 I recently finished reading Winning. I was looking for something on leadership and poked Art Petty for a suggestion. Thanks Art, this was a classic read.There were so many good lessons in here with respect to leadership and strategy it was almost overwhelming. One of my favourite topics was the chapter about candor; a truly powerful skill for the old mental toolset. Although I understand the power of this, I am aware of how this could be truly damaging to your career if not used properly. can•dor (kndr) n. Frankness or sincerity of expression; openness. Despite the book having leadership undertones throughout, there was a great chapter on leadership where Jack discussed eight things leaders do. This list includes team evaluation, coaching, articulating the vision, making decisions, probing and pushing with curiosity and inspiring risk taking.
Lastly, he wrote a chapter on strategy. Given my interest in what strategy is and how people perceive, it was refreshing to see him try to simplify it. I loved this quote:
After reading that, there is no wonder the first chapter was all about mission and values. His definition of strategy is:
I cannot disagree with that. He then broke down five questions to make your strategy real:
I could go on with lessons learned from this book, but like Made to Stick I highly recommend that you read this book. Image Source: HarperCollins Publishers |
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Entries from August 2009 ↓
Book Review: Winning By Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
August 30th, 2009 — Book Review, Leadership, Strategy
Repost: Book review: Tuned In
August 30th, 2009 — Book Review, Product Management
Just finished the book, Tuned In (by Phil Myers, Craig Stull, and David Meerman Scott), and I must say. Well done! The book, by simply stating, outlines the following steps: find unresolved problems, understand buyer personas, quantify the impact, create breakthrough experiences, articulate powerful ideas, establish authentic connections to create a resonator. A resonator is the perfect solution to a specific problem. It is a product or service so powerful that it sells itself, an offering that connects to what your market values most and an idea people immediately understand has value to them. I grabbed this content from their blog, Get Tuned In which is a great resource as well. I like the emphasis on problem statements and the potential buyer. So much time is spent today by Product Management on the post-sales Buyer. Tuned In is one of those books that you will be entertained by, amazed by, not be able to put down and be inspired to change the way you approach product management. Most importantly, you will want your Executives to read it. Here are some other bits of wisdom from the crowd on Tuned In.
Buy the book here: Amazon, Chapters.ca Image Source: Get Tuned In |
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Repost: Market Sensing
August 23rd, 2009 — Product Management
Market Sensing, bit of a new term for me and I am still trying to wrap my head around it. Fortunately for you, two things are about to happen… One, Jim Holland is going to introduce the concept in his webinar on Wednesday ( Market sensing is the collection and analysis of ideas from not only your market but potential markets. However, it goes beyond traditional research (or collection) by diving deeply into how market personas (i.e. buyer & user) think and act. The challenge is never collecting ideas. If you ask me about anything, I’ll give you ideas. And we can sit and talk through them and dream up a hundred more. Not the problem. I realize there might be (are?) challenges around the management of those ideas. Different topic, another day. The challenge is not prioritizing those ideas. Again a different topic for another day. The challenge is understanding those ideas to the root of the problem. Sakichi Toyoda introduced a concept called the “5 Whys” that simply states you need to ask “why” 5 times to get to the root of the problem. Anyway, problem definition is a different topic for yet another day. To define the problem you need to understand the big picture, you need to know how people think and act. This goes beyond a single idea. I see market sensing a little like Google (a stretch, bear with me!) in that it is consistently crawling, looking for more web pages, more content, more links. I see market sensing in the same light, you are trolling for more ideas for a deeper understanding of the existing ideas that lead to more ideas, that lead to more ideas and you constantly pour out like a spider builds its web or Google builds its index. I hope that helps. The benefit is that you have a bigger picture that is validated by the potential market and now you are better able to anticipate the needs of your current and potential markets. Past Webinar Updates:
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Leadership, Strategy, Vision ie Three Peas One Pod
August 21st, 2009 — Leadership, Strategy
 Been a blank-blog week for me… some weeks I have no ideas, others more. Part of it, I am sure, was spending 5 days in the desert and blocking out just about everything I was trying to block.I am getting to the end of the latest book on my desk, Winning by Jack Welch and it is helping cement in the fact that strategy without leadership is not strategy. You can strategize all day, but without leadership you have the equivalent of someone who is pounding salt. Leadership, like strategy, is a really big topic. Most of what you will read will tell you that leadership is not about you, but about the people around you. Very true! Leadership includes building self-confidence in your team, making people see the vision and then living it, establishing trust with candor, making decisions, and celebrating the wins. The other point worth mentioning, you can lead without direct reports as effectively as you can with direct reports. There are many ways to tie leadership back to strategy, but I wanted to focus on the vision aspect of it. I have written about vision in the past, Roadmap: Product Vision Statement. As you start to flush out your vision, you will need to consider your resources, not only who, but how the vision can be articulated in such a way that people are able to live it. The primary message from Made to Stick was getting people excited enough about your idea (read: strategy and vision) that they will execute on it. Product management is 90% leadership, but unless you have a well-defined vision it will be impossible to make decisions and lead people in such a way that the vision enables them to comfortably make their own decisions. Time to dust off the vision and pass it through the -Made to Stick- principles again. Remember… no vision, no leadership, no strategy. See a previous post of leadership quotes, Leadership Lessons from McKinsey. And here are my two favourite leadership blogs from people with ties to product management: Image Source: The Risesmart Blog |
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Product Management Resources
August 11th, 2009 — Product Management
 This is the standard list of product management resources that I share with all the product managers I meet on a weekly basis. I thought it was time to share them with you.Alltop Product Management Blogs http://product-management.alltop.com Strategic Product Manager Blogroll http://www.strategicproductmanager.com/blogroll Product Management Events http://www.strategicproductmanager.com/events Product Camps Product Management Book Club http://groups.google.com/group/smarterproductmanagers Product Managers on Twitter
Product Management Webinars Am I missing anything that is an absolute must-have resource for product management? |
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Book Review: Made to Stick
August 5th, 2009 — Book Review, Product Management, Strategy
 I just finished reading Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath, as part of our Smarter Product Managers book club. You’ll probably see a bunch of reviews pop-up as it seems everyone really enjoyed it. Here is one from Product Management Zen.
Without trying to oversell, this is a MUST READ for product management. An ‘idea‘ is a funny concept. It can be concrete or it can be abstract and for a lot people the vagueness of an idea may be translated into many different things including ideas as new products or ideas as new features for existing products. The relevancy of this book for product managers is that they live in a world of ideas and they need some to stick and some to slip away. (Note: The principles will help make sure the right ones stick and the wrong ones slip away.) They also need to communicate a variety of messages including problem statements, vision statements and strategies all of which can be parsed through the principles of this book. This book provided an excellent framework to help you successfully disseminate those ideas. The authors explain the six qualities of an idea that will stick:
The overarching concept through the book that plagues the stickiness of ideas is what the authors call the “Curse of Knowledge.” They define this as a common tendency people have that reduces their ability to create ideas that stick. People tend to communicate ideas in a way that is constrained by the fact that they already know what they are talking about and find it hard to imagine what it was like to not know. The authors offer that the best way to beat the curse is to apply the six principles and transform your ideas. The other tip for beating the Curse of Knowledge is to ask why as many times as necessary for a truer understanding of the problem (and therefore idea). This is book is officially going my “must-read” list for product managers. It’ll shape the way you write and communicate your ideas in way that will hopefully make them stick. P.S. I found this, the The Stickiness Aptitude Test, for you to validate whether your idea is sticky. Enjoy! Image Source: MadetoStick.com |
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