Why Empowered is the only book I’m rereading for 2026 planning
Title: Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products
Author: Marty Cagan AND Chris Jones
Quote:
“With an empowered product team, it’s not sufficient just to ship something when promised. What you ship must actually work - It must solve the problem for th customer and/or the business. This is much more difficult”
pg. 112
Why I like it:
Every leader wants an empowered team, but the reality is we often slip back into micromanagement or "feature factory" mode. We struggle with the core tension: how do I give my team the autonomy they crave while ensuring they stay aligned to our most critical business goals? Empowered is the leadership book that addresses this paradox head-on. It's a blueprint for active, hands-on management that doesn't feel like micromanaging. It lays out the system for establishing vision and strategy so teams can focus, providing the coaching they need to execute, and setting up the accountability to ensure they deliver impact—not just code.
How I use it:
To bridge the gap between autonomy and accountability, I’ve created two primary systems:
Strategy as a Focus Tool: My first job as a leader is to define the Vision and Strategy for the year ahead.
The goal of this strategy is simple: it defines which problems to solve and provides the insights and data to back up why those problems matter. This means spending time defining the problems and sitting with teams to make sure they understand the context of the business. The goal is for teams to make fewer decisions about what to work on, freeing their energy to focus on the most impactful decisions about how to solve the problem.
Metrics Monday: If strategy grants autonomy, the accountability loop ensures that autonomy is used effectively. "Metrics Monday" is our monthly meeting designed to create this learning loop, ensuring every team is accountable for their impact and actively tracking their work.
Each team sets their own quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). We meet the first Monday of every month, and all teams attend. During the meeting, each team briefly reviews the same four points:
OKR Status
Progress on Key Metrics
Key Learnings
Next Steps
The meeting is framed around the core idea that “You’re allowed to be wrong, but you’re not allowed to be confused.” This encourages teams to admit when experiments or solutions aren't working but requires them to clearly articulate why they failed and what they learned.
This simple structure ensures teams are held accountable for their specific, team-defined OKRs, while leadership is able to actively coach and support their learning without needing to micromanage. It transforms accountability from a judgment process into a coaching opportunity.
Holding teams accountable is hard. Make it easier by having a system in place to support teams. As James Clear often says “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Empowerment isn't a cultural aspiration; it’s a structural outcome.
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