- As a product manager, one of the core teams that you'll engage with is the Business team.
- The most fundamental thing to understand about a company is
+ Why it exists.
+ What's its mission statement?
+ Or even more importantly, its core belief, the value it adds to the world that differentiates it from other companies.
- In the TED Talk called "How Great Leaders Inspire Action, "the Golden Circle is introduced. Specifically, he says that the why of a company is what people actually care about and buy into.
- How you deliver the value and the products you create will build on top of this core value. From a product point of view, that why is your guiding light. It will help you figure out what fits with the company's reason to exist and what doesn't.
- Put another way, the products you build are a means to an end. That end is the bigger picture and what customers buy into or want to achieve when they buy your product. It begins with a purpose.From there, the how or the process and then the result.
- With the purpose, this is a reason of existence.With the process, it's what enables your company to achieve that purpose and with the result, what is the product or service or suite of products or services that you offer?
- To enable the how, build upon the why. By example, let's take a look at Apple.
+ The why is to be different.
+ The process, beautiful, easy to use products.
+ The what, at least at first, was Apple computers and computers only and in the sense of all significantly from there.
- So in working with the Business team, keep this in mind. Keep in mind that the most fundamental thing to understand is the why, closely followed by the how and the what.
