Why Perfection Won’t Get You Anywhere by Antonia Landi - Issue #23
This is a guest post by Antonia Landi which explores how striving for perfection brings so many problems and how we need to make a mind shift. I suggest following Antonia on Linkedin where she is always sharing her thoughts and ideas.
Why Perfection Won’t Get You Anywhere
In many aspects of our lives, we strive for perfection. The perfect house, the perfect partner, the perfect getaway… and since we spend so much of our lives doing it, we look for the perfect job, too.
Looking at product management specifically, the quest for the perfect job seems to be a never ending one. A 2020 benchmarking report by PMF stated that the vast majority of product people surveyed - a staggering 78% - were either actively looking for or open to a new role.
My own anecdotal evidence suggests this trend is not dying down, either. Most product managers and owners I have spoken to in the past year are unhappy in their role and are looking to make a change. For some, this means sending out CVs to their dream companies - for others, it means leaving product management altogether.
A significant number of people even start questioning their own abilities; turning their unhappiness with their work environment inward, trying to figure out if it’s all their fault after all.
So what is it about us product people that seems to make us chronically unhappy? Do we just collectively suffer from ‘grass is greener’ syndrome? Or is there something more sinister at play?
The pitfalls of being a self-starter
In order to answer that question, we need to take a look at how most of us get into product management in the first place. Even though certifications and courses have become more abundant in recent years, most of us are still self-taught.
As aspiring or young PMs it’s very likely that we all read the same books - after all, there is a clear hierarchy of learning materials out there that we all get to know and eventually internalise in our quest for product management knowledge. These books act like our bible, becoming core reference materials and topics of discussion.
And they have clear benefits, too. When you’re just starting out, you have no idea what ‘good’ product management looks like, and it’s important to understand the basic frameworks that make up a well-functioning team. You need a north star; something that can guide you on your journey to product management mastery.
But all too often, these resources are being misused and misunderstood. Their content becomes gospel, the be-all and end-all of product management - if you’re not doing it this way, you’re doing it wrong. Instead of being inspirational and - let’s be honest - theoretical, PMs use it as a measuring stick of just how good they are, and just how ‘well’ they’re doing product.
The reality is - and I cannot stress this enough - that for the vast vast majority of us, that’s simply not what our work life looks like. Most of us don’t work in silicon valley, most of us will never work at a FAANG company (that’s Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google for the uninitiated - companies that are perceived as the pinnacle of tech), most of us have to deal with feature factories and bosses who don’t understand the value of ‘good’ product management.
Perfection vs Reality
Are these product textbooks wrong for teaching us what the best case scenario looks like? Absolutely not. Do they tell the whole story? Not even close.
The harm isn’t done in teaching the theory of best practises and state of the art frameworks. Real harm only comes from pretending that that’s all there is to it. Not acknowledging the struggles most of us face in our everyday reality of being a product person is what’s making us deeply unhappy.
Not acknowledging the fact that for most of us, working at a ‘true’ product-led company is out of reach is what’s making us think there’s something wrong with us - that we’re not ‘real’ product managers unless we’re doing it exactly how it’s taught.
So how do we bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to go? And how do we stop the newer generation of product managers from becoming just as disenchanted in a few months’ time?
Well, there’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that it won’t be easy - but the good news is that we can all do something about it.
Taking It Into Our Own Hands
The truth is that it’s up to us - no matter our years of experience, our title, the perceived prestige of our company - to provide the product management community with honesty. Only by sharing our own experiences - not sugar coating our day-to-day for others but allowing ourselves to speak freely - can we help others in similar situations.
Because ‘find a new job’ isn’t always feasible, because ‘stop calling yourself a PO if you want to be a PM’ isn’t realistic, because ‘get a new boss’ is not something we can control.
What we can control is how we choose to interact with our reality. Most of us don’t have the mandate to overturn an entire company’s corporate culture, and none of us should be expected to. But we can take small actions informed by our peers to affect meaningful change.
Naturally, this is not an easy thing to do. It will take a lot of time, and a lot of cumulative effort. It might feel like an impossible battle, and sometimes it will be. It might feel like a lost cause, and sometimes the only thing you can do is leave.
Product Management Is Hard, And That’s The Truth
But nobody ever said product management would be easy. Just because our textbooks paint a rosy picture doesn’t mean you’ll ever get to see it. As product people it’s on us to take charge of less than ideal conditions. And for that, sharing practical, hands-on advice is much more effective than reading yet another bestseller.
There is immense value in speaking to someone who’s done it all before - someone who, incidentally, isn’t trying to sell you a book or a subscription to their exclusive blog. Someone in a similar role to you, at a similarly sized company, with similar pitfalls. A peer, not a professor.
Resilience is a core skill of product management, but being resilient doesn’t mean we simply give ourselves over to all that is happening to us. Resilience means accepting our current conditions and working within those constraints to improve them.
Of course it would be easier to find a company that does it all right, be dropped into a product management wonderland of perfect processes and true customer centricity. But does that wonderland actually really exist?
Or do we have to make it ourselves?
Progress, Not Perfect
Let me be brutally honest: There is a microscopically fine line between affecting meaningful change and real, life-altering burnout. And the cruellest part of it is: The more you care, the more likely you are to burn out.
The hard thing about becoming better at ‘doing product’ is that it’s not just about you. You might be the greatest and most skilled PM in all of Europe, but if you work at a deeply sales-led organisation that has no intention of changing you won’t be able to hone your craft, no matter how hard you try.
Product management is often not just product management. It’s team management, stakeholder management, expectation management, and self-management, too. Which is why it’s so important to understand that the circumstances in your organisation will never be able to change overnight. But with the right support and the right mindset, they can change. Little by little, with a lot of love and care.
Popular product management theory taught us that there is one irrefutably perfect way of doing product, and that if you’re not there, you’re ‘not a real PM’. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Change is hard, and change takes a long time. But if we all collectively agree to make our situation a little better today than it was yesterday, incorporate a little more customer feedback tomorrow than we did today, do a little more guerrilla research next week than we did this week, we’ll ultimately create a better working environment for all of us.
Truly product-led. Truly customer-centric. One day at a time.
Follow Antonia on LinkedIn for more insights on product management and operations