Make People Strong Enough to Outgrow You
Pillar
People & Organization
Company
Accedo
Audience
Hiring manager, CPO, CDO, product executive, design executive
Date
2021 to present
PLAYBOOK BRIEF
Capability
People leadership, coaching, shared judgment, delegated ownership
Overview
While Accedo's design capability grew from 3 to 30+ over time, I directly led 15+ people regionally and influenced a 25+ global product and design organisation. I used product reviews, critique, leadership tiers, career ladders, one-to-ones, mentorship, and open decision forums to make context, quality criteria, and decision ownership explicit.
Evidence & limits
Evidence: The documented practice combines product reviews, critique, leadership tiers, career ladders, one-to-ones, mentorship, stretch assignments, open decision forums, and post-promotion support. The organisation figures describe leadership scope, not a coaching result. Trade-offs: I made context and quality criteria explicit, gave senior ICs and managers real decision ownership, and stayed close through critique and product reviews. Too close turns feedback into approval; too far removes useful context and support. Limits and failure modes: The manager remains the implied owner, a stretch assignment carries no real authority, a career ladder is published without support, or reviews quietly become approval gates. What this proves: The scope figures show where I used these practices. They should not be added together and do not turn the playbook into a promotion, retention, or business metric.
Practical takeaway
As a reader exercise, take one open product decision and write the decision, owner, customer problem, business or delivery constraint, quality and accessibility criteria, escalation boundary, and next review moment. Useful tools and rituals: Leadership tiers, career ladders, one-to-one cadence, mentorship, stretch assignments, hiring criteria, critique, product reviews, open decision forums, and post-promotion support.
Related content
Product reviews at organisation scale
At Accedo, I kept joining product reviews, challenging assumptions, prototyping, and inspecting delivery details. The problem was keeping that involvement useful as the organisation grew without making every choice depend on me.
I had to work differently as Accedo's design capability grew from 3 to 30+ over time. I directly led 15+ people regionally and influenced a 25+ global product and design organisation. Those figures describe separate scopes. They should not be added together, and they are not a coaching result.
Give context before ownership
Before asking a senior IC or manager to own a decision, I made the customer problem, business constraint, delivery reality, and tradeoff visible.
The team used concrete material to judge the work:
critique
product principles and examples
customer evidence
accessibility standards
open decisions
The owner needed enough context to explain the choice and the quality criteria behind it. That gave the review a shared basis beyond personal preference.
Write the boundary down
Leadership tiers, stretch assignments, and explicit decision boundaries made the scope clear. The boundary said what the person could decide and what still required escalation.
I used those review moments to question the reasoning and strengthen the work without quietly taking the decision back.
Build the support around the decision
Decision ownership was one part of the system. The operating set also included:
career ladders
regular one-to-ones
mentorship
stretch assignments
hiring criteria
open decision forums
post-promotion support
Publishing a ladder or assigning stretch scope did not complete the work. People still needed feedback, time to practise, and support after the role changed.
The tension I kept managing
Staying close creates a risk that the leader's view becomes the approval. Moving too far away removes useful context and feedback.
Stretch scope has the same tension. The person needs real ownership for the experience to matter, and the boundary still has to protect customer, accessibility, and delivery requirements.
Try this at the next product review
Pick one open product decision and write down:
the decision
the named owner
the customer problem
the business or delivery constraint
the quality and accessibility criteria
the boundary that requires escalation
the next review moment
Ask the owner to explain the chosen tradeoff against those fields. If the manager remains the implied owner, the handoff is incomplete.
The scope figures show where I used the practices. They do not turn them into a promotion, retention, delivery, or commercial metric.
