Lenny's Podcast: The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

More product managers and teams face layoffs as many work on 'work around the work' rather than driving true business impact. Daniel Ek from Spotify highlighted this in 2024 layoffs, emphasizing the need to focus on impactful opportunities.

The 'low impact PM death spiral' traps many medium to large companies: teams add small features and cosmetic improvements that don't move the business needle, leading to layoffs. Breaking this cycle requires aligning team goals closely with company goals.

Step one to becoming an impact-first product team is setting team goals no more than one step away from company goals. This keeps work relevant and prevents cascading goals from losing meaning. Product managers must own this alignment.

Matt Lame, author of 'Impact First Product Teams', stresses that aligning work with business-critical outcomes is essential, especially amid layoffs. Teams must understand and articulate their contribution to the company’s success to remain valuable.

A key question for teams: If you were the CEO, would you fully fund your own team? Many product managers are unsure, revealing a disconnect between their work and business impact. This question helps identify if a team is truly driving value.

Product managers should think like CEOs but also empower their teams to do so. The PM's role is to facilitate CEO-level commercial thinking across the team, leveraging diverse perspectives to maximize impact.

Understanding what success means to your business is crucial. Whether a startup or public company, knowing investor expectations, runway, growth, or profitability goals helps teams align their work with what truly matters.

Many teams get lost in intermediate layers like OKRs and strategies that don’t clearly link to business impact. This disconnect leads to wasted effort and risk. Teams must ensure their daily work directly contributes to company goals.

The low impact death spiral starts with teams choosing easier, low-risk tasks like adding minor features or cosmetic changes. This leads to product complexity, dependency issues, and more low-impact work, eventually threatening the team's survival.

Breaking the spiral requires courage to prioritize high-impact work, even if it means coordinating across teams and attracting executive scrutiny. Building features execs love but that lack impact won’t save teams from layoffs.

A practical example: a fintech team aligned their goal to convert single-product users to multi-product users, directly linking to increased customer lifetime value and company revenue. This clarity empowered bolder decisions and resource requests.

Step two is to keep impact first at every stage of product development. Don’t let goals get lost over time; continuously connect work back to business outcomes to maintain focus and relevance.

Step three involves connecting every piece of work back to impact through prioritization. Use impact estimation tied to team goals—not abstract scores—to choose work that moves the needle. This keeps prioritization honest and effective.

Pushing back on low-impact requests requires diplomacy. Instead of bluntly saying no, offer options with trade-offs and recommendations, helping decision-makers understand consequences and choose wisely. This preserves trust and influence.

Even when business is good, teams should stay curious about what drives success and collaborate with other departments like marketing. This openness prepares teams for inevitable market changes and sustains long-term impact.

A powerful reflection question for teams: What one sentence would you want to say at year-end that would make you feel proud of your work? This fosters alignment and shared purpose across diverse perspectives.

Matt Lame encourages seeing commercial realities as guides shaping your work, not obstacles to overcome alone. Embracing this mindset empowers teams to focus on impactful work within their business context.

For more insights, visit mattl.com and check out Matt’s book 'Impact First Product Teams' available on Amazon and audiobook platforms, featuring his own musical interludes.