PM-Culture-Fit in a Composable World

If we start to see talent moving to more composable work models, what's the risk?

The biggest risk is a bad fit. Talent may be compostable, flexible and impermanent, but they still need to work well with the rest of the team.

In the past, outsourcing and contracting was designed to treat the external worker as disposable

While no one would actively say this aloud, it's implicit. The work would be designed to be commodified as much as possible.

The concept of off-shoring, where the actual labor was intermediated by an "account manager" and the people doing the actual work could change day by day, was built on this disposable model.

In a composable world, the integration needs to be tighter, perhaps as tight as one would have with an FTE.

But the company and the PM (or whoever) still desires some composability.

To streamline, I proposed different interfaces which I share in the Composable Product POV.

These are designed to meet the needs for companies choosing this as an option. How to hire Composable Product Manager.

Both sides, however, need to ensure PM-Culture-Fit.

Because of the composability, "culture" can't just be a fluffy thing around foos-ball tables or mission statements.

Culture needs to be an operating system that enables integration in a remote or composable environment.

More specifically, the culture match should address tangible, practical things like:

So how do we evaluate this cultural glue that is arguably more important than the actual skills once they are templated ../Product Kick Off Template

Personality Fit

"Personality" is both fluffy but critical. To address it, companies and PMs should come up with a set of dimensions to assess and communicate fit.

There exist different approaches and models. I don't have a preference. But there just needs to be something.

DISC with its Colors (Red, Green, Blue, Yellow) is simple.

Working Genius (Wonder, Invention, Galvanizing, Tenacity, Enablement, Discernment)

I think within reason Meyers Briggs can, but it starts to get momre complex with multi-variates like StrengthFinders.

Knowing personalities is not enough. I think at minimum the areas to look at include these three items:

  1. Strengths
  2. Dislikes
  3. Weakness

Strengths: are important to share and to know. If your strengths aren't valued by the company culture, it will be tough. It's most important to start building and refining your strength to bring into companies. It will deliver the best results for both parties.

Dislikes: if you dislike a certain way of interacting and culture, you dont' want to work there either.

Weaknesses: being aware that your weaknesses aren't what is being highlighted OR being a pet-peeve within the organization also matters.

I like being explicit around the assessment and fit because it can help limit the unconscious bias. The way people bring themselves can be due to lots of different reasons, but the underlying interface matters.

Values Mission Fit

Values also matter.

But both sides need to be clear on how to use values for culture fit and culture development. Both sides need to get clear on how the people will make decisions in terms of relating with each other and their projects.

Here's a counter-example: A co-founder really wanted a core value to be "social good." The problem is this didn't actually help to define the interoperation of people towards each other and the outcome. It's too vague. In fact, it directly led to co-founder conflict in my case. That doesn't necessarily make it bad, but it makes that value weak unless truly bolstered.

Values are things like:

The challenge still becomes things that seem like basic human requirements that everyone will agree to.

So who would disagree that Integrity matters?

So figuring out on both sides how they made hard choices and went to the mat over it.

So Integrity for me could be illustrated: I believed all expenses should be open and transparent. The conflict was with my co-founder who didn't believe he needed to share his actual expenses.

Radical Candor was illustrated in my coming and saying, without attacking, "Can you share those with me and the company because this is key to openess and transparency."

So the statement of values isn't as important as the representation in real life in terms of decisions and hard-stuff.

For example, some people who value Cooperation or Harmony may not have wanted to have the hard conversation, "Hey can you share with me your expenses?" For them, it might not have been as important.

So for My Values (it's still in progress and in a separate note:)

  1. Async First
  2. Giver-Based Relationships
  3. Mission Driven
  4. Total Ownership
  5. Bigger Pie Collaboration and Candor

Even if the values are not the same as that of the company, they should harmonize.

A PM that can't be clear on their values will have a harder time being composable with values-driven companies.

And if the company does NOT match those values, the friction and stress will likely make things worse.

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