Stay Curious During Success

Matt LeMay believes product teams must align their work to business-critical outcomes to survive in today's environment where "work around the work" is increasingly vulnerable to layoffs.

The core of LeMay's philosophy is that product teams should think like CEOs, asking themselves: "If you were the CEO of this company, would you fully fund your own team?" This question forces teams to confront whether they're truly driving business value or merely going through the motions of product development. Most teams struggle to answer this confidently, revealing a dangerous disconnect between their work and business impact.

LeMay identifies a common pattern he calls the "low impact PM death spiral" where teams gravitate toward low-risk, cosmetic improvements rather than tackling high-impact work that affects core business metrics. This creates a cycle where "low impact work begets low impact work" until the next round of layoffs. Even when executives request these low-impact features, teams that build them remain vulnerable during downsizing.

To break this cycle, LeMay recommends three practical steps: First, set team goals no more than one step away from company goals, using clear mathematical connections (like "our team will convert X users, which equals $Y revenue"). Second, keep impact at the forefront throughout execution, not just during planning. Third, connect every bit of work back to impact by estimating and measuring work in the same unit as your goals.

For product managers facing pushback, LeMay suggests presenting options with trade-offs rather than saying yes or no: "You want me to build this? Here's what it would cost in terms of our impact goals." This approach acknowledges that executives may have information you don't while still making impact trade-offs explicit.

Perhaps most surprisingly, LeMay found that commercially-minded PMs were often happier than those fighting to "do product the right way." By accepting that business success ultimately determines their fate, these PMs gained freedom: "I work for a business and I do the best I can and then I go home."

Practical Implications for Teams

• When prioritizing work, express impact in the same unit as your team goal (users converted, revenue generated) rather than abstract scores
• View business constraints as guides rather than restrictions—they shape what success looks like
• Ask "what's one sentence you'd want to say at the end of this year that would make you feel awesome about this team's work?"
• Present options with trade-offs and recommendations rather than single solutions or endless possibilities
• Recognize that even when things are going well, it's valuable to understand why and build connections with successful teams

The message is ultimately empowering: you don't need to change your entire organization to drive impact. You just need to align your team's work with what truly matters to the business.