Five mindsets every product manager should cultivate

I am interviewing speakers at my favorite annual conference for product managers, the PDMA Inspire Innovation Conference. This discussion is with Matt Phillips, whose session is titled “The Mindsets of Breakthrough Innovators.”

Matt shared that successful innovators and entrepreneurs think differently from other people. Further, the way they think can be learned. Using examples from Pixar, Google, Netflix and even ultramarathoners, we can learn the secrets to unlocking innovation as well. Matt will help us. He is the founder of Phillips & Co., a Chicago-based innovation strategy firm.

This episode is sponsored by PDMA, the Product Development and Management Association. PDMA is a global community of professional members whose skills, expertise, and experience power the most recognized and respected innovative companies in the world. PDMA is also the longest-running professional association for product managers, leaders, and innovators, having started in 1976 and contributing research and knowledge to our discipline for nearly 50 years. I have enjoyed being a member of PDMA for more than a decade, finding their resources and network very valuable. Learn more about them at PDMA.org.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers
[2:35] Help us be better innovators. What mindsets should we have if we want to be breakthrough innovators?

We often spend time learning new methodologies of innovation, but we rarely stop to change the way we think. When I’ve met incredible VPs of innovation, CEOs, or entrepreneurs, I don’t walk away with a four-step process. They just think differently when they walk down a grocery store aisle or talk to someone they just met. Their way of seeing the world is different. I’ll take us through five mindsets.

[4:49] Be a gap spotter.

Many incredible entrepreneurs talk less about products and more about gaps. They go through life spotting problems.

An entrepreneur based in Texas, Chris Corner, had a friend who owned a bakery business, which did not sell online. Chris suggested that as an experiment they put a QR code on all the bread. That took off and he built an entire platform to sell his friend’s bread online. He then built that into a larger platform to sell things online.

During the pandemic, Chris and his family were at home and they wanted snacks from Buc-ee’s, a massive Texas convenience store known for their snacks. Chris found that Buc-ee’s did not sell online. He called the company and told them he wanted to build an online store for them, but no one got back to him, so he decided to do it himself. He bought $1400 of snacks at Buc-ee’s, photographed it, and built a website called Buc-ee’s Store. Immediately the lawyers called. He had taken their trademark. Interestingly, the lawyers did not say cease desist. They told Chris to change the name but he was welcome to keep selling Buc-ee’s things online. He scaled the business, which is now called TexasSnacks.com. They continue to buy things at full retail price from multiple Buc-ee’s stores and sell them online.

What I love about that is it’s slightly insane to take your kids and buy $1400 worth of snacks, but the bigger thing is Chris is a gap spotter. He goes through life seeing these problems, and instead o f saying, “That’s a bummer,” he immediately says, “That’s an opportunity. Let’s jump on it.” That’s true of both entrepreneurs and people in corporate America who are incredible repeat innovators.

[9:36] Multiply your magic.

John Osher is a serial entrepreneur who has scaled amazing businesses. He built a toy company and then the first spinning lollipop. That gap here was small—you don’t want to lick with your tongue too many time. The spinning lollipop spins as you put your tongue against it. He sold that company off and spotted another gap. He decided to do what I call multiply your magic—take the thing you’re already good at and apply it to a new gap.

Oral B and other companies make electronic toothbrushes, but they’re $70 or $80 and you have to plug them in. John realized if he changed the head on the spinning lollipop, he could make a $5 motorized toothbrush. That became the Crest Spinbrush.

[11:44] Innovate with action.

Justin Gold was an outdoorsy guy who liked to go hiking in Colorado. He started making nut butter to bring on his hikes. Sometimes when he came back, his roommates had eaten all his nut butter. He starting making more and taking it to a farmer’s market, where he sold out. He made additional jars for his friends, but he wrote his name and stuck it to his jar. His brand of nut butter is now called Justin’s because he stuck his name on his jars. He never set out to build a big company. He just continued to take the next step. He innovated with action.

A lot of companies innovate with thinking. Justin started doing things, and when they worked he doubled down. Companies try to do focus groups and have weekly meetings to build confidence, but ironically in many cases confidence comes from action. If you take the nut butter to the farmer’s market, you get the confidence.

[15:21] Go get a guru.

A friend who has a small company was trying to get a packaged food product into stores. They had tried selling online and through Instagram, but it’s really tough. I asked if they had called Trader Joe’s or Target, and he said they had thought about but didn’t know how to do it. I told him to get a guru. There are people who do this all day long. At our consulting firm, when we’re stumped, we get a guru. For a modest amount of money, you can usually hop on the phone for two or three hours and totally unpack an industry.

One of my favorite examples of getting a guru comes from Apple. Apple is the last place you would think they would have to find a guru, but when they were designing the Apple Watch, they found a guru, Mark Newson, an Australian interior designer. What’s humbling about that is even one of the most innovative companies in the world found a new guru. Companies are slow to do that. They think they need to hire someone or just work harder. Why not just call the people who can solve this much more quickly?

[19:02] Persevere with passion.

When you think about entrepreneurship, you definitely think about passion, but that word seems to come up less in corporate America. We tend to think we need to find competent people, not passionate people. You can pack a room with competent people and the project can grind to a halt very quickly because innovation is hard. It’s important to look for competency and passion.

In innovation, there are a lot of sprints. I’ve come to believe sprints are important, but the marathon is more important. Research has found that incredible scientists who take on deep, long-term projects are often also runners. Ultramarathoners and scientists share a common trait that they’re willing to push that psychological payday into the future and enjoy the challenge.

To create Star Wars, George Lucas had to write it, get funding, and get hired as the director, and along the way he also created two companies. He was a marathon runner. Not only is he creative, but every time when he came up to a barrier, he built entire technologies and companies to go after it.

Passion is so important because when the CEO or CFO pulls funding because a problem is too hard to solve, a team of passionate people says, “We can push through this. We’re going to have to build a small company to do it, but it’s important.”

[22:52] Where can we find sources of passion?

Real marathon runners are all driven by some passion. That could be raising funds to fight a disease someone in their family has, pushing themselves, proving to their parents they can achieve something they didn’t think they could, or beating what they did last year. There’s usually some driving force behind it, and that bubbles over into our work lives. You can see people who really love the idea of creating something and putting a dent in the universe. Or they’re really passionate about growing revenue and what to do that by creating something. You see that passion not just in that first kickoff but every time. If I were within a corporate innovation, marketing, or strategy department, I would hire as much for passion as for competency.

Action Guide: Put the information Matt shared into action now. Click here to download the Action Guide.
Useful links:

• Learn more about Phillips & Co.
  
• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn
  

Innovation Quote

“I knew that if I failed, I wouldn’t regret that. But the one thing I know I might regret is not trying.” – Jeff Bezos

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.