Learning Together

Hi, folks. This is all things product with Petra Bille and Teresa Kors And we're so happy you here Petra. I want to ask you about something that I think can be really powerful But i don't see it happen. It's hit or miss.

So some companies are good at creating opportunities for their teams To learn together. Some companies just let everybody pick Their own professional development path And I want to get your thoughts on both these strategies. and what do you think works best? Oh, i'm such a big fan of learning together.

And then that's why basically, because I think learning together is so much more powerful than learning alone. For example in my email course the email course comes with quarterly live Q&A sessions with me and actually in the last three of these calls i saw people from the same company purchasing the course And it was so funny to see, there were different variations of learning together. So in one case they came together because they want each other accountable... to really do something with the theoretical know-how that gets from their email.

for example Every email comes through this weekly challenge and basically wants them to go to a gym together. That's why we purchased the course together And in one of the other sessions, there were three people from the same company. They had wildly different opinions about product leadership and I think that is why they joined together to be more aligned on what they think product leadership is all about. It told us in this Q&A session.

so get their weekly email. everybody reads it everyone does a bit homework a weekly, ninety minute session where they debrief on what day. I think about the email. What they tried?

The three people that are taking it to do their own ninety-minute sessions exactly and let's actually create them. They often am brought into organizations And i thank you too when they're hosting book clubs. so purchase our books. They read our books and then sometimes they hire me for Q&A at the end of The Book Club or something like that, again it has a lot to do with holding them accountable - that have this deadline when Petra is basically joining - that want to read by Dan...

And I think its so much bang-for your buck because just purchasing a few books even without us being in picture. It is already such a powerful thing to read something together and then exchange over what you actually learn, where your few points may have changed. And whether it's something that you want to try? Then circle back on the learnings - I really love that!

Do you see something similar?" Yeah…I think of two minds in this. so we do a lot like... A company brings us into our product discovery fundamentals course for the whole team.

Right, so they'll train forty fifty sixty two hundred people. And I think like. what's nice about that is it lets everybody get a shared language? It becomes yeah big event of like.

we're investing in this way of working. I think what's hard about it Is not every team is ready for it. Like people are at different places in their own learning journey. They Some are like on projects where they're not really being asked to do continuous discovery and take the course, this doesn't connect my work.

So we've started promoting more of this idea of train pilot teams. first don't roll it out. everybody think about who's ready for that. there is something said in time learning how.

you get training just as needed and not like, you're going to use this hypothetically sometime down the road. Like. it's just how humans learn when we have an urgent need. but I think there is a middle ground that i think your getting at.

You talk about three leaders taking your course or like a voluntary book club where people are interested read a book together Or a trio decides take class together. We see this alot in our direct-to consumer courses public cohorts, people will just sign up as a trio. And then I think what's nice about these smaller pockets of groups reading a book together or doing a course together is exactly what you said-you get this accountability... You can hold internal sessions to talk about how to apply it your own work....

You really..I think that the momentum from doing it with peers And like knowing that, you have something on the calendar. You're going to show up and discuss it. I think both strategies, everything from letting people just pick whatever they want to learn works great for people who are really self-directed.

high learning orientation folks. The big event train everybody like kick off a big change in the organization and make it an event. And then I think there's this middle ground of, can we just get pockets of interest to engage in something together? I think all three can work.

The key is how do you be intentional about what's the purpose for training or what's their purpose at book club for the product leaders here, because first of all they're fewer in an organization usually. And then a lot of stuff that they need to practice has to do with inner work and reflection storytelling or a new kind of clarity, something like that. So it's often they can practice the things I talk about in the course themselves without the need to bring team-along and so on.

Talk with your director, ask for feedback but nothing is needed product in a particular state to actually work on. It's a bit of a product maturity thing, so if somebody from a massive waterfall company would purchase my course then they'd think what is she talking about sometimes? But other than that I think it's easier for product leaders and join together as team than it is in your particular case. I also think product leaders like might benefit more from doing it together because a lot of our product leader, if we're talking about people who manage or have direct reports they are less often on the cross-functional team.

and so this idea that doing something with a peer gives you little bit more of this buddy to learn. Even like in our courses, even when someone signs up individually we hear all the time Like they want help with. how do I bring this back to my team? They're still thinking about discovery as a team sport Obviously.

We think it's better if you your whole team takes the course but they have that like cross-functional collaboration built in Whereas i think leaders are like hungry for that and so there is this extra benefit of Let's also just do something together because we don't get to do things together very often. Yeah, yeah exactly so that is its leadership is such a lonely job So it's even a bit of a team building initiative. maybe Do you ever get? I know, do a lot of like bigger coaching engagements with companies?

Mm-hmm. Are you working with the company and they're we want to coach ten different leaders. Yeah That's not rare case And often time by the way One thing that we do together is curate learning path. for the rest product organization evolve thinking about what you actually were referencing.

So how do we upskill the entire organization on a particular skill? And that is often part of the package, so it often comes with role definition and roll clarity first because shockingly often this isn't given in big organizations. sometimes they have solid PMPO role definitions but for leaders its usually rather shaky non-existent just four sentences or their very generic leadership descriptions and not a lot of product in there. And from there, it oftentimes is the case that I help them build and curate these learning experiences and this learning path within the organization.

so that's part of engagement often times. Yeah, I think the reason why i was curious about that is... I can imagine it's really easy for a company to frame as like. I want you to work with all of our leaders and then it turns into this one-on-one coaching.

One thing that Hope and I do when we work with leaders Is we have two different options. We have a one on one coaching Like your leader needs individual coaching. But we also do these group coaching sessions For leaders. And thats where If I think about coaching versus teaching, like individual coaching is be a sounding board hold space for the person to ask powerful questions.

Like help them see what they need right? But there's this sort of group component that i thing it really powerful. thats maybe less in this traditional coaching model but still as... Maybe its little closer to teaching from a coaching framework.

so we tend do let say an organization new outcomes. all their leaders have to learn how to set outcomes. Maybe they take a course, but even if they'd taken a course They still need help with like yes How do I do it in my own work? That's where we might do like a group coaching session And each leader is like bringing their work and were doing samples.

Yeah, yeah Like iterating on the fly and we're doing that with like ten leaders In there room. so then what I find that like by having them go through the experience together, they start to see. Like it's one thing when you learn in a course and you see examples are maybe a little bit close with what we do at work but there not in context of what your doing? And then you see applied all your peers try yourself getting feedback in front of your peers.

so you try harder. We found out model works really well And even a little better than training when we're talking about the leadership level. Yeah, exactly so that's my favorite combination The only embedded. just like terminology.

I tend to call them team coaching because i want people in group really be Because otherwise, in corporates they send me like ten product leads from various parts of the business. And then it becomes a bit of tricky situation again as well. so at some point I decided to call team leadership coaching and briefing these organizations. that is really beneficial if this people are more group-like coaching the same business area, line of business.

However they call it. however this likes to organization but people that are working closely together. That's usually where yeah a lot of the beauty from what you were describing comes from them. They can bring their own cases so there can be really vulnerable because politics and big organization let's face It is thing And closer group is I get into coaching the more secure they feel with opening up and sharing what their currently working on.

Because in leadership coaching, it oftentimes is this... Hey! This Is What The Company Tells Us We Should Be Doing Strategically And This Is The Big Goals That We Should be Driving. But Actually And Then They're Coming Up With All The Things That They Currently Have On Their Mind And We Walk Through That And Stuff Like This.

So Yeah It's Beneficial If Its More Of A Team Than It Is Of A Random Group In These Big Corporate Settings. Yeah, I think we also find that like just in the same. so We do team coaching which we call it. Which is our cross-functional product team and a product trio coaching?

Team coaching from group leadership. but One of the things we find with the group Leadership Coaching Is That In The Same Way That We Teach Teams Not when We're Coaching Product Trios We're not Just Teaching Them the Discovery Habits We're Also Teaching them cross-functional collaboration and how to do it as a team sport. We find in the group leadership sessions, is this same thing like sure? we teach them how to put discovery habits into practice but were also teaching that their peers are resource.

so somebody might ask you question your peer actually has solution trying to create this bridge of like? look at all these people in your organization. that also can be a resource for you. Yeah, I always try to get the CTOs and team coaching sessions as well into design leaders but companies are very reluctant if they hire product leadership coach.

But whenever it works It was such beautiful experience for everybody. so yeah i would love more often Yeah, and then I think okay. So we've talked about like Tears of learning. it like be framed.

this is Learning to get in. that's just seeing like Pockets a people opting into this. i want to go back To how? I frame This Is Like Three buckets.

We Have Like The Head Of Product Who's Decided I Want to upskill my entire team And They Choose to Train Everybody. We have the Company. That'S Very Hands-Off. the Opposite end of that Spectrum is very hands-off.

You have some professional development budget, use it however you want. I think like there's this sweet spot of Like...you can get the benefit Of a shared experience of like let's learn together But also get that benefit which Is the benefit of the train everybody at once. but There's also a benefit of just give people A professional Development Budget Which they Get to choose what's timely for them and that do the training or the coaching, whatever the experience is when it's most relevant to them.

And I think what we're highlighting in this episode there's like middle ground can be a sweet spot then maybe not everybody realizes as an option which still let people choose but encourage them into groups. so you get the shared accountability you get peers to learn from and to learn with. And so like it doesn't have to be all of training, everyone trains or everybody picks their own thing. there's this nice middle ground of maybe just find a couple buddies in the organization and do a course together?

Or start a bit club... I love the buddies! Yeah yeah what a great summary Teresa. thank you!

Thanks Petra great topic.