What will your leaving speech sound like?

What will your leaving speech sound like?

A good friend and colleague recently left our firm to take on a more senior product management role elsewhere. His boss and his boss’s boss stood next to him and gave him a glowing and sincere send-off, with the leaving speech striking that good balance between “we’re sad to see you leave” and “go out, excel and make us proud”.

It reminds me about how much of being a product manager boils down to how we conduct ourselves and how we relate to others.  Even if your product becomes a runaway success, you’ll still be remembered unfavourably if you got there by annoying everyone on the way.  Similarly, “nice guy, but completely ineffectual” would not be a great legacy either.

So have a think now about how others will respond to the way you act and how you go about your task of achieving success for your products.  This is what will determine how you’ll be remembered.


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The Practitioner's Guide to Product Management book cover

The Practitioner's Guide To Product Management

by Jock Busuttil

“This is a great book for Product Managers or those considering a career in Product Management.”

— Lyndsay Denton

Jock Busuttil is a freelance head of product, product management coach and author. He has spent over two decades working with technology companies to improve their product management practices, from startups to multinationals. In 2012 Jock founded Product People Limited, which provides product management consultancy, coaching and training. Its clients include BBC, University of Cambridge, Ometria, Prolific and the UK’s Ministry of Justice and Government Digital Service (GDS). Jock holds a master’s degree in Classics from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of the popular book The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management, which was published in January 2015 by Grand Central Publishing in the US and Piatkus in the UK. He writes the blog I Manage Products and weekly product management newsletter PRODUCTHEAD. You can find him on Mastodon, Twitter and LinkedIn.

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