#5–Golden Hour
Warm light and long shadows – a portrait during The Golden Hour
The Golden Hour comes from photography and is the hour before and after sunset/sunrise where the light is gold and diffuse, making for particularly beautiful photographs. It's much harder to take a bad photo during Golden Hour.
Every Product Manager can benefit from having a photographic practice to develop their aesthetic eye, but the concept of a Golden Hour more generally illustrates other key virtues needed for success in the discipline of Product Management.
Patience — The Golden Hour only comes around twice a day so you must be patient. How will you make the most of your time while you wait? What’s the opportunity cost of waiting? Can you get a good enough photo now? All questions that will be familiar to a PM.
Humility — Catching the Golden Hour puts you at the mercy of the stars and planets, what could be more humbling than that. Product Managers must sometimes acquiesce to forces larger than themselves. Markets, customers, budgets, and company culture can only be moved so much.
Planning — The Golden Hour is fleeting. If you start planning your shots when it starts, you might run out of time. In product management you must also plan ahead so that you're ready when the time is right. You can't grow a team, build a feature, or raise money in an instant.
Opportunism — The novice photographer that doesn’t know about The Golden Hour thinks any time is a good time for a photo. The experienced photographer knows certain times disproportionately improve the odds for success. Product Managers must also be sensitive to these moments in a market or society so they can determine the right time for a new product, a feature launch, or on the team level, when to cash in good will and ask people to crunch for a deadline.
Product Managers must be able to move heaven and earth to make things happen, but the best ones have studied and understand the rhythm of the heavens and use them to their advantage.
💯 This is part of a limited run of 100 posts: Each with something that isn't taught to Product Managers but is key to making great products. You can see them all here.