EFFECTIVELY EMBEDDING PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

EFFECTIVELY EMBEDDING
PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

Our research highlights the benefits of embedding product leadership into organisations. Yet despite the appetite to have some product leadership capability within their ecosystem, there are still a number of challenges that businesses need to work through to gain the full advantage of product leadership. This is common with any capability that is innovating and going through disruption and change.

Watch now: The top three skills for product leaders

There are a few broad strategies that can be deployed to successfully embed product leadership behaviours within your organisation. These strategies fall under three themes:

1. How do you ensure your organisation has set the right strategy for the future?
2. How do you ensure there is the right talent and culture mix to promote product leadership?
3. How do you remove barriers for the promotion of product leadership and to learn from mistakes?

^{1. REDEFINE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES TO PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE}

Clearly set the strategic agenda: Business leaders are faced with a multitude of competing priorities in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Because of this, there needs to be clarity on the strategic priorities, as well as ownership from across the executive and director level, so that product leaders know which strategic agenda to focus on and have support for the decisions that they make. Businesses with a clear strategic agenda, and accountability and ownership, will maintain a competitive edge. While it may be true that different organisations see the priority of the product team to be different, it is vital that the responsibilities of the product function are clearly articulated, internally and specifically to other functions.
Address legacy technology challenges head on: Businesses must invest the time and resources required to develop and execute appropriate strategies for transforming legacy technology. There are significant risks involved with postponing the transformation of legacy systems, but it also stunts and slows long-term progress, as the integration with legacy technology can be cumbersome. A head-on approach to addressing these issues will unleash the full potential of an organisation.
Do not forget ESG: Business resilience is highlighted as a high-priority area of focus, however ESG, and in particular environmental sustainability, is seen as a lower priority. Ignoring the sustainability agenda could have a negative impact on the resilience of your business in terms of both the changing mindset of customers wanting to use products that are sustainable and ensuring there is still space for your organisation to survive.

^{2. FOSTER AND INVEST IN TEAM TALENT AND CULTURE}

Understand your product maturity: Businesses should focus on understanding their current capability around product maturity. This includes reviewing teams holistically and understanding their skills and needs. By doing this, businesses can proactively manage their talent and work to re-skill the next generation of potential product leaders, providing them with the interventions needed to help them succeed.
Invest in your existing talent: There is a disproportionally large focus on external recruitment for product roles versus the retention of employees. 61%of businesses see external recruitment as the solution to overcoming the challenges of embedding product leadership, while 51% plan to invest in internal training. The former approach is counterintuitive as the cost of recruitment is often higher than the cost of retention. By distributing investment proportionally across recruitment and retention, businesses can ensure that people with existing knowledge of the organisation can move into the product ecosystem and drive value.
Pursue a connected approach to leadership: Do not think about leadership in isolation. The power of product leaders is their ability to lead and their knowledge of effective product methods. These attributes may already exist in individuals within the business, so understand how you promote and develop the right leaders across the organisation. This is a two-way endeavour and businesses should educate the whole organisation about the role of product leadership, including remit and responsibilities, to embed a product mindset in all leaders.
Personalise development for product leaders: When developing product leaders, executives must equip them with the right skills for success. Our research reveals that many factors define a product leader, whether that’s technical product know-how, narrative development or the ability to lead a team. Tailoring professional development to the individual will be key to developing future product leaders in the most cost-efficient and time-effective way.

Personalise development for product leaders: When developing product leaders, executives must equip them with the right skills for success. Our research reveals that many factors define a product leader, whether that’s technical product know-how, narrative development or the ability to lead a team. Tailoring professional development to the individual will be key to developing future product leaders in the most cost-efficient and time-effective way.

^{3. REMOVE INTERNAL BARRIERS AND TEST AND LEARN}

Think end-to-end: Over two-thirds (69%) of business leaders see an end-to-end approach incorporating product, technology, sales, marketing and customer service as core to a successful product leadership strategy, according to our research. Businesses must organise effectively to deliver an end-to-end approach. While the organisational design willdiffer by sector, business maturity and size, there are common principles that can be applied, such as taking a customer-first approach with any product-centric solution; breaking down traditional silos to deliver for customers; and focusing on product-led decision-making and governance to be able to better respond to customer needs.
Test and learn: Businesses need to embed a form of flexibility into their culture to enable them to respond to consumer behaviours and test new ideas quickly. Coupled with the right mindset and skills in the workforce, there are endless benefits to continuously evolving and learning while moving towards a more sustainable future. This must be done in an end-to-end way across all key channel interactions to ascertain the best experience for customers. Experiments that are cost effective, have a significant impact on the business, and which are likely to be successful, should be prioritised.

Have you successfully embedded any of these product leadership behaviours within your organisation?

Redefine strategic imperatives to prepare for the future
Foster and invest in team talent and culture
Remove internal barriers and test and learn