By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion continue their series on adopting the product operating model, focusing on resistance from leaders and stakeholders rather than pilot teams. They argue that transformation is organization-wide, and that even supportive leaders often still expect their favored solutions, struggle to give up control, and insist on reviewing every decision. The root causes they identify include a gap in shared strategic context that lives in leaders' heads, and the emotional difficulty of trading control for speed and empowerment. They recommend ritual-based fixes such as demos and reviews where teams show their work, leaders learning to share constraints rather than prescribe answers, and being explicit about whether input is a suggestion or a directive. Pilot teams act as a sandbox for stakeholders to find their proper level of involvement.
01Key takeaways
- Expect stakeholders to still ask for their favored solution even after agreeing to the outcome, and address it directly.
- Make strategic context explicit and accessible so teams can make decisions without routing everything through leaders.
- Replace prescriptive feedback with sharing constraints and information, then let teams find the solution.
- Use recurring demos or product reviews as checkpoints where stakeholders can contribute at the right moments.
- Be explicit about whether a comment is a brainstorm idea, a concern, or a directive, since leaders' words carry extra weight.
- Treat pilot teams as a sandbox where stakeholders can discover how much involvement they actually want.
02Key sections
- Expecting Specific Solutions
- Leaders who thought outcomes were just a tech-team change often ask where the solution they expected is. Even leaders who agree with the outcome may still be emotionally attached to their preferred solution.
- Need for Control and Certainty
- Moving to empowered teams means leaders give up some control, which requires a leap of faith. Leaders often fear teams will go too far down a wrong path, so they want approval gates.
- Running Everything Past Leaders
- Strategic context often sits in leaders' heads, creating bottlenecks when teams must check every decision. Making strategy accessible and explicit lets teams decide on their own.
- Overcoming Leaders' Own Resistance
- Leaders should shift from dictating solutions to supplying constraints and context, which takes humility. Recurring demos and reviews let stakeholders contribute at the right points.
- Being Explicit and Experimenting
- A leader's casual remarks carry weight and can be taken as directives, so communication must be clear about intent. Pilot teams let stakeholders experiment with how much involvement works for them.
03From the post
“Trying to adopt the product operating model? One of the keys to success is remembering that it’s not just about product teams—it’s an organization-wide transformation. This is why Hope Gurion and I have been doing a series on organizational change. In our years as product coaches,”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.