Product management lessons from a Siberian husky
What can a Siberian husky possibly teach me about product management, you wonder.
You will be surprised - there are so many product management (and life!) lessons that I’ve learned from Piper, our Siberian husky. Starting with — the importance of having a beginner’s mind, connecting with your tribe, solid negotiation skills, the importance of “warming up” before a product launch, taking the time to rest (yay, innovations sprints!), and many many more.
Below are some key lessons that can help you go from a good to a great PM (Product Manager):
1. Start every day with a beginner’s mind
When you have worked for a company created by Marc Benioff and run by the likes of Keith Block and Bret Taylor, you are bound to hear the term “beginner’s mind” at least a few times. It was spring 2020, and suddenly we were in the middle of a global pandemic. Salesforce started to have weekly calls to bring the whole company together and keep the morale up.
The term “beginner’s mind” kept coming up — “We must approach our business, our customers and our products with a beginner’s mind”, they said. Admittedly, I did not fully grasp what that meant. Does it mean you are not afraid of failure? Does it mean you should bring more fresh product or market ideas to the table?
It was not until one fine sunny morning, a few months later, when I was on a walk with Piper, that it dawned on me what a “beginner’s mind” truly means.
Piper is a very intelligent and curious dog. Every morning when she steps outside for her walk, she looks at everything around her with fresh eyes. “What is that animal hopping around with a bushy tail, omg, that looks delicious”, she thinks, looking a squirrel as if for the first time in her life, and licking her tongue just a little ;)
“Another dog, unbelievable! Hello friend!”, this one is what generates the side tongue (if you are a dog owner you know what this means :)). And then there is reading the ‘pee-mail’ — sniff, sniff, sniff. Again, with SO much excitement, like she has never walked that path before, and never observed this environment before.
She observes everything without judgement, as if re-discovering the whole world around her, for the very first time.
Piper’s natural instincts are to know and appreciate the joy in small things, to not make assumptions, to look at everything with a clear mindset, free of bias, and learn something new every day. Why? Because nature teaches you to see through your blindspots, to help you survive and thrive in your environment.
You might find a new way to chase a bird, notice a flower you never smelled before, find a delicious new acorn or tree-nut, meet a new furry friend, or discover a threat from a cat (or a coyote, depending on where you live :-))!
That, I realized, is a “beginner’s mind”:
It could be a threat from a coyote or a new competitor, finding those delicious tree-nuts or discovering a new customer base, understanding a fellow dog’s problems (through the pee-mail :)),or understanding your users true pain points to build and improve your product.
You will only find and see these opportunities and threats in time if you develop the ability to look at your customers, your users, your product, your roadmap, your engineering team, your product strategy and everything else with a fresh eyes, aka “a beginner’s mind” every single day. It is how new, big ideas are born and you open the windows to your idea-deprived office and let in the sunshine of innovation!
Originating from Japanese Zen Buddhism, the term ‘Beginner’s Mind‘ (or ‘shoshin’) refers to a paradox: the more you know about a topic, the more likely you are to close your mind to further learning.
Piper has taught me that instead of calling myself an “expert” like everyone does nowadays, or behaving like one, I must keep an open mind and stay humble and curious, no matter how much I know on a topic, for that is the path to continued learning.
2. Be happy to connect with your tribe
Ever since I started working in Corporate America, my first job being in technology in an investment bank, fresh out of a Masters in Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, almost 20 years ago, something was unsettling for me.
It seemed like the culture of most companies was based on proving you are better than the next person, so you would get promoted before them, or get a bigger bonus than them. But if you can never let your guard down, and you are always on the edge, trying to prove you are better than the rest, it is no wonder that happiness at work becomes a far fleeting thing.
It is very difficult to have a so-called “beginner’s mind”, if you are constantly subjected to a non-violent version of the hunger games at work every day! 😀 (Another post to come soon on that very important topic: company culture).
Luckily, I’ve also had the chance to be in some amazing teams during my 18 year career in tech and product. At one of such companies, I finally met someone in my team who was not competitive, and they made me realize what it’s like to be in a truly collaborative team environment. I also realized at that moment the kind of leader I wanted to be, and have done my best to lead teams with this positive mindset ever since.
I’ve often wondered what the workplace would be like, if we unlearned the old ways, and learned new ways of connecting with each other.
Instead of always competing with others, and falling victim to the corporate hunger games, what if we just competed against ourselves, and no one else? And what if we thought of our team as a community, instead of bulls in an arena? As a leader, what if we work on cultivating a culture of collaboration instead of competition? And ensure that incentives to success and promotion are built in accordingly. What would our workplace look like then?
Once again, Piper showed me the way.
She is the opposite of many of the overly competitive teams I have worked in. Instead of seeing another fellow dog and thinking, “Omg, this dog is cuter than me”(i.e. insecurity in your own skills or knowledge), or “I’m a bigger dog than you, get out you little dog!” (aggressive behavior which rejects diverse and marginalized team members), Piper is simply ecstatic and absolutely thrilled to play with her fellow dogs, no matter what their breed, color, size, speed or nature!
It is the highlight of her week, just to hang out and have fun with her tribe at the dog park. She is the unofficial ‘greeter’ of the park, excited every time the gate opens and a new friend walks in — she is there to welcome them in and make them comfortable :)
So there you have it — Product Management/Leadership Lesson # 2:
Be happy to connect with your tribe! Why? Because it is fun, you can build lasting connections due to the shared challenges and experiences you have, you can be happier at work, and grow your skills and knowledge by learning from others!
Be it the project and program management community I was a part of when I first started my career in NYC, or the product community I am now a part of here in Silicon Valley, finding my tribe, i.e. like-minded fellow PMs has been a key part of my success, and my happiness at work.
3. Sharpen those negotiation skills!
Negotiation skills are something we can definitely learn from Piper — she is that stubborn husky after all.
It is 8:30 am on a Tuesday and we have just returned from our walk. I offer Piper some milk bones, or the treat that is sort of like a toothbrush for dogs. She licks it just a bit, and then looks away with a disappointed face. She waits when I go back in the garage, to see in case I get her something better. Often, she risks even getting no treat, than getting a sub-par treat!
When it comes to food, Piper is extremely determined and patient. Her bowl could be full with dog food at dinner time (say, 7 pm), and yet, she waits till about 8 or 9 pm to see if there is “better” food, hopefully leftovers of that grilled chicken pizza, or some other delicious human food. Sometimes she gets lucky, and enjoys those decadent left overs. Sometimes she doesn’t, and in that case she eats the dog food at 8 or 9 pm finally.
Negotiation is a key part of the Product Manager or Product Leader’s job.
You might be negotiating the development time with a developer (“if we remove this feature from the release, can we deliver this sooner?”), or you might be negotiating the go-live or release timeline with your leadership team, or negotiating a feasible vs ideal design with your UX designer.
It is a key skill to have in your product management toolkit, and Piper again scores here with offering some invaluable lessons in negotiation tactics ;)
4. Never forget to warm up, and be ready before you launch
I’ve seen products fail often for reasons where they could have tested more thoroughly, or launched to a smaller market or user base, or simply, it was not ready for the launch.
Well, Piper offers many lessons in this — she never leaves the house for a walk before she has stretched at least 4–5 times and shaken it all off, and is fully ready for the walk! She runs back and forth around the house in excitement; to prepare herself, and warm up those muscles.
One lesson learned in my experience as a product leader, and thinking about “warming up”, is the importance of “dog-fooding” :-) For instance, you often have the opportunity to run your company’s business using your own products, and then showcase that to the customer to as your best case study or success story!
For example, you are building a sales app, test it out with your internal sales team, and see if they are willing to use it, and what issues they run into, and then fix the big issues before your MVP or first launch. The best part is that these internal case studies speak for themselves, and marketing (or product marketing) can help you package them for external customer calls!
There are also may other forms of “warming up” — you could think about prototyping, or beta-testing, or creating an early adopter program for a small set of customers to try out your product before it launches to a wider market. You could also think about a trial process, so that customers can try your product before they buy, and when they buy, they are more likely to renew.
Whatever form of “warm-up” works for your product team, identify those early, build that into your launch or release timeline, and it will help you feel more ‘ready’ for your launch, and help increase your chances of success!
5. Take time to rest
Piper has a “work hard, play hard”, or rather “play hard, rest soft” kind of mentality or attitude 😀 What this means is, when she is playing tug of war with you, she is right there 100%, even with just that last tiny bit of rope left in her mouth, she does not give up, and no matter how strong you are, she almost always wins.
She wins not just because she is stronger, but because she is determined, and that determination comes from having a balance between playing and resting.
When she is tired, you could entice her with the most interesting toy, she will not give up her resting time, and guards it preciously. My son and I call this resting as “the bagel pose” 😀 She does not feel guilty when she rests, for her, it is just, well, resting time! And it is this resting time that enables her to enjoy her play time to the fullest.
She also changes her habits based on the summer vs winter, playing a lot more in the summer, and staying up late at night enjoying the summer breeze or chewing a rope. But in the winter she conserves her energy, gets her minimum exercise, but never overexerts herself.
What can we as product managers or leaders learn from this? Well, it turns out, a lot.
First of all, Product Management is an exhausting, cyclical type of role, especially if you are early in your career and doing the day-to-day PM work of writing user stories, planning for the next development cycle (sprint) and so on. The minute you deliver and ship an amazing, new, big, complex product to customers, you then have to spend that same afternoon or late evening preparing for the backlog grooming or spring planning session the next morning.
It can seem like a never-ending job, early in your product career. And the pressure from leaders does not make it easier.
“There is a team of engineers ready to build your product, and of course you MUST at all times give them features to build, they can NEVER be idle, or you’re not doing your job as a PM”, I was told. Oh, how wrong they were in telling me this!
After many years as a product manager, and then in leadership roles leading product teams, I realized that burnout is very real. And this mentality of churning out new features non-stop often creates burnout for the engineering team and the product team. There are a lot of mid-career PMs who are so eager to do more strategic work (and would be really good at it!), but are never given the permission or the time, due to leadership pressure to churn out features.
Rest does not decrease productivity, in fact, it increases productivity and fuels innovation!
Rest does not mean just giving your product managers or engineers the week off after the product launch (if you can do that, I certainly support it!). But rest can be planned in many different ways.
Here’s an example — fit an “innovation sprint” in each quarter — I was amazed when we did this how many innovative, and impactful ideas were generated by the engineering team!
Another way that rest can happen is simply focusing on technical debt. It might not be the most exciting work, but is useful and needed, and can sometimes be more restful after a large product launch (as long as it is not too complex or tedious).
Rest can also come in the form of volunteer time off, for example, plan the day after the big product launch to volunteer in person or virtually as a team. Go spend some time in nature as a team, maybe help with the river clean-up or at an animal rescue center, or a soup kitchen, whatever is your jam.
And of course, rest can come in the form of fun — going out to dinner as a team, or go play a friendly volleyball game!
The best (most high performing + happy) teams are teams that take time to rest, build good relationships, have fun, give back to the community together, and feel connected to do impactful work for customers together.
To recap — you can fuel creativity & innovation, and infuse happiness in your product career by — having beginner’s mind, connecting with your tribe, sharpening your negotiation skills, “warming-up’”, and making sure you and your team take the time to rest.
There you have it — those are some key husky lessons to help you go from a good PM to a great PM. I hope this brightened your day just a bit, and helped shed some insight into product management and leadership.
