PMs are in this weird zone. We read [[Inspired, Marty Cagan|Inspired]] and [[The Mom Test, Rob Fitzpatrick|The Mom Test]] on the weekend, we listen to Lenny's on the commute, maybe we post our thoughts in blog posts exactly like this one. Then, we come to work. We find ourselves meeting with the eng lead of a three-step-removed team to align, get in their Q3 OKRs, and if providence wills it, ship our product by next Q1. ![[rick-and-morty-you-pass-butter.gif|Welcome new PM! Let's talk about alignment.]] Does it *have* to be like this? Is it the stupidity of the culture of where we happen to be? Are our coworkers unreasonable? After I left BigCo to found my own company, I expected the 'unnecessary' work to go away. And it did decrease, but never went down to zero. Then I read Peter Drucker: > _In any organization, regardless of its mission, the CEO is the link between the Inside, i.e., "the organization," and the Outside -- society, the economy, technology, markets, customers, the media, public opinion. Inside, there are only costs. **Results are only on the outside._** ### The bigger the org, the bigger the pull When a sphere increases in size, its volume expands quicker than its surface area (r^3 vs r^2). So it goes in an organization: the bigger it is, the stronger is the Inside's pull. Suddenly, there's an HR department that wants various trainings. Legal wants to approve all launches. It's a self-sustaining loop: [[Every organism wants to grow]], and the only way for internal teams to grow is to do more work inside the company. ![[Sphere.png]] *No good organizational theory is complete without 3D geometry* As PM in a bigger company, most of your time will be spent Inside. This explains why PMs in big companies sometimes feel like a "cog in the machine," and why people consider PM for internal products less sexy. This is not [[Adaptiveness|maladaptive]] on the company's part. You can't operate in a big company without spending a lot of time thinking about alignment. The reality is that being a PM in a big company is just a _different role_ to being a PM in a small company, and for all the "CEO of the Product" talk, it's just way different. ### So do I just pass the butter? No matter where you are, the Inside has a natural [[gravitational pull]]. You must fight it and **spend more time at the Surface**, interacting with the Outside. Hence the YC adage: "just talk to your users." As a PM in a bigger company, there's no panacea, but consider: * **Monitor and grow the time you spend talking to users**. Start from 1 conversation/week at a minimum, and grow it to be at least 1 day/week. If you're spending 20% of your time talking to your users at a FAANG, you're doing better than 90% of PMs! * **Accept the alignment work** as being a part of a bigger company, not a failure of the current company. * Last, if spending more time on the surface is truly something that calls to you, **consider moving to a smaller company**. [[In the limit]], if you start your own company, until you hire other people your time on surface will be close to 100% :) #published 2025-01-24