Best of Season 2, Part 1 - Highlights, lessons and laughs from our most curious season yet.

Speaker A: Welcome to Practical Product Management, the podcast. Um, as you may know, if you watch us on a regular basis, we talk about how there's lots of great theory in product management, but product management is really done in context, and it needs to be practical to your situation. So today we're doing something really special. We are creating an episode of Best of best of episode one. Um, this season, we've recorded 20 podcasts. Crazy. And what we decided to do was build everybody an opportunity to watch a little snippet of all of those 2010 at a time. So we're going to talk about the first 10 episodes for. For a few minutes, and then you're going to be off to the races to watch those episodes. I love it. Here we are, first 10 episodes of the season.

Speaker B: I mean, it's hard to believe that it's the end of the year already. Uh, and that we're at the end of episode two, which is kind of fun. And I think the funnest thing for me, Leah, is the people that we've been able to meet, the conversations we've been able to have m. And the conversations don't seem to run out. There's always someone that's like, oh, my gosh, I'd love to talk to you guys about blogging.

Speaker A: Blah.

Speaker B: Um, so if anything, I feel like we're sort of, like, having fun and gaining momentum. Um, but think back, like, to January. January. Was it, like, it was winter when we first did this this year? I know. And we talked about goal setting.

Speaker A: Yeah. We talked about how neither of us really wanted to set resolutions for reels, but that we thought that it was important to think about goals and.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What. What that looks like for product managers. So that was really fun.

Speaker B: That was fun. It was fun. Have I. Have you met all your goals for the year? I.

Speaker A: No, I'm sure I haven't.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker A: but you know what? I do feel like this year has been. It's been a good year for me to reflect as a leader on ways that I have kind of solidified my leadership in ways that I still want to grow and still want to be better. And I think that that's. You know, I. As, you know, I divide my time between fractional product work, but also with coaching. And that's been an interesting. It's been interesting to kind of find my way through that this year. So I feel like that that was a big part of the goal I was setting was, can I. Can I pull this off? Um, and I did. And also now I have to think about do I want to keep pulling it off. Right, or do I want to do so?

Speaker B: I guess eventually the question isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, like this year has been cr. For me. I cannot believe the amount of change, personally, professionally, uh, like everything. Um, and, uh, you know, looking back on it, it all seems like such a. Like a natural straight line. But when you. When you face it moving forward, it can seem chaotic and frustrating. And I mean, I'm glad I don't set New Year's resolutions or have these amazing goals because I've done really cool things that I wasn't expecting to do.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, when I think about the beginning of the year, the first guest we had was Peter, um, Collingridge, who is really how I ended up in this fractional role. And at the time I was like, oh, yes, fractional product management. Bloody, bloody blah. I didn't know what I was talking about. I'd never done it before.

Speaker D: Like.

Speaker A: And, uh, I think back and I'm like, yeah. I mean, I had an idea of how it was going to work, but now that I've done this, for most of this year, I'm like, okay, some things I love, some things I don't. Right. But it was good to have somebody with expertise in it to come in and talk to us about, like, what does it mean? How do you do that? What does it look like? Is it a real thing that people can do? Right. So I think that that was. That was really helpful for me when I was thinking about my year, for sure. Such a good.

Speaker B: Such a good conversation and he's such a thoughtful leader. Um, and, you know, I think that there's a. Ah, there's been a lot of sort of like, really interesting themes throughout the year. Um, you know, you know, Peter and you always talk about focus and, you know, and being, um, essential in the moments where it counts. But you see that come through in a lot of the other conversations too. Like, you know, our conversation with Mike about accessibility. Um, um. And, uh, you know, and then, you know, how do we. How do we get smarter and clearer when we talk with Rob instead of faster? Um, um. And I. I actually think that's probably a really interesting theme just for the year. When you think about how AI has impacted all of our lives, it's not just about more crap, uh, more AI generated slop. It's about being more focused and more clear and more essential and, and the moments where you need it.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, and I feel like that that was if we, if there were. If we were drawing themes out of the year. I think that that was a big theme over in. In all 20 episodes that AI I don't think we made it through an episode of the AI coming up, like, in some form of fashion, because that's really where. Where we're at.

Speaker E: It's.

Speaker A: It's on everybody's. It's kind of top of mind. On everybody's mind. But I really think there were also a lot of conversations this year, and I think in this first half of the year where we were really talking about, like, spaces that, uh, sometimes get forgotten, like govtech. Like, accessibility, like, you know, fractional work, like, how do you find the right, you know, blend when you're a CEO who's become a product person? We were kind of exploring all these different types of product work.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which I think ties in nicely to what we really believe about product. Um, and so I think about our conversations with Sam and Rob and Mike and, you know, along the way and, And. And those kind of those little edges that you find yourself in when you do product work.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, the edges. The edges are really where sort of innovation happens, I think.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, for sure.

Speaker B: For sure.

Speaker A: No, I love that. And I mean, obviously we also had a really fun time talking about, um, AI and velociraptors. Velociraptors, exactly.

Speaker B: And Robot Dog.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, exactly. And, like, what does that mean? And, you know, and how does. What. What does it mean to be a product manager in that space? Um, I mean, Brad has, since we talked to him, produced, like, three or four more movies, and several of them had gone to film festivals in Amsterdam and Berlin. So, I mean, it. There's a whole space in there that is just, like, you know, totally outside of the realm of what I think about and do. But just love that we got to talk to somebody about that.

Speaker B: I do, too. I do, too. And I think that all of this goes back into, like, so your intentions, like, how do you grow as a leader? How do you grow as. As a practitioner? Um, and the conversation we had with Gino about, like, you know, practice, like, you want to play, um, and, you know, show up, show up when it counts. And, you know, our leadership habits have to be as reps, not resolutions. Like, you got to be in there grinding and out every day showing who you are and practicing, like, practice. And, yeah, you're gonna screw it up because you're not a pro on day one. Um, but when it counts, you gotta. You gotta have that muscle memory.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, the Idea of really. Of purposely showing up to practice. I mean, as an. As an athlete, you know, you don't get to just be like, um, I'm just good enough. I don't have to show up. Like, Phil Jackson made Kobe Bryant show up.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Like, he didn't get to skip practice every day. Like, you know, he's so good. He doesn't have to show up.

Speaker F: No.

Speaker A: Because practice, we practice as a team. We practice, and we move as a unit, and that team can shift and change and. And I think talking to Gino about those kind of how he thinks about product and building things with that sort of athlete's mind and coach's mind, so was so important kind of thinking about it. And then I think we really landed in that in the first half of the year with Steve talking about, like, are you gonna. Are you gonna try to do everything?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Or are you gonna hone in and do less, but do it well.

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker F: Right?

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker B: Awesome arc to that first half of the year. I feel like, uh, but unwittingly, we pulled together a really good story arc, so yay. Go, team.

Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. No, I love that. So we're gonna let all of you watch some clips from all these exciting episodes. There's a couple episodes in there that are just me and Marilyn talking about resolutions and about finding a great boss and then everyone else that we talked to, um, and then we'll let you watch that, and then we'll be back to wrap everything up. What's another resolution that you think people make a lot that we can. We can talk,

Speaker B: like, spend more time with family. I'm gonna spend more time with family.

Speaker A: Huh?

Speaker B: I know, but.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker B: And, like, how do you think that correlates to the job, Leah?

Speaker A: So I think there's a few places where, you know, I think it's deciding who your family is is probably the first. The first step. Right. And then, um, I mean, the goal of that. Spend more time with family is often giving yourself more perspective, giving yourself better balance, giving yourself, like, the time to be with the people who really should matter most. And I guess as a product manager, the per. The person I probably spend the time with, the least that matters the most is the customer.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Which is terrible. But, I mean, it's painful to say, but it's true.

Speaker B: Every company I've ever worked with, um, everybody says they're customer centric. And when you ask how many people in this company have spent, um, time with the customer, how many people have listened to a customer call, the answer is usually like one person and it's the salesperson and they refuse to allow anybody else to talk to the customers because you're going to ruin the whole relationship and things are going to go like, that's not customer centric. That's not customer centric.

Speaker H: No.

Speaker A: I one time worked with a, uh, chief commercial officer who would, I would say can, you know, can my product team go on, on these merchant visits? No, because I don't, what I don't want to have happen is that the merchants start to trust you guys more than us. And I'm like, what are you talking about? We're the ones that build the things they want. You don't want them to trust us. Right. Relationship stolen. Right. But yeah, yeah. So I mean, so I think for a lot of product managers, um, I think there is sometimes there are layers of noise between them and their customers. So how do you push in and demand more time with customers or potential customers? Right.

Speaker B: I think it's ah. And I think it's got to happen at a lot of levels. So again, every company I've ever walked into, the product managers always say, well, I can't talk to the customers. For some reason in this company, I can't talk to the customers. And I actually feel like it's a, it's not. This is an endemic problem. It's an endemic problem that will require leadership to align to say, yes, we actually want to be close to our customers. And that means that there's going to be multiple layers of connectivity. And you got to figure out how to manage that on both sides. You don't want to ask too many questions, but you need to have enough that you're able to build a better relationship. Um, but building that barrier is not helpful. Not helpful because not everything is important. Some things are mission critical to solve. I mean, everything's a problem. But what problems are most important? What are the relationships between problems? If you solve a. What's the resulting impact on the ecosystem? Like this is not something that, that should, uh, be debated. It's, it's. There are ways to know. Yeah, you should know. And then you can do. And then you can fix the emotions.

Speaker A: Well, and then once you know, I think one of the things and same, same with me in this role, but because Peter did a lot of that work, but also in roles I've had in the past, once you dive in and you do that diagnostic and you say, what do our customers really want? Who are they? What are we, you know, how are we doing this? You can also diagnose where people are trying to do something else.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: That is not focused. And even when you say, we're going to focus and then you see these little skin sneaky things happening and you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's really easy to come back to it once you draw the line to this is what we're doing for our customers. Anything else we're doing, we need to have a conversation about. Ditch it. Or we have to talk about it.

Speaker F: Right.

Speaker A: And it. You can really hone in on it in a way that you can't if you don't do that research. And people are like, yeah, but it's important, right? And you have some voice over here.

Speaker H: Voiceover.

Speaker C: It's just opinion. Then you've, then you're in a fight of opinions. Right? Which is. And we know how that ends up.

Speaker A: Uh, you know, it becomes a different game of politics in my mind.

Speaker H: Right?

Speaker A: Like, because now you're like, this isn't politics, is data. We're focusing here. If you don't want to focus there, then you want to be someone else or do something else.

Speaker B: It strikes me that, um, you know, you're, you are. You guys seem like you described yourselves being brought in at time of crisis and that knowing what to do in a data driven way and providing the focus is critically important. I think, I think being able to sort of play with the upper quadrants of the Ansoft matrix comes with privilege. Right? You don't do that when you're in times of crisis.

Speaker F: You focus.

Speaker B: You focus all your resources on getting the team rallied around what matters. Um, how does that, like, how do you have those discussions? Because I'm sure the board and the founders are like, yeah, but what if we did this thing over here? That's new products, new market, crazy, crazy. Um, how do you, how do you pull that back in or at least control it in a way that allows you to move the core the way you need to in order to have the impact.

Speaker C: So when I said it's a cheat code, the research just really helps because it's, you know, if you, if you believe the research and you believe the research has been done in the right way, which is you start really broad with an audience, but you, it's not, you're not seeking to validate assumptions you already had. You are going in cold and just being like, what's stopping you from buying our product? And then you unpack that stuff. If you believe in that and the work that's been done, you see, do Qual. You might do 20, 25 interviews there. Uh, you get the patterns. You then do the quant to make sure that you're not biased by the people you spoke to. You're talking to the right people, you're paying money for it. Professional researchers, you should believe in that stuff. It just becomes so clear because it's like, we've got to do this and then this and then this and then this. Anything. A CEO can always say, that's great, but I want you to do AI. And it's like, great, you're the CEO, we can do AI. Right. That's fine. That's like, it's a disagreeing commit moment. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Uh, how many of the leadership principles am I going to be able to get out? That's two.

Speaker G: Right.

Speaker C: So that's. I'm going to say obsess about your customers as well. So that's just. But you know, I think that research allows you, you've got, you've got to have backbone. You've got to be able to like, stand up to the leadership and be like, I will do whatever you say. But this is what my professional opinion is, and I have high conviction in this thing because of the research and everything else.

Speaker B: I think that the two most important human factors in your success at a company is your boss and your boss's boss. If, uh, those two things line up for you, then it's pretty much yours to win or lose.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. So let's talk about, like, when you are looking for a great next boss. What are the, some of the things that you need to consider? What comes to your mind first?

Speaker B: So we're gonna set to the side, like challenge and company and all of those things.

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker B: We're gonna assume those are separate conversations.

Speaker A: I think a lot of product managers think about like, the title and the product and the industry and how. How well it's doing and funding and all of that.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: But this is the boss. How do you pick the boss?

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah. So this is, I mean, I think there's some critical choices here. Um, first and foremost, uh, when I find, when I, when I'm looking for someone, um, I want to find someone that I can learn from. And that means two things. Do they have skills or do don't. Do they know things that I do not? And are they willing to share those with me? Not in a, like color, inside the lines, 1, 2, 3, 4. But explain the why and the how behind so that I can adapt that to my own working style.

Speaker A: Yeah. 100% agree with that. I think there's such an important, there's a real importance there around, you know, is a person actually willing to let you in, show you what they, what they know, um, and not be threatened in any way and be excited about how you'll do it. Whatever they, they teach you something and then go now make it yours. Right. And, and can they, can they let you do that?

Speaker B: Right, yeah, that, ah, that lack of ego. Right. So can you find a leader that's actually, that actually has knowledge that is brilliant. But m. Also has a, like, they're humble enough to understand that their, their way of doing things is not the only way. Like goes back to our whole uh, thesis of this podcast is that like, you know, the, the thing published online, the one chart, the one way of doing things that aren't the only way of doing things. It's a way. So can they impart their wisdom on you so that you can adapt that to your own way?

Speaker A: No. And I think that's an interesting thing. As you, as your career goes on, if you stay in product long enough, you'll, you know, as you move up into other roles, you'll find yourself going, okay, what is it I want to learn next and who am I going to learn from? Because I know a lot about production. Right, well, so what you then get to do is go, what don't I know a lot about? Like do I, do I want to work for this CEO or this VP who's worked closer to marketing or finance or they have really kick ass EQ or they're really good at whatever public speaking or whatever it is that you need some, some you know, space on. Um, so it doesn't, it doesn't even as you grow your career, it doesn't mean like, I'm only learning product basics.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's really like what do I need to learn, you know, 100%.

Speaker B: And I actually, I mean I think that's, that's a really good call out because, um, finding that again, the organization, not just the direct leader, but the boss and the boss's boss that will let you explore knowledge. Um, you know, is it strategy or is it finance? All of those things are really critical to like being a great product leader. You cannot just look at product and be like, I know, I know everything about this one tiny little thing, but I know nothing about how finance works or acquisition or um, yeah, so do, do we cross train?

Speaker A: Yeah. I worked for a founder at a startup in Berlin who was a marketing guy. He had sold his first startup to Airbnb. He was my boss. He was 10, maybe more. 10 years younger than me, at least, probably more, actually. Um, now that I'm saying that he probably, um. But I learned so much about marketing from him, right, Because I knew the basics. I'd taken marketing and in undergrad and when I got my MBA and I knew the basics of marketing, but we really started to piece together what is growth product management and where does marketing, the line of marketing end and where does product pick up? We really started to really talk about that and wrestle with it. And I learned a ton about conversion funnels and, you know, how these, how does all this data work and what are the metrics?

Speaker F: You.

Speaker A: You know, I just hadn't done that before. And so it was super fun for me. And I mean, it was a case where I was actually learning from someone significantly younger than me with less like, of the kind of experience I have, but different experience than me. And so, yeah, he didn't teach me product, right. But he taught me about the business a lot, you know, So I think there are, there are really, if you look for them, there are really good opportunities there.

Speaker G: One thing that I've argued for years is that we have never truly made accessibility a business value proposition for an organization. But if we did for accessibility, what we've done for other, um, technologies or markets, say for example, alternative energy, and we, we gave tax breaks and we gave financial incentives and we gave research grants and we threw all that into it and really put behind it. Now companies could say, you know, I

Speaker A: mean, what am I reading?

Speaker G: What am I reading about Elon Musk every day? The guy lives off of government grants and funds, right? So if we put those kind of dollars into accessibility, not just here, everywhere, all over the world, we wouldn't even be talking about this. But I do something else that I want to make sure they get. Accessibility is about a mindset. It really is. If you're not thinking, if you're not thinking about the Persona types that exist, whether they're elderly, whether they're a person with a disability, or whether, as you said, Leah, able bodied. And that term is fine, right? If you're not thinking about those Personas who you're going to interact with and how they're going to interact, why would you think accessibility? You won't, right?

Speaker B: I prefer the term democratization of technology.

Speaker E: Right?

Speaker B: I get it, right? You have to do accessibility because to get people to do anything, you need to stick. But I also think making it as easy as, as easy as possible for anyone to interact with your product. There is a business rationale there.

Speaker A: There is, There is.

Speaker B: Someone in product just needs to do the freaking work to say, this is why we need to do this, because here's the opportunity.

Speaker G: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I just want to say this. As you're saying this, I'm, um, My brain is exploding a tiny bit. I think the shallow thinking around AI agents right now is how much, how many jobs can I cut, much efficiency can I get in my company so that I can go public? How much? I mean, listen, I will blast Klarna all day for firing 750 people using agents, but not thinking bigger than that about how they are a consumer brand. How does your consumer brand enable? How does it, how can you use that technology that is brilliant. They've built brilliant technology to enable. Not just cut your margins. Right. Or cut your costs so that you can increase your margins. Right. Like I think we're the CEOs and the product people today, we're all thinking so shallow about how we can use these things that we're not thinking about the beauty and the depth of how we could use it.

Speaker G: We're not really creating a digital society. We're trying to create a technology that fits in, you know, the bespoke society, if you, if you will. And we should be looking at it. One thing we all know, every great invention, regardless of what it was, has always led to new possibilities, new job markets, new economies of scale and what have you. New product thing. And. Right. They just, they just do. I mean, just look at what, you know, to keep it, keep it remotely current. Look at what the Internet and the web have done for us and how they've changed life, you know, since the 90s. Right. Going into now. So now we're moving to AI. I, I'm all for it. I always have been. What I don't want and what those, my fellow colleagues and friends and colleagues, and a lot of them are themselves individuals with disabilities. What we don't want is to be left out. And that's a big problem with AI, is being edged out. And that bias. Right. Something that you kind of alluded to, Leah. Uh, if someone, if, if the system hasn't been trained, so to speak, the AI hasn't been trained to recognize what those typical personalization, uh, uh, user interactions are for any given individual or any given Persona type.

Speaker B: So let's, let's actually, I think this is, that's a really good call out. Right. Um, so you're a product manager. You actually really want to serve a wide population. You want to be able to make sure that you have as many Personas in your quiver as possible. Because, um, and to go back to a point you just made, Leah, this is not a cost cutting exercise. This is not a. I'm treating this like it. So I want it to be cheaper. I am looking for ways to take my existing resources and apply them in broader business cases and make more money and whatever your business is up to. So where, where is the best place for me?

Speaker A: I, uh, wanted to ask you one comment that you made earlier, uh, before we even started, you were talking about that if you could pick the first experiment, it would be. Tell me more like about delivery or deployment.

Speaker I: Yeah, uh, every organization who has not secured a path to production, that is continuous delivery. Um, sorry for jargon, but it just simply means I have the means to be able to ship experiments or working software into real environments for real users on demand. You have to make that your first experiment. Um, some of the things that we talk about at Rise8Ah with our clients is like, hey, one of the first things we really want to be able to do is just make sure we have a path to PROD and we can ship a compliant hello World application. And it's going to be super low risk, which is going to involve a minimum amount of controls. Why is that useful? We now actually understand what the journey is going to look like to move software from point A to point B. Um, we know that what we just put into PROD carries little to no risk. And so everything we do from now on is adding risk, which means we should be having more frequent risk conversations. And this is building the muscle memory that all organizations have, which is if they don't have continuous delivery, it's because of risk adversity. So when you understand the context of the situations that you work in, the uh, types of products you're delivering, the data that you have, you can understand the risk that you're making on decisions. And this is kind of getting into the area of like, what will it take over time to build up, uh, trust, to empower teams to have that decision making authority or maybe they never will because there's just too much risk at stake for lives or for other reasons. But you couldn't even get there. You're going to be stuck in the situation of cost of delay is going to cause more harm to people than it is for us to ship. The software that we have that we know actually can solve some of these problems that they're having right now.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker I: So that's the first experiment you have to do. It's the first experiment that you have to get right. Um, and that it is totally acceptable to fail on because you can only make it better. Because everything about it is predominantly going to be technology based, a little bit of process and a little bit of people. Um, but that's why I say it's the first thing that every organization, regardless of your industry, um, should be going after and making sure that you get it right.

Speaker A: Love that. Okay, shall we lightning round?

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: All right, question number one. If you have to pick, and it can be anything at all, a framework that you love to use, what is it?

Speaker I: A framework that I love to use. I would have to say it's most recently applying what, what, uh, I've been rereading with uh, Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden's who Does what by How Much. And again here it's not about OKRs and trying to build a cascade operating model. It's, it's getting people wired to understanding who is my customer and what value do I deliver and how do I write things in customer centric language so that it actually is already written for outcomes in prod. That's why I like it so much and I think it's, it's powerful.

Speaker A: Very cool. All right, what's the best advice you would give a young product manager starting out?

Speaker I: I'm actually so glad you asked this because I was having kind of an epiphany of what I might want to think about for growing, uh, product managers. We were talking about risk in learning context of a business. I actually think that junior level individuals getting into product should focus on figuring out how to get themselves established with internal products. Um, and here's why you're exposed to like I would say, fewer risks than you are jumping in and touching things that you're not going to get a lot of exposure to anyway because let's be honest, if you're very young, you're, no one's going to trust you. So get um, into like an internal product team. Establish what it means to run the business with that product or service and then, um, make mistakes like it's, it's an easier place to fail on is my, is my, uh, epiphany here in this conversation. And that's actually something I think we need to be considering ourselves,

Speaker B: I would say is get out of your building.

Speaker E: Yeah. And I think that's one of the best disciplines of like being a CEO of a company and seeing it grow. One of the absolute best disciplines is that you are like in, on the ground floor, you're building the 0, the 1, 0 to 1, the 1 to end. But also, like, I was there with the engineers. You're there like building, you're there during outages. You know, one of the great things, uh, and Leah, you might remember this from the medicast days. Like, I would literally talk to every customer, every patient for like months actually for a year. Fun fact, I was the 24 hour call center. So like calls at like 3 in the morning, 5 in the morning. Like, I would literally talk to every single person who would call. Right. It gives you that empathy, it helps you understand. And when people are like calling and then they say, like, you know, this is the problem I have. And then the next day they call you and they're like, this was the best medical experience I've ever had. I had a sick kid who was throwing up. They couldn't get into the doctor for three days. I worked two jobs, like, thank you. I actually used to have that email printed here on the wall until not long ago. But hearing that, right, as like, whatever you are, CEO, an engineer, product manager, it gives you that real understanding and it gives you purpose, right? And I think there's nothing greater. Like my, my key takeaway in all of this would be for product people, is find your purpose, find your why. I know it sounds really cheesy, um, but I genuinely believe it. Like, I have a very, you know, altruistic lens on these things. Like, find your why, do it for the right reason, and it will show in all the work that you do on the work product. That's my cheesy takeaway from all this. But I genuinely believe it. I do mean that. And I think that's one thing that, you know, I think the three of us all shared when we work together in our different, you know, um, organizations. And that's actually kind of hard to find. And so I think when you find those kindred spirits, you want to stick with them and you want to do more work together.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, and I will say, I'll say this. I think one of the ways that CEOs and product managers are alike that they don't always tune into is that they usually really want to do the right thing for the right reason. Yeah, a lot of startups, you know, yeah, sure, there's some, there's some jerks out there who just start companies to make a ton of money, right? But a lot of startups, a lot of founders, a lot of those Kind of folks are really in it for a vision. And product managers are the people in your company who will attach to your vision and go with you in a way that you're like, why do you think this is your company? Right. And if you can, if they can get on the same page, it can be really, really beautiful.

Speaker B: So my favorite part of, uh, that interaction, and I've never been a CEO, and I don't actually know if I ever want to be a CEO, but as a leader in the tech space, my favorite part of those interactions are, uh, when they attack the team or the people attach to the mission so deeply that they take it further than you thought, than your expectations. And for me, it's super delightful. I can see how that would be like an ego thing. Well, you know, this is my. And I only wanted it to go to level B and you're taking it to level F. Um, but for me, it's delightful because it means someone's really grounded themselves in what our problem space is and is thinking broader than I have, which is. It's such a. It's such a cool thing to experience.

Speaker A: You've done so many kind of partnership relationships and negotiated cost of payments at big companies and done all these different things. Where did you get that skill?

Speaker H: Uh, gosh, that's a great question. I think it's just something you, like, learn over time. Um, kind of like we were talking about earlier, just like learning from your mentors, learning from your peers, understanding what things that they've negotiated. I mean, it's so interesting. A great example is that when you move to, um, uh, Sweden for Klara, you had mentioned that you not only negotiated that they would, you know, help you move over there, but if it didn't work out, you'd. They'd help you move back.

Speaker A: And I'm thinking, God, what a great idea.

Speaker H: Like.

Speaker A: Cause that doesn't mean you're kind of stuck.

Speaker H: Right. So I think it's just like those things you pick up over time. And I think, like, the most important thing is really trying to figure out, like, what they want and what would make that third party happy and truly trying to find like a win, win situation between them and having a lot of just like open dialogue. And I think, I think the strategy used at one company, so, for example, a negotiating contract for Amazon, who was like the big giant gorilla, is different as a strategy. You work from a smaller company or a company that just has a different approach or maybe a different position.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I think the skills are just one

Speaker H: of Those things you just kind of learn over time, continuously talking to others that have done it, um, especially yourselves. And, um, just, you know, iterating and reflecting on past deals you've done too. Um, what could I have done better? What could I have gotten more of? Am I happy with the outcome? I'm not happy with outcome. Things like that.

Speaker B: I definitely think you're the pro though. So, like my natural state is, I mean, you will never know it. Um, but I like, you know, I actually want people to be happy and I want them to like me. And I don't want to be too mean, which is not how my public Persona comes up. Uh, but negotiation is really hard for me because I'm like, you know, should I, should I just say what I want and then let the chips fall? Like, let the chips fall. Um, and I think it's one thing to be negotiating for myself personally, but it's another to be negotiating on behalf of a business. Like, I actually want this product to work. I actually, you know, so the, the economics are relatively easy because that's a math problem. But the rest, like Leah, you're like, if I'm not happy, move me back. Like, I don't know if I could ask for that. Like, that was, that's uh, a, that's bravery. And I think, Jen, that this, you know, there's a lot of people that could use help developing those skills. So I feel like we're all going to need to like group think a cool book or some articles on like, Jen, do you have like Jen's top secret tips to negotiation? And we'll, you can write that up on LinkedIn and we'll post it. So if you do, we'll post it here and if you don't, like, you know, we'll come back and have another Art of Art of the Cool Deal. Maybe conversation.

Speaker H: That's another episode. Brainstorming. Negotiation. There we go. Yes, three way.

Speaker A: Uh, brainstorming. No, it's funny. I, uh, will just say that the best thing about that contract you guys are both talking about is I negotiated for them to move me back. No matter what the reason was, it didn't work out whether they were unhappy or I was unhappy. And then when I moved to Berlin nine months later, they put it in the second contract. So I had a whole reset of another year and I was all, I didn't even know it was in there. I was like, yeah, sure, we can use the exact same paper. That's fine. I had two whole years where there was no risk, right That I could. I could pull the plug and say, move me back to Seattle. Right? So that made me up. Uh, but. But you know what? I remember I will say this, and I think you go back to what Jim was saying. When I was negotiating that deal, I sat in. I mean, Marilyn and Patrick helped me, but I also sat in a room with the director of engineering I was working with at, uh, Providence. Uh, and he was like, you should ask for this, this, this. And I was like, I can't ask for all of that. And he's like, I would. And I remember thinking, wait, if he would, I need to be willing to ask for it. And let. He's like, let them tell you no. He's like, give them something to say no to. And then you can be like, okay, then I'll take these other three things that you weren't going to offer, put five things on the table, and let them say no. And I was all, okay. And so I remember saying to him, is this how men negotiate? And he was like, yeah, like I was some sort of dummy. I was like, I had no idea this whole time. But he was like, yeah. And he was like, rattling off things. You should ask for all these things. And I was like, okay, so it

Speaker B: feels like too much, but I want them to like me.

Speaker A: Right, exactly. So I put the ask on the table. And. And the CPO at Klarna was like, yeah, I mean, we don't. We don't do these two things, which. The rest is fine. And I remember thinking I didn't ask for enough because it was so easy, right? And. And I think it was a fair deal. It wasn't like they weren't being taken advantage of and I wasn't being. It was a fair deal. They got what they paid for, right? And I got what I paid for, right? And so I just think it's fascinating that we don't. Who teaches. Who teaches us these things, right? We have to go find them out.

Speaker B: Immersive, uh, product management. I think most of us as product people are like, we build immersive experiences. We build experiences for humans. And I don't know if they're immersive or not. So what do you mean by immersive product management?

Speaker J: So think of it going beyond a screen, right? So it's creating products and experiences that go beyond, um, you know, any traditional device. So it's looking at it from what I call it an embodied UX perspective, where a person's body is actually kind of, to use gaming technology is a controller, right? They, you can create actions and they can take in input. So it's looking at it from an experience where you're considering concepts of awareness, meaning how much of the real, real world should be entered in how much, um, presence. So that's looking at you know, what does the user feel when they're experiencing the product? Um, it's perception. So it's looking at how is the user getting information back. Right. And I think, I think just looking at all of those different types of concepts kind of inform creating an immersive experience. So that's kind of how I view, you know, immersive product management versus traditional product management. It's, it's basically looking at creating a world, an experience where you have more agency in what you do because you're actually in the experience.

Speaker A: Does that answer your question?

Speaker B: Yeah. And it explains how we get velociraptors into the experience. I was, I was sold from the beginning. You're going to have to keep me on tangent for this conversation because I am going everywhere.

Speaker J: Okay, keep going.

Speaker H: Awesome.

Speaker A: So when you, when you made the transition sort of from um, more I guess traditional product management because you've worked in E commerce, you've worked in media, you've done quite a few different things. What do you feel like was the, the biggest shift?

Speaker J: I think understanding spatial environments in terms of how to build a product that the user is the main character of the story. So I think obviously the technology was a big lift. Understanding mobile tech and web tech. I had to learn uh, game engine tech like Unity and Unreal. I had to understand rendering, had to understand um, going back to embodied ux. I had to understand cognitive load better, I had to understand the ergonomics of eyes. Um, and I had to understand, okay, what is the most appropriate solution for this use case? Is it a virtual reality experience where you know, maybe it's safety training in really dangerous environments and that makes perfect sense to recreate that in a simulated environment so that they can learn and make mistakes, um, and actually experience an outcome. Or maybe it's an augmented reality experience where you're overlaying information um, over a pass through of your existing environment. Or maybe it's a mixed reality experience where maybe an example might be some sort of manufacturing workflow where you actually are seeing the equipment that you're interacting with but you're bringing in virtual elements to either enhance or to create additional action points that could branch off into other uh, other possible areas.

Speaker D: Disagree and commit is, it's hard as hell.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: And it's and it's completely foreign in some environments. Like what, you want me to. What, you want me to disagree but still commit to doing that thing that I think is so dumb. And it's like, yes, but that requires some. I mean, there's a lot. But that's part of the rigor. Right? Like, yes. And if we're wrong, we can still change and move and go in another direction. And we're not going to be idiots. We're going to be mindful. We're going to have data. Right, Right. But that's what that requires. And that. That is. Anyway, the real reason I'm bringing that up is that that's one of the, um, things I've struggled with going as a consultant. You go into these different environments for six months, nine months at a time, 12 months at a time. So you see lots of different things. That one is the hardest one that I think is necessary for. To drive change in environments that is just not. It's not there in a lot of environments.

Speaker A: Well, I. I also think that there is a. I think there are a lot of leaders, and I'm going to poke at founders and CEO', but I think a lot of leaders in general who say they believe in disagreeing, commit, and they want disagree and commit as part of their culture. What they want is agree and commit.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And as soon as you disagree, they're like, well, what's it going to take to convince you? You don't have to convince me. You don't need to convince me. I'm telling you, I'll go with you. I just don't agree with what we're doing. I think it's wrong, but I'll come with you. Well, but I want you to agree. Well, but I don't. I mean, I've literally had this exact conversation with the CEO. I don't agree with you, but I will go. If that's what you want to do, let's do it. Okay. And I will never. And the thing is, I told him, I will never say I told you so I will just come with you.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker G: It works.

Speaker A: It works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But I'll come with you and do

Speaker D: everything I can to make it work.

Speaker A: Uh, but that's.

Speaker D: That's what's rare, though, right?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker D: I think that their BS meters probably go off when they hear you say that, because how many people have they actually seen do that?

Speaker A: Right, right. Well, and we, like, let's not. Let's not fool ourselves. I'm not gonna Kitty kidder on this one. You've both seen what my face looks like when I disagree.

Speaker B: You and I have disagreed. Like you and I have disagreed.

Speaker A: I have the. I have the harshest. Like, that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard face when I disagree.

Speaker D: I can't wait to play high stakes poker with Leah. I feel like I will always know what card she's holding.

Speaker A: Yeah. John Stockamp used to say, I want you to bring your paycheck and come play poker. Because he's like, I could take every dime in your, in your bank account. Because he's like, you don't have. You give. You have no poker face. And I'm like, zero. I'm not trying to have one, even trying. But I think that's part of the problem is that what they don't understand is that I can vehemently disagree with you, explain why, and then say it's your call, let's go. As long as it's not illegal or immoral, Right?

Speaker B: Well, I can think of a time when you and I had exactly that same conversation, Leah, where like, we just disagreed on a path forward. You, um, turned to me and you were like, I hope you're right. And I was like, I hope I'm right too. And we went, we went over it. I do agree with Gino, though. I think people probably I. I think there's, you know, disagree and commit can sometimes for people that aren't practicing, it can sometimes look at like, I'll agree with you in the room and then I'm going to. About you outside the room. And that is not what we're talking about. We're talking about. I think you're wrong. But, uh, if you've heard me and I feel like you've heard me and you've made a decision and then I. I am going to do everything in

Speaker D: my power to make everything to make it right.

Speaker B: Now, if I don't think you've heard me and I think you've just told me what you want, then that's not disagree and commit. You're just saying I don't give a. About your opinion. In which case, like, why, like why am I still in the room, guys?

Speaker A: Exactly. That's what I always tell people. What it looks like for me is I am now going to move heaven and earth to make it work.

Speaker D: Yeah, that's right.

Speaker A: Because I'm on our side.

Speaker D: I'm completely committed.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Is probably worse than you being right.

Speaker H: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, that's what I think was interesting about working at Amazon is that the engineers were good writers too. They had to be. Yeah, right. So there wasn't this pass on like, oh, we write code and so we don't have to write papers and we don't have to write. They had to write architecture documents and they had to write, you know, concepts and they had to, they had to do that stuff. So they had to be good authors as well, which made them really good partners when you wrote something.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because you could put in front of them, they could critique it for real. Not just like past, past, past where M. I'm not writing this, so I don't care.

Speaker F: Right. And I really enjoyed working at Amazon for that reason. The fact that the engineers were, were really almost as much as experts on, on, on the system and what needed to be done as the product folks.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker F: I get you to sit down them, sit down with them and you know, with a cup of coffee and say, all right, you know what, how do we want this to look? How do we want it to work? And you know, you know, we, we know what the input is and we know what the output's got to be, so how do we get it there?

Speaker H: Right.

Speaker F: And, and they were great. And that was the thing I enjoyed the most about nine years at Amazon.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's the ownership, right. It's that sense of, it's true teamwork, it's true cross functional collaboration. Everybody's engaged, everybody wants to own. And if you don't want that, you're likely not a good fit in that environment because you're just like, hey, just hand me a ticket and tell me what you want. It's not going to work. Right. Like, because everybody's going to look at you and be like, well, do you not ever want to get promoted? Why is that?

Speaker B: The ticket?

Speaker A: Evicted? Why are you doing it that way? Right. So, yeah, I think, I think it is. There's a rigor to what is done in those kinds of environments and that

Speaker B: allows you as a product manager to really focus on the customer, the problem and the business opportunity and then have that really healthy debate with the people that have to design and build the system. And they have an opinion and they're going to challenge whether they think your problem statement is right or not because they have a different perspective and I think it makes a really well rounded product.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I just had an argument last week about, you know, you can't, it's very, it's almost impossible to hire good engineers who also care about the product. And I was all, what are you

Speaker B: talking about where are you looking for people?

Speaker A: Person was like, well, you'd have to give up on the quality of their technical skills. And I'm all, what are you talking about? Like, I didn't even change my answer. I still think you're crazy.

Speaker E: Right.

Speaker A: Even though, uh, now I think you're crazier. Right. So it was such an interesting discussion because I was all, you've hired the wrong people. Right. Yeah. So. Yeah. So, Steve, what would you say in terms of. It may be payments or product management, but what do you feel like has stayed the same from when you began? And what do you feel like is radically different and you can go whichever direction you want, kind of product management or payments, Whichever. Whichever suits you.

Speaker F: Obviously, the. The tools are different, you know, over time, and things have changed, you know, and so, uh, that's it. That's an easy one where you're picking out the difference. Um, another is the ability to work remotely.

Speaker G: Okay.

Speaker E: Um.

Speaker F: You know, I know Covid came along and the world started working remotely, and a lot of people have returned to the office, but there's still a lot of businesses out there, companies that are, um, working almost 100% or just under 100% remotely. And it can be done, and it, um, can be done successfully. And so I think that's still a game changer in the world. Some of the things that have remained the same when it. When it comes to payments specifically are Rails or Rails.

Speaker A: Right. True. Right. You have to unpack what that means for those people who. In the audience who aren't payments, payments, geeks, like,

Speaker F: uh, how do you get the. How do you transmit or send the transaction from one place to another? And so Rails are rails. And, you know, you might have some fancy Venmo or. Or paypal or something sitting on top of the rails, but behind the scenes, it's the rails, even with stripe, you know, and, um, it's just how pretty can you make the packaging on top of it?

Speaker A: Right. So I hope you really enjoyed all of those clips. I found them super fun to watch back through and just kind of remember the bigger conversations. Obviously, if you enjoyed watching the clips, you can go watch and listen to whole episodes anywhere you watch and listen to podcasts. Um, I did want to just mention, I think, you know, there was a couple people in there that I was like, oh, yeah, let's stop m. Let's make sure we touch on them. Um, I loved our conversation with Jen about negotiating and. And, you know, she's a. She's a crazy good Negotiator. And so figuring out, like, what does negotiation look like and what does it mean as a product manager to negotiate, and how do you bring those two things together? I thought that was a really fun and interesting conversation to have. Yeah.

Speaker B: And I love the conversation with Sam about asking why and. And leaning in not because you're a jerk, but because you're, like, really sort of, like, lowering your defensiveness and bringing curiosity to the table and trying to grow your scope of knowledge. And it's not about being a jerk. It's about coming to the table with curiosity.

Speaker A: Yeah. I thought a lot about. Man, I really enjoyed. When I think about that conversation with Sam. I worked with Sam when he was taking customer support calls for every single person who used the service. Right. And how seriously he took that. And yet you and I talk probably every episode about getting closer to your customer.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And that is where I think that conversation really, it was so important to hear him talk about, like, you know, you can be a CEO, but you've still got to be close to the customer, because we are really product people. And are we gonna. Are you gonna focus on that? I thought that was really super, super interesting. Um, and then I think the. The other conversation that we may have mentioned at the beginning, but I want to mention again, is we talked to Rob, really, about govtech, and. And really how does he think about that role and what he does in that space? Um, and that it's not some, you know, boring thing. It's this really, really interesting space that. That exists out there that people can consider. Um, and that you still need a ton of empathy and a ton of thought about what it takes to do that. To do that role.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. And I think this sort of, like, fits in a lot of industries. The fact that bureaucracy is a design challenge, not an impediment. Uh, and I think you see that a lot in older industries or, you know, uh, companies that have been around for a really long time where bureaucracy builds. Um, it's not. It's not an overwhelming, like, doom challenge. It's actually an opportunity to innovate.

Speaker A: Yeah. 100. And I think. And I think that. That I think for us, again, if I'm thinking about themes as we talk, I think that we had a lot of different conversations over the course of the year about older industries that are trying to. That, uh, talk about digital transformation. But do you mean it or not? And what do you mean? And what's the role of product in that? And how do we, you know, how do you show up. And I think the conversation with Rob, the conversation with Mike, even, like, the different conversations along the way have. Have pointed to that. Like, don't say it if you don't mean it. Yeah, right.

Speaker B: I mean, you know, you're as a, as a product manager designing a product that humans are going to interact with, whether it's through an API into another interface or you're controlling the interface. You're choosing who gets to participate. You're choosing. You're making selections right now every single day. Uh, so choose well. Right?

Speaker A: Choose well. Choose well. So here's what I. Here's what I'll say. If you've watched this episode, you're going to love the episode that comes out in two weeks because it's the best of second, uh, episode where we talk about the other 10 episodes we recorded with a bunch of really cool people. So you'll want to come back and watch the other clips and get a sense of, like, oh, which ones do I want to go watch? Um, because, you know, I do believe not every single episode we record is going to appeal to everybody. But I guarantee, if you're a product manager, there's an episode out there that is suited for you because we've talked

Speaker H: to some really cool people.

Speaker A: So I guess we will see you in the next episode.

Speaker H: Marilyn.

Speaker B: Yes. See you later.

Speaker A: See you later. Bye, everyone. Sam.