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Why great product managers think like therapists

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The key principles of PLG: Leah Tharin at #mtpcon London 2025 (Product Advisor)

Why product managers are getting fired – Dave Wascha (CPTO and Advisor)

March’s top product management reads on Mind the Product

Breaking into product management: A practical guide for aspiring product professionals

5 difficult conversations and how to have them

With a career founded in writing, I pivoted to Product, enjoying the challenges offered by managing diverse products while bringing clarity of communication to my work. I&#39;m passionate about seeing how fast the space is evolving, and always interested to be part of the conversation, whether as a contributor, or writer.

Head of Product

Jon Horvath

<p><a href="https://medium.com/@johnpcutler" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">John Cutler</a> is a Product Evangelist at <a href="https://amplitude.com/">Amplitude</a> who helps product teams to become happier and more effective. Here, in his 2020 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpengage/manchester/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">MTP Engage Manchester</a> talk, he explains how we must all embrace &#8216;the beautiful mess&#8217; and learn to navigate change in order to be more successful.</p>
<p>Watch the video to see his talk in full. Or read on for an overview of his key points:</p>
<ul>
<li>Product is hard everywhere</li>
<li>Change is always experimental</li>
<li>Be a popcorn person, not a &#8216;certain-way&#8217; person</li>
<li>Embrace &#8220;the beautiful mess&#8221;</li>
</ul>
<h2>Experimenting with Experiments</h2>
<p>John describes an activity he facilitated for 75 companies over the course of one hour. He got employees to share two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>To describe an experiment that increased momentum</li>
<li>To describe an experiment that didn&#8217;t pan out (and what they learned from it)</li>
</ol>
<p>John wanted to gain a better understanding of the ecosystem of attempted change. What he found was that with over 1000+ years of experience in one room the same answers were spread across both sides of success, whether they involved weekly targets, discovery sprints, or decision authority, it was just a mess of context, experimentation, &#8220;best&#8221; practices, and real human stories.</p>
<h2>Product is Hard</h2>
<p>What&#8217;s clear, John explains, is that product is hard everywhere &#8211; no one has it figured out. It&#8217;s not always dysfunctional or political, but it&#8217;s hard and it&#8217;s uncertain.</p>
<p>As product people, we&#8217;re always looking to change, be that culturally, from a business perspective, or in our own personal careers. With that change comes an amount of required learning and unlearning. Without this learning, it&#8217;s extremely difficult to move forward.</p>
<p>But how do we find the right way to change?</p>
<figure id="attachment_19046" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19046" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-19046 " src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg" alt="John Cutler at MTP Engage Manchester" width="900" height="600" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg 2048w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-beutiful-mess-of-product-mangement-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19046" class="wp-caption-text">John explains that product is hard and uncertain everywhere</figcaption></figure>
<p>John introduces a scenario most of us will quickly recognise: your colleague has posted a magic-cure blog post in a Slack channel &#8211; it&#8217;s something about how a certain company works, the main takeaway being that they&#8217;re doing <span style="font-style: italic;">it</span> differently. Maybe it&#8217;s something revolutionary, or maybe something more normal, but your colleague has sensed a potential utopia &#8211; the next &#8220;magic way&#8221;. John explains that these posts tend to generate 1 of 3 responses:</p>
<ol>
<li>Optimists ask: &#8220;Why can&#8217;t we work like that&#8221;</li>
<li>Sceptics say: &#8220;well no one works like that in the real world&#8221;</li>
<li>Then there&#8217;s those who cross their arms and say: &#8220;well actually, I&#8217;ve been working on my own process&#8221;</li>
</ol>
<p>John describes a need for metrics when looking at employing any kind of change. It&#8217;s outcomes, not outputs he tells us.</p>
<h2>How to approach change</h2>
<p>Here are some of the do&#8217;s and don&#8217;ts he recommends when considering change:</p>
<h5>DO</h5>
<ol>
<li>Adapt and the solution for your business &#8211; everyone is unique</li>
<li>Approach change with intention &#8211; ask yourself what outcomes you want to see</li>
<li>Prepare yourself for the messy reality, it&#8217;s always more complex than the perceived ideal</li>
</ol>
<h5>DON&#8217;T</h5>
<ol>
<li>Be too prescriptive &#8211; remember, there is no right way</li>
<li>Copy and paste &#8211; a blog post is not a blueprint</li>
<li>Trust the sceptics, you can&#8217;t allow yourself to be paralysed in the face of change</li>
</ol>
<h2>Change is discontinuous</h2>
<p>Once you&#8217;ve something that works, great! But what&#8217;s next? Because change is discontinuous, erratic and non-linear which means that what works one year may stop working the next. You always have to be ready for change.</p>
<figure id="attachment_19047" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19047" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-speaking-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-19047 " src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-speaking-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg" alt="John Cutler speaking at MTP Engage Manchester" width="900" height="586" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19047" class="wp-caption-text">He tells us that we all have to get good at practising practice</figcaption></figure>
<p>John describes this as an exercise &#8211; one you have to work on and to practice. Then, as an individual, a group, a small team, and a company, you have to get good at practising practice. Only then you can interrogate your data and assess the experiment. Always be asking yourself, whether this new solution is a good one? Then ask, is it good enough for now?</p>
<h2>Fighting the urge to quit</h2>
<p>Sometimes companies quit on change and John describes the general patterns he sees in businesses reporting that give consistently negative results:</p>
<ul>
<li>Companies try something once, maybe twice, but quit too early</li>
<li>Companies don&#8217;t approach change actively. Instead, they sit on the solution waiting for it to work, rather than making it deliberate practice</li>
</ul>
<p>Here are some things to keep in mind:</p>
<ul>
<li>You can only change so much at once</li>
<li>You need some skill to pick things that are reasonable to try</li>
<li>You need to avoid losing the essence of your solution</li>
<li>You need to make time for change</li>
</ul>
<h2>Being a change agent</h2>
<p>Finally, John describes how we can measure a change in progress and references <a href="https://vimeo.com/163572521">Claudio Perrone&#8217;s Popcorn Flow</a> of continuous evolution through ultra-rapid experimentation.</p>
<p>The different states are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">P</span>roblems and Observations ie. Stresses, issues, emotional</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">O</span>ptions ie. 3 options of change &#8211; what are you doing now? What could you do? Should you do nothing?</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">P</span>ossible experiments &#8211; Set a specific experiment, a timeline, duration, expectations</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">C</span>ommitted experiments &#8211; Plan and execute</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">O</span>ngoing &#8211; Practice change</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">R</span>eview &#8211; Analyze your outcomes: What happened? What did we learn? What did we expect?</li>
<li><span style="font-weight: bold;">N</span>ext &#8211; Choose how to proceed: Is more change needed? More practice? A new solution? Or is this good for now?</li>
</ul>
<figure id="attachment_19045" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-19045" style="width: 900px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-Popcorn-Flow-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class=" wp-image-19045" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/John-Cutler-talks-about-the-Popcorn-Flow-at-MTP-Engage-Manchester.jpg" alt="John Cutler talks about the Popcorn Flow at MTP Engage Manchester" width="900" height="584" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-19045" class="wp-caption-text">Is it time you became more of a Popcorn person than a &#8216;certain way&#8217; person?</figcaption></figure>
<p>It&#8217;s great if everyone is on board, but sometimes it will take an individual to bring change. If you&#8217;re that person, then make sure you&#8217;re the popcorn person, not the person who will only stick to a certain way. Lead with the why not the way and the way will come, What’s needed is a culture that values and rewards, safety, humility and curiosity.</p>
<p>If you do all of that, you, and of those around you will be ready to embrace the beautiful mess.</p>

core/freeform

Product Management Conference

Why emotional connection drives successful products: Nesrine Changuel at #mtpcon London (Google, Spotify, Microsoft)

Product teams in flux – Pendomonium+#mtpcon roadshow: Berlin

AI in practice at Berlin’s leading companies – Pendomonium+#mtpcon roadshow: Berlin

AI in practice at Amsterdam’s leading companies – Pendomonium+#mtpcon roadshow: Amsterdam

Product teams in flux – Pendomonium+#mtpcon roadshow: London

AI in practice at London’s leading companies – Pendomonium+#mtpcon roadshow: London

What’s next for product management in 2024? Nichole Mace (SVP Product and User Experience, Pendo)

“You’re not as competent as you think” 5 lessons from Ken Chin on navigating a product career (CPO, Spark Networks)

The Beautiful Mess by John Cutler

Jon Horvath