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This might come off as a bit of “get off my lawn” grumbling, but it’s been on my mind lately. I had a conversation with a product manager from another company and it left me thinking. Every time he referred to an initiative, he called it “mine,” almost like shouting, “Me!” Deadlines and priorities were framed as “important for me” — not the team, not the user, but himself.
On one level, this is just human nature — we all bring some degree of self-interest to the work we do. But when a product manager frames things this way, it stops sounding like a team effort and starts to feel like a personal project tied to their ego.
There are two larger problems here.
First, decision-making suffers. When the drive to stand out takes over, it often leads to prioritizing features that feel bold but don’t align with user needs. Even in cutting-edge fields like fintech or AI, where innovation grabs headlines, the basics remain essential: concise documentation, predictable login flows, straightforward payments, logical API paths. These aren’t places where stars are born. It's a collaborative grind. When individualism takes the wheel, the product’s value often suffers.
Second, it exacerbates silos. Treating a product as a writing for fun extension makes an already challenging problem worse. It's no fun collaborating with the self-interested. People care less about how an egocentric person's work fits into the big picture. So the walls of the silo thicken, and the uninspired turn inward.
As George Carlin reminds us, quoting the Bible, "Pride goeth before the fall."
- Dulwich Picture Gallery. (n.d.). King John. Retrieved November 29, 2024, from https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/explore-the-collection/501-550/king-john/