The single most important thing I learned in 20 years – and it’s at the heart of my first book, Customers Included – is the importance of you as a product manager getting out from behind your desk and observing real, living, breathing customers. Surprisingly, many product managers still do not actually get out and observe… Read more »
Blog
How to be Unhappy in Business?
In most of the 120+ Customers Included talks I’ve given in the last year, I’ve started with an inversion exercise. Instead of asking the attendees what they would do to delight customers, I ask what they would do to annoy and alienate customers. My audiences are surprised to discover that the question creates a rich, meaningful discussion…. Read more »
What should CEOs *not* do?
Today I’m speaking to a private summit of COOs from Fortune 500 companies. These leaders are being groomed to become CEOs and the two-day summit is designed to help them eventually run a large publicly-traded company. I’m giving a Customers Included talk – and as is true in all my talks and in the book, we’ll be talking about… Read more »
Warren Buffett Includes Customers – Does your CEO?
This is for your CEO. I’ve just attended the Berkshire Hathaway 50th anniversary shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, reiterated what I’ve known to be true for years: they include customers and expect their companies to do the same. At one point, Buffett said point blank: “No company does well… Read more »
Third Graders on Product Development?
At 11:30am last Monday, I was nervously standing in front of one of the most intimidating audiences I’ve yet spoken to: 110 third graders assembled at Christie Elementary in Plano, Texas. I have keynoted large conferences, spoken at companies like Apple and Warby Parker, sat with senior executives from many other banks, retailers, and Silicon… Read more »