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Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products (Silicon Valley Product Group) 1st Edition
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What is it about the top tech product companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Tesla that enables their record of consistent innovation?
Most people think it’s because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.
As legendary Silicon Valley coach--and coach to the founders of several of today’s leading tech companies--Bill Campbell said, “Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge.”
The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you’ll need to create just such an environment.
As partners at The Silicon Valley Product Group, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have long worked to reveal the best practices of the most consistently innovative companies in the world. A natural companion to the bestseller INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to truly leverage the potential of their people to innovate: product leadership.
The book covers:
- what it means to be an empowered product team, and how this is different from the “feature teams” used by most companies to build technology products
- recruiting and coaching the members of product teams, first to competence, and then to reach their potential
- creating an inspiring product vision along with an insights-driven product strategy
- translating that strategy into action by empowering teams with specific objectives―problems to solve―rather than features to build
- redefining the relationship of the product teams to the rest of the company
- detailing the changes necessary to effectively and successfully transform your organization to truly empowered product teams
EMPOWERED puts decades of lessons learned from the best leaders of the top technology companies in your hand as a guide. It shows you how to become the leader your team and company needs to not only survive but thrive.
- ISBN-10111969129X
- ISBN-13978-1119691297
- Edition1st
- PublisherWiley
- Publication dateDecember 3, 2020
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6 x 1.5 x 9.1 inches
- Print length432 pages
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for EMPOWERED
"EMPOWERED dives deep into the tough organizational and cultural issues that get in the way of most companies I work with today. This is the experience and advice I’ve been waiting for in one book."
―Jeff Patton, Product Process and Design Coach
"I've known Chris for well over a decade. He is one of the finest product leaders I know. The product managers who worked for him went on to become great product leaders themselves, in some of the best tech companies around. If you want to learn from the best, this book captures those lessons."
―Doug Camplejohn, EVP and GM, Sales Cloud, Salesforce
"Once again, Marty's wisdom and unique perspective have synthesized best-in-class companies, cultures, and leaders into a thesis and set of principles that are transformational. Easy to consume and apply, EMPOWERED is a must read for product leaders and all leaders who are convinced there must be a better way."
―Chuck Geiger, former CTO Chegg, IAC, PayPal, eBay, Wine.com, Travelocity
"If you're leading product people or even the whole product organization of your company, this book is for you. It’s the first book to outline the underlying philosophy behind stellar product organizations from a leader's perspective, and its many examples make it easy to understand these concepts and apply them in your company’s environment."
―Petra Wille, Product Leadership Coach
"As one of the most respected leaders on product globally, Marty takes us for a fascinating ride that will help you become a better product leader so you can do what you do best―create satisfying, engaging experiences for your users and customers."
―Simon Zhang, CEO, Growing IO
"To thrive in this age of constant disruption, companies must accelerate innovation and continuously deliver products customers love. A higher level of consistent innovation can only come from truly empowered teams. Over the past several years, Marty's insights, practical advice, and wisdom have been immensely valuable during our transformation to a highly empowered product organization. In this book, Marty provides an essential blueprint for building empowered teams. If you are serious about achieving extraordinary business results and developing a product innovation culture you can be truly proud of, this is a must-read!"
―Shamim Mohammad, SVP, Chief Information and Technology Officer, CarMax
"I've had the good fortune to work with Marty for many years, and yet, every time he comes out with a new book or article, I’m filled with both excitement and fear. What new product techniques are our competitors using that we are missing? EMPOWERED hits the mark dead on and provides a recipe for creating great products. Marty has a knack for making difficult product techniques seem both necessary and tangible. Read the book and rejuvenate your company!"
―Jeff Trom, CTO, Workiva
"The core challenge of all tech companies today is to be a truly product-led organization, with continuous product innovation resulting in sustainable competitive advantage. EMPOWERED to change their companies in order to survive and thrive."
―Frerk-Malte Feller, COO, Afterpay
"If you are wondering what will ensure your company survives, or why your products are failing, read this book. This is the 'how to'’ manual for building great product companies that last."
―Amanda Richardson, CEO, CoderPad
"I included INSPIRED as mandatory reading for anyone joining my product development teams. Now I'll add EMPOWERED to the list of mandatory reading."
―Joca Torres, CPO, Gympass
"INSPIRED has been a manual for our team to build better products. EMPOWERED is now a manual to build a stronger team. Everything I've read from SVPG is spot on, and often feels like I can use it the same day."
―Ian Cairns, Head of Product for Twitter Developer Platform
"EMPOWERED is first and foremost about permission. Companies have to give themselves the permission to orient around a culture of product centricity. Everything from org structure, to technology, to culture and coaching derives from this. And nothing embodies this idea more than Marty's writings."
―Punit Soni, founder, CEO, Suki
From the Inside Flap
What is it about the top tech product companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Tesla that enables their record of consistent innovation?
Most people think it's because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.
As legendary Silicon Valley coachand coach to the founders of several of today's leading tech companiesBill Campbell said, "Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge."
The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you'll need to create just such an environment.
A natural companion to Marty Cagan's bestseller, INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to truly leverage the potential of their people to innovate: product leadership.
The book covers:
- How empowered product teams are different from the "feature teams" used by most companies to build technology products
- Recruiting and coaching the members of product teams
- Creating an inspiring product vision and product strategy
- Assigning teams problems to solverather than features to build
- Transforming the product organization from feature teams to empowered product teams
From the Back Cover
Become the leader your product teams, and your company, need you to be.
"Every product leadernoevery CEO and senior management team should read this. Now."
PHIL TERRY, Founder, Collaborative Gain; co-author, Customers Included
"There are only a few people in the world with the experience to outline the secrets of world-class product organizations. That's what Marty and Chris do in this book. This is essential reading for every product leader."
WYATT JENKINS, SVP Product, Procore
"Marty Cagan's INSPIRED motivated a generation of product managers to build products customers love, and EMPOWERED is the blueprint leaders need to transform their organizations and empower their teams to deliver on that inspiration."
MARTIN ERIKSSON, Co-Founder, Mind the Product
"Marty and Chris have written the definitive book on product leadership. Their emphasis on coaching as a key leadership skill and the detail on how to do it well, makes EMPOWERED a must-read for new, aspiring, and experienced product leaders."
TERESA TORRES, Product Discovery Coach, Product Talk
"EMPOWERED is a must-read for product leaders in the same way INSPIRED is unquestionably the most influential book in tech product management."
FELIPE CASTRO, Founder, OutcomeEdge
"This is the missing guide to product leadership. It gave me the tools, mindset, and practical insights to excel in my role. I fully expect to come back to this book on a recurring basisas I do with INSPIRED. EMPOWERED needs to be on the shelf of all product leaders and aspiring product leaders."
GABRIELLE BUFREM, Manager of Product Management, VMware
"EMPOWERED is full of straight talk for anyone looking to understand how the best product teams operate. The book demonstrates that great product companies aren't made by magicthe structure and leadership of the product development organization creates the environment for success."
HOLLY HESTER-REILLY, Founder, H2R Product Science
About the Author
MARTY CAGAN is the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group, sharing senior-level experience and best practices with leading technology companies. He is an in-demand global speaker, advisor, author and executive coach. Before starting SVPG, Marty served as a product executive for some of the most successful companies in the world, including Hewlett- Packard, Netscape Communications, and eBay. He is the author of the bestselling INSPIRED: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love.
CHRIS JONES has spent more than 25 years building and leading product teams that defined new product categories at companies including Lookout, Symantec, and Vontu. A holder of multiple patents, he has discovered and developed new products in consumer and enterprise mobile, web, data, and platform services. Since joining SVPG, Chris has worked directly with over 100 companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies across a wide variety of technologies, business models, and industries.
Product details
- Publisher : Wiley; 1st edition (December 3, 2020)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 111969129X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1119691297
- Item Weight : 1.69 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.5 x 9.1 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #18,655 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #150 in Entrepreneurship (Books)
- #272 in Business Management (Books)
- #393 in Leadership & Motivation
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

Before founding the Silicon Valley Product Group to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, advising and coaching, Marty Cagan served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, and eBay.
During his career, Marty has personally performed and managed most of the roles of a modern technology product organization, including product management, software development, product marketing, user experience design, software testing, engineering management, and general management.
As part of his work with SVPG, Marty is an invited speaker at major conferences and top companies across the globe. Marty is the author of INSPIRED: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love and co-author of EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products.

Chris has spent over 25 years building and leading product teams that defined new product categories at startups to F500 software companies including Lookout, Symantec, and Vontu. A holder of multiple patents, he has discovered and developed new products in consumer and enterprise mobile, web, data, and platform services.
Since joining SVPG, Chris has worked directly with over 150 companies ranging from startups to very large enterprises across a wide variety of technologies, business models, and industries. Chris has worked directly with leadership and operational teams at these companies to better align their organization, process, tools, and culture with modern product best practices.
Before joining Silicon Valley Product Group, Chris was the VP of Product, Design, and Analytics for Lookout and the Head of Product for Vontu (acquired by Symantec). At both companies, Chris built the product organizations from the ground up and led the effort to discover and deliver multiple category-leading products.
Chris graduated from Stanford with a B.S. in Computer Science
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There is a lot of carryover from Inspired as he maintains his key principles. There are very few people that I read where I am constantly nodding and saying to myself "couldn't have said it better", but Cagan is one of them.
Here are some powerful quotes
* The product manager has a clear responsibility, which is to ensure that the solutions are valuable (our customers will buy the product and/or choose to use it), and viable (it will meet the needs of the business). Together with a product designer who is responsible for ensuring the solution is usable, and a tech lead who is responsible for ensuring the solution is feasible, the team is able to collaborate to address this full range of risks (value, viability, usability, and feasibility). Together, they own the problem and are responsible and accountable for the results.
* With every interaction, at the very least, you’re looking to learn: Are the customers who you think they are? Do they have the problems you think they have? How do they solve that problem today? What would it take to get them to switch?
* If I had to boil it all down, I'd say that thinking like an owner versus thinking like an employee is primarily about taking responsibility for the outcome rather than just the activities.
* Your highest‐order contribution and responsibility as product manager is to make sure that what the engineers are asked to build will be worth building. That it will deliver the necessary results. This means working with designers and engineers to come up with solutions that are valuable, usable, feasible, and viable. That is product discovery, and that is what takes on the order of four solid hours a day.
* Stephen Covey explained that: Trust is a function of two things: competence and character. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, and your track record. Character includes your integrity, your motive, and your intent with people. Both are vital.
I will definitely keep this book handy to brush up on some of the chapter themes around strategy or hiring in the future.
* Optimizing for empowerment requires balancing three interrelated goals: ownership, autonomy, and alignment.
* The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. —Jim Barksdale
* “Failing” in discovery is not really failing—it is very fast and inexpensive learning
Here is one gem from the book that anyone could use during interviewing. I used it a few times and loved the level of thought it forces the interviewee to put into their response.
"This setup should be disarming. The candidate must understand that there is no correct answer to the question, hopefully setting up an honest conversation. Now for the four attributes, in no particular order. I (Chris) usually describe them this way:
* Execution — how well do you get things done, do the right thing without being asked, and track lots of simultaneous targets?
* Creativity — how often are you the person in the room with the most or the best ideas?
* Strategy — how well do you get up above what you're working on and put it into a broader market or vision context and then make this clear to others?
* Growth — how good are you at figuring out ways to multiply effort through smart use of process, team management, and so on?"
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 22, 2023
The best thing I loved about the book is the philosophies, frameworks and techniques to help PMs thrive and grow. The practices will help PMs build great products. The things that most stood out for me are
1. How top tech companies are shipping one great product after another
2. How a product leader can hire great PMs and coach their teams
3. How to set product vision
4. How to define product strategy
5. How to transform your teams
I am grateful for Marty Cagan's work over the years to help Product Managers become better. I have been learning a lot from Marty's previous book Inspired, his articles and workshops. I eagerly waited for Empowered and pre-ordered the book and couldn’t wait. Empowered is a great guide book full of strategic guidance and practical advise on how PM leaders can grow. The book was amazing! It has turned out to be a lighthouse for me. The book is inspiring and I hope to keep referring it back to when I look for answers in best practices.
The book will really help even ordinary people build extraordinary products and unleash their true potential to the world impacting the lives of millions of people.
I loved the fact that specific use cases are provided. For example when we talk about an empowered team versus a feature team what does that mean and look like? More importantly, what do empowered product teams do differently that create more customer and business value?
Three topics specifically resonated with me that I plan to focus more on in 2021.
1. Coaching - Everyone deserves a good manager who actively coaches them.
2. Product Vision - Explaining the meaningful impact we have on customers lives.
3. Product Strategy - Giving teams a small number of hard problems to solve and the space to solve them.
If you are serious about being an exceptional product leader, this book will absolutely raise your game IF you sincerely put it to use.
Top reviews from other countries
Cagan and Jones are probably in the best position to see a stark difference between the technology-powered products created by the best companies and the products created by most companies. There are three specific areas where this difference is the most apparent: the way in which technology is viewed, the role product leaders play and the purpose of product teams. The book elaborates on these area, offering helpful stories and pointers.
I highly recommend “Empowered” to anyone who wants to truly understand what’s involved in product leadership, and what is imperative for any strong product company.
Generally there was a core theme throughout the book that each chapter reinforced. At a stage through the book I thought it got a little bit theoretical like I had a McKinsey consultant telling me how I should run my business but towards the end there were some good case studies that helped give a more practical look at how to apply some of these theories.
I think as a book for some inspiration this is a good read but go in to it understanding that you should understand the full context of the book and then start to apply it to your own organisation. This is not the silver bullet that I’m sure many people hope it is (and will never exist).













