Product Leader on How to Switch Domains and Climb the Leadership Ladder

Speaker A: Ready to move to the next level in your product career? I'm Shobhit from Intentional Product Manager. Join me as we discuss ways to help you stand out in your job search and your career so you can have more impact and make more money. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Intentional Product Manager podcast. Now this is the show where we go deep into real product management career journeys. The wins, the stumbles and the beliefs that shift everything. Today's guest has one of the most compelling career arcs that I've come across. Matt Moore has moved across domains, industries, leadership levels, financial services to healthcare tech. He's led P&Ls, scaled teams, shipped AI products in urgent care. I'm sure we learned a bit about that and helped companies generate tens of millions in revenue. I'm most excited to explore today is not just the scale of what Matt's done, but how, how he's done it with the mission first mindset, a sharp take on what it really means to practice the product management craft, and a track record of navigating complex systems with clarity and conviction. Matt, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Excellent, Shobat, thanks so much. I'm really excited to be here. Really looking forward to our conversation.

Speaker A: Amazing people who've seen this show before, they know we begin with some good warmup questions. So let's talk about what got you into product management in the first place.

Speaker B: Well, it goes back to my time in financial services. I was working for a, ah, large national bank and I was in a, like a product training capacity and I spent most of my time training employees throughout the bank about the products and how to use the products. Um, I found myself surrounded by people that were titled product managers and they were really sort of deeply engaged with the business and everything that I was seeing and hearing was actually much more compelling than what I was doing. So I can say I honestly didn't know what product, product management meant, but I knew that I wanted to be doing what I was seeing the rest of my team doing. So so as soon as the opportunity came around, I jumped on it to secure a product manager position. All while having really no idea what the heck the role was. Was entirely about a lot of, uh, on the job learning.

Speaker A: Many times people get into without, without knowing exactly what it is. I think that's the fun of life. Once you got in, did you like immediately see yourself as a product leader? Like were there some, um, things that help you understand how you would become or things that push you into it?

Speaker B: Initially, no. And I probably didn't give like leadership a lot of thought in the earlier part of my, my career, but it was really in my first few years as a product manager, um, I was, I was an individual contributor. And then when I got into the health tech area, that's really when I learned that I have this additional, um, sort of, I don't know, natural skill of being able to, to really lead teams and the stakeholders with a really high degree of collaboration. It just, that's where I'm comfortable. So it comes to me naturally. So I don't know, I may not be like a great manager, but I'm a pretty good leader.

Speaker A: We have to talk about the cross industry path, so we'll talk about that more in detail. But what belief about product management from your early years did you have to unlearn?

Speaker B: I have to narrow this one down a little bit. I think I had to learn that the job was not only about execution, but really about running the overall business of a product. And I look back at my time in financial services, most of the examples I had, they were almost like entirely based around how to properly execute. Nothing about strategy, nothing about market, uh, engagement or customer engagement, nothing about learning how to get into the marketplace and really uncover the problems. Don't get me wrong, execution is very, very important. Um, but as I progressed it had to be about a lot more than just execution.

Speaker A: Got it, got it. Okay, thank you for participating in the warmup questions. Um, now, uh, we're going to get uh, deeper into some of the topics. So the first one will be the product management craft and how it's shifting right now. Um, and Matt, you've said it before and I totally agree with that, which is that the product management job is more ambiguous today than ever before. Um, so let's start with fundamentals. In your experience, how have you seen the fundamentals of product management change, especially in organizations that don't fully do or don't get product management? Hmm.

Speaker B: I don't, gosh, I don't know that it's as much about say the fundamentals changing because the true ABCs of uh, product management, I think those are the same. At least they are, they are for me. I think software development methodologies have changed and they've introduced like product management sounding roles, you know, like the product owner that, that so many companies have as a title. And I think they blurred certain lines with respect to what a product manager's role actually is. So you think about technology, tools have changed, like AI and a tool like that, and you think about how it can be used to contribute to really More line blurring. I think one of the biggest contributors to the ambiguity in the role are the companies. You said it, uh, right. They truly don't understand what the job is. And we've seen this big tech where they've sort of reduced the job to that of only being, you know, like an executor of somebody else's requirements of somebody else's work that they did with the market, or maybe they just came up with it in a vacuum. Right. And in talking with dozens of product managers in different industries, a lot of them are really frustrated with the fact that they can't perform the full job. Right. And they're just kind of like stuck in a technical executor role. I think if we can get back to the fundamentals, make sure everyone understands, have a baseline line of the fundamentals, then I think that changes the conversation, that the fundamentals are the fundamentals for a very good reason, because they work across different industries. I think we need to help a lot of different companies really kind of come back to what are those and why are they important? And then it also helps, and I think we might talk about this later, but it helps also sort of transitioning from, say, one industry to another when you're really focused on the. On the fundamentals.

Speaker A: Let me get an example of that. So can you share a story about a time when the organization didn't allow for true product leadership and what you

Speaker B: did in that case, probably in a more recent role? Um, I came into a pretty large team of product managers at different levels. Um, most of which were. They really weren't doing much more than sort of executing the vision of the CEO. So the culture had not advanced where it needed to be based on the size of the company. Um, and this CEO was convinced, Right. That his way was the only way. So the, the product managers were. They weren't engaged with the market. They were just basically glorified ticket takers for the most part. And so there was no. There's no strategic thinking or planning happening within the team. So then I had to come in and very quickly start working on cultural change. Um, I had to spend like a ton of time just upskilling the team and really helping them. Understanding. Back to the fundamentals. What are the fundamentals of, of the job? What are they all about? Um, and I had to do this with pretty consistent pushback from the CEO, kind of convinced that the market did not know what they wanted and that we had to tell the market what they wanted. Sort of antithetical to what A good product manager actually does and how they operate. So the, the effort to change the culture, however, it did not stop. But just the product team, right? This had to go horizontal across all of parts of the organization, all the stakeholders, right? Everybody sort of had to understand what is the job, why are we here, why that market input is really important. So imagine trying to run a proper uh, product management team with uh, you know, that being the operating model. It was uh, it was a blast.

Speaker A: Matt, in this case, I want to ask one more question. How do you convince the CEO otherwise?

Speaker B: Data, a lot of data directly from the market. So despite, you know, the CEO's preference, um, or perception that you know, the market didn't know what they want. M coming into a meeting and saying, I just talked to a dozen customers and they all said this, right? And you've got some consistency across your, your different customer segments, for example. So not just the big guys, but those that are down market as well. Right? They all told me the same thing. These are their top two problems. And we as a company, as a vendor, we're not there yet helping them solve that problem. Um, it's really, I mean how, how do you take, you know, strong market client feedback and just toss that aside and say no, they're wrong. So that, that being done consistently having that healthy debate, uh, that starts changing not just the culture and the company, but starts changing I think some of the, the way of sort of business thinking for that CEO. And we did, we started seeing a lot of corners being turned with that CEO because of that.

Speaker A: I love the using the data to convince the CEO because you know, it's just something you cannot debate.

Speaker B: Yeah, indeed.

Speaker A: Now one more thing. I've noticed you're big on outcome driven roadmaps. Tell me more about those. And what does good PM craft actually look like at that exact level with the outcome driven roadmaps?

Speaker B: I love talking about roadmaps. Everybody has sort of their own, their own take and, or philosophy on roadmaps. I think at the executive level, good PM craft, right? It's not about like writing tight PRDs. It's not about shipping on time. It's about shaping, I think the direction. It's about capital allocation, it's about driving really the measurable business outcomes. I look for five things when it comes to this. Uh, these are not necessarily in order of importance, but first I think clarity of outcomes. So an executive pm, right? They're going to define the success in business terms, not in story points, not in meeting a particular date. It's revenue expansion, it's revenue retention, it's margin improvement. Especially for the PE owned companies. Right. Uh, customer acquisition cost, clinical throughput. In the case of HealthTep or I Play, um, it's not feature velocity, it's not story points. Like I said, if you can't tie your roadmap to a financial or a strategic ah metric you are not operating at the right altitude. Next, portfolio discipline I guess I'd call it. So at the exec level I think the craft shows up in a lot of trade off decisions. What do we stop doing? Um, what do we delay? What gets funded? The strong leaders treat the roadmap space really like capital allocation. So if a company has $20 million of engineering capacity then the question becomes where does that capital earn the highest rate of return over the next 24 to 36 months average teams will try to fit everything in. I've been there, I've tried that early in my career. Doesn't work. The strong leaders, they will say no very politely but they will say no early and often. Like Chicago going um, third uh, I think that strategic sort of um, I guess coherence right. So that, that, that, that outcome driven roadmap, it tells a story across time. Um, the initiatives for the most part connect and every year builds on the last. So you sort of see this compounding advantage. Um, so for example if year one you might focus on let's say data normalization and then in year two it introduces uh, products around analytics and then year three we monetize the predictive uh analytics and insights. So that, that sequencing. Right, that's not accidental. It really reflects deliberate sort of platform thinking. In that example, um, I said five parts, right? Yeah. I think the next is probably organizational alignment. Um so at the exec level the PM craft includes influence no doubt. Sales, marketing, finance, engineering, other stakeholders. They understand why the roadmap exists and they understand what success looks like. So you should hear the same narrative on uh, that roadmap. In a board meeting, in a customer qvr and even in a Sprint review, if that message is shifted depending on the room then your roadmap is weak. And then I think lastly is really the accountability. PM leaders, they define how the outcomes are going to be measured before anything ships. The metrics are defined right before anything ships. Um and they're going to define those leading indicators. So um, they're going to review on, they're going to agree rather on the review cadences and they're going to kill initiatives that do not perform.

Speaker A: I just wanted to Jump in and say that. The last one especially resonated with me, one of my mentors was like, oh, cool, you're proposing this feature. What's your hypothesis? If we introduce this, what will move and then how do you measure it? And that was like a light bulb, life changing moment for me. I'm like, oh, this is how it's done. That one really resonates with me.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's like you take a $5 million initiative, right? And let's say it misses its adoption targets for like two quarters. Um, then the stronger product leaders, they're going to adjust course, right? We're not going to just sit there and try to protect the sunk cost.

Speaker A: Let's talk about, you know, as you've moved to the career, like you've seen other people move through their career moving to leadership, whether it be strategic leadership or whether it be team leadership of PMs, what are like maybe one big mistake that you see them making over and over again.

Speaker B: I see it because I of course made the same mistake, uh, earlier in my career. Probably the mistake of, uh, confusing personal productivity with like organizational impact. Right. Uh, you got promoted because you are a strong, say, individual contributor. You wrote great briefs, you drove alignment M, you shipped. Right? So what's the instinct there? Keep doing more of that. Right. Leadership is different. Leadership is partly about leverage, right? So you kind of stop being the hero product manager and you start building a team and a system that can win without you in every single meeting. So if important decisions like, still route through you, then you have not, right. You have created a bottleneck. And so I'll see new leaders stay buried in execution. They'll rewrite strategy docs, they sit in backlog grooming, they jump into every single customer escalation. And that feels productive, right? But at the leadership level that your value has to shift from output to outcomes. And then that system design, um, you're setting clear direction, you're defining the decision rights, you are building a talented team, all right? And then you're sort of got these operating rhythms going, right, that drive results whether you're in the room or not. So it's that system. You're designing the environment in which really good product decisions happen consistently. Um, those are, I think, all really important parts. And that's, it's, it's a different job. It's just you're a product manager that has a particular jd, you're a director, it's a different jd, you're a vice president and so on. The job changes, you're still talking about product, you're still in product management but each level is, is a very different job.

Speaker A: This also resonated with me both as a product manager but just as a business owner. Like I realized a few months into a certain stage I was jumping into every customer question and how unproductive that was. I love that thinking and framing in product management career terms.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you got to be careful you like in your first few months if you join a new, a new company you're, you seem very inclined to want to do that. You want to learn more about the product, you want to learn about the customer perception, so forth. There's a byproduct there. Right. And how you start then to train your customers uh, into constantly relying on that leadership level for every sort of issue. So it, you have to be very careful, very balanced, especially when you're in that first sort of three to six month period at a new company, uh, to make sure that you don't become, you know, everybody's go to guy. You're creating a system where your product managers are those.

Speaker A: Let me ask you now a different topic. Health tech and especially your transition from financial services to health tech. And you know, it's something that I've seen a lot of people want to do but it's a struggle. So let's first begin with how did you position yourself to successfully transition from financial services to health tech?

Speaker B: Well, it's interesting in some respects I was, I was lucky and that the transition came to me versus me be actively seeking to make that transition. I did have to prove like to my prospective employer at the time that I was fully capable of operating in a health tech company. Um, so here I had to make it clear that the skill set, fundamentals right that I have and that I exercise led to really great financial outcomes for my then current employer as well as some of my past employers. There's a bridge that you've got to build, um, and you support it with the frameworks that are tied to outcomes. So it can't just be a conversation I guess based on the skills that are common across product management, say for any industry. Those are important. So don't get me wrong, uh, I'm a firm believer that the fundamental skill set that a product manager carries can be lifted from one industry and then placed down into another industry and they will still be successful. They may need a few months to come up to speed in that new domain. But that new domain is very secondary to that fundamental skill set that a great product manager has so it's, it's really being able to tell the stories I think attached to the outcomes, not so much a focus on, you know, I can run a good scrum team, I can work with engineers really well. You know, the things that of course we can all do quite well. But good hiring managers, they're focused on the outcomes.

Speaker A: I wish there were more like openness. Sometimes I do find like the market is such that there's a lot of risk minimization also going on. That and the way is like can you like immediately get up and running with like domain knowledge and everything? You move into healthcare, what's like the biggest culture shock you get?

Speaker B: There are several points of culture shock. When I moved into the healthcare and health tech space, probably the biggest cultural shock or difference from past industries was there's a great deal of ADD within many of the organizations that I've been with. And um, that comes from this never ending stream of problems that have to be solved inside of healthcare. Um, I think a lot of health tech companies, they can easily generate a list of say 25 problems that need to be solved that can make them a ton of money and a ton of margin. Right. So it's really challenging for, for some executives to focus and pick three to five things that you can actually achieve inside of a fiscal year. And I think as soon as you decide, uh, those three to five things, something in the way of say market dynamics or legislation, which happens a lot in the healthcare space, right. That changes and then it introduces another 10 things that are really attractive problems to solve. So the ADD, it continues today. I've been a victim of it. Um, so it's really important for disciplined product leaders to help their organization stay focused. And I cannot underscore that enough. Uh, I've seen too many times like the constant start and stop of projects that by the end of the year have led to absolutely nothing in the way of um, say new bookings or new revenue, more margin expansion, no retention value, et cetera. Uh, it is a very real issue because as I said it's, it's this never ending stream of problems that have to be solved inside of healthcare.

Speaker A: I love it. ADD because there's so many opportunities and then moving back and forth. So let's talk about, you know, with all your experience in health tech, what's one product decision in health tech that you're proud of?

Speaker B: You asked me a tough question there. There's a few think in a fairly recent one that involves using AI. So I was leading a team of product Managers and engineers to create, um, an embedded, what's called ambient scribe into, into an EMR electronic medical records system. I think I'm particularly proud of this because of the impact that it has between the healthcare provider, like physician, nurse practitioner, what have you, and then the patient. This somewhat is connected to that, to the mission. Right. So this is something that will allow the healthcare provider to actually focus on the patient versus a computer when they're conducting their exam. Right. And this is something that is going to improve the patient experience dramatically. Probably everybody has been a patient at one point in time, right. And um, you've dealt with these physicians that are, they're looking over at you and they're typing over here and it's this back and forth and they're very careful about what they're typing and what they're clicking. And you're just kind of wondering are they actually hearing so that being able to remove that so that everything can just happen naturally like it used to happen in the good old days of, uh, practicing medicine. It also didn't hurt that we added several million in bookings that same year after launched it. But I think where I was really proud was the product manager on my team that did most of the heavy lifting, uh, on this project. She expertly engaged with customers throughout the entire development, testing and launch process and did a really fantastic job, uh, of market analysis of all of the competition to help us understand what our monetization approach should be. So it was just sort of the totality, lots of players, lots of stakeholders involved with this, um, but the way that it came together, uh, and especially that customer involvement, that's really what put a big smile on my face. So I think we did a fantastic job.

Speaker A: It's something that resonates with me as a patient, clearly can see why that would be useful healthcare. Like one thing we know is people are very mission driven. When did the mission side of the work become like, really ingrained and real for you?

Speaker B: I remember it very well. It was the first time I went to a client site. It was at a major, um, university hospital in Tennessee. I sat and I watched the, what are called registrars. Those are people, you know, you go in and they take your name, all your insurance information and so forth. Right. So I watched the registrars in their children's hospital use our software while they were working with pediatric patients and their parents. And it just dawned on me that while this product portfolio that I was leading, yeah, it was adding millions year over year and top line, great margin growth. But the True impact that the products were providing was getting patients to the point of care faster and really creating good financial outcomes for those patients and their families. And the products that I had, they were focused on the financial end of things and in the rep cycle management part of health care, not so much on the clinical side and creating really good financial outcomes for patients and their families, right? It's a big part of the total healthcare experience. You can get a fantastic clinical outcome, they can cure you of your cancer, but a really bad or financial outcome will erase all of that joy. It'll erase all the goodwill that was built up from a really good clinical outcome. So from then on, whether I was in rev cycle management or whether I was more on the clinical side, I stayed focused on creating really strong patient experiences and then whatever I could do to create a really strong and good clinical and financial outcome outcome. And that's been the mission ever since because it really. And think about the US healthcare system, right, and how it is quite different than so many other parts of the developed world. But it's got a huge amount of challenges and it is not cheap for any patient. Um, so kind of coupling great clinical outcomes with really good financial outcomes. It really creates a fantastic experience. And then for the customers that I serve, it keeps patients coming back to them, coming back to their hospital or coming back to their clinic, which is incredibly important for their business.

Speaker A: Now we're going to pivot again. We're going to talk about a different aspect of our, uh, discussion, which is about job search and leadership branding, obviously something I'm super passionate about. But we find ourselves right now in a state of the market that a lot of product managers are in transition. They're looking, you've done this at a very high exec level, you know, as you navigate your own search at different points in time. What's your, I would say, philosophy on job search as a product leader?

Speaker B: Because a product leader, you probably should approach your career the same way you approach building a product. Start with strategy, you validate it with data. Right? Execute with really strong focus. I think you need to define the market, where you want to play, stage of the company, uh, what's the problem? Space the ownership type. That's very important for some folks. And I'd say from my own experience, it's really important that you go slow, to go fast. You work each opportunity like it's the only opportunity. You're very deliberate in everything you do this, you know, go back to talking about add. It's incredibly easy when you're on the search to have add. Trying to keep your eye on open roles, constantly networking, constant follow ups in that networking that you're doing to try to uncover the roles that aren't necessarily posted. Right. Finding the guy that knows the guy to get the introduction, um, it can be, you know, incredibly, you know, it can lend very well to somebody that already has add. Right. So go slow to go fast.

Speaker A: Can everyone please listen to the last thing Matt said and re listen because it's, it's really, really important. Something I personally like am always talking to my clients about is actually two things you said. I'm just going to repeat them because I think they're so important. One is go slow to go fast also means the more you invest in your own clarity, your own prep, your own story, the benefits are so much so people are so keen to just start applying and get the resume done and feel like a sense of satisfaction that they're not even willing but a few hours behind that story and I think that makes a huge difference. And then the second part, you said work every opportunity as if it's the only one I see sometimes there's a tendency to apply for tons of jobs and like go abroad and like almost get ADD back to your other thing or fomo. Fear of missing out.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And that kills your chances because now you, you don't even remember where you applied by the time it comes back around depending on both really helpful. Okay, so with that let's talk about some more aspects of the job search. So networking, something I find people hesitate about and hate all the time. What's your framework of doing it? Right.

Speaker B: People hate us all the time. The introverts out there, Right. Really kind of cringe when they think about networking.

Speaker A: That's actually not even my uh, experience. It's both introvert and extroverts are light into fair.

Speaker B: Definitely fair. I don't know that I have ever thought about it as a framework, but I think at a very fundamental level networking is how you are going to find the right role at the right company. You know, as I, as I just mentioned before, it's. I think about it the same way I do creating a new product, but I also think about it from a sales execution standpoint. Right. When we think about what sales, direct salespeople do day in and day out, right. Finding that guy that knows that guy. Right. That knows that woman that can get them the introduction, they need to start a very consultative conversation. Right. That will hopefully lead to a sale. Right. And then for the searcher, the Sale is getting that, getting those interviews and getting that offer. I think it's the same process when you're, when you're searching for your next opportunity. Um, I probably would consider myself more of an introvert than an extrovert. However, I really enjoy networking because it has uncovered so many opportunities that I didn't know were there things that weren't posted. Right. It has taught me so much about other segments. And in my case in health care, um, it's. I've had so much in the way of inbound volume, uh, from other product managers, both in health care and outside of health care. A lot of people trying to kind of break through and get into health care product management. So just the relationship building is tremendous and it really expands that network. And why is that? It's not just fun. I love talking, meeting new people, learning about what they do, learning about their company does. But now I've built my network that much more. So next time I need to leverage my network, it's that much bigger. Right. And it's just, it's just such an important thing to do. Um, so I think you're right. Extroverts may not enjoy it as much either. And it is sometimes very uncomfortable doing that initial cold outreach to somebody. I think there's strategies there probably, uh, in terms of what should the first outreach be about? Probably shouldn't be about. You should probably be about them. Right. Kind of start building that bridge so that you can eventually, in that second or third conversation, say, you know, I've been exploring new roles, et cetera, et cetera. And then the conversation just happens more naturally.

Speaker A: Very much resonate with that. In fact, back in the day, people used to say, shobha, you have such a strong network in Boston. How did that happen? Actually, most of it was when I was looking for my first product management job. I just reached out to people, I kept networking in order to get the job and eventually I got the job. But I think more importantly, I ended up with a really strong network, like in the process of doing that. So it really, really helped me quite a bit. Uh, okay, so let's talk about a couple more aspects of the job search and then we'll go into our question. So we got connected through LinkedIn. I don't know how, but that's how it happened. Why do you think so many talented PMs stay invisible on LinkedIn?

Speaker B: Over the last few months, I have, I've been talking to like, dozens and dozens of product managers in healthcare, outside of healthcare, different industries, um, a lot of them, the conversation is, I'm struggling with my search, right? And they're looking to learn from others the same way I look to learn from others. What do I need to be doing differently? How do I become more visible? How do I get recruiters calling me instead of me reaching out to recruiters? And what I learned from them is they don't know what the right tools are to become visible on LinkedIn. So here's the love it or hate it, LinkedIn is a platform for professionals, right? And that's where we house our professional brand. So I think part of it is just a degree of not knowing how to become visible. But then after you learn how, then you have to be incredibly diligent to maintain that visibility. I think the other part of it is making sure that once you've established that professional brand on LinkedIn, is it actually relevant? Right. The content that you're posting, is it, is it appropriate for the type of role that you're looking for? Is your profile really clear with respect to the role that you want? So I've seen like so many LinkedIn profiles from very experienced product managers, but they just talk about what their job responsibilities were and they list all these completely unrelated certifications that have nothing to do with, with product management. So it's, it's just seeing a significant lack of people talking about their outcomes. What did you achieve? I know what your responsibilities were based on your title, or at least I can infer that the hiring managers like me want to know, can this person come in here? Can they be a great product manager and deliver fantastic financial outcomes? So if you're not talking about your past great financial outcomes, I think you're missing a huge opportunity and you're, you're staying slightly less visible.

Speaker A: I think all product managers should have a AWS certification. I'm totally kidding. That's what, that's what like I see people, people pursue that. Like Matt, Matt was thinking show. It's great.

Speaker B: I was waiting for the ny. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's like, it's like the, the, the Agile certification or the Scrum.

Speaker A: Right, exactly right. Certified product owner Scrum something something. Right.

Speaker B: We have to understand what that is as product managers. We have to know how it works. But that in and of itself is not product management.

Speaker A: Last question before we go into some of the ending rapid fire questions, what's the number one mistake you see product managers make in their job search?

Speaker B: Probably not having that professional brand and that supporting narrative for their brand. I think that they, uh, they enter the market without like a clear brand, no narrative ties all their experience together. They list rules, right? They here's projects I did, here's some features I launched, but they don't explain the sort of the through line of the value that they create. Um, like I, like I just said I'm looking for as a hiring manager, I'm looking for a story that answers a simple question. Why should this person need a product and drive business outcomes? Right. So the brand I think has to really has to signal the problems you solve and the results you drove. Um, it's that narrative. It has to connect the past roles uh, to, to the value so clearly. And when those elements are missing, then the search just turns into like a list of activities instead of a case for, for like leadership and impact.

Speaker A: Quick answers, whatever comes to mind. No pressure. What's one product management book or a non product management book that changed how you work?

Speaker B: You probably see behind me the Product Manager survival guide by Mr. Stephen Haynes. I read it every year.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. And separate question related to this. You had Stephen Haynes join your team's book club. What's your favorite question to ask authors?

Speaker B: Well, I think in the, in the case of the books that are written to address like how to do a particular job like that one, I, I will actually ask the author why I should not pursue that type of role.

Speaker A: Why you should not pursue that type of role?

Speaker B: Yeah, tell me why I should not go into that as a career choice that always one throws them back and kind of like gets them to really strongly defend like the content of the, of their book. So it's just I do it as a little bit of a surprise. Uh, yeah. But they usually have really good answers for with it.

Speaker A: Amazing. Okay, I love that. Then a few more uh, quick questions. Let's ask this one. What product do you use in your daily life that makes you say basically, I wish I built that.

Speaker B: Probably a dvr. I'm old enough to be part of the generation that used to have to record shows on VHS stick. And I'm also among the generation that first bought a TiVo, the, you know, the big predecessor to what we know as DVRS today. So there's a little card tip to my age there. But um, yeah, it's um, I love my shows and I never have enough time. So when I have the time, I need them to be there on demand.

Speaker A: One last question. What's one leadership lesson that took you way too long to learn?

Speaker B: Probably this really strong collaboration is absolutely essential to getting this Job done. Being a product manager is about running the full business of the product, and that requires collaboration across your customer base and all of your stakeholders. It's just not a job that you can do successfully in a vacuum.

Speaker A: Matt, this was packed with so many lessons and I love your honesty about both. Strategy, job search, the humanity behind leadership it's rare to see. So for listeners who want to follow your work or connect, what's the best place to find you?

Speaker B: Best place is probably to find me. Like I said, love it or hate it, but it's on LinkedIn. Um, LinkedIn, you can find me on LinkedIn. We can connect and, uh, hopefully we can start a good, productive conversation.

Speaker A: Love it. I'll be sure in the show notes, whether you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, the LinkedIn, uh, profile L would be there, so you can just use that. So, first of all, Matt, thank you so much for taking the time for doing this recording, for your thoughtful responses. I really appreciate it.

Speaker B: Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Really enjoyed it.

Speaker A: Love it. And, uh, for everyone listening, if you're in product management in transition or just trying to show up more powerfully in your career, just keep in mind, just as important as your career is how you position yourself. Matt talked about the narrative and everything. Just keep that in mind because I think it's so fundamental. We'll be back soon with another episode of Intentional Product Manager. Until then, be bold, be thoughtful, and keep it intentional. Thank you. Hey, be sure to check out our website@ intentionalproductmanager.com to see how you can level up in your career.