Defining the Right Product Culture in High Growth Companies
In the past few jobs I’ve had (and excluding the time I started my own company), I’ve gotten in the habit of asking one question right off the bat. (OK, it’s really two questions in one.)
You see, whenever I would join a new company, I would spend much of my time meeting with engineering, sales, product management, and design marketing leaders and support. And I asked each of them: What is the one thing our product team does well, and one thing we should improve? The answer gave me a good handle on the organization’s “product culture.”
The Different Kinds of Product Culture…And Why Culture Must Align the Business Strategy
Product culture? Is that just company culture?
Not quite. Product culture starts with the fundamental beliefs surrounding product development, beliefs that ultimately guide how decisions are made. That’s what I wanted to discover with each new organization.
I have witnessed product cultures of many flavors. For example, I have seen product cultures that were…
Sales driven. This is where product roadmaps are nothing more than requests from top customers. This approach works in early-stage companies, or for products that are used by a handful of enterprise-sized companies. But addressing broader market opportunities becomes a huge imposition.
Engineering driven. This is where roadmaps are driven by technology innovation, led by engineering (of course). This approach works when you want to bring groundbreaking technologies to the market, but it might not be most appropriate when you want customers to love — really love — your products.
Executive-driven. In this culture, roadmaps and key decisions are led by a few executives. You see this when you have a strong vision-led founder, or an organization where the culture encourages risk-averse decision making…in other words, your typical hierarchical structure.
There are others, too. I‘m sure you’ve seen design-driven or data-driven cultures, for example. In the end, it matters less what is driving the product culture, and more about how the product culture aligns with the overall strategy.
Let me give you an example. Suppose you have a product that will need to scale to a mass market. There needs to be a degree of standardization to bring that product to a huge number of customers. But if you have a sales-driven culture on your hands, the company is going to struggle, because the culture will keep trying to tweak the product with every customer request.
Or, to take a simpler example, if your market requires nimbleness and rapid innovation and you have an executive-driven culture, you will likewise be doomed to fail.
(By the way, if you want some examples of how successful companies articulate their product culture, it’s worth taking a peek at Hubspot, Spotify, and AirBnb.)
So What is the “Right” Product Culture for Your Business?
So: Product culture can mismatch what the organization’s strategy and goals are when they go to market and serve customers. To determine the right product culture, product executives have to act as product managers…but here, the product is itself the “product culture.”
Now imagine: You are going to go to market with your product culture. What is needed? And what needs to change?
You can begin to answer these questions by following these steps:
1) Look at the overall strategy. Determine which product team’s values are currently over-served, rightly-served, and underserved. Then look at which are actually required to successfully execute the company’s overall strategy.
2) Do an audit, see what works, and identify gaps. Remember those conversations I had when starting a new job? That was the beginning of my audit. Go ahead and talk with peers in sales, marketing, engineering, product managers, design, support, finance, and so on. What are the most frequently demonstrated behaviors by the product team? How are product team members incentivized and rewarded? How do they make the decisions? What are the typical kinds of conflicts they run into? What are the major hindrances? What are the opportunities and must-haves to meet long-term business goals?
3) Identity key values. After doing the above, you will find some common themes around what values are alive and well in the organization, and which values are still required. Write top five values that you want each product member to exhibit, what the expected behavior is around that value, and how it will be measured and rewarded.
4) Align with executives and core product leadership. Remember, you can’t change everything on your own. Once you’ve done your homework, get leadership on board. You have to iterate the values until it aligns with your overall strategy and get exec buy-in.
5) Start making changes. There are several levers that a product leader has at their disposal for subtly changing the product culture. Take one or more of these and see if tweaking them gets you closer to the expected behaviors you’ve identified. Here are the levers where clear product values should make it easier for team members to do their daily jobs for great business and customer outcomes.
- Planning: Find the right balance between short-term and long-term outcomes
- Measurement: Shift the focus from output to outcomes
- Mindset: Are you customer-obsessed? Or solution obsessed?
- Pace: Find the right pace between slow-then-explosive “Big bang” to faster and more iterative
- Collaboration: Find the balance between “hands-off” and deep collaboration
- Risk Taking: Move from filling detailed specifications to a culture of rapid experimentation
- Decisions: Encourage people to make decisions based on data (and not fear and “CYAs,” for example)
A Few Final Tips
The above steps might make the process sound simple. It rarely is. Change happens slowly, and it can easily take 2–3 years for a new product culture to emerge.
That said, I’ve found a few tricks that can accelerate that change for you.
Get the CEO on board. The CEO can and should be, the most visible champion of the product culture. Get their buy-in, and get them involved in spreading the change!
Hire for your values. When hiring, don’t just hire for skills. Look for fit with the product team values you are trying to build.
Go for some early wins. Never underestimate the momentum you can build with some quick, positive results! Just be sure to balance short-term tactics with long-term ones.
Reward and recognize positive changes frequently. What gets rewarded gets repeated!
Put a change plan. Identity product culture champions, create a plan with clear, incremental outcomes. Make sure you have regular check-in, help as required, and celebrate success.
Let the detractors go. Not everyone will fit the new culture. Don’t let those people be an energy drain on the rest of the team — or languish in an environment where they are not happy. Have the hard conversation, give me regular feedback, and if needed let them go.
Do you have other ideas for building the right product culture? I’d love to hear them!
