If you're a PO, chances are… you're a little bit greedy.
Not for power or credit — but for ownership. For the thrill of solving meaningful problems.
That’s why top-down tasks often trigger a quiet rebellion inside us.
Maybe it’s just in our nature.
But when something lands on our plate from the top
— with no context, no discussion —
our minds immediately shift into critical mode.
We analyze harder. We focus more on what could go wrong.
And then we drag ourselves to the team like we’ve been sentenced to carry out a mission we didn’t sign up for.
1. The reluctant PO scene:
Imagine this.
You’ve just come from a meeting with a C-level stakeholder.
You bring the task to the team — one that doesn’t make much sense, doesn’t feel impactful, and certainly doesn’t motivate anyone.
Planning starts with confusion.
Pushback builds:
“Why are we even doing this?”
“Is this really the most impactful thing right now?”
And what do you do? You draw a line between the team and leadership.
“I know it doesn’t make sense — but this came from the top.”
At that point, motivation disappears.
All you want is to check the box and move on.
You’re no longer sure if you're a Product Owner or just a Project Executor.
2. But can we truly escape top-down work?
Unless you're in an early-stage startup with full autonomy, probably not.
And especially not in Korea.
🇰🇷 Korea’s market is small but dense.
That doesn’t mean there’s no room to grow.
But that growth almost always involves external collaboration.
Whether you’re building something from scratch or scaling an already stable product, working with external stakeholders is a constant.
And when stakeholders grow, so do top-down requests.
Add speed and time pressure into the mix, and discovery time gets squeezed out entirely.
3. So maybe… the perspective has to shift.
Top-down work isn’t just “do what they told you.”
It’s a chance to build something even better — within constraints.
That’s the real challenge:
- How do we turn someone else’s vague request into a great product?
- How do we push for quality, clarity, and value even when it wasn’t our idea?
Creating from scratch is hard.
But building something great from someone else’s sketchy input? That’s next-level hard.
And honestly — that’s what makes PO work worth doing.
& One more thing about “them” — the decision-makers.
It’s easy to feel frustrated when a C-level decision lands with no explanation.
But here’s the thing:
No one in the company knows the business more deeply
— or cares more urgently — than they do.
Employees can move on.
Executives? Their whole life is often tied to the company’s survival.
They’re constantly looking for new opportunities.
What we feel as “top-down” pressure is often just the byproduct of their fight to keep the business alive.
That doesn’t mean we have to blindly accept everything.
But we do need to understand that this push-and-pull is part of growing a company — especially in fast-moving, highly competitive markets like Korea.
So hang in there.
Get through the hard stuff.
One day, you’ll carve out a path no one else has ever walked.
And it’ll be all yours to name after yourself.
💡 In Korea, "Product Owner (PO)" is often used to describe what is typically a "Product Manager (PM)" in the US. Meanwhile, the "Product Manager (PM)" role in Korea is closer to a "Product Owner (PO)" in the US. This terminology swap became widely used due to early Agile adoption. I’ll continue using "PO" since it matches my job title, but know that it refers to a PM-equivalent role in the US.
Comments
Post a Comment