The Product Experience (Mind the Product)
Product Democracy Doesn't Work - Blagoja Golubovski (VP Product, Usercentrics)
The Product Experience (Mind the Product)
•February 4, 2026•42 min
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The Product Experience (Mind the Product)•Feb 4, 2026
Why It Matters
Understanding that product teams thrive on decisive ownership rather than endless consensus helps companies move faster and deliver value, especially as they grow. This perspective challenges a common myth in product management, offering leaders concrete tools to build a culture of clear accountability and effective prioritisation.
Key Takeaways
- •Product leadership creates clarity, not consensus.
- •Decisions require single accountability; input can be broad.
- •Separate strategic, product, and execution decisions with distinct owners.
- •Democracies slow progress; prioritize trade‑offs explicitly.
- •Build product culture that aligns incentives and metrics.
Pulse Analysis
In this episode, Blagoja Golubovski, VP of Product at Usercentrics, shares why a product organization cannot function as a pure democracy. Drawing on his experience scaling a consent‑management platform to over $110 million ARR across 195 countries, he explains that real product leadership is about turning ambiguity into clear, actionable direction. Instead of seeking unanimous agreement, leaders must define where to play, how to win, and communicate explicit trade‑offs so teams can move forward with autonomy within well‑set constraints.
Golubovski introduces a three‑tier decision framework that separates input from authority. Level 1 covers strategic bets owned by CEOs and executive teams; Level 2 involves product bets managed by product leaders; Level 3 consists of daily execution decisions made by the teams themselves. By keeping input plural—customers, data, engineering, sales—while assigning a single accountable owner for each decision, organizations avoid the paralysis of committees and accelerate delivery. He stresses that democracies may generate diverse ideas but they dilute focus, inflate roadmaps, and sacrifice speed, whereas clear ownership drives measurable outcomes and aligns incentives across the company.
For aspiring product managers, the conversation offers practical guidance on evaluating a company’s decision‑making mechanics before joining. Leaders should cultivate a product culture that institutionalizes clarity, explicit prioritization, and transparent trade‑offs, ensuring every team member understands both the why and the who behind each choice. By embedding these principles, product orgs can scale efficiently, protect focus, and translate strategic vision into tangible growth, a lesson especially relevant for fast‑moving SaaS firms navigating global markets.
Episode Description
What does alignment really mean in product teams, and why does consensus often slow everything down?
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver are joined by Blagoja Golubovski (VP of Product, formerly at Usercentrics) to unpack one of the most persistent myths in product leadership: that good product organisations are democracies.
Chapters
0:00 Product leadership is not about consensus
1:21 Introduction to Blagoja
2:48 From engineering to product leadership
4:47 What people think product leadership is
5:44 Creating clarity and explicit trade-offs
6:53 Why product organisations are not democracies
7:54 Input vs ownership in decision-making
8:24 Who is accountable for product decisions
9:50 Leadership, strategy, and prioritisation
10:02 How product leadership changes as companies scale
12:29 Why decision-making mechanics define product culture
13:27 Separating input from decisions
14:59 Committees vs accountability
16:16 Why alignment does not mean agreement
17:29 The three levels of product decisions
21:00 Diagnosing broken decision-making
22:08 Environment beats individual skill
23:19 What real prioritisation looks like
24:46
Our Hosts
Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.
Show Notes
What does alignment really mean in product teams, and why does consensus often slow everything down?
In this episode of The Product Experience, Lily Smith and Randy Silver are joined by Blagoja Golubovski (VP of Product, formerly at Usercentrics) to unpack one of the most persistent myths in product leadership: that good product organisations are democracies.
Chapters
0:00 Product leadership is not about consensus
1:21 Introduction to Blagoja
2:48 From engineering to product leadership
4:47 What people think product leadership is
5:44 Creating clarity and explicit trade-offs
6:53 Why product organisations are not democracies
7:54 Input vs ownership in decision-making
8:24 Who is accountable for product decisions
9:50 Leadership, strategy, and prioritisation
10:02 How product leadership changes as companies scale
12:29 Why decision-making mechanics define product culture
13:27 Separating input from decisions
14:59 Committees vs accountability
16:16 Why alignment does not mean agreement
17:29 The three levels of product decisions
21:00 Diagnosing broken decision-making
22:08 Environment beats individual skill
23:19 What real prioritisation looks like
**Our Hosts
Lily Smith** enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.
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