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Hey Reader 👋🏻

How's it going?!

I had a break from the newsletter last week as I was in Amsterdam hanging out with my friends at 7people 🙌🏻 It was a little over a year to the day since I hosted the first 7people community meet-up, it was a privilege to mark the anniversary with another meet-up!

The post-it's were back out in force (as always!) for a practical session on how to add force and remove friction from your PX Flywheel to enable exponential people and business growth. I also spent some time in the studio with Paul and Flo recording an episode for the 7people podcast.

It is that conversation I want to reflect on in today's newsletter.

The seed question was; What is People Experience as a Product? 🤔

During the conversation we had a really fun exploration of the core concept of product principles in HR and I found myself repeating over and over; Product-Led PX is about a change in mindset first, the specific technical tooling and product methodology is secondary.

Interestingly, during the meet-up (which was the following evening), I found myself once again repeating (and repeating) - focus on the mindset shift first, methodology second.

Mindset first. Methodology second.

When I get fixated on a phrase like this, it is usually for good reason. In this case, over the past ~6 months during the many conversations I have had with People Leaders at various stages of adoption of product-led PX, one of the biggest initial hurdles is feeling overwhelmed by buzzwords and the whole product language framework which comes with the shift in a approach.

The truth is, all of that noise is a distraction from what is most important. It isn't about product for product sake. It's not about feeling like part of the new and progressive crowd. It isn't even about product management really... Shifting to product-led approach is really about two key outcomes:

1. You (as the People Lead) becoming a strategic business leader
2. HR becoming a function of value creation

These are the outcomes that matter most and it is really these two outcomes that sit at the heart of the post-HR generation. A generation which will move the People function from support to strategic, from admin to enablement, and ultimately from HR to PX.

That is why I am so keen to emphasise that in order to get started down the path of product-led PX, the mindset shift comes first. You can figure out the what and the how as you go, but you have make a hard commitment to the enablement mindset first. Which means you need to make a hard rejection of the support mindset too.

The body of my work is focused on helping People Leaders make that shift, so I won't labour the point any further - this is just a call to action for you keep seeking new ways of thinking and working in HR, keep sharing your wins and learns with the community, keep open-sourcing your progress. The more minds we shift from support to enablement, the more quickly we can transform our profession, break down age old HR silos and become genuine growth function.

That is f*cking exciting if you ask me! 🤘🏻

Obsess over problems, not solutions.

The second major part of the mindset shift towards a product-led approach is the acknowledgement that for far too long HR has been obsessed with creating solutions, often at the expense of understanding and resolving the real problems which exist.

I have been guilty of this more times than I would care to admit, so this isn't coming from an exalted position, it is coming from an informed one, as a Head of People in recovery 😆 The key to scaling impact as a People Leader is getting really clear on the problems you are solving and the business impact you unlock by solving them. This means deeply understanding your end-user needs (relative to the top priorities of the business, and ideally designing systems, processes and experiences which can be delivered and maintained by those closest to the end user... NOT by HR.

Maybe it sounds out of reach, but it doesn't have to be, here are 3 things you can do TODAY which will get you a step closer:

💡Slow down at the start of projects to ensure the problem you are setting out to solve genuinely exists in the way you think it does
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💡Be sure that the problem has a clear and measurable end user impact, and that that impact is tied to a top organisational priority
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💡Build in stages; create prototype solutions, test them with end users, iterate and improve
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These steps can all be taken with ZERO product specific knowledge, tooling or training - you will find out what you don't know as you experiment. This is actually part of the fun of the process, you will expand your understanding and technical skillset as you go and crucially you will deliver far more impact to employees, key stakeholders, and the business, and you will do so at a much higher velocity than you thought possible - which is ultimately the core objective.

What is PX as a Product?

I will end today by addressing the seed question, what is PX as a Product. I am going to be deliberately short and obtuse and say that it doesn't have to be one thing. There is no single definition, nor is there one single approach which is the right one. However, there are some core characteristics which are consistent across all approaches to product-led PX which are distinctly different to traditional HR:

Spend time studying these core differences and really think about each category, from Focus through the Methodology. Where does your approach currently sit relative to these? Traditional HR or Product-Led PX?

Wherever you are on the spectrum of product-led adoption currently, focus on the mindset shift first, methodology second. If you do that, the rest of the pieces will fall into place as you start to shift your ways of working to enable your new way of thinking.

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for insights, tips, and resource flags on how to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

PS, when you are ready you might like...

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