Marty Cagan

Marty Cagan is the founder of Silicon Valley Product Group, author of Inspired and Empowered (two of the most widely read books on product management), and a former VP of Product at Netscape and SVP at eBay -- with over 20 years spent studying how the best product companies operate. Their core argument: The best tech companies -- Microsoft, Google, Apple -- have made coaching a formal leadership principle, not a nice-to-have. This is organizational infrastructure, not individual preference, and it was catalyzed by Bill Campbell's influence across Silicon Valley. The evidence is specific: Google: Sundar Pichai publicly stating the #1 quality they look for in leaders is being a good coach. Furthermore, microsoft: three published principles for leaders with coaching as #1, a key element of Satya Nadella's cultural transformation. Apple: four big leadership responsibilities with coaching as one of them. In Marty Cagan's own words: "Executives at Microsoft, Google, Netflix, Apple, they've all been bragging about how much they care about coaching. Literally Sundar at Google has been saying that the number one thing they look for in their leaders is a good coach. The number two thing is that they're not a micromanager and they know how to empower their teams. But at Microsoft, they have three principles for their leaders, they're managers that they've been advertising. Number one, coaching. Number two, caring. I forget what number three is. And then at Apple, they have four big responsibilities for their leaders. Coaching is one of them. They've all been more vocal about this." (How the best tech companies have formalized coaching as leadership infrastructure.)