Discipline of Thought, Discipline of Action
If you listen to the Good to Great audiobook, you’ll hear Jim Collins emphasize “disciple” over and over again. When you listen to the book, you can really hear him lean into every word: Disciplined people, Disciplined thought, DISCIPLINED action. It‘s almost as if he was trying to invoke Steve Balmer’s “Developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS” chant from the Windows 2000 developers' conference.
Jim Collins is just as fired up about discipline and it’s one of the essential elements to make the transition from Good to Great. Discipline of thought and discipline of action is essential for any product manager to keep in mind. Daily discipline of thought and action is essential to buildup momentum that will lead to breakthrough.
It takes discipline to say no
Saying no is an important part of being a product manager. There’s always going to be more to build than time or resources allow. But you don’t say no to simply manage constraints, you must say no in the context of focusing on the most important things.
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas.” – Steve Jobs, Apple
“The most effective investment strategy is a highly undiversified portfolio when you are right.” - Jim Collins
As a product manager, you must identify your product’s unfair competitive advantage. What does your company and product do better than any other in the market? This “Hedgehog” concept forces focus and that should be the source from which you take a disciplined approach to saying no.
When everything is important, nothing is important. When everything needs to get done, nothing gets done. You can’t be everything to everybody so identify your product vision, set and iterate on a strategy, and practice daily discipline of thought and action towards your vision.
“Do you have the discipline to stop doing the wrong things?” - Jim Collins
Team Motivation
Discipline and focus can lead to infectious energy for your team. As this discipline leads to achieved results, the team will increasingly gravitate behind a shared vision and shared understanding of success.
https://www.mindtheproduct.com/you-might-be-a-product-manager-if-comic-001/
As a product manager, members of your delivery team are not your direct reports. You don’t have any direct reports. So informal, influential, and motivating leadership practices are essential.
Confront the brutal facts
Jim Stockdale was the most senior naval officer held as a POW from the Vietnam war. When asked who didn’t make it out he said, “Oh that’s easy. The optimists.“ Huh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockdale
“They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end–-which you can never afford to lose–-with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” - Jim Stockdale
If you have a team that is aligned towards a vision and motivated around a vision of success, then it’s actually more important to manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people. And even if you have a unified vision, things are going to get hard. It’s important to confront the brutal facts of your current situation as a team but never lose faith that you will succeed in the end. When hard circumstances arrive, face them honestly and with resilience.
“One of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events.” - Jim Collins
As tough or as hard as things get, celebrate small wins as well as team learnings. You might not get through hard times by Christmas, but you must maintain faith that your daily discipline of thought and discipline of action will lead you to momentum and, ultimately, victory in the end.