Thread by @bbalfour

"What got you here, won't get you there." @onecaseman and @far33d broke down the transition from Product Manager to Product Leader. Excellent insights from @iambangaly and @ravi_mehta as well.

Article -> reforge.com/blog/crossing-…

Thread 👇👇👇

Great execution as a Senior Product Manager, does not mean you will make a good Product Leader.

"You can continue to put wins on the board and still not make the jump."

Four key transitions that Fareed and Casey talk about...

Transition #1: Depth in one type of product work → Breadth across multiple types of product work

You need to go from being excellent at one type of product work, to having a wider vision of all product problems...

A great quote from @ravi_mehta : "You need to think beyond a single feature and start thinking about how features and other work connect to each other — how they ladder to a clear, compelling, cohesive vision for the product and how they connect to the company’s strategy.”

Transition #2: Being good at your job -> Training others to be good at theirs.

Just because you are good at executing, does not mean you are good at teaching others. Why?...

Your natural strengths can be the hardest to teach.

"Writing initially didn't come naturally to me — I had to work at it. As a result, I can point someone to all the resources that helped me. On the other hand, exploratory data analysis came more naturally...

"It was never something I sought out resources to learn. I just figured it out along the way. It took me a long time to figure out how to help someone with data vs. my instincts to just do it myself." - @far33d

The most common trap this leads to is keeping the most important projects for yourself. I've definitely made this mistake before.

The common thinking is...

"This is important, I can do it better myself, therefore I should do it." Part 1+2 might be true, but doing it yourself leads to...

a. Stolen learning opportunity for someone on your team.
b. Trapping yourself in the weeds.
c. Holding on to secrets that will help others.

Transition #3: Solving with the resources you have → Solving by allocating resources and influencing others

What is the difference?...

The shift is treating the problem holistically. Rather than figuring out how to solve a problem with the hammer and nails you have, you need to identify the best way to solve the problem, irrespective of the resources you directly have, and find a way to facilitate that solution.

Transition #4: Gaining more individual scope → Creating more scope for the org

This was my favorite one...

For years, you are working hard to gain that additional scope and responsibility. But at some point doing this you will start to hit diminishing returns because you can't do all the work yourself...

...Instead, you actually need to do the opposite and reduce your scope by shedding parts of your responsibility to enable new teams around them. You can either keep it all yourself and do a B job at it, or you can shed these areas to enable them to all be A+...

...Your responsibility goes from gaining more scope to identifying where there are holes and advocating filling those holes...

Both @far33d and @onecaseman are leading the development of the new @reforge Product Strategy program which goes much deeper on the transition to a Product Leader.

More details here -> reforge.com/product-strate…