By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Marty Cagan, after noticing that more than half of the 'rock star' product managers he knows are women despite women being a small share of the field, offers personal, non-statistical theories about why. He argues that strong product managers need a balanced ego, high emotional intelligence, humility, and stamina, and that women often show these traits more consistently. He stresses that all competent PMs must be smart, creative and persistent, and that these additional traits separate the best from the rest. The piece closes with a practical argument for companies: job postings often deter qualified women, so leaders should actively recruit and encourage them to apply.
01Key takeaways
- Separate your sense of self-worth from whether your ideas work with customers, and treat being wrong as normal.
- Credit the team when things go well and take responsibility when they go poorly to build trust.
- Listen for the underlying concern behind a stakeholder's objection, whether it's an engineer, designer, executive or customer.
- Pursue self-improvement openly by naming your weaknesses and working on them deliberately.
- Prepare for a long haul: persistence and patience matter as much as ideas in large-company product work.
- Audit job descriptions for unnecessary requirements like specific degrees or inflated years of experience, and personally encourage strong candidates to apply.
02Key sections
- Table Stakes
- Cagan says competent product managers of any gender must be smart, creative and persistent, and his focus is on what distinguishes the best from the merely competent.
- Balanced Ego
- Confidence paired with modesty lets a PM take disagreement without defensiveness, work with powerful executives, and credit the team while owning failures.
- Emotional Intelligence
- Reading and managing emotions in engineers, designers, executives and customers helps uncover underlying constraints and find solutions that work for everyone.
- Humility and Stamina
- Good PMs expect to be wrong, separate self-worth from outcomes, pursue growth, and persist through long, frustrating efforts without losing composure.
- Hiring Women Product Managers
- Women often disqualify themselves from job postings, so companies should rewrite requirements and personally recruit qualified candidates.
03From the post
“A partnership dedicated to teaching best practices to product teams and product leaders”
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.