External validation and internal motivation

If you want to change the world, do you act as an internal or external agent of the system? Do you act as a producer in the service of the greater good for incremental progress, or do you generate massive impact within defined boundaries to influence more radical outcomes? In both situations, how do you maintain enough energy and personal motivation to resolve to move forward and keep learning, instead of iterating on the same patterns for different results, just in case there is something more to discover from that perspective?

It feels silly to deny the desire for external validation, especially when so much is dependent on perception and intrinsic value. What is the value that a product manager provides to an organization, a business, a product?

Sometimes, it's a decent amount of documentation and organization. Sometimes, the team just needs to visualize and understand the roadmap and the path ahead. It does not always need to be a grand vision–save that one for the executives–but it should have energy to motivate a team about a realistic outcome. Everyone wants to influence the world in their way, but it feels out of reach when you cannot understand the context of your impact. Honestly, how many people sit still at the end of the day and consider what they have done that day and what it contributed to society or their community or their family? That is not a judgment–it is very difficult to maintain composure and objectivity long enough to distance yourself from the emotions that encompass you throughout the day. But! But, that is the beauty of the product management discipline–whatever you do, however you do it, you are working within a framework that encourages collaboration, and context, and recognition of data, in all its forms, to produce something that improves someone's life. You might think it small–what does this feature produce, in the grand scheme–but you should consider the influence that your role provides, in the grand scheme.

The grand scheme is always bigger than yourself, and maybe that is the role that you play, but at least you played it well.