The Pulse of Productization

Gratitude practices have been a mainstream personal improvement trend for almost 20 years, since psychologists began testing the role of gratitude to positively impact mental health and boost happiness. Science shows that consistent gratitude practice–taking time out to recognize and say thanks for the good things in our lives–has a host of personal benefits, including increased happiness and positive mood, less experience of burnout, better sleep, and more patience, humility, and wisdom.

I recently had a conversation with one of my CEO clients about how best to help the senior leadership team embrace a new product innovation idea. This CEO was frustrated that the team seemed resistant to the changes the innovation would require and was wondering how to proceed. We discussed two options: asking the team to collaborate on a business plan for the new product, or, providing them with a concrete plan and asking them to implement it. 

Innovators know that expecting and embracing imperfection is a necessary ingredient of developing and launching a successful product. Recently, I was reminded of this while working with a client who was preparing to present their MVP to the sales team. Their main concern – was it ‘too basic’? Their demo, although lacking a visually interesting UI, was fully functional. Knowing that an MVP does not need slick aesthetics, we encouraged them to begin using the MVP in sales conversations to demonstrate the breadth of their offerings and to begin getting customer feedback. At the meeting, the CEO began the presentation with one of my favorite quotes by Reid Hoffman - 

Fear accompanies business model transformation and product innovation because these activities introduce ambiguity into your normal business operations. But to productize successfully, organizations must learn to face fears associated with change. In this four-part series, we outline our LEAP method for overcoming the fear that gets in the way of successful productization. LEAP stands for:

• Listening to your intuition
• Expecting less than perfect
• Asking for help
• Practicing gratitude.

Informed by the neuroscience of mindfulness, the LEAP method has helped clients and our team find the courage they seek to innovate and transform. 

One of my favorite professional events is right around the corner.  The annual Women In Product Conference is May 10-11 and it will be held virtually to allow more people to attend.  I highly recommend it for all women currently in Product roles (the conference has different tracks for entry-level professionals all the way up to Executive roles) as well as for Product leaders who want to help more women succeed in Product roles.

When services firms choose to pursue a productization strategy, they can face many challenges. I’ve seen companies fail because they didn’t have the right skills, poor product-market fit, or they under-invested in go-to-market. Another significant challenge is changing the organization’s behavior and culture to be more product friendly.  Consider this:

Most professional services organizations deliver their expertise through one-to-one customized interactions. When these organizations decide to grow through productization, they need to learn how to deliver expertise at scale.

Services organizations who want to pursue a strategy of productization first need to make sure their leadership team understands and supports the strategy. This includes building a business case for productization, collaboratively defining the new business model, and modeling necessary behavior change.