How I landed in Product, continued
The barriers I had to break through. Some mental, some societal. All bullsh*t.
Missed the beginning? Start with the first part and then read this.
Breaking barrier #4: “You’ll never be a VP”
I previously shared my favorite way of being promoted, which also happened to be my first promotion to people management, ever. That was almost 20 years ago.
A few years into my career pivot into product management, I joined a new company. And experienced my least favorite way of being promoted.
By the numbers:
<60 days. I had been at the company.
0 direct reports. I was hired as an individual contributor to do product strategy. I was looking forward to a break from leading large initiatives and teams.
60 seconds. The amount of time my manager spent telling me he was being promoted, describing the change to me, scribbling the new org structure on the whiteboard, telling me he was putting a team under me.
<1 day. How long I had to consider the change and accept my new role.
I still remember the name of the conference room he had shuffled me into: “Don’t Stop Believing.” I felt a wave of disbelief, standing there in the very orange room. I was given time to say one thing. “So is this a promotion? I was just hired as a Sr. Strategy PM.” To which he responded, half irritated and half hyper, “This was always the plan. I hired you because of your experience leading people and to make you a manager in my new org.” A Director-level responsibility and accountability promotion without the official title or a pay raise. I’ve stopped believing this ever happens in tandem.
A few months later, he was fired. The announcement email was unconcerned with optics and told the world he violated our “No Jerks” policy. No belief needed there. Everyone had known that for a while.
The rest of my time at that company was a rollercoaster. In <5 years, I had six manager changes. To give you an idea of how long it would take to describe all the twists and turns, reorgs, promotions, lateral moves, politics, everything … when I interviewed for a new company, the interviewer spent almost three hours unpacking those years with me. No joke. Three hours. She concluded that the Customer Success IC role I had applied for would bore me to tears and I needed to be in a senior product leadership position, at a fast-paced, larger company. Fine, I’ll go do that. ;-)
During one of the many reorgs and manager changes, I was describing to a senior leader my next career goal: Vice President. I was a Sr. Director and VP seemed unattainable. But so had getting above $200k and I achieved that already. I had a mental block around the title, though. I think partly because I figured once I reached VP level, I was set for the rest of my career. I could be happy going from company to company as a VP of Product. Maybe I could try out that thing I saw so many VPs doing throughout my career: Coasting while collecting a big paycheck. (This is facetious, by the way. And my view of coasting has changed recently thanks to Shreyas Doshi. A short stint as a Coaster can be necessary during your career.)
So I was asking for this senior leader’s advice and support to grow my career and get to that next VP level. Their response?
“You’ll never be a VP. Unless you know all the right people and the local VCs, which I do.”
They said it not in a “And I’ll use my connections to help you” way but a “I have the secret and you never will” way.
F*ck that.
Within a year, I made VP.
What’s next?
A few years into my career, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Second in Command: The Misunderstood Role of the Chief Operating Officer.”1 The article likely jumped out at me because I am the second child and have spent my whole life feeling misunderstood. (As you do, as a middle child.)
I sat in my blue-walled bedroom and thought, Some day, I’ll be COO. It was breaking the rule of wanting more but it wasn’t something crazy. Something like wanting to be CEO. That’d be absurd.
Fast forward a decade, I realized that somewhere along the way, I had stopped moving toward a more operational C-suite role and wanted more. I loved being a product leader and thought, Wait a minute. Why stop at VP? Why not go for Chief Product Officer?
I recently completed the year-long Kellogg School of Management’s Chief Product Officer program while applying for CPO roles. I landed with a Series A startup as their first dedicated Head of Product (in startup land where titles are, well, complicated).
I’m open to what’s next. I’m not in a rush and I also know that I likely won’t be doing what I’m doing now in 10 years. I’m working on planting seeds for the next chapter. And a big part of that is giving back. Speaking of which . . .
Why I Love Product
Product, first and foremost, is a love of serving others.
The “love and loyalty to your brand” also creates “love and loyalty” between humans. It’s why one of my favorite product books is Lovability by Brian de Haaff.
I love the challenge of being in product for these reasons:
You are forced to create a balance between curiosity and confidence.
You are empowered to recommend (and in some cases make) critical business decisions and entrusted with major investments.
You work across every single department in the company.
You get to talk to customers every week.
You hone more soft skills than you knew existed.
You get to make people happy.
You develop resiliency because you also make people unhappy.
You work with a team to co-create something out of nothing.
You learn how to lead teams and then how to lead yourself.
You learn it’s okay to fail.
My career has had more ups and downs than I ever imagined possible. I also love what I’ve built because of the barriers I’ve broken. My wish for every one of you reading is that you can break through your own barriers and create your dream life, too.
https://hbr.org/2006/05/second-in-command-the-misunderstood-role-of-the-chief-operating-officer