Day 4 — Record of the 4 months spent as a PM after joining HENNGE.
Hello, my name is Miyaguchi and I am a Product Manager at HENNGE K.K.
I joined HENNGE in July 2022 and have just passed about 4 months.
As it will be the last month of this year before I know it, I would like to use this opportunity of participating in the HENNGE Advent calendar to describe my personal record of the 4 months roughly in 4 parts.
1. my surprise at HENNGE
2. working as a Product Manager at HENNGE
3. the biggest challenge: the fight against the English language
4. summary
1. Surprises at HENNGE
Before going into the main topic, I would like to write a little about my experience before joining HENNGE.
I was previously in charge of Customer Success, Project Management, Account Management and Product Marketing Management at a SaaS company for the BtoB construction industry, where I experienced the rapid growth of the company from 40 to 700 employees while moving from one department to another. I experienced the rapid growth of the company from 40 to 700 employees while moving from one department to another. When I finally became a ”jack-of-all-trades” in the President’s Office, I decided to try my hand at product management next, in order to strengthen my ability to lead customers to success, in order to further expand my basic skills in Customer Success career.
My current job title is Product Management, so It’s a little changing career. I expected that it would be difficult at first when I joined the company. I had expected that it would be difficult at first when I joined the company, but in fact, there were many more differences and GAPs that I did not expect in the individuality of HENNGE than I had imagined.
What GAPs did I feel?
Which of the following 4 points? I believe that positive and negative are two sides of the same coin, so I can’t say which is better.
・Bottom-up versus top-down.
Do intentions and target figures come down positively from management? Or do we raise our intentions to the management level?
First of all, I sensed a big difference in this ratio.
As I had heard before joining the company, I strongly feel that HENNGE’s corporate culture is bottom-up. Therefore, I feel that the speed and steps towards ‘the person’s will’ are also free.
・Transparency of information and straightforward communication
Perhaps because of the emphasis on diversity at HENNGE, I feel that there are many straightforward statements and requests, both in direct conversations and in messages. The need for dark skills, such as ingenuity in the nuances of communication, seems less important.
・Efforts to revitalise communication
HENNGE has a unique department called IRC (International Relations & Communication), which frequently organizes events aimed at stimulating communication. This is the first time I have had this experience and I enjoy participating in their events. The diversity of the members is also stimulating, with ideas outside of Japanese culture such as international lunches, secret Santa, etc.
・English (diversity) *This will be mentioned in part 3.
You can get a sense of the company’s personality just by looking at HENNGE’s website, but these differences surprised me at first and took some getting used to it! My early days started with these thoughts.
2. Working as a Product Manager at HENNGE
I am now in charge of the access security function as Product Manager.
I find the work interesting, but as I have come from a different industry,
I can’t say, “This is what makes being a PM at HENNGE so great and interesting!” I will try to write about what I have done in the past 4 months here.
First month
・Onboarding, surprised by the GAP as described in part 1.
・Industry knowledge is difficult to understand, too much katakana and feels hard to learn.
Second month
・Started intervening in PM projects, starting with small ones. I feel that it is still fun to consider the specifications and the path to be taken.
・I will suggest to the department what GAPs I felt in the first month that I think should be changed. I will suggest the points that I think should be changed in the department.
Third month
・The scope of responsibility for functional improvement increased and at the same time, I was worried about the lack of a sense of balance between business intervention and English language skills.
・In the Product Management workshop held by an external lecturer, I learnt the basics of the fundamentals again and was full of ideas for the PM flow.
Fourth month
・I made a personal decision to make proposals for functional improvements and to intervene more and more in the business to the extent that I could.
・I started to develop a passion for the product I was in charge of.
・What do I want to do at HENNGE in the future? Started to create ambitions.
・Realize what I can’t do and what I can make use of as my strengths.
How far do I see myself moving forward in six months or a year’s time?
I want to move forward without stopping, no matter what happens.
3. the biggest challenge: the fight against the English language
The official language of HENNGE is English. English has always been one of the topics I wanted to challenge myself with, so I am happy to do so. However, English is also the biggest hurdle for me in my current work.
Product Managers need to actively communicate with internal stakeholders, and meetings with the development team are naturally all in English. It’s not a roughly “Hello — how are you?” kind of thing, I need to be able to speak robust business English. As I have never worked in English in the past, this hurdle is a huge one for me.
What kind of battle?
In order to improve my speaking skills, which are essential for work, I have been taking advantage of HENNGE’s study support system and have been receiving an English version of personal training (coaching lessons) since my second month with the company. My personal coach meets with me once a week to feedback on my learning status and formulates a future learning plan, which I follow and study for three hours every day and report back to him.
Shadowing
One-minute speech
Online English conversation
English vocabulary
English grammar
English composition
Reading more than one book *only on weekends
TOEIC mock test *only on weekends
The above are the daily tasks, but that’s a lot, isn’t it?
When I first started the lessons, I was exhausted just by doing the tasks. Even after I got used to it, I sometimes tried to escape, for example, struggling to manage my motivation.
What I noticed when I was learning English is that there are small steps to improving your English language skills.
I don’t understand English → I understand a bit of English → I understand English fairly well → I can speak English!
This simple level-up is not a reality and my path was as follows.
Starting → knowing the regularity of sound conversion and being able to understand who is saying what word (Listening) → decreasing the lead time from listening to understanding the content (Listening) → being able to answer immediately using very simple words and grammar (Speaking) → being able to add flexibility to my answers little by little, and Can add supplements.
Towards achieving the goal, I am now at the point where I can “sort of chat a bit”. First of all, I need to be able to “express and explain my opinions” in meetings, which is not enough to get to the starting point. I think I will continue to climb up the stairs one by one.
As a quantitative result of this battle, I was able to raise my TOEIC L&R score from the 600 mark in my first month at the company to the 800 mark in three months, an increase of about 250 points. I am still taking coaching lessons and will continue to challenge myself to reach the goal of being able to use English without any problems in my work and will write another article when I achieve it.
4. Summary
It has been a long journey so far.
I don’t think I have been able to give colleagues a full account of my four months’ progress and what it has been like. As for this article, I feel happy to have moved to HENNGE and started a new challenge.
It is very interesting for me to be able to face new learning and to be in a situation where I find it difficult.
I still can’t quite believe that I am adding value to my work. However, I would like to be able to contribute to the growth of HENNGE in the future, and to achieve this I do not want to compromise on what is in front of me.
Also, as I wrote in the beginning, my ultimate goal is rooted in Customer Success, improving my “ability to lead customers to success”, so even now as a PM I want to be “closer to the customer position than anyone else”.
That’s all! Thank you for reading.
