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EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products
Empowered: why this book will change your perspective
Empowered product teams are key to sustainable innovation. As partners at The Silicon Valley Product Group, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have spent years uncovering the best practices behind the world’s most consistently innovative companies like Apple, Google, and Netflix. As a natural sequel to the bestseller INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles a critical reason why most companies fail to unlock their people’s true potential: lack of product leadership.
The goal of this book is to equip leaders in product management, product design, or engineering with everything they need to enable consistent innovation. Because what sets companies like these apart isn’t just who they hire—but how they enable their teams to solve hard problems and build extraordinary products.
Empowered product team
In Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products, the authors go deep into what it really means to be an empowered product team. They argue that success stems from giving teams both autonomy and responsibility—shifting leadership from directing execution to focusing on outcomes.
Key topics include:
- What defines an empowered product team
- How to hire and coach product team members
- How to craft a compelling product vision
- How to translate strategy into action by giving teams clear objectives
- How to redefine the team’s relationship with the rest of the business
- What it takes to successfully transform an organization
The core of empowered product leadership
Empowered leadership is about letting go of micromanagement and building trust within your team. Cagan and Jones emphasize that real leadership is about hiring the right people, creating the right culture, and providing clear direction—while giving your teams space to discover and deliver the best solutions themselves.
This approach isn’t passive—it requires ongoing coaching, alignment, and a shared sense of purpose. It also aligns closely with how GlobalOrange works through our GOdna framework.
Creating a culture of innovation
Empowerment thrives in a culture that values collaboration and continuous learning. The book makes it clear: this doesn’t happen by accident. As a leader, you must actively break down silos, foster customer-centric thinking, and embrace iteration.
Companies that work in an empowered way invest consistently in product discovery and validation. Want to learn how? Check out our Product Discovery Workshop.
Getting started with empowerment
The book doesn’t just provide theory—it’s full of practical tools. From templates for setting team goals to coaching scripts and roadmap formats, it’s an essential toolkit for product leaders who want to level up their impact.
Whether you’re a start-up or a growing scale-up, working in an empowered way begins with a conscious choice to put your product teams at the heart of innovation.
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