The three most important lessons I have learned

The following are the three most important lessons I have learned while working in Product Leadership and Innovation:

1. Healthy tension leads to better solutions: It is good to have disagreements as long as it is done respectfully. By challenging each other's ideas and solutions in a healthy environment, we can come up with better solutions through more thought and creativity.

2. It's better together: Before we can achieve the above, we first need to give our team autonomy to come up with their own solutions. Rather than offering what we believe to be the best solution, we should start by giving them a problem to solve. With the right team, together we will often come up with ideas that are superior to the original one. The team also has a more vested interest, as we have all worked on it together.

3. Be stubborn on the vision, flexible on the details*: Truly innovative ideas often come with unpredictability. Not all ideas will work, but we can learn from every action and keep moving toward the long-term vision.

* This quote originates from Jeff Bezos.