Head of Products
So I started this thing called the HoPs. We are a group of Head of Products that drink beer. No more seriously, HoPs = Head of Products as well as the main ingredient of one of my favourite beverages.
I started this group when I became a Head of Product for the first time. I was wondering about some things, had challenges and questions that nobody in my company could really answer or help with because they did not have equal problems. To be honest, professionally I became quite lonely.
Early on in my career when I was a UX designer I learned the tips and tricks of the trade. Eventually I became UX lead, leading a team of 12 UX/UI designers all over the world (US, Europa and Asia). I had challenges that were new for me managing designers instead of being one. From being a peer to a manager and mentor. One of the things I quickly found out was that managing UX designers is drastically different from being one. You get much closer to the problems rather than the solutions. Closer to the value rather than the processes and workflows that unravel this value.
Later-on in my career the same happened to me as a product manager. From managing my team/product I went to Head of Product where you start to manage PMs manage people managing problems. So now you need to learn to deal with the person dealing with the problem rather than the problem itself. One core risk for anyone who gets promoted to a managerial position in his or her own field is the risk of micromanagement or stepping in too early when things go wrong. You know how to do it, or how to solve their problem, maybe even better than them, but that is not how you manage. If you do this, they wont grow, and nor will you.
Keeping oversight and using the context specific knowledge that you have it great but so many times this goes wrong. When I became a HoP for the first time, I decided to start this group of HoPs, get together with peers (beers) that have faced/are facing similar issues. I targeted a bunch of people in Berlin who had the role Head of Product for less than a year, and a company size from 75–200 people. Just staying below the line of being a linkedin spambot. But not far from it.
Why one year? Just to start somewhere. Actually I thought it would be important to have similar issues. Someone who works for a company which has over 1000 employees or bigger and has been a Head for over 5 years in 3 different companies, will face drastically different issues than someone who just started at a startup with 50 people.
This group of mismatched yet well intended HoPs has now existed for almost 2,5 years, people come and go. Even Covid didn't kill this initiative, we still meet on hangouts, houseparty or any other medium that takes our fancy that time. The only issue we have now, if that a decent number of the core group are no HoPs no more including myself. Luckily we can always switch the meaning of the HoPs to that lovely ingredient instead, so we won’t need a rebrand any time soon.
The morale of this story is really the value of talking to peers, and making friends along the way. If you were promoted because you were good at what you were doing, or if you took on a new challenge for another reason. Don’t be shy, reach out, talk to others, create a mini culture of meetups and a support system where you need. Nobody expects you to be a rockstar the first time you land a new role, but they do expect you to try, so why not make some friends along the way.
