SaaS Secret Sauce – ZEN
What is Zen?
I get it, ZEN sounds very mystical, but stick with me—it's actually quite practical. When people think of Zen, they often think of monks, meditation, yoga, and similar practices. These are the tools to build a Zen mindset but not Zen itself. Growing up, I studied martial arts under Frank J. Goody, who was exactly what you would imagine a Zen master to be—straight out of a movie but 100% real. He had an amazing way of teaching Zen through example.
One lesson that has stuck with me involved a simple setup: he would place a coat hanger at the entrance to the locker room. It wasn’t fully blocking the way but was just in the way enough to be noticeable. Ten people would walk through the door, and nine would step around, jump over, or otherwise avoid the obstacle. But one would stop and pick up the coat hanger, addressing the problem directly. The individual who stopped to address the obstacle demonstrated clarity of mind and purposeful action—hallmarks of Zen.
What Does This Have to Do with Product?
As product leaders, we face competing priorities, various stakeholder views, and floods of data. While this data is an invaluable guide, it rarely provides certainty on its own. The Zen in product is maintaining focus on the mission: making our users' lives better. By evaluating options through this lens, we can bring clarity to what might otherwise become overwhelming noise.
Like the practice of Zen, we must also accept the imperfect while committing to iterating toward perfection. Without this mindset, we risk getting stuck and never moving forward. If we hold ourselves or our counterparts to the standard of perfection, we only serve to create tension and not betterment. Improvement comes from commitment to best efforts and helping each other improve with each iteration.
Applying Zen at the Individual Level.
When solving a complex problem, it’s human nature to become overwhelmed by the details. But if you keep sight of the empirical problem and iterate, the details have a way of falling into place. Approaching the problem holistically often reveals opportunities for simple upstream changes that can entirely eliminate the complex issue at hand.
These big wins are most often achieved through collaboration with our partners in engineering and UX. Together, by practicing clarity and focus, we can identify and resolve the “coat hangers” in our products and processes, leading to elegant solutions that truly improve the lives of our users.
These are the tools of Product Zen. By adopting these practices, we can consistently drive meaningful improvements while fostering a collaborative and focused approach to problem-solving.