, uh, just to name three, and there are many more,
Melissa:
And I've never seen any of those problems before. Haha. fUm, yeah, I, I think all of those are really common. So when you're talking about mindfulness in the leadership world, um, you know, really understanding yourself, being self aware, I've run into a lot of leaders who are not self aware. Um, I see it as a huge pro it's actually one of the biggest reasons as well that I see people not be able to move into leadership positions. Um, they lack this emotional intelligence that we're kind of talking about. And the question though that I have for you is how do you learn that? Right? Like I know how I learned it, which was a bunch of trial and error. And I mean, in not in the best ways, like I, I feel like I had a fall on my face a bunch of times to like start to, to get better at that to start to be more intuitive, to start, to be more aware, um, to learn, to stop and reflect on it.
Melissa:
But how do you work with people when you go into these organizations to help them build these leadership skills to help them get more emotionally intelligent?
Sam:
Yeah, I really appreciate the question. That's a, that's a great question. So I think when people hear me talk about mindfulness, sometimes it might sound, um, mystical or esoteric. Like I'm asking people to, uh, you know, go off on a meditation retreat for six weeks or something like that. And, and certainly, uh, there's a lot of research that shows that that actually would be good for you if you wanted to give it a try, but that's not actually what I'm talking about in this context around mindfulness and leadership, really what it's really much more, um, sort of normal and prosaic actually. And if you go through the current literature on leadership, like if you went to, you know, everyone's favorite book website and looked at the top, you know, 20 leadership books, um, I, I guarantee and I looked at this list, so I know I'm talking about, I guarantee that the majority of them will have have some pattern in there, uh, teaching leaders or executives that it's a critical step to be able to have time in your calendar where you can reflect on your day or on your week and think about your own thoughts and feelings and, and how you're doing to have some degree of stopping the clock, and just being in the silence and letting your mind kind of do what it needs to do.
So for example, I'm a big fan of, uh, Robert Kaplan, author of the book, um, what to ask the person in the mirror. Uh, Kaplan's a long time, um, management, uh, professor at Harvard and did a lot of, uh, leadership work, uh, um, you know, just to pick him as an example, uh, in that book, there's some steps for leaders in one of those steps is to always have a time in your weekly calendar where you can close the door and turn your phone off and maybe have a blank piece of paper and do some journaling, but having some kind of practice where you get out of your, your day to day and take a moment to reflect. And what that allows you to do is it allows your brain to go through a process of, um, just kind of slowing down, uh, cuz most of the time, right? Like we're fairly reactive. We're, we're getting emails, we're talking to people and we're just responding in the moment, um, from behaviors that are learned and really ingrained and are mostly on autopilot, mostly subconscious, right? So that's, that's the opposite of mindfulness.
So when we're in our day to day lives at work, most of our behavior is actually pretty automatic. Um, the learned behaviors from anywhere from childhood to, uh, being, you know, previous jobs and watching other bosses and sort of modeling their behavior. So there's a lot of ingrained behavior that we don't really think about how we're doing, how we're working, we just sort of act automatically in conversations, in meetings, that sort of thing. So that's the opposite of mindfulness. That's when you're sort of not really conscious of what you're doing right now, you're just kind of going through the motions. And so it's important to create a space where you can stop and actually observe your own thoughts and behaviors and slow down. Um, as a colleague of mine here at startup patterns, like to say, to create a space between stimulus and response, right? We have just an extra moment, one deep breath to stop and think about how you're reacting to something rather than just automatically reacting. So I think that there are a lot of other steps, but the very first step I always start with with people that are in one of our coaching programs or that we're working with, um, in an organization is do you have a practice of creating a little bit of time in your calendar to stop and just be quiet and reflect?
Melissa:
I love that. I, I, I think that's so important as well. And I, you know, it was just reminding me that, um, I used to have this pattern where people would email me and I'd get this email and I'd read it and I'd be so mad. Right. And I'm like, I wanna respond to this immediately. Uh, and I've learned to just go to sleep and then look at it in the morning and not respond right away. And I feel like, yeah, I feel like it's so similar to like what, what you're talking about right now. Um, I'll say that's helped me a lot, cuz I used to be the person who would just fire off the email back. And I know a lot of people do that. Um, but I, I know I've talked to you about this in the past and I've talked to some of our other friends who do this type of work too, where we're like, somebody sent me this email and it's really getting on my nerves or somebody said this today and it's really bothering me.
How do I look at it for, from a different perspective? And that's helped me so much try to approach things more diplomatically and assume good intent. Um, and I think that's like a really good quality of, you know, being a leader. It's what separates you from being a reactive person. And it also gives you some more gravitas and some more respect in the organization to handle tricky situations. So, uh, stopping, taking a breath, love all those things. I think that really, really helps. How about trying to become a little bit more like self-aware with how you kind of feed off people? Um, I I've seen some people who are have strong empathy for those around them. Um, you know, they can feed off their emotions. They can, and they can tell, you know, from people's facial expressions, like if it's not, if their message is not coming across or anything like that, what about if that doesn't come so naturally to people, what are different things that they can do to start easing themselves into being able to like read the room better?
Sam:
Yeah, I love it. And we definitely work with people that have different personality styles and different sort of cognitive strengths or focuses and not everybody's the same, right? Like regardless of what, in a categorization scheme you're into, um, I definitely see differences in how people are able to relate to other people. So there's usually, uh, kind of, I wouldn't say two buckets, but kind of a continuum where most people are on the extremes, uh, in leaders that I interact with, they're either very focused on sort of thinking and logic and in their heads a lot and not really tuned in to a, their people that much. Um, which I think are the people that you're, you're asking about. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are folks that are, are kind of highly empathetic and, and always kind of tuning in to, to read the room and understand how other people are feeling.
And they both have their own pitfalls that are unique to which end of the spectrum you're on. So, you know, as I work with people and get to know them a little bit better, I might give, you know, one set of practices to one group versus the other. So I think for the group where people relation doesn't come automatically, um, it can be really challenging. It, it can, it can be frustrating if you're, if you're working with someone and, and something that you do ends up making them upset and you don't really grasp, grasp why is, and it's just creating more work and hassle for you. And now you have to go to a meeting with that person and try to work it out and just seems like why can't, you know, why can't people just get over themselves? You know, that's the sort of thing I hear.
Sam:
So, um, you know, it can be frustrating if you don't really understand what's going on with that other person. You're just trying to do your job. And, and why do you have to kind of handle everybody with kid gloves? So the good news is that the techniques that you can use to get better at the people skills are, are learnable, right? Like there, there are some basic things that you can do, um, to improve your ability to interact with people. And so there's a lot of different things, but just off the top of my head, I think one thing is first kind of from a position of mindfulness, starting to observe people's behavior or the words they say, um, and have a time later, uh, with a coach or in your period of reflection to actually write down what happened and look at it and try to understand it better.
Right? So, um, the idea with working with other people is to try to have empathy with them. And if that's not something that comes instinctively or naturally to you, then you have to create practices or mechanisms where you can start to teach yourself how to observe those things. Right? So for example, we have an exercise that we sometimes do with clients. Um, I think we picked it up from actually from a conflict resolution course, um, where it challenges you to imagine a difficult conversation that you had with someone recently. And there's, it's, I think they call it the five whys of empathy, which basically for those of, you know, five whys it's, it's the old Toyota problem solving formula of, you know, trying to get to the bottom of the root cause of something that went wrong so that you can fix it. So we would say you had an experience with this person that rubbed you the wrong way, or you didn't understand why they were so upset.
Try to imagine some hypothetical scenarios that they could have been feeling or thinking that would make their reaction more rational. So I'm challenging the client to use their brain muscles to try to imagine a situation that actually makes the whole thing make sense. And it doesn't matter if it's the right thing or not, cuz they're not gonna necessarily go and do anything with this information. It's just giving their brain, the practice of putting themselves in the other person's shoes, um, albeit in a mechanical way at first, but it's just so that they can start to feel and understand what it's like to try to imagine what that other person is thinking and feeling. So as a basic building block, once you start to do that and if you do it on a regular basis, like anything else over time, it becomes easier for you when you're in the moment to notice how the other person is holding themselves in terms of their body language or their facial expressions.
Uh, I'll often tell people explicitly to look at those things in their next meeting, um, to think about the words that they've used or listened to their tone of voice and have some reflection time later to imagine. Okay, that was a really tough conversation with my colleague. Let me sit down and try to think about like where were they coming from? And so that next time I go to talk to them, I think I can at least have a model in my head of what that person is, uh, really thinking or where they're coming from. And then the next step, which is a little more advanced is actually having the courage, uh, and compassion to ask them about it. So turning things around, into asking more questions, to see how that person is feeling rather than making assumptions that we assume everybody thinks just like us and why is this person so upset? Uh, you can actually inquire and start to build a relationship. And the key is like as soon as you start to ask people how they feel or what they're thinking that automatically makes them feel more important to you. And you're more likely to build a better relationship with that person in the long term, just by asking them about themselves. So anyway, I threw a lot of stuff at you, but that's, that's sort of the basics.
Melissa:
That's really cool. I, I like the tip too, of asking people how they're feeling or how they're doing, letting them talk for a while, definitely builds more rapport. And I know I've heard a lot of, um, you know, product leaders that we've had in the podcast in the past too, say that's, what's really helped make or break their experiences at other organizations and how to get really difficult stakeholders over onto their team, as well as just sitting there, you know, building a relationship, asking them, you know, about themselves and how they like to work and, and making sure that they understand that. I, I, I love those skills. Now when we talk about leadership, um, I feel like sometimes people get that confused as well with people management and especially in the product space, we've got a lot of product managers out there listening to this.
Um, we have to be like defacto leaders where we, we lead through influence, right. We have to make these decisions and we have to put it out there. Uh, but we don't necessarily have, uh, management responsibilities or people let's put it that way. Uh, there's a lot of product leaders too, who are trying to get that first people management spot, uh, because I don't see a wonderful IC track out there where we have super senior product managers. It exists in places like Google and, and other big companies. But a lot of times you have to be like a people manager to become a chief product officer when you work in organizations like this, and you're trying to train, um, IC product managers in leadership skills too. How have you seen it, help them make that leap, um, up into the leadership levels, up into the people management levels and what can IC, um, individual contributor or product managers do today to help hone those skills so that they're ready and can demonstrate that they can make those leaps.
Sam:
Yeah, it, it really is, uh, for product managers in an individual contributor role, uh, all about leading by influence, right? So you're on the hook for product outcomes. Most of the time, fairly or unfairly, that's a lot the way it is in a lot of places. Um, and yet you have no direct authority over say the engineers on the team, right? They all report to some engineering managers in a different department. Um, you know, I'm just sort of describing the typical case, not the ideal case. And it's a little bit of a, of a, a red herring to some extent because it kind of implies that even for the engineering manager, that somehow having authority over people that do report to you, uh, that you can just sort of coerce them to perform, which, you know, we could talk at length about why that's not actually true.
Um, but actually being in a position of influence rather than authority is a really good place to practice your leadership skills. Um, and so I think that there are a couple of key things. One is that we need to make sure that the team is aligned in terms of their purpose and objectives. And that will usually come from leadership from senior leadership or, you know, from the, the product strategy or roadmap, right? So there'll be some, um, um, managing up, uh, that's required to ensure that the folks that you're working with to deliver a product have a really clear sense of mission and purpose. If they don't like you gotta help and go get it. And so that may require you to go to a senior folks that are giving you the, the directives that you're following and try to get them to give more clarity about the why's and where fors of this particular product or service.
Um, and so that's sort of one dimension. And then another dimension is really, um, being a facilitator of the conversations that happen in a product development process or context, right? So going around, uh, it's related to our previous question about building better people skills that the pro a product manager needs to have a really good relationship with everyone on the team. They need to understand what people's skills are, what their motivations are, um, about this particular product. They're excited to see come to fruition, uh, because a lot of it is about, um, you know, really getting everybody on the same page and getting them excited to work together, not about telling them what to do and holding them accountable. Right. And so I actually think it, if you're in an IC product manager role, it's an excellent opportunity to practice without a net. You know, the, the skills of leading a group of people to a single outcome, um, so that you can illustrate your, uh, longer term leadership skills.
Um, and then the other thing is if you are wanting to move up in an organization, um, you can't just wait to be noticed. You have to advocate for yourself. You need to make a case, uh, build relationships with senior leaders and, and ask them what they wanna see, ask them more questions than you're making statements, right? Like find out what does the senior leadership, uh, expect from, uh, a, a budding, uh, product leader. Right? So I think that having that curiosity about people and really being intentional about going around and gathering information and building a relationship with each of the folks on your team, so that you have a really clear sense in your head about how to leverage everyone's strengths, um, to get the job done, I think is really important. And of course, like, yeah, you're not in charge. I don't necessarily have to listen to you, but I think if you can show some empathy and some compassion for their position, like this particular engineer or this like QA person, uh, in the trenches, working away at the product that you're, you're helping to, to, to lead them through, um, the more that they feel like you care about what they're doing, the more they're likely to wanna follow your example.
So that's really leading by influence is about, um, getting everybody, seeing your vision and feeling they're part of a team. Um, and, and that takes people skills that you have to practice.
Melissa:
I think there's a big misconception out there too, about like the difference between like leadership and assertiveness. And I love how you're talking about leadership really is being, you know, emotionally and intelligent, um, you know, hoping to evangelize what you're talking about, get people on your side. I see so many people mix up these skills with being like confident and almost arrogant. Right. Um, and I'm curious, like we, we see, we see a lot of product leaders out there too. I think who think they can get by just on having that type of attitude. Um, but when it comes down to making the decisions or the right decisions, you know, they don't really act. So I think we were talking about a little bit before we got started the element of, you know, courageousness too, as a leader, being willing to put yourself out there and make the decisions. Can you talk a little bit about how do you see that show up in organizations, especially in product leaders, you know, when you go through transformations, how that helps and what that really means as being a leader, you know, what does courageousness mean and what do you have to do to do it?
Sam:
Absolutely. Let's put this in a historical context briefly. We we're in a world that has changed a lot in the last hundred years, right? So in the beginning of the 20th century, we had an industrial economy. Um, and the, the management style for that time was really, um, influenced by people like Frederick Winslow, Taylor and principles of scientific management. And that mentality really took hold in management as the kind of, uh, clerical and office and white collar world was emerging in the post-war period. And it's still by and large how a lot of management and leadership in large companies is done that there's this idea that sort of top down command and control is the way to be a leader. Um, and as, as you know, and we've talked about many times in other forums, um, it's not really the way that good products development is done.
And so for a long time, there's been this counter-veiling thread that's been building up. Um, I'm actually writing about this, um, in, in a, an upcoming book that, uh, ever since the days of, of ding and Toyota and sort of lean, uh, as we, as we now know it, um, that the idea of, of respecting people and pushing, uh, autonomy and the responsibility for outcomes down to the folks who are on the front lines, building the products, uh, is a more effective way of producing good product outcomes. And so in terms of things that I'm seeing there, there's been this long running trend towards more autonomy and more purpose in the teams and less top down command and control. I mean, that's sort of all about what agile is. And so, um, for leaders who are not used to that kind of world, it can be really scary to go through an agile transformation or some other kinds of, of, uh, organization, um, evolution that requires letting go of control.
And, and it requires a, a great deal of, of courage and vulnerability on the part of leaders to be able to, um, loosen the reins a bit and let your teams kind of run and self organize and figure out for themselves. So at most large organizations, uh, and I've definitely worked with quite a number of them, and I've working with some right now, um, one of the biggest impediments to their success in building new innovative products or, or reinventing themselves, uh, in the current digital age is that clinging to that belief that the leader needs to have all the answers and that the leader needs to make decisions and everyone needs to follow. And I think just, I'm delighted to see more and more leadership work, uh, people like David marque and others, um, really creating this movement, that challenges, that notion that leadership is, is necessarily hierarchical and necessarily dictatorial. Yes, the best leaders that we've seen really are able to let go of control and, and, and give their people the tools and resources they need to succeed, but mostly stay out of the way and be a supportive element.
Melissa:
So I'm gonna throw a little wrench in here. I completely agree with what you're saying, what I've seen though, too, is a bunch of people out there who are leaders who are trying to embrace these new tactics, this whole new way of working and let the teams, you know, come up with what to do and where to go. But the problem is they won't make any decisions whatsoever, right? Like they're like the teams will figure it out. And the teams are like, yeah, what, like, where, where are we gonna go? How do you work with leaders to balance that? Like, how do you show them? You know, what's the scope, like when do you make the hard decision, right? And say like, no, we have to go this way. Versus when do you let the teams figure it out versus like setting the right level of, uh, what's the nuances behind that, that people should be aware of
Sam:
That question. That's a great one. So the way I think about it is that there, there is a conceptual hierarchy in the organization, uh, of decisions in terms of their, their scope and impact and timeline, right? So the organization at the very top has a vision of the future that it, it is trying to, to, to achieve it's, it's the mission of that organization to transform the world in some way, to make life better for this particular group of people to solve this particular problem, whatever it is, there's a vision and time and resources are limited, and there are competitors out there. So then you have the next level of strategy. There needs to be a path that we've decided to take in order to achieve our vision with the risks and constraints and resources at our disposal. That's not the 12 or so other paths we could have taken.
And so part of having that courage and leadership is really about the ability to say no to all the other things that are not essential. So I totally love what you're saying. And I, I have seen that as well, that you can have it too far in the other direction where leaders are paralyzed and afraid to make any decisions. And that's not good either, right? So senior leadership's job is to figure out the vision and articulate it to the rest of the organization and decide on a strategy that is clear and simple enough for everyone to understand and to tell everybody what it is, and to use that, to prioritize the things that we're gonna do and cut out all the things that we're not gonna do. And then once you're at that level of things, like these are the things we've decided that we need to achieve in order to follow our strategy to success.
Then from there down, those objectives can start to be delegated to various middle level leaders and teams and departments to then go and execute as they see fit. And as long as there's some kind of framework for measuring our progress towards those goals and regularly communicating our progress, um, that you can balance having some directive decision making at the very top, at the highest level of the organization with the, the biggest scope and the biggest impact, but the least, uh, detail and the least, uh, the courses resolution. And then the 90% of the other decisions that are made in the org have to do with execution and further down the chain and teams and groups, and, and individuals even should be free to make those decisions on their own. If they have clear alignment with what senior leadership is trying to accomplish, and what's the sort of logic to make the right decision on the ground on a day to day basis, that that's kind of how I see that balance between creating a fair amount of autonomy, uh, and purpose within your teams while also giving them just enough direction that they know where they're trying to go.
Melissa:
Yeah, I like that, that fits really well into, you know, how I talk about the different strategy levels too. It's like, let your teams figure out the details, but make sure you're giving them an enough direction from the top, um, so that they can make decisions. What are some things that these leaders should be looking for when they're trying to grasp, like, Hey, maybe I'm setting strategy for the first time I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying out this new thing, I'm setting a strategic intent or product initiative. What are the things that you tell them to look for to know they are making the right level of decision? Like they're not getting too into the weeds. What are, what are good signs that yes, you are giving just enough direction?
Sam:
Whew. Yeah, that's great. I would say that at the executive level, when you're making strategy decisions, it really requires a keen sense of the market that you're in, you know, who are your customers and what, what are their pain points? And if you have been servicing those customers through some existing product lines, and now you're looking for your next level thing, um, you have to think carefully about that. Maybe you're gonna serve a slightly different customer segment. Maybe it's selling a different thing to the same customers, but with a different pain point that you're trying to cover, but really having a clear idea of who those customers are and how they fit in the overall growth and trajectory of the business. It's different when you're at a startup and you're like really from scratch. And you can, you can afford to kind of move around a lot until you find the right thing until you get product market fit.
When you actually have an established hulking legacy organization that has a lot of weight in inertia to it, um, it's a little more delicate, you know, making some of these decisions. And so I think it's important to, to figure out where you are in the market, you know, what are competitors doing and picking a strategy that actually is gonna be realistic given the capabilities that you currently have in your, org right. So, so I've worked with orgs that are, uh, have some legacy products and are trying to move more towards, uh, you know, a SaaS or cloud solution, but don't actually have the people or the internal skills and capabilities to build products like that yet. Like they, they haven't done it before. They haven't learned it. They're not quite ready, able to recruit enough of the right people who do know how to do that.
And so that can really put a damper on a strategy to move in a SaaS direction. Uh, if you don't actually have the resource is at your disposal, or at least you would have to include in your strategy that we're gonna have to first acquire this capability somehow, uh, before we can take the next step of starting to become proficient in that capability and building solutions with that technology. So it's, there's a level of being realistic about where you are and what your people we can achieve that I think, um, is often overlooked at the executive level, even with really experienced executives. They sometimes forget that like, you, you can't, you know, drive a, a Ford like a Ferrari, right? Like the, the engine will only do so much. Right. And, and so if you try to drive it at 200 miles an hour, it's probably not gonna do so well.
Right. And so you gotta like make sure that your leadership, uh, directives are in line with what people can actually accomplish. Um, and also like the capacity of the organization, getting back to that, everyone being burned out red flag that we talked about earlier, that if the capacity of the organization, uh, is known, like we can produce, you know, these many widgets or this much software in a given period of time, and really no more than that, then leadership has to be realistic about how much can get done in a given year or given quarter. Um, and so I think that that knowing your own organization and its abilities and strengths and weaknesses is another critic part of making a strategy.
Melissa:
Yeah. That is, that resonates so much with me as well. Uh, and definitely good feedback for the leaders out there listening, you know, do what your org can actually handle, set realistic goals. Um, you know, that's something we talk about in product management all the time only set goals that you could probably hit. So everybody's not going after things that are unattainable. So I really like that. Well, thank you so much, Sam, for being on the podcast. Uh, if people wanna get in touch with you, learn more about your work, where should they check out?
Sam:
Uh, two best places to reach me are LinkedIn. Uh, I love LinkedIn. I love connecting with people. So, uh, if you wanna chat or you have a question or you just wanna connect for, for a mutual benefit, please do reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty easy to find Sam McAfee. Uh, and then also our websites, startuppatterns.com has, uh, a number of resources that you can look at for getting started with some of this leadership skill building and transformation work. We've got some, some cool free downloads, uh, self assessment, other things like that, and a great, uh, newsletter with lots of good content. So, um, startup patterns.com and then of course, myself, uh, at LinkedIn.
Melissa:
Great. Well, thank you again for being on the podcast, Sam, and thank you all for listening to the product thinking podcast. Make sure you hit subscribe and leave us a review if you like this episode. And we'll be back again next Wednesday with another segment of Dear Melissa, see you then.