Google drives innovation and creativity for product managers

With billions of people using its products every day, Google’s product managers seek to maintain the company’s high level of innovation and creativity. This hard-working team of high-performers bridge engineering and business to manage a product's full lifecycle, from strategic planning to development and launch.

In their quest for continuous growth, Google’s product managers expressed a need to improve their communication skills, collaboration, work-life balance, and span of influence. To keep them moving with the fast pace of innovation at Google, Lauren Kelley, Head of Learning & Development for Product Managers, sought a way to help each individual build the skills that would help them grow in resilience, increase Mental Fitness, and support well-being.

Knowing that each product manager needs to develop in the particular way that meets them where they are, Google’s Learning & Development team provides individualized BetterUp® coaching to all PMs who would like a coach.

A dedicated Coach gives product managers an accountability partner to keep them on track for taking time for themselves, their well-being, rest, and work-life balance — activities that are connected to building strong Mental Fitness. They can also work on business skills like Executive Presence and Effective Communication, which helps them feel more confident in their roles and drive alignment across the business.

Going into their coaching membership, members take the BetterUp Whole Person assessment so they have an understanding of strengths and areas of opportunity before getting started:

The pace of work at Google means that product managers need to stay on top of their game. Giving product managers time to reflect, plan, and look at the bigger picture with a Coach resulted in a significant increase in their Strategic Planning capabilities — one of the qualities measured on the BetterUp Whole Person Model. 

Quickly adapting to new situations while keeping the product vision in mind is a hallmark of a successful product manager. Those who worked with a Coach saw improvements in Cognitive Agility, proving that slowing down helps them adapt because they know how to step back and renew their energy stores. The team also saw a significant improvement in Work-Life balance.

On average, employee participants at Google experienced the following growth: 

Shipping any product at Google requires skilled communication and the ability to create alignment among disparate teams. BetterUp analytics revealed a huge increase in product managers’ Sphere of Influence, showing that coaching gives this group of leaders the skills needed to keep their teams aligned and on track.

By focusing on what it means to be human: taking rest, time to plan, and balance their work and personal lives, BetterUp coaching has given product managers a sustainable path to driving greater innovation and creating more products that everyone loves.