Part 1 — Identifying The Dysfunction

Sixteen Years, One Pattern

I’ve been working in what would be called the Product field in the UK for more than 16 years. In that time, I’ve been uniquely exposed to the working practices of a huge variety of businesses. Enterprise, start-up, scale-up, small business, e-commerce, SaaS, B2B, B2C, B2B2C, mostly all professing to be “product-led” organisations.

And yet, as someone who’s a compulsive thinker and problem-solver, I’ve been quietly haunted by the same dysfunction in Product Management across all of them. So repetitive and destructive has this dysfunction been that I’ve seriously considered walking away from Product altogether.

You mostly see it in non-tech-native businesses (companies that didn’t start as “tech” companies). But over time, I’ve come to realise it shows up in tech startups and enterprises too. Different badge. Same beast.

The Thing No One Talks About

My own school of Product traces back to the days of physical product management. Resources were scarce in the 00’s. So I pieced it together through an on-the-job Masters in Digital Marketing and Strategy, and from reading books on physical product lifecycle management during the dot-com era.

In all the organisations I worked in, there was always this thing. This problem. But no one ever really named it. Maybe they couldn’t see it. Maybe they couldn’t articulate it. Or maybe they stayed quiet for the same reason I eventually did, because calling it out could backfire.

But let’s call it what it is: most businesses I worked with weren’t doing Product Management properly. In some cases, not even close.

I know I can be blunt. I’ve always had a habit of pointing out truths when I see them. It’s got me in trouble before. But if you care about solving problems, I mean really solving them, then you need to be able to surface them first and face it head on. Anyone who’s run a retrospective knows this.

And yes, there’s a time and a place. But when things get totally illogical, sometimes saying it out loud is the only sane thing left to do.

Example of Dysfunction in Action:

I once worked for a start-up acquired by a company rapidly scaling. Despite using Agile, Product methodology wasn't well understood. In this role, I presented a carefully validated design to the Chief Digital Officer, supported by solid product analytics and user research. The response? The entire project was abruptly canned, simply because the leader didn’t like the colour. This wasn’t a superficial adjustment; they scrapped it entirely, dismissing months of evidence and hard work. It was a stark example of leaders misunderstanding what good Product Management is truly about.

Why Now?

I’ve come to understand this problem more acutely over recent years. And if you trace it back through the history of how Product Management got adopted, from the dot-com boom to the current AI era, the roots are all there.

This piece is for anyone involved in Product Management. But if I’m honest, CEOs need to hear this the most. Product Managers, though, are the ones who’ll probably feel it resonate in their bones.

For me, this is a red pill / blue pill moment. Talking about it is going to ruffle feathers. An entire industry has sprung up around managing the symptoms of Product dysfunction — conferences, coaches, consultants, content... endless. But with AI on the rise and so many teams already exhausted, I think we’ve reached the point where we need to stop dancing around it and finally go after the root cause.

Where It All Started

Before the dot-com boom, Product Management was niche. It mostly lived inside FMCG companies or manufacturers of complex physical goods like cars. It was a job with serious responsibility.

You had to identify a market, shape the product, build it, launch it, improve it, retire it. You worked with specialists to get the pricing, positioning, and design right. If the product failed, it was on you. You were an extension of the CEO. That’s where the term “CEO of the Product” actually comes from, and back then, it meant something.

When software development picked up in the 90s, tech companies quickly realised they needed someone to take responsibility for the success of the new digital services they were building. Competition was heating up. Speed to market was everything. Agile began to take off. The role of “Product Owner” was referenced in the Agile Manifesto, and with that, the shape of modern Product Management started to emerge.

Most people didn’t even hear the term “Product Manager” until the 2010s. But in a few forward-thinking tech-native firms in the 2000s, the role was being refined, slowly and quietly, for the digital space.

I was there for it. I watched it all unfold. As the internet became a revenue stream, companies rushed to build digital products, mostly web applications and early SaaS platforms.

How It Scaled (And Why It Broke)

In those early days, universities were adjusting their IT courses to include more software development. A stream of educated engineers started entering the market, small by today’s standards, but growing.

Most businesses still didn’t have the in-house capability, so they relied on third parties to build. But this quickly became expensive. So the next move was obvious: bring more engineers in-house.

At that point, I made my move from project management into what we’d now call a Product role. I was essentially a business person firing off requests to tech, who’d disappear for a bit, then come back with the first version for testing.

It worked fine for small stuff. But as the work got more complex, the cracks showed.

Businesses started experiencing delays, missed outcomes, and rising costs. ROI was falling. So they looked for answers. They brought in consultants. They read books. And they discovered something: the Product Management function inside tech-native firms looked a lot more mature than their own.

So they started hiring Product Managers.

That’s when the real dysfunction began.

The Turning Point

Now, I’m not saying every non-tech-native business suffers from what I’m about to describe. They vary in degree, and every organisation is different. But the pattern is remarkably consistent.

There weren’t many Product Managers in the market. And more importantly, there was no formal qualification or educational pipeline. In tech-native companies, PMs were expensive, and rightly so. Their skills were rare and valuable. They blended business, tech, and customer understanding in a way few others could.

The businesses who could afford it put up job ads with big salaries. Sound familiar? You’re seeing the same thing now with AI roles.

Eventually, demand outpaced supply. So companies — especially slower, older ones — began hiring less experienced candidates at inflated salaries. And people took advantage. Some saw a chance to step into a highly paid role without needing a degree. And businesses, desperate to keep up, started accepting and running with it.

This led to a very visible outcome: inexperienced Product Managers struggling to deliver. Senior leadership took note. A perception formed, one that still persists in many places: "Product Managers are expensive, but they don’t really add value."

That perception caused even more damage.

Because when the first wave of Product Managers entered these businesses, they were rarely supported by proper Product Leaders. There was no precedent. No formal training path. So companies improvised: they put managers over Product Managers — managers who’d never been Product Managers themselves.

And that’s the real root cause of the dysfunction we’re still dealing with today.

Part 2

What Went Unnoticed (Until It Was Too Late)

At the time, it didn’t look like a problem. But with hindsight — and after being the first Product hire during multiple digital transformations, it’s obvious: Product Management isn’t just a role or a department, it’s a mindset. And the whole business needs to adopt it.

The issue is, these newly appointed Product “leaders”, most of them with zero Product experience, kept doing what they knew: top-down delivery management. Business cases, waterfall timelines, detailed specs. That’s how they got things done in the past, and it had worked well, in a pre-digital world.

What they didn’t realise was that by bringing tech in-house, they weren’t just building software, they were stepping into a whole new operating model. But they didn’t change the way they thought, or the way they led.

So, they imposed legacy ways of working. And Product Managers, many of them new to the craft and trying to do the right thing, were told to “just deliver the roadmap.”

No problem-solving. No discovery. No strategy. Just deliver.

This didn’t just disempower Product Managers, it actively confused them. They’d read the books. They’d followed the principles. But the reality of their day job bore no resemblance to actual Product Management.

Two Missing Skills That Matter More Than Anything

This leads to two big challenges that show up again and again.

1. No mentorship. New Product Managers have no one guiding them, no one helping them grow. Mistakes get magnified. Business leaders see this and say, “We pay these people a lot. Why are they still getting it wrong?” And the inexperienced leader above them shrugs and passes the blame.

But what those business leaders often miss is the setup. The PM was put into a complex, high-stakes role without support, guidance, or permission to actually do the job as it’s meant to be done.

2. Leadership gaps at the top.These Product Managers report to people who’ve never been Product Managers themselves, and that creates a blind spot.

There are two specific skills these leaders lack:

So the dysfunction continues. Stakeholders work in silos. Product becomes the dumping ground for everyone’s unmet expectations. And Product Managers are left trying to mop up the mess.

Leadership Inexperience Example:

At another point in my career, I joined a company as their first experienced Product hire. Despite marketing themselves as Product Management experts, it quickly became clear the leadership had no practical experience in the field. Instead of empowering teams or applying genuine Product methodologies, decisions were made top-down without understanding or strategy. Eventually, the performance deteriorated so significantly that the company was forced to let go of all their experienced Product Managers. It was a painful lesson in how leadership gaps directly contribute to ongoing dysfunction.

The takeaway here was stark: Leadership lacking genuine Product Management experience invariably results in confusion, poor decision-making, and ultimately, significant organisational setbacks

The Consequences Add Up

I’ve seen large-scale delivery failures that were completely preventable, and in every case, the same story played out. A failure to follow Product methodology. A leadership team still stuck in delivery mode. Product Managers not set up to succeed.

The tragedy is that Product done well is one of the most powerful levers a business has. It can help you build what matters, adapt quickly, and deliver real customer value.

But that only works if the organisation actually lets it.

And the core issue is still this: many people leading Product today have never done Product themselves. They’re winging it. Some have read books or attended a one-day course. A few can talk the talk. But most still don’t understand what good looks like, let alone how to teach it.

Some outsource the problem to coaches, which is telling. Others distance themselves entirely. In the worst cases, they blame their product teams and start micro-managing them to regain control.

What Real Change Takes

The leaders who do want to get this right need a kind of “back-to-the-floor” education. They need to spend time in the trenches. Understand what the role actually involves. Learn what good looks like from the inside out.

That takes humility. And time. Because you can’t learn this in a classroom. Product is a practice. You have to live it.

To be clear: this isn’t about pointing fingers. Most of these leaders are trying their best. But they’ve inherited a system that set them up to operate in self-preservation mode. And over time, that system has become damaging, to people, to teams, and to businesses.

No Benchmark, No Accountability

A big part of the problem is there’s no benchmark for Product capability. No widely accepted standard. No agreed baseline.

So what do people do? They copy tech-native companies, without realising those businesses weren’t built on legacy infrastructure, or encumbered by hybrid operating models. They had clean foundations. Most businesses don’t.

Product becomes a wild west. Everyone’s trying to figure out what “good” looks like through meet-ups, frameworks, fireside chats. It’s why we’ve got 300+ models floating around, all trying to solve the same basic confusion.

Meanwhile, a vacuum forms. And into that vacuum step unqualified coaches and consultants, selling transformations they’ve never lived through.

As a consultant myself, I spot them easily. So do experienced Product people. So do underqualified Product leaders, often by accident. But they still hire them. Because they don’t know what else to do.

And then the cycle continues. Inexperienced leaders surround themselves with inexperienced teams. Dunning-Kruger meets the Peter Principle. Everyone means well. But the function deteriorates.

Why I Care (And Why You Should Too)

There are a few reasons I’m writing this.

First, I’ve lived it. I’ve survived it. I’ve watched others burn out because of it. Talented, thoughtful people being blamed for problems they never had the power to fix.

Second, I genuinely believe this is fixable. I’ve seen Product work well. I’ve seen it transform businesses. But only when the right accountability is in place — and that starts at the very top.

The Real Fix (It’s Not a Framework)

It starts with the CEO.

From there, mid-level managers carry the torch. They teach their teams. The organisation shifts. Not because of a playbook, but because of a shared understanding.

This is how trust is built. And eventually, it creates a working environment where Product Managers can be empowered, not just in name, but in reality.

Can Product Managers drive that change upward? No. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. Hierarchy, misaligned incentives, and fear-based decision-making will always win. The shift has to come from above.

And Then There’s AI…

Here’s the scary bit.

AI is only going to make this dysfunction more obvious. When AI starts taking on repeatable tasks, and teams are still missing outcomes, someone’s going to ask the question: "Why do we need Product Managers at all?"

The truth is, AI will make good Product Managers 10x more effective. But it’ll expose weak practices and inexperience fast. That could shut the door on juniors. It could discourage career entrants. It could even cause the discipline to collapse under its own confusion.

We’re already on that path. The only way to course-correct is to fix the leadership issue, now.

What Needs to Change

If you’ve read this far, you probably recognise the dysfunction I’m talking about.

I’m not here to sell you a framework. I’m not here to preach a new model.

All I want is for people to start being honest, especially at the top.

And the wider Product community? We need to stop dancing around the problem and start saying it clearly: Product dysfunction is not a delivery issue, it’s a leadership issue.

Part 3

Reality Check: Experience Matters

Let’s start with an honest reality check. Yes, some businesses can succeed with Product Leaders who haven't been Product Managers themselves. Those exceptions do exist. But if your organisation is already struggling with dysfunction, hiring inexperienced Product Leaders will only compound your problems. Dysfunction usually comes from a lack of genuine, hands-on Product experience. With plenty of seasoned Product Leaders available now, don’t compromise. If your Product function isn't performing, make the tough but necessary decision and reassign the inexperienced leader.

Product Accountability Starts at the Top

The Product team is ultimately accountable for the success of the product, supported explicitly by the CEO. In early-stage startups, the CEO often doubles as the Product Leader precisely because the company's survival hinges on delivering an effective MVP and maintaining sharp commercial awareness.

A common mistake is misunderstanding the role of a Product Manager. Too often, Product Managers are treated as entry-level roles, tasked with managing features or customer journeys rather than whole products. Even Senior Product Managers might lack the experience needed to conceptualise, launch, manage, and retire an entire product independently. Setting unrealistic expectations for new Product hires can lead to disappointment and dysfunction. Realistically, hiring someone capable of managing the full product lifecycle typically means hiring a person who could comfortably step into a Head of Product role.

Successful Transformation Example:

I was asked to lead a large-scale app development project for a major insurance firm with highly ambitious targets. Upon investigation, I discovered a total absence of Product Management expertise in the company. Recognising the deep-rooted issues, I advocated strongly for a comprehensive Product transformation programme. I worked closely with executive leaders to educate them, provided hands-on coaching for delivery teams, and gradually helped the entire organisation embrace true Product Management principles. Ultimately, this effort resulted in a successful, company-wide transition, creating an efficient, outcome-focused Product function that consistently delivered strong customer and business results.

The CEO's Role: Hierarchy of Accountability

Implementing Product Management effectively requires decisive and informed leadership from the top. The CEO must genuinely understand what good Product Management entails and how to hold the Product Leader accountable. Without this clear hierarchy of accountability, where expectations and responsibilities cascade clearly from the CEO to the Product Leader, down through the entire product organisation, the organisation will fail to embrace Product-led principles fully.

Shifting to a Product-led approach inevitably disrupts existing power dynamics; therefore, the CEO must clearly define and uphold the new rules of engagement.

Why Hands-On Product Experience is Crucial

Transitioning to a Product-led mindset at scale is notoriously difficult because people naturally revert to old habits when they face obstacles or confusion. Continuous reinforcement, clear explanations tailored to stakeholder contexts, and ongoing education are essential. Practical, hands-on Product experience is critical for Product Leaders because it equips them with the skills to understand stakeholders' real-world challenges and provide clarity consistently.

For instance, experienced Product Leaders are quicker to identify and prevent issues related to technical debt or misaligned stakeholder expectations, ultimately saving time, resources, and frustration. Experienced Product Leaders know firsthand how changes impact teams and stakeholders across all levels of the business. Like exercising a muscle, organisational understanding requires regular practice and reinforcement.

Distributing Responsibility Across the Product Team

The responsibility for embedding Product principles shouldn't rest solely on the Product Leader’s shoulders; organisations continually evolve. Experienced Product Managers must actively help promote these principles across the company. These managers need the expertise to educate, influence, and support their peers effectively. Meanwhile, their leader should guide and consistently hold them accountable.

Sustaining Change and Preventing Dysfunction

A genuine transformation into a Product-led organisation typically takes one or two years of sustained effort. Without continued accountability, old habits quickly reemerge, causing dysfunction to return. Explicit CEO support is crucial because internal power dynamics naturally shift towards protectionism and self-preservation, quietly eroding change.

Essential CEO Understanding

What specific knowledge does a CEO need to hold the Product function accountable effectively?

Firstly, they must understand that good Product Management focuses on outcomes rather than outputs. Success isn't measured by shipping features alone but by genuinely solving customer problems and creating delightful user experiences. Remember, customers are human beings, not robots; treat them accordingly.

Secondly, CEOs must recognise the importance of creating safe spaces for Product Managers to experiment, innovate, and grow. Micromanagement from stakeholders who don’t fully trust or understand Product stifles innovation and demoralises teams. Strong Product Leaders break this toxic cycle, while weaker ones inadvertently reinforce it.

For example, good practice is when CEOs openly discuss failures as learnings in town halls, promoting safe experimentation. Poor practice is when CEOs only highlight successful outputs without context, inadvertently encouraging teams to hide problems

Addressing Power Struggles

Another clear sign of dysfunction arises when departments like Sales or Technology demand greater control over product activities. Although understandable, given their accountability pressures, Product's primary role is to orchestrate functions cohesively.

Departments need to trust Product’s global perspective and sometimes yield some control for collective success. Without mutual trust and aligned goals, dysfunction is inevitable.

Balancing Product-Led and Traditional Structures

Transitioning to a product-led model doesn’t mean the entire organisation will, or even should, immediately abandon traditional ways of working. Often, especially in larger or more established companies, you'll find a tech-focused product team operating alongside parts of the business accustomed to a command-and-control approach. This can lead to tension, misunderstandings, and competing priorities.

Successfully managing this requires deliberate cultural change management. Leaders need to communicate clearly how both operating models can coexist, ensuring mutual respect and understanding across teams. Transparency, frequent communication, and joint goal-setting exercises foster collaboration. Over time, trust builds as teams learn to appreciate each other's value and understand their respective roles in achieving shared organisational goals. For example, clearly demonstrating how traditional and product-led teams have jointly contributed to organisational success can be a powerful way to ease internal friction.

How can the CEO and executive leadership support a product-led culture?

First, and this is non-negotiable, they need to make time to learn the fundamentals of Product Management. It doesn’t matter how large the business is or how packed their diaries are. Moving to a product-led model isn’t just a team restructure, it’s an operating model shift. It affects decision-making, accountability, investment cycles, and cross-functional ways of working.

This isn’t something you master by reading a couple of books or attending a strategy session. You have to live the values. That means giving teams room to solve problems, not just deliver features. It means stepping back from day-to-day product decisions, not because you don’t care, but because empowered teams perform better.

For many non-tech-native companies, this will involve a hybrid setup at first. That’s okay. But leadership still needs to model the behaviour, showing they understand how product works, asking outcome-driven questions, and giving Product Leaders the backing to educate the wider business.

Yes, it will feel uncomfortable. But discomfort is part of the learning curve. The more you understand what good product looks like, the more you’ll be able to trust your teams to deliver it. And if you can’t trust it yet, the answer isn’t control. It’s curiosity.

What should a CEO know before hiring or evaluating a Product Leader?

Ideally, the person hiring a Product Leader should be another experienced Product Leader, it’s the best safeguard against surface-level knowledge. But that’s not always possible, especially for companies just beginning their product journey.

What a CEO should look for:

Hiring the wrong Product Leader can set your organisation back years. Get it right, and they’ll not only guide the team, they’ll help you lead more effectively too.

How does a CEO hold a Head of Product accountable in practice?

Start by agreeing on the outcomes that matter, not just shipping velocity, but real customer and business impact.

Then ask these questions regularly:

Ultimately, a CEO doesn’t need to micromanage Product. But they do need to ask better questions, and make sure the Head of Product can answer them with confidence, clarity, and evidence.

What are red flags that a business is faking product maturity?

There are a few dead giveaways:

Fake product maturity often looks good on paper. But scratch beneath the surface, and the logic doesn’t stack up. A truly product-led team is clear, coherent, and grounded in evidence. You don’t walk away confused, you walk away thinking, they’ve thought of everything.

How do you transition from a delivery-led to a product-led culture, step by step?

Step 1: Get CEO buy-in. If the CEO doesn’t lead the shift, it just won’t happen. They don’t need to be a Product expert, but they do need to back the change publicly and consistently.

Step 2: Appoint an experienced Product Leader. You need someone who’s done the job before, and who can coach others through it, not just manage delivery or echo frameworks.

Step 3: If you don’t have that leader, don’t fake it. You can invest in training, but without real experience, it’s unlikely to stick. In that case, recruit someone who’s lived the practice.

Step 4: Do the same health check for your middle managers. They’ll shape team behaviour more than the top does, if they’re still clinging to delivery plans, the culture won’t shift and they could undo the whole process.

Step 5: Restructure teams around value, not functions. Start with cross-functional squads, Product, Design, Tech, Data, aligned to customer journeys or business goals.

Step 6: Define how teams work together. Agree on the rituals (standups, reviews etc), who owns what, how decisions get made, and how success is measured.

Step 7: Start training by doing. Roll out coaching inside a small team first. Let them model good Product practices, then expand. Repetition matters. It can take 12–24 months to fully embed.

Step 8: Build community. Create spaces where PMs share wins, mistakes, and lessons. Culture change sticks when people feel like they’re in it together.

Step 9: Educate the wider business. Start with the CEO explaining what’s changing and why. Then the Product Leader can evangelise, coach, and smooth the edges, helping Sales, Marketing, Finance and Ops understand how to work in a Product-led world or even if other parts of the business still operate within command and control.

The Tangible Benefits of Getting It Right

When organisations successfully transition to a genuinely product-led culture, the results speak for themselves. Companies consistently report improved customer retention and satisfaction as they focus relentlessly on solving real user problems rather than simply shipping features.

Employee morale and productivity typically rise, driven by clearer accountability and empowered teams able to make meaningful decisions. Strategic alignment sharpens across the organisation, reducing internal friction and enabling faster innovation cycles. Ultimately, businesses see tangible commercial benefits, whether that's through increased revenue, reduced operational costs, or accelerated time to market, creating a sustainable competitive advantage that's rooted in genuine Product Management excellence.

Final Thoughts: Building a Truly Product-Led Culture

Ultimately, addressing Product dysfunction requires investing in experienced and accountable Product Leadership, ensuring explicit CEO support, promoting continuous education, clearly defining roles and responsibilities, and emphasising the hierarchy of accountability.

This approach creates the conditions necessary to build and sustain a genuinely effective Product-led culture, positioning your business to thrive, particularly in the rapidly evolving AI-driven landscape ahead.