Review

I love a short book, but this one didn’t have too much to offer. The key insight is that human skills are just as important as technical skills in product management. I fully agreed with with the stance on looking for cultural contributions and not cultural fit, but I don’t think that’s new thinking. I didn’t ‘applying continuous learning’ to your hiring process to be that enlightening either.

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Book Review and Summary: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo

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Key Takeaways

The 20% that gave me 80% of the value.

• It takes a special set of skills to continually experiment in times of stress and pressure. It requires a unique type of leadership and culture to empower teams to do just that
• Product managers need both Technical Skills and Human Skills, achieving a balance of both is important.
• Technical skills are the techniques and tools that product people use to solve the customer problem, deliver and support a product. Technical skills represent what a product person does (during ideation, creation, delivery and iteration).
• If you prioritise technical skills too much, you’ll end up with a lack of human skills in the practice.
• A job description provides great insight into how a company really thinks about a position. Design it well, and it will help build a great team.
• Emotional Intelligence: ability to recognise, understand and manage your own emotions and ability o recognise, understand and influence the emotions of others
• Dimensions of EQ as defined by Goleman:

• Consider a cross-functional role creation workshop. Build a role canvas as a group..

• Translate the canvas into a job description
• In interviews, behaviour-based questions are the way to go. They help you understand the behaviours that led to people’s accomplishments. The intentions behind the behaviours, and consequences and impact of the behaviours on others.
• Ask behaviour-based questions that relate to EQ
• Listen to what a candidate is saying and identify the intentions behind a behaviour
• Brainstorm behaviour based questions that will help you understand the candidates intentions and thinking behind their behaviours
• Get back together as a group and iterate on your interview questions and structure
• The work you do to change the hiring process, will change the makeup of your teams, how you work, the products you produce and the culture you’re all apart of
• The chain reaction of hiring well: Individuals → Team → Organisation

• Don’t hire for fit.Diversity is better for innovation:
• Inherent diversity: traits that you’re born with like gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation
• Acquired diversity: traits you gain from experiences, working in another county, creating products for customers not like you
• Don’t build a team of clones. You want your team to look like a puzzle not a stack. You want everyone to look different but fit together
• Look for culture contributions.
• Candidates need to fit your company values, and bring a cultural contribution.
• Add interview questions that help you check for value alignment…
• How to reflect on a candidate after an interview?
• Will they challenge the team’s current thinking and process?
• Does the candidate bring new energy to the table?
• Did you learn something new from the candidate?
• Remember to explain where your thinking is coming from. Was it something they said? Their body language?

• Constantly think about iterating on each stage of your hiring pipeline at any point in time
• Continually sense, respond and evolve to find the right person for the role
• Think of it as a cycle of continuous learning
• Have regular retro’s to speak to the team, review qualitative and quantitative insights and propose changes
• After you make a hire → reflect on the hire in a retro

Deep Summary

Longer form notes, typically condensed, reworded and de-duplicated.

• Think of product management as a practice (like practicing medicine).
• Selecting from their toolbox to solve a problem
• There’s a lot of experimentation and trial and error
• It takes a special set of skills to continually experiment in times of stress and pressure
• Requires a unique type of leadership and culture to empower teams to do just that
• Product managers need both Technical Skills and Human Skills

• Achieving a balance of human and technical skills is really important.
• Technical skills: techniques and tools that product people use to solve the customer problem, deliver and support a product. Technical skills represent what a product person does (as part of ideation, creation, delivery, iteration).
• If you prioritise technical skills too much, you’ll end up with a lack of human skills in the practice.
• A job description provides great insight into how a company really thinks about a position. Design it well, and it will help build a great team.
• Self Reflection Activities:
• How is the focus in your practice on Human vs Technical skills?
• What is holding you back from bringing the two dimensions into balance?
• What small changes could you make or experiments could you put in place, to move in the right direction?
• Emotional Intelligence: ability to recognise, understand and manage your own emotions and ability o recognise, understand and influence the emotions of others
• Dimensions of EQ as defined by Goleman:

Using the role canvas

• Consider a cross-functional role creation workshop
• Role Canvas

• Continue to contribute to the canvas overtime
• Translate it into a job description

Interviewing for human skills

• Behaviour-based questions → understanding the behaviours that led to people’s accomplishments. The intentions behind the behaviours, and consequences and impact of the behaviours on others.
• Ask behaviour-based questions that relate to EQ
• Tell me about a time when…
• you suggested something that someone disagreed with? What did you say?
• someone felt that you were unfair? What did you do?
• you decided to give up on a goal?
• you were distracted or preoccupied at work? What did you do?
• Tell me about the last time you were criticised at work? How did that go?
• Have you ever encountered someone at work who was unreasonable? What did you do?
• The interviewers need to listen to what a candidate is saying and identify the intentions behind a behaviour … dig further into the narrative until they can make a seemingly intangible skill like conflict resolution tangible.
• How does this person respond to conflict?
• Do they walk away or engage?
• If they engage, how?
• Do they want everyone involved to walk away from the encounter feeling good or are they looking for a clear winner or loser?
• Brainstorm behaviour based questions that will help you understand the candidates intentions and thinking behind their behaviours
• Get back together as a group and iterate on your interview questions and structure
• The work you do to change the hiring process, will change the makeup of your teams, how you work, the products you produce and the culture you’re all apart of
• McKinsey 7S Framework
• Strategy, Structure, Systems, Shared values, Skills, Style, Staff
• The chain reaction of hiring well: Individuals → Team → Organisation
• The Check Out Round: get everyone to choose one word to describe how they feel at the end of a meeting
• The Check-In Round: ask a question and get each person to answer in turn… to to gauge their energy and presence

Going beyond culture fit

• Don’t hire for fit. Too alike, have the same experiences and won’t challenge each other.
• Diversity is better for innovation:
• Inherent diversity: traits that you’re born with like gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation
• Acquired diversity: traits you gain from experiences, working in another county, creating products for customers not like you
• Companies with more inherent and acquired diversity perform better (capture more market share)
• Don’t build a team of clones. You want your team to look like a puzzle not a stack. You want everyone to look different but fit together
• Look for culture contributions.
• Candidates need to fit your company values, and bring a cultural contribution.
• Add interview questions that help you check for value alignment…
• How do your colleagues benefit from working with you?
• Tell me about a time when understanding someone else’s perspective helped you accomplish a task or resolve an issue?
• What’s your impression of our company’s culture and it’s values?
• How to reflect on a candidate after an interview?
• Will they challenge the team’s current thinking and process?
• Does the candidate bring new energy to the table?
• Did you learn something new from the candidate?
• Remember to explain where your thinking is coming from. Was it something they said? Their body language?

Adopting continuous learning

• Constantly think about iterating on each stage of your hiring pipeline at any point in time
• Continually sense, respond and evolve to find the right person for the role
• Think of it as a cycle of continuous learning
• Have regular retro’s to speak to the team, review qualitative and quantitative insights and propose changes
• After you make a hire → there should be a reflect retro to see if you’ve found a great candidate