How To Use The Steering Wheel, What Product Gets Wrong About Hiring

Say you wanted to hire a driver for your new race team, and for the sake of argument let's say you're not Ferrari who can have any driver they want. What would you ask them? Would you point out you need someone with extensive experience in the use of modern steering wheels? How about a track record of increasing gear shifting responsibilities?

No, you'd take what you know of their history, find out what they want from your team, and determine if this driver is the kind of fit that the entire organization and coalesce around. Since the skill sets are roughly the same, it's the ephemeral stuff that makes the difference. The intangibles such as trust, cohesion, preparation, and adjustment are the elements that can push a team to outperform the sum of their resources.

Now let's look at our Product Management world. How do we go about seeking and hiring that individual that leverage those intangibles? Should we list all the basic skills involved like effective written communication, knowledge of Agile methodologies, or the ever popular history of increased responsibilities within an organization? Does this tell us more about a candidate then a general competency?

A list of skills may be useful, but every driver on the freeway can apply the basic skills of driving, and any amateur racer has a performance record of some kind. In Product Management competency is not enough. The Product world needs to stop posting positions with the same generic template of skills and start talking about what makes their organization unique. What is the culture? What are the goals? Provide an illustration of not only what success looks like but what the organization believes are the steps to get there.

Millions are capable of driving to work each morning, but only 33 can start the Indy 500. Search wisely.