The skills that make a great individual contributor or team lead in a specific discipline, like product management, are not the same skills needed for more senior leadership roles. Career progression requires a conscious effort to let go of beloved hands-on tasks and adopt a broader, more strategic perspective.
In industries like education, the ability to adopt change is tied to external cycles, like the academic year. This means even with advanced CI/CD pipelines, releases must be timed to avoid disrupting users. Product success depends not just on shipping features, but on the ecosystem's readiness to absorb them.
When introducing product management into a legacy organization, a critical mindset shift is required: moving from a project-centric view to a product-centric one. Success isn't the launch; it's the beginning. The focus must be on long-term product health and measurable outcomes, not just on-time delivery of outputs.
When moving from a commercial entity like Amazon to a mission-driven organization, business cases shift. The primary justification becomes advancing the organization's mission, where the cost of doing something shouldn't prevent doing the right thing, rather than focusing solely on traditional revenue or engagement metrics.
To successfully transition to a new industry without prior experience, focus on your durable, human-centric skills like leadership, process design, and stakeholder management. These are the core assets that get you hired, as companies often value a fresh perspective and strong capabilities over deep but narrow domain knowledge.
When entering a new domain, resist the temptation to quickly prove your worth by showcasing new industry knowledge. Instead, focus on listening and being interested in existing expertise. Your value comes from blending your unique external skills with what you learn, not from appearing instantly knowledgeable, as people often just need to be heard.
Based on the book "Never Search Alone," forming a small council of professionals from different industries provides invaluable, unbiased feedback during a job search. This peer group offers support, holds you accountable, and helps you discern what you truly want in your next role, continuing as a support network even after a job is secured.
While data-driven documents are persuasive in tech giants like Amazon, influencing legacy organizations requires a different approach. Building trust through slow, patient, and informal conversations is often more effective than presenting formal, data-heavy business cases, a method likened to visiting for tea rather than just driving a bus by.