#16 Empowerment requires clear context
There's so much confusion about “empowerment"
And it's alarming.
Many product teams mistake empowerment as:
🗣 "We can do whatever we want! We can pursue any opportunity we want... we are empowered!"
And many leaders mistake it as:
🗣 "We will empower our teams, so let's completely step away and come back in 3 months!"
The result, in most cases?
Chaos. Disappointment. Frustration. Unclarity. Failure.
Here's the thing:
⚠ Empowerment is not the same thing as full autonomy.
This is crucial to understand, especially in the context of building products.
Autonomy is the freedom to act and to make our own choices.
💡 Empowerment is the granting of autonomy within certain boundaries.
The strategic context (e.g. the Product Vision, Product Strategy, outcomes to pursue) are those boundaries.
That's the sandbox.
That context must exist and be continuously communicated so that teams can autonomously make great decisions.
If there's no context, teams won't be aligned working in the same direction.
This is particularly dangerous in multi-team environments.
As Marty Cagan puts it:
"Empowerment requires better management, not less management."
✅ Ensure you have a competent team, provide them with the strategic context, empower them to solve complex problems and chase those opportunities - and be there to remove barriers, give feedback, and coach.
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Note 1: The more senior the product team, the larger the "sandbox" (e.g. broader outcomes).
Note 2: If you have great product teams with experienced people, they will naturally and gradually try to push themselves toward "Aligned Harmony", even though leadership is absent. But it's not a given.
Note 3: There's usually a vicious cycle related to Dysfunctional Chaos and Dictatorship Circus type of environments: your best product people start to leave. Which decreases leadership's trust even more in the teams. Which reinforces the idea of not empowering them... A great Product Leader is often the most effective way to break the cycle.
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Hey there 👋 I’m Afonso, Founder & Partner at Scandinavian Product Group. Thanks for reading!