The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay
The Cost of Low Impact Work and the Importance of Business Alignment 00:00
Recent layoffs in product teams often stem from “work around the work” that isn’t driving real business impact, as seen in Spotify’s 2024 message.
Teams who only follow executive orders, without questioning their impact, eventually become at risk of being laid off.
The key question for any product team: If you were the CEO, would you fully fund your own team?
Many PMs can’t confidently answer this question, leading to what Matt LeMay calls the “low impact PM death spiral”—a cycle of adding minor, low-value features until layoffs occur.
The Role of the Product Manager and the Value Exchange 05:35
Matt LeMay’s career moved from music reviewing to product management, highlighting the value of diverse perspectives and collaboration.
He emphasizes that both in music and product, the “magic” is in how people work together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.
The core of product management is facilitating value exchange between the business and its customers.
Success for a product team is defined relative to the specific needs of each business—understanding revenue goals, customer growth targets, or investor expectations.
Teams often get too focused on “best practices” and process checklists (OKRs, strategies), losing sight of direct business outcomes.
Stress Testing Impact: The Key Questions to Ask 12:06
Simply assuming you’re driving impact is risky; teams should ask themselves whether they would fund their own team as CEO.
Struggling to confidently answer indicates the need to re-examine goals, purview, or stakeholder communication.
PMs should think and encourage their teams to think like a CEO—ensuring the whole team understands and is accountable to business results, rather than treating it as a product manager’s sole responsibility.
Low impact work accumulates when teams play it safe, focusing on minor enhancements and visible features (“rhinestones on the car”) rather than core business drivers.
This approach makes the product complex, slows meaningful change, and leads to dependency and coordination overhead.
Breaking out of this spiral demands teams proactively seek out and deliver high-impact work, even if it attracts more scrutiny or requires difficult cross-team collaboration.
If you’re told to build something with little real impact—even at executive request—you’re still at risk; accountability for business results remains.
Case Study: Aligning to What Matters (Mailchimp Example) 28:13
At Mailchimp, when moving from a single product to a platform, leadership set clear business-impact goals (like improving the rate at which users send their first email).
A product manager galvanized teams to prioritize these high-impact metrics, removing obstacles and simplifying user journeys, leading directly to improved business outcomes.
Demonstrated that subtraction (simplification) can be more valuable than new feature launches.
True impact involves a degree of radical acceptance: impact depends on real-world events and results outside teams’ total control.
Commercially-minded PMs, contrary to expectation, report less stress—once they accept their role is to contribute to business success and not obsess over perfect process.
Understanding your company’s business model and what it values lets you make better choices about where and how to direct your efforts.
Overcoming Excuses: Every Team Can Align with Business Impact 41:26
Constraints (regulation, B2B focus, quarterly targets) are not reasons teams can’t focus on impact—they’re the commercial realities to work with, not against.
Teams should use these constraints to shape their work, instead of fighting or ignoring them.
It's not about replicating big tech practices, but about understanding and aligning with your own business environment.
Three Steps to Become an Impact-First Product Team 44:52
Don’t “set and forget” your goals. Keep referring to the impact at every stage of the product process: strategy, OKRs, epics, and day-to-day execution.
Use a simple, visible metric to guide prioritization, avoiding overcomplicated cascades and checklists.
Example: growth teams should directly map their efforts to company growth targets, maintaining focus throughout the year.
Good product management means presenting options and trade-offs, not simply saying yes or no.
Emphasize how requested changes or features affect the team’s agreed-upon, impact-level goals.
Recognize sometimes requesters have information you lack; maintain trust and relationships by being transparent about trade-offs and updating projections when direction changes.
Always provide a recommendation alongside options. People want to see your perspective, not just a menu.
Summary of Key Takeaways and Self-Reflection Questions 73:32
Layoffs, team safety, and career success depend on real, visible business impact—not just following orders or maintaining high “process hygiene.”
If business is booming and you’re told what to build, remain curious. Seek to understand the root causes of success and invest time building relationships and learning from high-performing teams.
One powerful self-test: ask, “If I were CEO, would I fund this team?” or “What’s the one sentence we’d want to say about our impact at year’s end?”
Encourage open discussion among team members about what real success looks like—these conversations reveal overlooked risks and opportunities.