The Product Chasm — Customer Value vs. Shareholder Value
Why do so many top executives don’t seem to get “product”? This is the 7th post of the The Product Chasm series that introduces 9 different mental models that separate “modern product management” from “the business”. I found these models when reading through the responses to my question on product twitter.
Customer Value vs. Shareholder Value
Executives have many more much louder voices in their ears at all times — sales, finances, investors.Nils Davis
In theory, that shouldn’t really matter. Because more customer value creates better numbers. The problem starts when a) sales people dictate the product roadmap because this big client threatens to leave if we won’t build that “simple” extra feature, b) finance thinks it’s too expensive to fight tech debt, and c) the stock market values profits (and dividends) over product quality.
Alright, what now?
There’s obviously no easy way to just overcome fundamental differences in how to think about product and business, and the relationship between these domains.
In our experience, it all comes down to establishing a shared frame of reference, a common vocabulary, a grammar even, a shared language that allows for better communication and understanding of each other's perspectives and motivations.
And because human beings are very good at processing information and sharing thoughts in a visual way, it certainly helps to use a visual form to make that shared frame of reference accessible and usable for everyone.
Once we start using such a visual framework to make different perspectives explicit, and to explore the connections between everything business-related with everything product-related, we’ll see new shared mental models evolve. Such ones that will lead to new insights, and to new shared narratives, and to new shared stories, to memes even. Because that is how mental models spread and connect.
That is why we have created The Product Field many years ago, and why we are building Field today — providing a shared frame of reference for everyone who contributes to product outcomes (including executives!), and helping product leaders facilitate the process of connecting the mental models at play. Not just to cross the chasm, but to make it a little smaller every day.
Starte deine zielgerichtete Field Testphase mit einem unserer Product Coaches. Oder buche eine persönliche Demo Session.
