You Have To Teach To Scale
Takeaway #1 from 2017
In my constant pursuit of knowledge (and as an anxious professional nerd), I like making sure that I have access and control over information that grows that knowledge. In my first year at STORM Technologies, I’ve secured this for myself by being in product management: all user data and research were processed through me — so much that people actually waited on me to updated dashboards and publish case studies. And I found nothing wrong with this setup. Why would I? My colleagues lined up for my output and it made me feel smart.
Flash forward to my second year at STORM, when I’ve been promoted to Product Head. My expectation was that I would get the chance to do deeper dives into our metrics and experiments because I’d have access to more data and broader, richer contexts. My reality was that I didn’t have time for it. There were too many things I had to be on top of that I can’t block off half a week to stare at data anymore. I decided that what I had to do was to scale myself to scale the business. And that makes sense, right?
Wrong. By scaling myself, I set it up so that I would make bigger decisions, try bigger experiments, handle bigger data. However, my monopoly on these made me become a bottleneck, and ultimately made me realize that I held learning for ransom by doing so. I felt terrible because this also meant that I held the company’s growth as hostage by enforcing this monopoly. I tried to justify it for a bit with “but no one else can do what I do!” and then it hit me: who’s fault is that?
I love what I do too much that I didn’t want to share it with anyone. However, being in a seat where you’re expected to put the good of the company above your own taught me that I should. Scaling and teaching myself… the business benefit of that pales in comparison to the effect of scaling and teaching everyone else.
Teach your successors.
I was under the impression that I was way too new and too young to think about preparing a replacement. It turns out that the sooner I taught my fresh grad hire the ropes of the business, the tools we use, and the framework we operate with, the sooner and easier it was for me to scale myself, to free myself enough to develop the skills needed for me to also scale the company.
Through constant coaching, I am easing in my associate product manager or APM (and on some days, my UX designer, my marketing specialist, and our customer success managers) to make the decisions I would make without me. The idea is that the business runs as if I were there for every meeting and discussion even when I’m not (because I’m still not the biggest fan of those, even if they do serve a purpose).
It’s challenging, consciously imparting contexts and laying out the thought processes for them to understand and learn from. Note that this is especially difficult for a person so used to giving out marching orders! However, I remind myself that I am playing the long game: if they’re ready to replace me, then I’m also ready to take on other responsibilities — more strategic ones (and there are always more responsibilities, let’s not kid ourselves).
Teach your bosses.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me just how much people on the C-level depended on the context that I provided, but it did. In my realm of psychology concepts and data on user behavior (a realm I don’t necessarily share with most of the executive team), I know that there’s a dangerous room for misinterpretation if I don’t explain them well. I have space to make my own tough calls for my product, but the principles behind the shots called aren’t always detailed and reported back.
My worry stems from the knowledge that I can’t be present for all decisions and promises made. I’m not there for every board meeting, client negotiation, investor call, or applicant interview happening. I know that I shouldn’t be. I also know that if the people I work with understand the framework my product operates with and the insights from its data, then I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.
Teammates gaining that knowledge, that’s on me. If I intentionally leave out details to cover my own ass, if I misinterpret the metrics to look good, if I’m using the wrong research to justify my actions, then my bosses don’t represent my product realistically. And I don’t need to tell you just how catastrophic it is for a business to be disillusioned about itself.
If you teach your bosses well, they’ll be able to bring those learnings with them everywhere they go, and these are places you yourself aren’t usually able to go to. Imagine being able to scale your product to reach heights you can’t reach so easily in your own realm.
Teach your market.
More important than anything you can do internally is educating your market. In the HR tech scene, it is astonishingly difficult to make the connection between product and industrial-organizational psychology concepts clear. I started out thinking that there’s so much to learn from our clients, but now I know that there is also so much that we can teach them.
Something I truly admire with the way we do things at STORM is we don’t just sell-implement. We consult-sell-implement-consult. That’s obviously a lot of effort, but the payoff is HUGE if it’s done correctly: you are basically creating your own power users. These are users who know exactly why your product is valuable and how it works to address their pain points.
Educated users will talk about you, will talk about how your product makes so much sense, will make noise for you, and will advocate for you. The market will listen to them, and your market will grow. All because you took the time to teach them.
This will all take so much time. I spend at least an hour a week with my APM for coaching. I had a sleepless week just to prepare materials for learning huddles with our client servicing team. I pulled an all-nighter to cobble up a report for an executive meeting. These are all stuff I could have skipped if I wanted status quo for 2018.
But I have higher targets, bigger features, and a grander outlook for the landscape STORM is in. Scaling is not the solution to this, scaling is the goal. Teaching is how I achieve that.
Disclaimer: Although I do work for STORM Technologies, the views expressed on this medium do not necessarily reflect those of the company or any of its employees.
