Isn’t That My Manager’s Job?

Isn’t That My Manager’s Job? When I work with product leaders on product strategy, one of the most common responses I hear is, “Isn’t that my manager’s job?” Sometimes it comes as a complaint. Sometimes it’s a genuine question. Either way, it usually reflects the same belief: strategy belongs somewhere above them. On paper, they are not entirely wrong. It does sound like something a manager should provide. But there are a few reasons it rarely works that way. Even in organizations where leadership does bring a good strategy to the table (and not a generic direction sometimes mistaken for strategy), product leaders still have a major responsibility in bringing the strategy down to earth. Not by translating it to a roadmap and executing accordingly, the responsibility is at the strategy level itself. But if you think it’s someone else’s job, you don’t do your own strategic job. You wait. You don’t want to step on your manager’s toes. You are not sure what to do. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠ https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠ https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠ https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

• 0:15Speaker 00

  When I work with product leaders on product strategy, one of the most common responses I hear is, "Isn't that my manager's job? That's outside of my pay grade." And sometimes it comes in the form of a complaint, but other times it's actually a genuine question. Either way, it usually reflects the same belief. Strategy belongs somewhere else above the product owners where they are. On paper, they're not entirely wrong. It does sound like something a manager should provide, but there are a few reasons it rarely works. It rarely works that way. Even in organizations where leadership does bring a good strategy to the table and not a generic direction, sometimes mistaken for a strategy, product leaders still have a major responsibility

• 1:00Speaker 00

  in bringing the strategy down to earth, not by translating it to a roadmap and executing accordingly. The responsibility is at the strategy level itself. But if you think it's someone else's job, then you don't know your own strategic job. You wait. You don't want to step on your manager's toes. You're not sure what to do. The right mindset is that you need to partner with your manager on strategy. But to do that, let's take a look at why most managers don't simply give in to or give it to you to begin with. They don't want you to have it. Let's talk about it. The first reason is simple. Not because people disagree, not because organizations are messy, just because strategy and the thinking of strategy itself is hard.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  Building a strategy means holding a lot of information in your head at the same time, looking for patterns, exploring different theoretical directions and assumptions, connecting things that don't seem connected yet. It is deep cognitive work, and frankly, it's exhausting.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  I remember when I moved from being on a team that helped develop a portal for trust and safety to becoming one of the lead system design people in the organization and I actually worked fewer hours. I didn't leave early because work was over or because I had to rush home. I left when I felt like I couldn't physically think anymore. My brain was simply fried for the day it was done. That surprised me at the time. But I see the same thing whenever I finish a product strategy session with one of my clients. Even when strategy is your full-time job, you don't have unlimited capacity for it.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  You can't produce hours and hours of high-quality strategic thinking every single day, inside and out. That's the first reason strategy rarely follows or flows down from the top. The people above you are dealing with the same cognitive limits. We're all just people after all. The second reason is a little less obvious. Most managers, CEOs, and founders have never actually seen good product strategy up close. They've never experienced what changes within a team has one versus when one doesn't. Product strategy is surprisingly difficult to recognize because it often looks like clarity rather than a document. And often, when you've never seen it, you really can't imagine it.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  You cannot understand the strength. You cannot tell it apart from a plan or a goal, let alone guide someone else to do it and to build it. So what gets handed down instead is usually a direction, a business goal or a priority. And people mistake that sometimes for a true strategy, not because anyone is keeping a real thing from you or hiding it, but because that may genuinely not have, they may, they may not have had it to give. They may not have thought of it themselves. It may not recognize it even when you bring it back to them. So the third reason is the most powerful one. They hired experienced, capable people so they would not have to do all this and own it all themselves.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  In other words, they hired you for a reason. The work that has been handed to you to deliver is expected to be delivered to them. I mean, it just, it makes sense. That can sound like trust, but it often doesn't feel warm like trust. It doesn't always come with a, we believe in you. It comes with a, it's on you now kind of attitude. And they will still watch for the result and they will still judge it and it will still be unhappy if it isn't what they expected. Even if they never fully explained what they expect in the first place. A lot of them suffer from ickywissy, I'll know when I see it. Sometimes it's not real confidence in your ability to shape the strategy. It's simply a decision to let you run with it and see what happens. And that's the lonely part.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  You're thrown into the deep water, expected to carry the thinking and measured on the outcome without much scaffolding to hold you up or to support you. So the answer is not, let's wait for the strategy to arrive from above. And it's not to take it and run with it on your own, hoping that you read their mind correctly. It's to do the thinking, then bring it to them. You carried a strategic work because that's the part nobody handled, handed you formally.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  They, they bring a context to you that you don't always see, the constraints in the final call. And this is where you worry about stepping on someone else's toes quietly falls away. Doing this work is not taking your manager's job. It's doing the job that they actually needed and cannot handle and we're not ready to make. You're not just competing with them. You're giving them one thing that they were missing to begin with, and that's a heart that counts and, and, and, and a mind that can get their head around the work and can do the thing for them. You know, that's going to do it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a topic you want us to discuss, learn more at agiledad.com. We'd love to hear from you. And as always, we encourage you to stay healthy, stay well and stay agile, my friends. Until next time, do take care. Bye now.