Being right is good. Being quick is essential.
Operate at race pace to supercharge your career, your team, and your product
Time commitment: 4 minute read
There’s a subtle expectation that Product Managers should always be able to make the right decisions. After all, we’re entrusted to be the voice of the user, expected to be able to identify areas of market demand, craft a compelling vision, balance resource constraints, and fend off competitive threats.
A natural response to that level of pressure and expectation is to buy yourself time. Time to analyze, time to think, or time to just…breathe. There’s nothing wrong with that. You should give yourself space to process and understand how best to approach a problem. But, in my case, I had “bought myself time” over and over again because it had become my default. There was a period in my career where I began to feel the sense of urgency start to fade. I started to take longer to act, let decisions linger, and my team suffered because of it. A trusted leader and mentor noticed this and called me out. She said something that has stuck with me since: growth in career comes from continuously operating at “race pace.” Without it, the slow, bureaucracy filled death of innovation and growth is inevitable. And with that, the gradual demise of your career as a high performing product leader. Extreme? Maybe. But it certainly got me thinking.
Race Pace
Race pace means that you act immediately. You have an intolerance for slowness and continuously question if something can move faster and more efficiently. It’s the opposite of procrastination (scary, I know). Race pace is very uncomfortable at first, but after putting it to the test, I truly believe it’s a required ingredient for career growth. Especially in software Product Management where the ability to execute, learn, and adapt quickly is the difference between success and becoming obsolete.
Before I continue, some important call outs:
Optimizing for speed never warrants reckless decision making. Being thoughtful in decisions should always be a hard requirement
Some decisions deserve a significant amount of time and deep reflection before they can be made
Recognize real time constraints. You can’t do 10 high priority, “fire is burning” things at once. That’s not race pace, that’s a recipe for burn-out
Making race pace your default operating model takes time and technique. It will likely feel completely counterintuitive as you make a conscious effort to start doing it. What has helped me start to build the habit of race pace:
Eliminate the cold start boogey monster
Starting on something is usually what causes the most anxiety. A blank page is my worst enemy. Get rid of the cold start boogy monster and just get started. Start writing, start white-boarding, have that discussion on how to solve a problem. Do what you have to do to take the first step. More often than not, you waste precious time thinking about how hard something will be and how unprepared you feel to tackle a problem instead of just…starting on it. Force yourself to get started and the minute the needle moves just 1%, you’ve eliminated the cold start boogey monster and your brain can kick into high gear.
Counter Parkinson’s Law
Parkinson’s law is an axiom that states: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, things become harder and take longer to complete when more time is given to complete them. The deadlines you impose on yourself are probably much longer than actually needed. You can move significantly faster than you lead yourself to believe. You’re just falling victim to Parkinson’s Law. Cut the time you think you’ll need on your next big project in half and force yourself to stay within those bounds. I can almost guarantee you’ll surprise yourself. The more you do this, the more it becomes muscle memory.
Remember that hyper-growth is in the job description
Product Management as a function enables scale. Irrespective of where on the S-curve the product you work on is, scaling and realizing exponential growth usually falls on the PM function. Software and the trends that surround it change rapidly. In the last decade or so the rise and rapid proliferation of distribution platforms, heavy adoption of mobile, and business models like the API economy that enable new levels of connectivity can take a product from idea to global scale in a matter of months. Remembering this kind of hyper-growth is possible, somewhat expected, and is part of your job almost requires that you operate at race pace. In the rawest terms possible: it’s a good reminder to get moving or get left behind.
In my opinion, race pace differentiates good PMs from great PMs. It’s something I intentionally try to practice and encourage my teams to internalize. Of course if not balanced with thoughtful precision and accuracy, it can become reckless. But practice makes perfect, so I’d encourage you to give it a go!
Bonus: An in-depth article by Asana on Parkinson’s Law and how to overcome it