They Live

You know the joke, right? A CFO and a CEO meet.

— What if we train them and they leave?
— What if we don’t and they stay?

The irony here, I hope you appreciate, is the “they”. Observe the mindset that emanates from this punch line: accept the premise and turn it inside out. Funny, radical and… inside the box. I’ll try and explain.

The two executives talk about their employees, they decide over them. It occurs to neither of them that it would be good to involve them as the intelligent actors that they are. They live!

Alright, I admit, I killed the joke. Still, as Head of Product leading a team of Product Managers and UX Designers, I struggle with similar situations. Check out Cagan in his excellent book Empowered: the single most important responsibility of a Product Lead is the professional development of your people.

Involving your people does not absolve you from leading the way. But leadership is emphatically not deciding over them without understanding their priorities. And I know of no better way of learning their priorities than giving them a seat at the table.

Therein lies the rub. What if your people don’t sense their priorities? I mean, in an ideal world of intelligent actors, every one of your team members have a clear understanding of where they want to be and what they need to do to get there.

In my weekly one-on-ones, I make it a point to go over their development needs. We each share our observations about the improvement that would deliver the highest marginal value as a Product Manager or UX Designer. Then, on a monthly basis, we evaluate their progress and assess the next priority.

One or two of them are catching on. They actively question where they want to be a year from now and form an opinion as to what they need to improve. The rest? Tumbleweed, no involvement.

I wonder, what am I missing? If you water a plant, but the plant falters, there’s something else you’re doing wrong. The plant, it has an innate urge to thrive — no need to stimulate that. Instead, it needs more shadow. More sunlight. Less draft. A more fertile soil. Or less, but it’s up to you to find out.

Involve your people, fail and learn. In turn, they will hopefully grow.