At Work with The Ready - 23. Adopting a Product Mindset in Organizations

23. Adopting a Product Mindset in Organizations

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11/11/24 • 46 min

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At Work with The Ready

There are plenty of organizations that say they want to be “customer-focused”—but in practice? It’s easy to fall back on leader-driven opinions and assumptions about what customers really want. That’s especially true in big companies with entrenched processes and hierarchies that prioritize internal agendas. In those environments, staying aligned with customer needs can be an uphill battle—and organizations instead get stuck building solutions based on what leaders think customers should want, rather than what they need, leaving exciting opportunities on the cutting room floor.

In this episode, Rodney and Sam dig into what it actually takes to adopt a product mindset. From navigating a “hammer looking for nails” ethos to designing flexible solutions that adapt to actual user behavior, they unpack how to bring customer-centricity into daily practice—and what to do when you start to veer off course.

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Mentioned references:

Depthfinding
psych safety ep: AWWTR Ep. 20
experimentation ep: BNW Ep. 62
founder mode ep: AWWTR Ep. 22
Josh Bersin ep: The Future of HR Ep. 12 with Josh Bersin
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Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery:

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Mentioned references:

Depthfinding
psych safety ep: AWWTR Ep. 20
experimentation ep: BNW Ep. 62
founder mode ep: AWWTR Ep. 22
Josh Bersin ep: The Future of HR Ep. 12 with Josh Bersin
revealed preference

Previous Episode

22. Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode is the Wrong Question

If you’ve been on LinkedIn this past month, you’ve likely seen at least one post (or more than you’d care to) about “founder mode.”

Presented as a counter to “manager mode” (meant to represent highly bureaucratic leadership rife with micromanaging and delegation), “founder mode” is all about championing the pioneering, hands-on behaviors of startup founders scaled to organizations of any size. And sure, when these are the only choices, anything that’s not “manager mode” sounds like a good option.

But show us a binary, and we’ll respond by asking tough questions. This week Rodney and Sam dig into how “founder mode” actually shows up in practice, whether it causes more organizational harm than good, and what it means when real leadership seems to be left out of the discussion entirely.

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Mentioned references:

Diane from Cheers
Founder Mode, article by Paul Graham
either/or thinking
Kim Scott's op-ed about founder mode
"people positivity episode": AWWTR Ep. 21
"strategy episode": AWWTR Ep. 2
"futures thinking" BNW Ep. 34 with Kevin Kelly
Depthfinding
John Cutler
Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety
Andon cord

Next Episode

24. Ask Us Anything No. 3

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It’s mailbag time! And while we know we said this last time, we really mean it that this was probably the hardest group of questions we’ve dealt with on the show yet! Rodney and Sam get out their thinking caps and answer some questions from listeners like you about non-traditional organizational leadership, workplace dynamics around project capacity planning, and more.

Questions tackled:

Are great teams and strategies impossible without traditional leadership?
Can project capacity planning be done in a people-positive, complexity conscious way?
Why do traditional orgs bias towards convergent thinking, especially around annual planning?
How do you prioritize cross-functional initiatives between leadership and teams that avoids zombie projects and mutual disappointment?

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