Optimizing for Growth
In my 20 years of slogging through the landscape of software products there’s only one characteristic of a job I’ve ever truly hated: the feeling of stagnation and lack of growth. Basically being in the state Rocky was in at the start of Rocky III. He had gotten complacent fighting easy opponents and had lost the eye of the tiger. No challenge = no passion. Stagnation = death.
Fortunately I’ve never had it that bad. Every single job I’ve ever held has forced me to push myself to improve rapidly in a number of areas. In the best ones, I’ve not only pushed myself, but I’ve also had really inspiring mentors to pull me along.
Sometimes those mentors have been leaders, my direct supervisors, but surprisingly often peers and even direct reports. Growth is sometimes found where you least expect it to be. The important thing is to keep pushing forward.
On that note, I’m super excited to let y’all know I’ve decided to put all my professional eggs in the growth basket. I’m joining a really exciting new program devised in partnership between Produx Labs and Insight Ventures to grow Chief Product Officers for Insight’s portfolio companies.
More specifically, the program is the brainchild of two amazing people in the tech / product space: Melissa Perri and Shelley Perry — two talented, experienced, and inspiring leaders. Just being in their presence makes me feel like pushing extra hard to become half the professional they are.
Basically I’m letting them tear me to pieces, salvage the useful pieces, and rebuild me in an image of a glorious modern CPO. Fun!
Hopefully, this part of my career will be my Rocky IV training montage.
You can read more about the intentions Shelley and Melissa have for the program in Melissa’s announcement post:
Of course, things like this take a village, so we’re hiring for a number of roles at Produx Labs to join in on all the excitement. After all, as Rocky and Apollo would surely attest, growth is better together. http://produxlabs.com/jobs
The additional good news is that I’m ready to finally make good on my promise to come out of my cave and resume my writing operations. After all, what good is growth if you don’t pay it forward. I’m hoping to slowly revive my newsletter and start posting here more regularly as I encounter new and exciting things worth sharing with the world. Stay tuned!
