Reimagining the product leader for the second coming of tech

Image credit: Adobe Stock/Gorodenkoff.

As I complete one eventful year with Adobe India and draw from over two decades of tech ecosystem experience, I am eager to talk about the four mindsets that an innovative product leader should master to stand out and lead the way.

Adopt a storyteller's mindset

This may be different from what you expected right up front but think about it. As product leaders, we take care of everything from what we're going to build, how we're going to get a team to work on it, and when we'll deliver the finished product. These are critical, no doubt. We compel ourselves to infuse meaning into our products and create value in our users' minds through next-level storytelling.

After all, aren't the stories we tell much like PDF files of incorruptible, shareable, and, more importantly, memorable human information? Thanks to this conscious attempt, we always have a unique and shareable answer to the big question: "Why should a user choose our product?"

Lead with a growth mindset

Over the past 20 years, I have devised, launched, and scaled much-loved consumer and enterprise products. Even here at Adobe, my team and I are taking on one of the most exciting projects: Launching Adobe Illustrator for the web.

Now Illustrator is one of Adobe's well-known products and making it web-friendly comes with unique challenges. Be it ensuring that the mental models of existing users remain intact or devising innovative features that'll attract the next set of creative users, we rethink our ideas and revisit our approach so that the path to reimagine an iconic product becomes clearer.

Even the mechanisms we devise and deploy to accelerate adoption are user-first and product-led. Every step in the user journey is geared toward simplifying user interaction, driving the required action, and delivering the specific outcome the user wants to achieve.

These conscious efforts help us shorten the conversion path, simplify user retention, and challenge our and the industry's notion about scaling a popular product for the web.

Scout for product talent with a coach’s mindset

Most of our time and energy is spent on building tools that help creators and businesses create experiences that don't exist. That's why we're selective about the talent we want to attract, engage, and hire.

When hiring, we don our coaching hats and do our best to spot candidates who are both capable and coachable. Sometimes the playbook won't work — the rules will be rewritten, and every team member must return to the drawing board. By building a team that is capable of constantly doing this, we quickly adapt to the dynamic tech lifecycles and continue to add value to our community of creators.

Create with an explorer's mindset

Serving an audience and community that is constantly pushing the boundaries of digital experiences and exploring possibilities has made it critical for us to become full-time explorers ourselves. This pursuit enables us to dig deeper and rediscover what some of our products mean to the next-gen creative.

I’m enabled to walk the fine line between being an explorer and a product leader. Be it building tools that democratize creativity, accelerate document productivity, or even unlock the opportunity to tell better stories, doubling down on an explorer mindset has ensured that our different products deliver a multifold impact and consistently set benchmarks.

2023 is going to be a turning point for tech leaders across the globe. The privilege we have been given to change perspectives, positively influence actions, and touch the lives of millions, will have to be considered with much thought so that we all can, in our ways, create experiences that matter.