This week was a swirl of conversations—some quick, some heavy, most unplanned. And the through-line was this: so much of product work is just…saying things out loud, clearly, to the right people, at the right time. Here’s what I scribbled in the margins this week.
Strategy Isn’t Strategy if It’s Not Repeatable
I realized mid-week that I’ve been defaulting to strategic shorthand in too many places. I’ll reference a priority or goal assuming everyone’s aligned on what it means—but I haven’t always done the work to translate it into something repeatable.
My coach asked, “Could your team explain the strategy without you in the room?” And the answer (if I’m being honest) is: not consistently. That’s not a knock on them. That’s on me. So I’ve been pressure-testing how I talk about what we’re doing and why. Trying to keep it crisp. Swapping long threads for one-liners that stick.
Some of my favorite from this week:
- If it takes a paragraph to explain, we’re not aligned on the strategy.
- Everyone should be able to repeat the strategy without me in the room.
- Simplifying strategy doesn't mean dumbing it down, rather turning the signal up.
Most Product Work Happens in Side Conversations
The best product convo I had this week wasn’t scheduled. It happened walking out of another meeting. We talked about sequencing experiments and how we’re defining success for the next phase—not with a slide, but with shorthand, trust, and context.
I’m reminded that momentum doesn’t live in the roadmap doc. It lives in micro-moments of alignment, when someone says “wait—can we talk about that?” and you say “yes, let’s figure it out now.”
Leading at Pace Requires Pausing Sometimes
I’m good at moving fast. But fast doesn’t always mean clear. This week I caught myself moving through a few decisions assuming others were tracking, but not everyone was. I had to rewind. Pause. Invite questions. Slow down just enough for clarity to catch up.
And every time I did, the outcomes got better. More heads nodded. Less backchanneling. More real buy-in.
This week didn’t have a flashy launch or big announcement. But it did have alignment wins—small, human ones that build the foundation for everything else. Less “big vision,” more “make sure the people around me understand what the hell I mean.”
Which, honestly, might be the most important work I did all week.
