--- title: How to make every manager a product manager description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7330785/how-to-make-every-manager-a-product-manager/ author: Brian Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-11-04T11:30:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-28T07:07:32.877Z article:section: Charter og:title: How to make every manager a product manager og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ee877bdd2b674ec/6998cb5925f3eec11c645272/charter-product-manager.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- The information presented here is created by Charter, independently from the TIME editorial staff.  Time charter * [change management](/partner-content/charter/tag/change-management/) ## change management # How to make every manager a product manager > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=69361a7d-03de-4462-84e8-998ba50280fc&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=69361a7d-03de-4462-84e8-998ba50280fc&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Nov 4, 2025 11:30 AM UTC  Illustration by Charter · Photo by vgajic, Getty by [Brian Elliott](https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/) Executive-in-residence, Charter Brian Elliott is Charter's executive-in-residence and CEO of Work Forward. Nov 4, 2025 11:30 AM UTC ### **Change management needs product management** The past few decades have seen the rise of product managers: people who steer product development across functions (engineering, design, marketing) by focusing on solving customer problems. That same mindset now needs to be applied internally for the rollout of artificial intelligence—treating employees as users with problems worth solving. AI is a tool; using it effectively requires understanding what real problems it can solve. During a webinar I moderated recently, one human resources leader described how her team used AI to pull together two separate data sources about employees—tenure and performance ratings—and pushed the combined list to managers via Slack. Managers hit a yes/no button next to each name to indicate promotion intent. That was simple, but it eliminated hours of manual work. The response from other HR leaders was telling: excitement and immediate questions about implementation. Sign up for Charter's newsletter to get the handbook for the future of work delivered to your inbox. Email Address You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our [Terms of Service](https://www.charterworks.com/terms-of-service/) and [Privacy Policy](https://www.charterworks.com/privacy-policy/). That's a product management approach, identifying a part of someone's job that creates toil, then building a solution. [Debbie Lovich](https://www.bcg.com/about/people/experts/deborah-lovich), a BCG managing director and senior partner, found that [targeting toil](https://www.bcg.com/publications/2025/when-companies-struggle-to-adopt-ai-ceos-must-step-up) drives AI adoption. But this requires what [Helen Kupp](https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenleekupp/), co-founder of Women Defining AI, calls moving "from doing the job to scoping the job." "Instead of writing the document," Kupp explains, "how do you think about the guidelines that generate the document?" ### **Make every manager a product manager?** More companies are talking about treating work like a product. How do you redesign employee experience journeys end-to-end to increase engagement and productivity? For example, that means thinking about the flow for a worker from application through hiring and onboarding, versus dozens of separate processes, tools and functions. It's a noble idea. Employee experience has been fragmented and neglected. The contrast is stark: firms invest[ $142 billion annually](https://shop.esomar.org/knowledge-center/library?publication=3019) understanding customers, but under $11 billion on[ employee experience](https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/employee-experience-management-market-report). This despite[ clear evidence](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022435908000456?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com) linking employee engagement to customer results. Thinking about employee experience with a product-management mindset might unlock the key to positive return on investment from AI spending. Product management is about delivering products and services that maximize business outcomes through delivering customer value. The same is true for employees and AI: recent research shows that people-centric organizations are [seven times more likely](https://www.charterworks.com/how-to-increase-worker-ai-adoption/) to be mature in their adoption of AI. I've been a product manager and led product management teams at Google and Slack. Great product managers invest in understanding their customer’s needs through research—for example, mapping out how a customer actually uses their product day to day, step by step, and marrying that with what steps create friction and where they find value. They then work with designers and developers to build better solutions based on deep understanding of today’s challenges. You can do the same with teams of employees. Focus on how teams actually work, then use technology to eliminate toil and waste. The HR-automating promotion process I described earlier has freed up an HR business partner to spend more time talking with leaders about the rationale behind promotions and exploring gaps in who isn't being put forward. Product managers are almost always builders, people who want to understand how systems operate, who optimize workflows, who tinker with new tools. They're restless about how work gets done. It's still early in AI adoption, but this builder mindset unlocks AI's potential. ### **Builders are everywhere** Kupp has worked with hundreds of professionals and run workshops for organizations on how to use AI, and is a product manager by background. I talked with her to understand what she's seeing. What groups have that builder mindset? What traits? Is this just Gen Z? Or just "operations" roles? "You cannot predict who has the builder mindset in your organization. At a private equity firm I worked with, it was the lawyers. At a tech firm, product counsel and the chief strategy officer. And people from all backgrounds and roles," says Kupp. It's also not just Gen Z or Millennials. "Some of my most active members are in their 50s and 60s." What they have in common is that they’re all systems thinkers: wanting to understand how things work, looking for ways to improve processes and dissatisfied with the status quo. They’re the type of person who can challenge long-standing beliefs about “this is the way it is,” while also providing a practical alternative. ### **Leading the builders** Product managers cannot succeed in isolation—the have to muster cross-functional resources to deliver value. They do this by laying out the vision and outcomes the team is trying to achieve, and use their understanding of customer needs to help the team maximize its impact. They’re great communicators who can rally people around that vision. Changing how we work has the same challenges. Fundamentally redesigning onboarding touches HR, IT, and workplace functions. Rethinking customer acquisition cuts across demand generation, sales outreach, and content creation. Leading those types of changes—let alone broader company-wide transformation leadership—takes more experienced leaders who know how to align functions. Those demands mirror what successful "head of remote" leaders were doing post-pandemic. Those who were good had product management skills—systems thinking and communication. They aligned and led cross-functional teams. They redesigned work processes like onboarding and collaboration to leverage tech and in-person work. The same skills that companies like Atlassian, Airbnb, and Dropbox developed to optimize remote work will help them adopt AI. If you're already focused on meeting effectiveness—like Dropbox has been for years—AI becomes one more tool for accelerating improvements in how you work. The "AI transformation" job often goes to a similar leader, like [Brandon Sammut](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-sammut-8147b76/), whose scope recently expanded to chief people & AI transformation officer at Zapier. He's using what [Zapier learned from customer support](https://www.charterworks.com/zapiers-counterintuitive-move-to-boost-pay-before-seeing-ai-improvements/) and judges the success of their efforts not only based on efficiency gains, but also improvements to work quality and whether employees feel more engaged and energized by their work. The best leaders aren't necessarily the chief people officer, HR leader, or IT executive. It's the person with a product manager’s mindset who understands how your organization works, knows it can be better, and can mobilize your builders. --- ## Read more from Charter [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/) [Open article: How to Pitch AI More Effectively to Workers](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-to-pitch-ai-more-effectively-to-workers/)  ### How to Pitch AI More Effectively to Workers [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-to-pitch-ai-more-effectively-to-workers/) [Open article: Charter Leadership Forum: How to Build a Change-Ready Organization](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7334180/charter-leadership-forum-how-to-build-a-change-ready-organization/)  ### Charter Leadership Forum: How to Build a Change-Ready Organization [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7334180/charter-leadership-forum-how-to-build-a-change-ready-organization/) [Open article: DEI is a change management issue. Here’s how to treat it like one.](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7261274/dei-change-management/)  ### DEI is a change management issue. Here’s how to treat it like one. [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7261274/dei-change-management/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7330785/how-to-make-every-manager-a-product-manager/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7330785/how-to-make-every-manager-a-product-manager/"},"headline":"How to make every manager a product manager","datePublished":"2025-11-04T11:30:35.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-28T07:07:32.877Z","description":"Effective AI adoption requires a product management approach throughout your organization.","url":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7330785/how-to-make-every-manager-a-product-manager/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ee877bdd2b674ec/6998cb5925f3eec11c645272/charter-product-manager.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Brian Elliott","jobTitle":"Executive-in-residence, Charter","url":"https://time.com/author/brian-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Charter","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ee877bdd2b674ec/6998cb5925f3eec11c645272/charter-product-manager.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"charter-product-manager","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7330785/how-to-make-every-manager-a-product-manager/","name":"How to make every manager a product manager"}}]}] ```