TBM 317: Yes, Or...

"Be customer-obsessed."
Obsession leads to distortion.

"Teams need clear objectives!"
Having overly clear objectives can lead to tunnel vision and close doors prematurely.

"Think big. Start small."
There’s a lot of money in making a better mousetrap.

"You can’t improve what you don’t measure."
Not everything measurable matters, and not everything that matters is measurable.

"Focus on outcomes, not outputs."
You can’t make shots you don’t take.

"Lead by example!"
Don't encourage anyone to blindly copy you.

"Hire for culture fit!"
Over-emphasizing culture fit leads to homogeneity and stifles diversity.

"Be proactive!"
Avoid solving problems that don’t exist yet. Acting too early creates new problems.

"Always seek feedback!"
Too much feedback can spin you in circles.

"Be transparent!"
Radical transparency can overwhelm or demoralize teams, especially with incomplete information.

"Continuous improvement!"
Sometimes, it's better to start over. Don’t polish a fundamentally flawed system.

"Never give up!"
Avoid the sunk cost fallacy.

"Build, measure, learn."
Building is often the most expensive way to learn what you need to learn.

"Focus on keeping your most valuable team members!"
If the only reason they stay is your constant effort to keep them, you've likely already lost their best work and motivation.

"Think in first principles."
Don’t alienate team members who excel at pattern recognition and have domain experience. First principles aren’t the best way to solve all problems.

"Always validate with data."
Waiting for perfect evidence may cause you to miss the market window.

"Don’t let stakeholders push features onto the roadmap."
Sometimes, the stakeholder relationship is more valuable (to customers) than a dud feature.

"Continuously measure outcomes."
A watched pot never boils.

"Be an authentic leader!"
Trying to be authentic often makes you inauthentic. Some situations require you to act the part.

"Always be available for the team."
Boundaries are important.

"Be perpetually optimistic!"
Unwavering optimism glosses over real risks and setbacks.

"Always be learning!"
Don’t let curiosity always distract you from mundane but important tasks at hand.

"It's all about the product."
Good, not great, products paired with excellent marketing and operations often win.

"Hire A-players only."
Competency comes in various flavors, many of which you may miss or overlook.

"Good product managers share context; bad product managers share ideas."
Sometimes people will welcome your ideas.

"The product manager must deeply understand all aspects of the business."
Partner with specialists and synthesize their insights instead of trying to master every domain.

"Balance is important!"
Imbalance can free us from stagnation.

"It depends!”
Except when it doesn’t—some truths are immune to context.