Product management is an internal sales role. A PM who is hesitant to speak with customers likely lacks the confidence to effectively sell their vision to skeptical executives and stakeholders, a critical part of the job.
When product leaders present competitor spending data to advocate for more investment, executives often reject it. They rationalize their lower spending by claiming superior efficiency or belittling competitors, effectively ignoring clear market signals.
Companies enjoying high profit margins are often under-investing in their product. This creates an opening for well-funded, product-focused competitors to capture market share by delivering more value, eventually stalling the incumbent's growth.
The perception of a project's success is tied more to expectation management than to the actual outcome. Overpromising on a successful project can lead to a negative career impact, while under-delivering on a well-managed project can be viewed as a win.
In specialized domains like payroll, users may understand process steps but not the underlying rules. For experienced product leaders, customer interviews are less for problem discovery (which requires domain expertise) and more for validating the usability of a proposed solution.
AI models lack novel context and frequently produce errors. The success of an AI-first product hinges on leveraging domain experts to build the model's "muscle," provide essential context, and constantly validate its output to ensure accuracy and value.
The biggest challenge for new product directors is letting go of the control they had as principal PMs. Failing to delegate leads to burnout as they try to do everyone's job. Success at this level requires empowering the team, which develops talent and frees leaders for strategic work.