How to Succeed as a Senior Product Leader with Georgie Smallwood

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Feb 17, 2021

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INSIGHT

Strategy as a Connector

A company strategy connects the mission to its achievement, narrowing the framework.
Product strategy further specifies how to achieve the company strategy, guiding teams effectively.

ADVICE

Over-Communicate Strategy

Clearly communicate and repeat the product strategy; over-communication is key.
Relate everything back to the strategy to avoid teams creating their own direction.

INSIGHT

Privileged Autonomy

True autonomy in business isn't absolute freedom but empowered decision-making within strategic boundaries.
This "privileged autonomy" is earned by demonstrating alignment with business outcomes and consistent performance.

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Creating great products is about the systems, processes and culture in place that help companies deliver value to their customers. On the Product Thinking Podcast, host Melissa Perri interviews the thought leaders in product development and answers your pressing questions to help you think like a great product leader. Melissa continues the conversation about strategy, this time from the perspective of the senior product leader. What does it take to be a good CPO? What role does a product manager play in setting strategy for the company? What’s the difference between company strategy and product strategy? Melissa poses these questions to this week’s guest, Georgie Smallwood. Georgie is the Chief Product Officer at Tier Mobility, and the former CPO of N26. She has deep insights into what it takes to create and successfully implement product strategy, and why that is important for autonomy. Here are some key points from Melissa and Georgie’s discussion: Your strategy is the connector between your mission and achieving that mission. It narrows your frame of work and space you can operate in, Georgie says. [6:04] “Creating the strategy is just one part of it. You have to over-communicate all the time. Everything has to come back to it,” Georgie points out. [9:45] Melissa and Georgie discuss the differing ideas around the concept of autonomy. Should there be autonomy without constraints? What is privileged autonomy? [11:42] No product strategy framework is better than any other one. What matters, Georgie says, is how effectively you use them and what you do with them. [20:00] “If you want to change the way that people are doing things in the future, no amount of data is really gonna help you; because there are some leap of faith assumptions that you need to take.” [22:53] If you want to be a senior leader you need to be an expert in something. You need both hard skills and soft skills to be effective. [35:25] Georgie answers a Dear Melissa submission. [35:53] Resources Georgie Smallwood on LinkedIn | Twitter | Medium