#73 Directors Wanted

Photo by Erik Witsoe on Unsplash

To grow is to leave behind the past, but in shedding the past, you endeavor to retain what remains valuable. Companies grow too, and as they reach into the future, the organization can lose touch with what worked in the beginning. Early on, natural resource constraints keep the company mission narrow and product teams small and nimble - a crucial ingredient to their success.

But as an organization swells, the surface area grows, and progress downshifts to a lower gear, pulling more weight, albeit more slowly. This is natural; there is more on the line. Customers and investors crave stability. With millions of users (and dollars) on the line, move fast and break things starts to, well, break things. The scrappy approach of the past is now a threat to the organization and the corporate immune system responds with processes, erected to contain the chaos.

A layer of work about the work emerges. Product teams aren’t immune either, they too embrace this new layer of organization. The ‘way we work’ gains rigidity and a universe of templates emerges in the name of consistency and scale. If you’re ever gone looking for the ‘Requirements Template’ or ‘Competitive Analysis Deck’, you know what I mean. A process can be powerful, but it can also give the illusion of certainty to those outside the work.

This new structure of communication and management creates a sort of gravity that reshapes the way all work at the company is done. Every project begins to run the same way, losing meaningful nuances; after all, amending the 10k filing, designing an internal training, or managing IT assets is nothing like building a product.  

On the surface, they seem similar - projects are just people and work, right? Why wouldn’t we set them up the same way? Get a few folks together, carve out big chunks of work, and assign owners. You take integration, I’ll take compliance, someone else takes the vendor relationship, etc. Every few weeks we can ‘sync’ for 30 minutes to check in and share how we’re doing compared to the schedule we just made up.

To be clear, there is nothing is wrong with this approach for most projects. The majority of work has a fairly narrow dynamic range - it’s straightforward, and the level of uncertainly is bounded.  Product work however is highly creative and uncertain. It’s a tightrope requiring constant feedback loops across the entire surface area, all the time. Independence is a fallacy now entombed in a corporate operating model, built for a different purpose.

Imagine for a moment that you’re making a movie. If you decided to organize it like your most recent corporate project, what would that look like?

You might line up catering, cast a few big names, and select some set locations. You might even set up a 30-minute meeting every week to see how things are going. Using this model, what are the chances you end up with Pulp Fiction? Not good.

Of course, all of these puzzle pieces matter, but on their own, even done well, they are insufficient. Every decision, in every team, is intertwined with each other. Change the actor, adjust the wardrobe. Filming at night, find a new location. Every ripple hits every shore.

To account for the connected nature of it all, each decision must be filtered through a singular vision. Every word or pause in the script. Every ray of light let into or removed from a scene. The cadence of the final cut. And on and on. A million insignificant details, end up being the only significant thing. Taken together, these choices accumulate and take shape. The unique form that results is a result of a singular voice. The Director.

No Hitchcock, no Psycho.

No Wachowskis, no Matrix.

No Lucas, no Star Wars.

No Coen Brothers, no Fargo.

No Welles, no Citizen Kane.

No Kubrick, no 2001.

No Coppola, no Godfather.

And of course, no Tarantino, no Pulp Fiction.

The Director shines a light on the destination and by doing so, narrows the options available to the team. The universe of potential detours and cul-de-sacs shrinks. In this way, countless discussions and debates are taken off the table before they happen. Distraction is contagious and nothing enables speed like reducing options. If you can do anything, you’ll deliver nothing.

Just like movies, products need a voice. A product experience only feels good when each element, done well on its own, comes together into something cohesive. This requires a single place where all the parts come together. In this role, it’s not enough to stand up and point to the horizon - you must also grab an oar and paddle when needed. Leadership is a verb, and to lead the team, you must first be of the team.

Directors Wanted