The Career Alternative to Product Management

In an alternative world, or maybe in a future one, what profession might you take up next?

Do you ever wonder what you might do for a living, if not your current profession?

When I was a kid, I was committed to playing for the Boston Celtics. Hours spent practicing wide-open shots in my driveway was, in my mind, a clear indicator that I was destined for a career in the NBA. Yet, after getting cut from my high school team, my odds dropped a bit. Today, I am 44 but still think that one day I’ll be extremely good at basketball.

In the real world, I discovered Product Management 15 years into my career. I came across the function at Intuit, largely regarded as one of the more Product-centric organizations around. And they were. I found the Product Managers to be very impactful. If they didn’t make key decisions, they’d lead the meetings that led to key decisions. I had lunch with a friend in Marketing and told her of my desire to move from Business Operations to Product Management. She encouraged me. “They run this place,” she said.

Today, I think about those words all the time. “They run this place.” When she said that, I felt a slight dopamine hit course through my body. Was this what I wanted? To “run the place”? Maybe. In business school, I took a Myers Briggs test (or something like it) and my result mapped to, among other professions, CEO. I simultaneously felt both honored and ashamed. I was honored to be thrust into a high-ranking position having just checked some boxes on a standardized test. However, I was also underachieving by having never run a company. I decided to not call my mother and tell her about my promotion. After all, she may confused that the Celtics didn’t work out.

Luckily, I’m not alone in my quest to become CEO. I ran a poll on LinkedIn recently for Product Managers and over 50% of the respondents shared that they too would prefer entrepreneurship if not Product Management. I assume, in many cases, they’d prefer to be the CEO. (I imagine there’s a fair share of folks who would choose an option not in this list, but LinkedIn only allows four options.)

The first person to hire me for a Product role told me that he liked the job because it was empowerment without the risk. Even then, having never practiced Product, I wondered “Really? How empowered exactly?”

Most would say a Product Manager isn’t fully empowered. At least, we’re not given all of the authority we might want to control the destiny of the product. We have little control over resource allocation, marketing spend and other levers that might help determine the success of the product. There’s been a longstanding debate whether Product Managers are truly the “CEO of the Product”, with the consensus typically being that it’s simply not true.

However, our ability to influence across the company is substantial. In a way, we have our hands in everything. We work with each team in the organization, are expected to engage with customers, analysts, partners. The holistic nature of Product does start to feel like a CEO or founder, albeit with far less power. And far less risk.

In January I started my own company. In a sense, I am now a CEO, like Myers Briggs predicted. However, my company is providing Product Management services. So, it’s a tepid step toward “entrepreneur”. And that’s okay. I have a bit more control over my destiny than I had before. It’ll have to do. At least, until the Celtics call.

Your turn. What would you be doing if not your current role? What do you want to do? Why? And what is keeping you from transitioning to the role you want to assume?