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Mind the Product

Growth

Lessons from Duolingo’s product handbook

Guest Post

Designing sustainable products: The intersection of product management and logistics 

B2B product management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

Building Product Teams

Business Strategy

Data Driven Product Management

Digital Transformation

Diversity and Inclusion

Minimum Viable Product

OKRs

Prioritisation

Product Design

Product Research

Product Development Process

Product Ethics

Product Discovery

Product Leadership

Product Management Career

Product Strategy

Stakeholder Management

🌎 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/world-product-day/" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Happy World Product Day!</a> Be sure to celebrate product, yourself, and your peers today! 🎉

DeepSeek AI launch: The view from product leaders

Three amazing speakers to learn from at #mtpcon London 2025

The best resources for product managers in 2025

What product professionals are focusing on in 2025: Survey results

Product strategy pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

With his background in technical editing, community building and product marketing, Chris' approach to product management is inherently centered around user narratives. He spent the first few years of his career working with the B2B developer products, prototyped an experimental technical publishing platform along the way, and then kick-started the Mind the Product platform. You can find him at ProductTank, or on twitter as @camassey.

Product Manager

Chris Massey

<p>In this November 2020 <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/digital" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">#mtpcon Digital</a></span> session, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/saraewood/?originalSubdomain=uk" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sara Wood</a>, CEO of Kaluza and ex EVP Product of Farfetch, explained how to use change to your advantage as you progress through your career in Product.</p>
<p>Watch the 30-minute session in full, or read on for the highlights.</p>
<h2>Time Moves Forward</h2>
<p>Sara explains that time and circumstance are the most important factors in any story<span style="font-weight: 400;">—</span>your team make-up, the market conditions and they will never be the same across any two points in time. This means that no secret trick will be the surefire formula for success. The world evolves, and how we adapt is what frames how we can succeed. She also explains that origins matter and ours are the jumping-off points that frame how we approach the world and adapt to it. For example, Sara grew up feeling like an &#8220;outsider&#8221;, which became an advantage in her life and career<span style="font-weight: 400;">—</span>it made it easier for her to adapt to the things she saw around her.</p>
<h2>Face Fear and Change Head-On</h2>
<p>There is so much about the human experience that is rooted in fear, which is problematic, Sara explains. Only responding to the things we fear, means we&#8217;ll never be looking forward clearly enough to anticipate and adapt.</p>
<p>Change can also happen within a lifetime—just think about how the energy industry and dramatically changed within a handful of decades. But change can also span generations, such as the legal and societal changes in the US that changed the way women are able to participate and lead in the workplace. &#8220;Within your own lifetime, you can adapt, change, and have an impact too,&#8221; Sara says, &#8220;regardless of where you are in life, you don&#8217;t go onto the streets with the skills that you need for anything, that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s important to adapt, if you don&#8217;t, you won&#8217;t succeed.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Do What is Right</h2>
<p>As leaders in organisations, we know we should be focusing on diversity and inclusion, as well as being customer-centred to positively impact business performance, but Sara says it&#8217;s also just the right thing to do. &#8220;Anyone working in technology has a responsibility to think of the impact of what we put out into the world for society as a whole,&#8221; she adds. All of us working in tech today have a responsibility to think about our impact and this means we should be leaving the world better than we found it.</p>
<h2>Multiply Your Impact</h2>
<p>Finally, Sara talks about impact. &#8220;I can’t remember ever joining a company that wasn’t in need of evolving in ways big and small. So what makes one company successful while others fail? There is no single blueprint<span style="font-weight: 400;">—</span>the idea of the &#8220;hockey stick curve&#8221; is just a story we tell,&#8221; says Sara.</p>
<p>What got you to this point is not what will take you forward, it’s a foundation. A goal as a leader is to multiply skills, knowledge, and impact. Ultimately, pushing decisions to the smallest wedges of the organisation where change is happening the fastest is how leaders can multiply their impact.</p>
<h2>More on Career</h2>
<p>Check out our Climb the Product Career Ladder series:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/climbing-the-career-ladder-part-1-associates-juniors-and-product-managers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Part 1: Associates, Juniors, and Product Managers</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/climbing-the-career-ladder-part-2-senior-product-lead-and-product-director-roles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Part 2: Senior, Product Lead, and Product Director Roles</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/climb-the-product-career-ladder-part-3-head-of-product-vp-product-and-cpo-roles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Part 3: Head of Product, VP Product, and CPO Roles</a></li>
</ul>

core/freeform

How do you avoid burnout in product management?

Susana Lopes: Embracing a dual-track career ladder in product

Career clinic for product managers by John Cutler

Hiring product managers by Kate Leto

Identify and manage imposter syndrome by Phyllis Njoroge

From PO to CPO: How to drive your product career by Namrata Sarmah

Learnings from London: The secret sauce to hiring great product people by Kate Leto

Building the perfect product manager: A model for professional development by Greg Prickril

Embracing Change as a Career Advantage by Sara Wood

Chris Massey