85 / Product Management Is Business Management

Vision and strategy and building a delightful experience are all necessary pieces of the product manager playbook. But Steven Haines says it’s not enough. Product leaders need business acumen, the oxygen that keeps your product alive.

As founder of Sequent Learning Networks and the Business Acumen Institute, Steven Haines has trained countless leaders in the fields of business and product management. In this episode, he explains what he sees as the primary challenge to their success and offers insights in finding the solution.

Too many product leaders, he explains, come to the product manager role bearing excess baggage from their functional paradigms. They come into a job that requires them to analyze data, detect industry signals, and manage internal operations. All these are different functions. We need to get them thinking in these different ways, as opposed to the function from which they’ve come.

“Senior executives need to create an environment that encourages this nurturing or cultivation of talent,” Steven adds, “to include key dimensions of business acumen. Go beyond understanding your markets and your customers. Think about how they operate and their mindset. Leveling up those skills is critical.”

Catch the entire podcast to hear all of Steven’s advice on developing business acumen in product leaders – not just for the hand-picked “rising stars,” but creating the tide that raises entire cohorts of future business leaders.

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