Control What You Need To…And Nothing More

P.S. You can read my latest article now: What Exactly Is a Product?

As a blindingly successful businessman, Andrew Carnegie knew a thing or two about how to manage. So when he said ‘great leaders can’t do everything themselves,’ he probably knew what he was talking about.

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.” ~Andrew Carnegie

Following Carnegie’s advice is more difficult than you might think. The why is simple: As a Product Lead, you were likely once an engineer or designer. You have deep experience and a vision of how things are made. So, getting over-involved in your team’s tasks — yes, micromanaging — is as tempting as a cold lake on a hot day.

“Micromanage, and your team will never grow beyond you!”

Not only is micromanagement a temptation, it’s an innate tendency. By nature, humans think linearly. It’s served us fantastically for thousands of years. Micromanagement jives with this linear penchant. But venture-backed startups? They need to grow exponentially! Micromanage, and your team will never grow beyond you!

Instead of doing your team’s work, you need to act as a mini; CEO. Sure, you catch things that threaten to fall through the cracks, but your main job is creating a structure in which your team can deal with hiccups and hardships. You don’t force solutions, you facilitate them.

This structure and the successful products created within it begin with a terrific team culture. Creating the right culture takes time and thought, but it’s incredibly necessary, even if others balk against your standards.

“Space is to great ideas what butter is to baking — essential.”

A great culture starts with freedom to create. Think back to when you were an engineer or designer; did you want to come into work every day just to put your hands to the keyboard or push pixels? Nope. And neither does your team. You need to give your team members space to create. Space is to great ideas what butter is to baking — essential. Micromanaging will kill this space, and the innovation and culture that comes with it.

Once you’ve created this space, protect it as though it were an lifetime supply of platinum. Instead of doing mockups and writing user stories, bring your team together to conquer problems. Once your team is together, don’t make like a doctor and give them solutions to swallow. Instead, act as a facilitator. Help your team find the right solutions themselves. Nothing is more powerful than a team that profoundly understands the space they are in, the problem they’re solving, and the solution they’re building. It beats your written user stories any day!

Let’s use an example to see this advice in action: Say your analytics show users aren’t converting into subscriptions. Your tendency is likely to look at data, maybe talk to a few users, and then, write user stories with solutions.

What you should actually do is much different. Round up your team for a brainstorm. Look at the data together, and collect everyone’s thoughts on why conversion is low. This can be done with a sticky note season (see this post) where everybody takes 2–3 minutes to jot down ideas that you then amass on a whiteboard and cluster into like groups.

For our example, let’s assume the majority of your team thinks UX is the issue. Check. Next, do a six-up session (more on that here) where everyone takes 5 minutes to sketch a storyboard solution to your UX dilemma. Have everybody present their solutions and follow up with a second round of six-ups so folks can consolidate their ideas. Pick the ideas everybody likes best and have your team build them.

“The collective brainpower of your team will make your ideas look like grade-school grammar.”

This example may be simple, but follow its format and the results will wow you; the collective brainpower of your team will make your ideas look like grade-school grammar. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. Think of yourself as a coach for a sports team. You give guidance, but you don’t play the game for your team.

On teams, everyone is accountable for both victory and failure. But if you learn how stifle micromanagement and let individual talents shine, your team will get closer to making the latter a thing of the past.

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Thanks to Brooks Hassig, Victor Matthieux, Drew Moxon, Darren Cassidy, Hannah Rothstein and Aline Lerner