[On Demand] Product Management Webinar: Product Leadership

[00:00:00] Janna Bastow: Hi, everybody. And welcome. This is the product expert series of webinars that we run here at ProdPad. And joining us today is Kate Leto. We’re going to be talking about how to navigate product leadership. So we’re gonna be talking to her about that.

[00:00:14] And what many of you have been here before, that this is a series of webinars that we do. And every time we do it, we always bring in an expert. This is Kate’s second time back because she’s such an expert. And a different focus today though. But as all the past talks have been recorded.

[00:00:28] Some of them are presentations. Some of them are fireside chats like we’ve got today. And it’s always with a focus on these experts and their insights, right? The focus on the content, the learning, the experiences, the sharing. So today is going to be recorded. You will get a copy of this recording.

[00:00:44] You will have a chance to ask questions as well. So thank you all for turning up in person here. Make use of the Q and A to ask you questions and make use of the chat to, to add your commentary. We’d love to hear from you. So before I kick off and formally introduce Kate, I want to tell you a little bit about what we’re working on here at ProdPad.

[00:01:02] So ProdPad is a tool that was built by myself and my co founder, Simon Kast, who you also might know as one of the, my co founders on the Mind the Product side of things. It’s a tool that we built when we were product managers ourselves. We needed a tool to do our jobs and this thing just didn’t exist.

[00:01:15] We needed something to keep track of our big, messy backlogs and all the experiments we were running and, the overarching objectives that we’re supposed to hit. And so ProdPad was something that we built for ourselves internally at first and it helped us give. It has a sense of control and gives some transparency into the product management process.

[00:01:31] And so today it’s being used by thousands of teams around the world as their single source of truth for what the product is made up of and where they’re taking things and what decisions have been made. And it’s actually a tool that you can try for free. We have a free trial that you can start today or we have a sandbox mode which has, it’s basically like a space that you can explore in play in.

[00:01:52] It has. Example data like lean roadmaps and OKRs and feedback and experiments and all sorts of other stuff like that, you can see how it all interconnects and play with it yourself. And really key thing is that our team is made up of product people. Us as a couple of the founders behind mind the product.

[00:02:09] But we’ve got other product people scattered throughout the team as well. And we’ve got this real mindset of understanding what. Works for people and adjusting as we go. So we’ve been iterating on prod pad for more than a decade now with updates every week. So give it a try and give us feedback, let us know what’s working and what’s not working, and we’d love to hear from you on that note, I wanted to clue you in with something really interesting that we have been working on.

[00:02:34] As AI has changed the way that we can interact with. Our apps and with our data. And so we’ve built this new thing that we’re calling a, an AI coach. And so we didn’t just want to build stuff that you can generate. Like you can do that in broad pad. You can generate ideas and come up and brainstorm user stories and key results.

[00:02:53] But we also wanted to use AI to act like a coach for you. So you can use it to sense check whether the ideas that you’re working on actually match up with your vision. You can use it as a coach on your vision to give you feedback on whether the vision is actually well written or not. You can use it to ask questions about anything that’s in your ProdPad backlog.

[00:03:10] You can say, Hey, what are people asking about? Or can you summarize last week’s feedback? Or can you tell me if this aligns with that? And it’ll know what’s in your ProdPad backlog. It’ll help you understand what’s in there and basically act as your sidekick as you’re doing your product management day job.

[00:03:25] So give that a try. We’d love your feedback on that. Let us know what kind of questions you’re asking and and what you learned from it. So that’s enough about me. Let me introduce you to my good friend, Kate Leto. We were just talking about how long we’ve known each other. Both of us are transplants to Europe.

[00:03:44] We both met when we were living and working in London. And grown up in the product management sphere. And today, Kate is an experienced exec coach with over 25 years in product management. Digital transformation and leadership development. Her career started from the. com era with roles at Yahoo and as an independent consultant for other global corporations, so she’s an accredited coach and the author of hiring product managers, using product EQ to go beyond culture and skills.

[00:04:16] Last time we had Kate on here, she came in to talk about product EQ. And today we’re going to be talking about expert skills and coaching as a leader. So with that, I want to say a big hello and thank you to Kate for joining us. Everybody say hi to Kate. 

[00:04:32] Kate Leto: Hello, everybody. So cool to see people from all over the world here.

[00:04:37] That’s great. 

[00:04:39] Janna Bastow: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. And I’m looking forward to diving into this today. I guess really key thing to start with is, you’re an expert coach. Do you want to talk us through what you mean by but sorry, you’re an executive coach. Do you want to talk us through what you mean by executive coaching?

[00:04:56] Yeah, 

[00:04:57] Kate Leto: that, that’s a great place to start. So as an executive coach. I’m going to start by telling you what I don’t focus on. Great. Yes. What I don’t focus on as an executive coach is teaching and training leaders and executives about product management skills, right? So I’m not the person that’s going to come in and help your, you as a leader or your boss perhaps understand what okays are and how to implement them or teach things like discovery.

[00:05:27] The discovery process and how to go about that. Design sprints, any of that type of stuff. Road mapping. I’m not the coach for that. There’s other people who are experts in that. Yeah that’s the thing. There are so many people in our world who are great at that. And it’s such fundamental part of what we do.

[00:05:44] We need that. So that’s awesome. What I do focus on as an executive coach is helping product leaders develop their leadership skills. So it’s a different slant. And I, by leadership skills, getting comfortable with making big decisions. Having really clear communication and being really bold in that.

[00:06:05] Helping their team members learn to develop themselves and equip themselves for success. Building influential state relationships with stakeholders. So it’s more of that leadership development skill set that I really focus on versus the product skill set. 

[00:06:24] Janna Bastow: That’s great. That’s a really good way to defining it.

[00:06:26] And so how did you find yourself in this particular angle? 

[00:06:30] Kate Leto: It’s been a journey, right? The last time, as you mentioned, the last time I was on, I was talking about product EQ and the book that I wrote about hiring product managers for. Looking at their emotional intelligence versus just their product skills and why that was so important.

[00:06:47] So it really it started with all of that. And it started with probably in 2016, 2017, I. I realized I was doing a lot of product consulting at the time. I was working for large organizations going through digital transformations and working with VPs and CPOs and heads of product that were trying to help their teams work in a different way and think in a different way.

[00:07:09] And I realized. In those conversations, they might start out with a question about strategy or a question about roadmaps or metrics, but very quickly, it would turn to more of a personal question, why doesn’t, why won’t my team respond to me? Why is my stakeholder being such a jerk? Why can’t we have a good relationship?

[00:07:28] Is this work, even the work I want to be doing with my life? What am I up to? What am I doing? And all of these are really important questions, but as a product consultant, I didn’t really feel equipped to answer them. So that’s when I went and started actually taking more formal coaching training on personal and business.

[00:07:47] Coaching and what that might be like, not to become a coach at that point, but just to bring that into my skill set as a consultant. And there’s been such a pull with coaching and such a pull into leadership and that space within product. It just naturally evolved from there. And I found that, after being in and around product for 25 years, I was tired of having the same conversations around our skills.

[00:08:10] And I felt like at a certain point in our careers. In a product leader’s career you do have that product skillset in place or you know how to go figure it out, right? Yeah. The people to go talk to, the blogs to go read, the books to get but no one really focuses on that leadership development aspect within product people.

[00:08:29] So it just became a natural pull for me. 

[00:08:32] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a really good backstory. And it’s, I think how a lot of people move their way through into leadership as well as a roundabout way. I’m curious from the people listening in today who here is a leader already and is in that position.

[00:08:45] I was going to say struggling with things there, but I yeah, absolutely. That’s goes without saying, cause everyone in a leadership position is struggling with something. And who here is on that path is trying to find their way up to a leadership and wondering what’s ahead of them. We’d love to hear from people in the audience and throw some some thoughts out there.

[00:09:01] And if anybody has particular challenges, then let us know. And that may be something we can tackle today. But Kate, so probably interested to ask what sort of leaders do you work for? Are these people who are brand new in leadership or leaders who are long in the tooth and have age old problems?

[00:09:16] Do you work with individuals or the whole team? How does that work? 

[00:09:19] Kate Leto: It’s a blend of all. So I work with, there’s, there seems to be two kind of audiences that I work with. It’s the people that have been, are new to a leadership role and perhaps have had that role for about a year or two and are still finding their feet.

[00:09:33] And then there’s folks that have are leaders, have leadership experience, but have stepped into a new role, have stepped up a level. Maybe have stepped into a different area of the business that they’re not quite as comfortable in. Maybe it’s being part of an organization that’s going through a digital transformation.

[00:09:48] So there’s like bucket loads of change going on. So it, it seems to be those two kind of areas, newer leaders and. Experienced leaders who are stepping into a new space, a new role, a new level. Yeah. When it comes to the tie individuals and teams, I work with both. I have to say it sometimes works best when we can do both of them together, work with a leadership team and then have individual coaching sessions alongside that.

[00:10:15] Yeah. But I really enjoy both aspects. 

[00:10:18] Janna Bastow: Yeah. All right. That’s a, that’s good insight. Oliver pointed out that he’s considering a leading position but he’s wondering about how to catch up and prepare, how to get yourself into that leadership mindset. 

[00:10:32] Kate Leto: Yeah, with coaching and developing people, it looks like, which is, I know at some point we’re going to talk about the course that I’ve introduced and that I’m running.

[00:10:39] And that is, I’ll just a quick segue into that. And that’s based on this need that a lot of newer leaders and existing leaders who are maybe managing and leading different types of folks and they have in the past. To help them understand what coaching is all about and how to handle that common challenge that we see in, in product management today and in leadership of a concern of like, how do I help my people be the best they can be?

[00:11:06] And how do I do that without micromanaging? So that’s a common concern. 

[00:11:10] Janna Bastow: Absolutely. Absolutely. So you’ve mentioned this this course it’s called Essential Coaching Skills for Product Leaders. Is that the sort of thing that Oliver and people in his position would take advantage of?

[00:11:20] And if so, tell us about when that’s running. 

[00:11:23] Kate Leto: So the course is Essential Coaching Skills for Product Leaders. I did a beta run of the course last autumn and it went really well. I got great positive feedback. So I’m excited to bring it back again with a few, a few tweaks, a few evolutions.

[00:11:36] It’s running from March 19th through April 16th, so it’s a five week short course, and we meet every week for two hours. There’s a Slack community in between. There’s some homework that you do in between. And I’d say one of the biggest benefits that Past participants have mentioned is that within each of the sessions that we have, there’s an opportunity to practice.

[00:11:59] So you practice, we learn about a technique and we put it into practice. Okay. So like 

[00:12:04] Janna Bastow: role play or what, how do you teach a leader things? 

[00:12:07] Kate Leto: Yeah. There is, so as I mentioned, there is a little bit about explaining a coaching technique. Maybe it’s asking open ended questions, which seems really simple, but there’s a lot of, there’s a lot underneath that.

[00:12:20] And, you 

[00:12:20] Janna Bastow: know, I can understand that’s tough. I’ve always struggled with that sort of concept when it comes to discovery questions, right? I am I always ask the leading questions. I always ask closed questions. I have to teach myself and hold myself back. And I know other people struggle with that too.

[00:12:33] So definitely a good one to to teach. 

[00:12:36] Kate Leto: Yeah. And it’s, it’s directly related. So I think a fundamental. Take away from the course, which is in adopting a coaching mindset as a leader, you’re really trying to make this massive mindset shift from being really directive in your leadership style, by telling people what to do and how to fix a problem and how to go about handling something to a non directive approach and a coaching approach, which is where you’re asking.

[00:13:00] You’re helping them figure it out for themselves and helping them equip themselves to develop and grow. Which can actually be a lot harder. It’s massive. It’s really interesting because some of the, when I first started working on the content for the course last year, it didn’t quite hit me initially, what was really going to be a massive, a major takeaway from this.

[00:13:22] And it is that you’ve got to make a fundamental shift in how you approach Being a leader and the conversations that you have with your team members and realize that a lot of it, when you are taking that directive approach and you’re telling versus asking and listening is because it’s something within you, maybe it’s something that it’s just based on your role models and what you’ve seen, but.

[00:13:47] It’s also perhaps, you trying to be the hero and feeling that leaders need to save the day. Leaders need to know how to handle everything. 

[00:13:56] Janna Bastow: There’s got to be some internal tension as well. The people who tend to aim for leadership roles, and this is generalization, but they tend to be the high performers, right?

[00:14:04] The ones who expect more of themselves and work in their butt up to get up the ladder and impress people by doing stuff really well. When you get to a leadership position, what looks good for you? Doesn’t mean doing everything. As a matter of fact, the best thing you can do is teach other people and get out of the way.

[00:14:20] Kate Leto: Yeah. It’s that saying what got you here, won’t get you there. Yeah. And it’s really understanding that all of these great product skills that you’ve mastered and that you’ve been a rock star at, yeah. And that have got probably done a lot to get you this promotion. aren’t necessarily the skills.

[00:14:37] They’re not the skills you’re going to need to continue to go up the ladder 

[00:14:40] Janna Bastow: now. Yeah. I guess it’s this type of coaching that stops people from reaching that what is it? I think it’s called Peter’s principle. Somebody check me on that. Maybe I’ve got the name wrong, but it’s the law or the principle or whatever you want to call it that states that people tend to get promoted to their level of incompetence.

[00:14:56] So you’re doing well, you get moved up, you’re doing well, you get moved up. And then all of a sudden you’re at a point where you’re going. I’m not getting this. I’m not doing well, but it becomes difficult to perform at that level because there’s very few people above you to teach you and to show 

[00:15:08] Kate Leto: you the way, right?

[00:15:10] Exactly. It’s a whole new world. It’s a whole new skill set. And there’s not a lot of opportunities out there to beyond coaching one on one to really learn what the, these different skill sets are. So in the coaching course, I introduced. As the title says, some essential skills that you can bring into your leadership toolbox.

[00:15:31] It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be every conversation you have going forward is going to be a coaching conversation and it shouldn’t. Yeah. Yeah. But it helps you to understand what that is and to get more comfortable bringing it in when appropriate and when it’s the right tool to use.

[00:15:49] Yeah. 

[00:15:50] Janna Bastow: So in your coaching when people come to you with problems, what kind of problems, what kind of stumbling blocks do people run into first? 

[00:15:57] Kate Leto: Yeah it’s a great question. And it’s all over the place, but of course there’s some commonalities. A lot of times it is, it’s adapting to change.

[00:16:05] A lot of coaching at its essence is about helping people no matter what. Discipline they’re in no matter what area they’re in deal with change. Yeah. Maybe that’s taking on a new role. Maybe that’s bringing in a new team. Maybe that’s an entire change way of working. And as part of a transformation program.

[00:16:24] Yeah. It’s, it’s also being a leader and the change that comes with that, Even when it comes to receiving feedback, feedback at this level at a leadership level often feels different because it’s not just it’s not black and white. Like you hit your target. You didn’t hit your target.

[00:16:42] You did this great. You didn’t do it. Great. Yeah. It’s often more personal. 

[00:16:46] Janna Bastow: Yeah. Yeah. You saw me take a sharp intake of breath when you said receiving feedback. I’m like, Oh God it’s tough, right? Because a lot of the feedback you can start getting is around not whether you did your job, but whether you’re doing your job well enough to help somebody else do their job.

[00:16:59] Kate Leto: Yeah. And what does that really mean and how do you help that person? And that’s going to be different for every person that you’re working with as well. There’s a lot about. Clients often are something off the at the beginning of an engagement might be about making decisions, and feeling like these decisions that I’m making are so much bigger.

[00:17:19] Now, how do I know? I’m right. Yeah. What if I don’t make the right decision? So there’s different approaches and different things we talk about with that. I’m dealing with really challenging conversations, with feedback, but also just in you. In our regular day to day, we have tension and conflict all the time.

[00:17:35] I think at the root of product management, we’re built on tension and conflict with, between the different members of our teams within technology design product, that whole piece as well. And how we work together. So there’s things like that. There’s also, we’ve already touched on this, the feeling that we have to know it all.

[00:17:54] In order to be a good leader. And that makes us feel very isolated and very alone. So having somebody to talk to about those different emotions and how that story of leadership impacts us and how we work and how we, how our team then behaves as well. Those are all different things that come up with coaching.

[00:18:16] Janna Bastow: Yeah. Yeah. And so how does how does it change with managing your peers when you move into a more leadership role? Your VP product or CPO, what sort of tensions do you get with your CTO or with your COO and that sort of thing? Yeah. I 

[00:18:31] Kate Leto: mean, it’s, at the end of the day, I think it’s really important, no matter what your level.

[00:18:36] And no matter who your stakeholders are to remember, we’re all human, right? We’ve all been brought together in this awkward situation at times called an organization. Yeah. And we’re all hopefully working towards the same thing. And we know what that vision or that mission is, but we all bring our own backstories.

[00:18:54] We all bring our own experiences. And I think if. One of the first things that we talk about is trying to understand that stakeholder from a human perspective. What might be their challenges? What are the things that really excite them and will help them? How can you be of service?

[00:19:12] How can you help that person as well? Yeah. It’s about building a relationship. Just as it is, about building a relationship with your, the people on your team or with people outside of work. Yeah. It’s all based on a human 

[00:19:24] Janna Bastow: element. Yeah. Yeah. I hear that. And so what about that, that whole thing about being raised up to a certain level.

[00:19:31] You’re no longer the person doing the work. You’re the person helping people and coaching people and guiding people on how to do the work. Do you run into people who have a sense of imposter syndrome because they’re not in the weeds or does imposter syndrome go away when you get past a certain level?

[00:19:48] Oh, I 

[00:19:48] Kate Leto: wish. Wouldn’t that be awesome? That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. If you could just tick these five boxes, then imposter syndrome goes away. Yeah. You’ve made it. You’re a leader. So yeah, exactly. You know it all. And there’s no argument about that. There’s no conversation. Don’t tell me it gets worse.

[00:20:03] Yeah. In some ways I think it does because one of the things that we focus a lot on and coaching is self building up your self awareness, right? And for me, self awareness means not only understanding you and your feelings and your emotions and your behaviors, but how they impact others.

[00:20:20] And I think sometimes we take that, especially as we’re learning about that and growing that. We take that to heart, right? And so we’re really going to question ourselves at times. So I think imposter syndrome is so natural. I think it’s I wrote, I’ve written a few articles about it that you can find on my blog, but we’ll share those 

[00:20:39] Janna Bastow: around for everybody afterwards.

[00:20:41] Kate Leto: Yeah, that’d be great. But one of, and one of them, I remember quoting, I think it’s 70 percent or 80 percent of the population say they’ve had imposter syndrome at some time. And my big question is like, what about that other 20 or 30%? What do they have to? Yeah. So no, I think imposter syndrome comes up all the time, especially as I mentioned, coaching, a lot of coaching is helping people deal with change.

[00:21:07] And when you’re entering something new, be it a new role or working with a new team or a new area of the business, we don’t have, we don’t. I feel like we’re as equipped to make those decisions that we’re not as confident in our skills and our knowledge because it’s all new. And that’s a perfect place for imposter syndrome to step in, and for us to question our skills and our smarts and, our presence.

[00:21:33] Yeah, imposter syndrome comes up a lot. Sometimes I wonder if it’s almost too much. If we’ve taken imposter syndrome to the nth degree and if there’s really, one of the different things that we talk about in coaching when imposter syndrome when it does present, it comes up is we try to break down the story behind it, right?

[00:21:51] What’s really going on here. And how can we prove or disprove our beliefs are true, that the story we’re telling ourself is true. So yeah it’s there, it’s real it’s ever evolving. 

[00:22:06] Janna Bastow: And I wonder if there’s a bit more tension on it, especially in this day and age when things have gotten more lean than they were a few years ago.

[00:22:12] Having to prove the value of your role as a leader and your team’s role. Have you seen that play out in any 

[00:22:18] Kate Leto: way? Yeah. It’s interesting. I was talking to a friend earlier today about the feeling that You know, I do work mostly with product people because that’s my background.

[00:22:28] I do work with some teams outside of product, but that really is my focus because that’s my home. That’s my tribe. And I feel like us product folks have this tendency to always feel like we must be doing something to prove ourselves. To prove self worth to prove teamwork to prove product worth, whatever it might be.

[00:22:49] And now when we’re in an environment where there’s a lot of questions about ROI that’s gonna, that’s gonna come up again and again, I think from a leadership perspective, our job. And our challenge is to try to break that down again, and be able to answer questions around it, but also to be able to realize that sometimes not acting is the biggest, boldest thing that we can do, reframing conversation around ROI.

[00:23:17] Yeah. I’m helping to take a different perspective on it. So it does come up and it’s hard to identify one specific example because it comes up in so many different areas really. Yeah. But I think at the heart of it, the people that are asking about ROI are questioning themselves, right?

[00:23:35] Like they’re questioning their own self worth in some ways, not to get too meta, but and put, trying to put the emphasis on breaking everything down into numbers that can be compared and contrasted with each other. I think it moves away from our whole movement and conversation and product around outcomes and working towards creating changes in behavior versus focusing on output that might be more relative to specific ROI numbers and 

[00:24:00] Janna Bastow: conversations.

[00:24:01] That’s a really good point. And Greg’s asked a question here in the chat. He said, what’s the greatest value that a leader can bring to a product team? Like he said, leaders outside of product team seem to drive strategy and operations. So how can product leaders differentiate or add value? 

[00:24:15] Kate Leto: How can product leaders differentiate, 

[00:24:17] Janna Bastow: from like CTO who, you know who, their output is that they’re building things with the company still running, what’s the product leader doing and how do they articulate that in terms of the value they’re adding?

[00:24:28] Kate Leto: It’s, that’s a massive question. So I think. What I, what are the principles of the coaching that I do and the conversations that I have with leaders is very much around the idea of continuous improvement. Yeah, so it’s breaking these big challenges into smaller things that we can experiment with and play with and feel okay about no matter if they.

[00:24:49] Win or lose, succeed or fail. So I think one of the biggest things product people can bring in these days is this idea of experimentation and curiosity which relates back to that, skill coaching skill. We talked about just a little bit ago about asking questions versus telling. So I and that really is something that I.

[00:25:10] Taut and continue to follow on with my, in our coaching, in my coaching sessions is how can we try it out? How can we prove or disprove something is real? Something is not real. How can we figure out what is working for us, what is not working for us? And how can we build experiments around that to, to make a change?

[00:25:26] How can we approach a really challenging conversation with a. Curiosity hat versus a telling. 

[00:25:33] Janna Bastow: I hear that. Yeah. And actually what you’re describing is the product person building in a product mindset or product culture for the team. And it’s interesting that we call it product mindset or product culture.

[00:25:45] When originally we mean a lean experimentation led culture, and yet it seems to be in the realm of product, which is fine, but the really key thing, is to make sure that the rest of the team is thinking this way. I often have people ask me, ProgPad seems like a great tool for product people, can the marketing team use it?

[00:26:00] Yeah, absolutely. Like you should have a product mindset for the marketing team, like an experimentation mindset. And so I guess setting that stage for other teams to be able to work in this way and, be able to add value, not by just running out what they thought was a good idea, but actually planning experiments and checking hypotheses.

[00:26:19] Kate Leto: Yeah, it’s a great point because I think a lot of times, within product, we’d like to talk about all this stuff as own it, as we own it, right? We own a product mindset, which is a lot of it is based on curiosity and experimentation and fear and psychological safety and feeling okay to fail and trust and all these great things.

[00:26:39] When in actuality. This is where the leadership development side comes in, I think, and why I can sometimes work with people in groups outside of a product is because it’s universal, right? In my mind it’s almost more of what a progressive organization these days should be working towards.

[00:26:55] It’s a really good point. Yeah. And we in product, I think in many ways have led that we’ve created that conversation. We talk about it all the time. And we’re trying to really extout it and develop it, but it’s not just us. Yeah. 

[00:27:09] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. And so on that note do you have to have come up through the product?

[00:27:14] Vein, the product ladder in order to become a product leader, or can you pull out product leaders from other areas of the business? Yeah, 

[00:27:22] Kate Leto: that is a great question. And that’s something I work on quite a bit these days. It’s yeah, it’s great ongoing debate. Ideally, I think it’d be great if you could start with as an associate or a junior PM and work your way up.

[00:27:34] But it doesn’t always happen that way, and especially in a lot of larger organizations that are going through transformations, who, maybe had a piece of a part of their organization that wasn’t called product, but they acted like it, right? So they feel they could just move it over, but maybe they’ll be bringing people from marketing or business strategy or, who knows?

[00:27:55] And they’re giving them titles like head of products. Or VP or above, and I think it can work as long as that person has a really good awareness to where to what the gaps are which I think is hard because at that level, you don’t know what you don’t know. And that’s a challenge I’m constantly working through with clients actually.

[00:28:18] And. Yeah, you have to be open to the to understanding to realizing that you’re going to be learning a new language in some ways. Yeah. I think ideally, the people that are given those rules will have that mindset that we were just talking about, right? Yeah. And I think that’s a big thing to bring to it.

[00:28:38] Ideally, they’ll know what they’ll know more about, experiments and what a culture of experimentation is really about so you can find those people in different areas and organizations. I would almost. Consider those roles based on that type of profile versus kind of the.

[00:28:57] Versus who they know in the business or how they might be moved there. Otherwise, so is it possible for them to, for people from outside product to suddenly be product leaders? It happens all the time. Yeah. I think the danger of it is when they are moved into that role and the people underneath them don’t really know product either, and they’re not hiring.

[00:29:18] People who have product knowledge, I think that’s one of the first things you need to do is you need to bring in some product experience to the organization, you need to get yourself a good coach that can help you understand some of the skills. That are essential. There may be also need an executive coach to help you through the changes, right?

[00:29:35] Yeah. But you need to be open to, to, to realizing that you don’t know it all and you’re going to be starting from scratch for a bit. And I really do think a first step in that situation is. Is bringing in some product, real world product experience from the outside, be it through coaches or through training or whatever it might be, or hiring some good people into the organization that can help become bursts of expertise throughout and help to create that product understanding.

[00:30:03] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. So how important is domain expertise? When you’re a leader of a company. Could I go into a car sales company, or could I go into a finance company and run product there? I, 

[00:30:16] Kate Leto: I vote from a product consulting perspective when I did that. Absolutely. I worked in so many different types of organizations and industries.

[00:30:25] It’s. It’s crazy to look back on everything from aerospace to travel to finance to health to government retail, you name it. So I think that’s okay to do pharmaceutical, the thing is once you’re in it, there’s often this view of if you don’t understand that if you’re not a subject matter expert, you can’t be here, you can’t have that.

[00:30:48] Yeah, that position. So I think ideally what you’re going to do is you’re going to build a team that has a balance. And it really depends on what that team, what that piece of the organization is aiming for. Yeah. What’s their actual goal. Yeah. And depending on that, you can build out, you know, design your organization.

[00:31:07] Perhaps you need somebody with more product chops in one area who could be matched with somebody who is really good on subject matter expertise and they can learn from each other. But I think of it more holistically versus just one role. 

[00:31:19] Janna Bastow: That makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Yeah. That’s a good good insight.

[00:31:23] And so somebody anonymous here has asked us whether you ever recommend product leaders in order to progress in their career, to go up, to take on roles outside of product management, to expand their perspective. And if so, any sort of roles that might help with that, or do you recommend staying in the role and getting outside perspectives?

[00:31:43] Kate Leto: I think more experience in different areas is always great. I have, I’ve worked outside of product, I’ve coached outside of product. Like I said, there’s a lot of commonalities. I think it depends on what you’re looking to improve on, are you looking to, is this more of specific?

[00:31:58] Like I want to get better at tech. I want to learn how to do something in that space or design or research or whatever it might be, or is it wider than that? Perhaps it’s marketing, I, I have, I have a little bit of all of that experience as well. And I think it makes you a great holistic.

[00:32:14] At least I hope a better holistic leader. 

[00:32:17] Janna Bastow: It definitely does. Product managers have always been the jack of all trades, master of none. And that’s often the strength, right? Is that you have, I like to call it like a sense of humor in line with, how to do development, how marketing works how to.

[00:32:30] Understand how the fundamentals of the business finances work, but you don’t have to be an expert in any of these things. But if you’ve had that outside experience, you can bring that in. And I guess it helps you better communicate with your fellow leaders. If you understand what’s going on in the CTO’s world or why the CEO is flipping out, 

[00:32:47] Kate Leto: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:32:48] It gives you a different perspective, which is always helpful. 

[00:32:52] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. Alex asked a question they said can you talk around how to feel more comfortable with big decisions? 

[00:33:01] Kate Leto: Yeah, I think decision making is tough. And as we talked about, as you move into that leadership role or that level.

[00:33:09] It feels like the decisions you’re making are really big, juicy ones, and in many ways they are. So I think there’s different tools that I bring up in coaching conversations. One of them, behind the tools it’s to help us to understand The magnitude of the decision, but also to realize most likely, this isn’t make or break decision, a decision that there’s no going back.

[00:33:31] Amazon Jeff Bezos talks about the type one and type two decisions, which is basically, can you go through picture yourself at a restaurant, right? And there’s that door that a waiter might go through that. Goes two ways, right? So he goes in and comes out. So is it a decision that you can make and then is reversible or is it a type one decision where you’re going one way and you’re not coming back?

[00:33:56] I also use a tool from the Gore Tex organization called, it’s called the Waterline and it’s quite similar. So when you like, think of a boat. And think of the waterline on the boat, if the decision that you’re making is above the waterline, it’s not going to cause irreversible harm.

[00:34:15] The boat’s not going to go down, make that decision with confidence and know that it’s going to be okay. Maybe it’s not the right decision, but you can learn from it and you can iterate and you can change and you can make, you can continue down your decision making path if it feels like. That decision is below the waterline and it could cause irreparable harm.

[00:34:38] Yeah, then maybe that’s a decision you need to talk to more people about. You need to get some advice. You need to get some guidance. You might need to do some more research around that. So the goal is to move, of course, anything below the waterline to above the waterline. Oh, yeah. When making a decision, but also I’m pretty sure the research on this also shows that the vast majority of our decisions are above the waterline.

[00:35:01] Janna Bastow: Yes. Yeah. I’ve heard this in relation to the Jeff Bezos reversible versus irreversible versus 0. 2 decisions. Most of our decisions are reversible. 

[00:35:11] Kate Leto: They feel really big. Yeah. I get, I totally get that. But in all actuality, this is one decision that could lead you to another decision that can lead you to another decision.

[00:35:22] And I think the challenge or what we can talk about in coaching is not just, understanding that framework and trying to apply that, but, what makes it feel so heavy? Yeah. What makes it feel like it is below the waterline? Yeah. And often, again, that relates to the stories that we’re telling ourselves.

[00:35:39] Janna Bastow: Yeah. I like that I like that waterline concept because it helps frame as to whether this is something you can make a quick call on or not a 

[00:35:46] Kate Leto: quick call. And it’s also something that you can work with your team on as well. When there’s a common area of decision making what’s your waterline, right?

[00:35:55] So what can your team members go and make decisions on without you being involved? Yeah. Take away some of those micro decisions and where do they actually need more advice or guidance? And what’s your process there? It’s a great way to help build more empowered teams who are comfortable making their own decisions.

[00:36:13] Yeah, 

[00:36:13] Janna Bastow: absolutely. And another little tidbit on the decision making thing. I think I might’ve learned this from another webinar or something like that. I’d love to be able to attribute it, but somebody said the psychology behind decisions, if it looks as if you are at least mulling over the decision, putting some thought into it rather than making a snap decision, people trust the answer more.

[00:36:33] And so something that you can do as a leader is if somebody asks you something, don’t just say yes or no, but say, okay. Good question. Here’s what I’m thinking, right? It could be this, could be that, and here’s why. Therefore I choose that. And if you do that, you bring people along for the journey and they trust your decision and get on board with it more 

[00:36:49] Kate Leto: easily.

[00:36:50] Yeah. And also in that kind of situation, just ask your team member. What do you think? Yeah. Where are you leading? Turn that into a coaching conversation, actually. What are my options? Yeah. What are your options? What are our options? How can you find out more? What’s holding you back?

[00:37:03] Things like that. I also have a. And I’ve been writing for years now. So I also have an article about decision making on my blog. So we can share that link as well. Yeah. 

[00:37:14] Janna Bastow: I’ve been watching The Diplomat on Netflix. And there’s a line, I haven’t finished it. No spoilers, anybody.

[00:37:20] But there’s a line in it where they they talk about the. The president being there to just make 49, 51 decisions, right? Anything that’s like on the line right there, anything beyond that, the team can make their own decision. And I thought about that going, okay what sort of tolerance do I have, or does anybody else have in a leadership position?

[00:37:39] I often weigh in things that, are 70, 30 or 80, 20 rather than Almost 50 50, but I guess that waterline thing is bringing people to the point that they can actually solve more of the problems you can make the decision without having to feel like it is this 50 50 thing that needs to go all the way up the ladder.

[00:37:55] Kate Leto: Yeah it’s taking, it’s owning this decision more as a team member and feeling good about that. There’s. There’s interesting decision. The science and art behind this decision making is quite complex, actually. And there’s all these different, there’s decision science, which is vast.

[00:38:15] And I like, I’ve nerded out on it in the past but in one organization I worked with, they had three different types or levels of decision making. And the vast majority, they’d say basically 80 percent of all decisions can be made. With the waterline example or a tool, and then maybe about 15 percent of them might be something that is below that waterline and you need additional advice on, right?

[00:38:41] So maybe you talk to different members of your teams, different stakeholders, your manager, whoever it might be before you make a decision. And then maybe 5 percent of decisions that an organization makes are more, are really more of these juicy, big decisions. You bring in different types of tools and techniques and one of the ones that we use that I’m not going to get too far into today, because I think we’ll all blow our minds was called integrated decision making, and it comes from like holacracy and that type of background.

[00:39:13] But it’s a way to bring in all different perspectives in order to make a decision that a group of people consent to, you’re not going to reach consensus, you don’t want consensus, but you do want consent. There’s a lot, there’s a lot within decision science and that space that I think is interesting to explore.

[00:39:33] Yeah, that’s 

[00:39:34] Janna Bastow: actually really interesting. That concept of consenting to, that sort of reminds me of something that I’ve seen our team and other teams use, which is the, something doesn’t sit right. The the ability to disagree, but get on board with 

[00:39:44] Kate Leto: something. Disagree and 

[00:39:46] Janna Bastow: commit.

[00:39:46] Yeah, exactly. You’re not always going to get everyone saying, yes, this is absolutely the right thing. But if you have enough information, you’re going to need people on the team to disagree, but commit to helping to see this experiment through. How do you manage a team into that sort of mindset? 

[00:40:02] Kate Leto: Takes a lot of work, to be honest to disagree and commit or to consent versus Going for consensus.

[00:40:11] I think it takes a lot of trust. It takes a lot of safety. It takes people feeling included, in the conversation. In some ways I think it does take people doing research and show that they’ve considered this and they want people’s input on it. Yeah it’s, it doesn’t happen overnight, but the organizations and the groups that I’ve worked with and.

[00:40:31] Bringing that kind of mindset in and bringing those tools in, it takes a lot of practice, right? Like most things do, as we’re learning but once they get going, once they understand and put a a process behind it, it can start to happen more naturally. Yeah. But it’s, it doesn’t happen overnight.

[00:40:49] Janna Bastow: That’s absolutely fair. And I’m just seeing a couple more questions coming in. If anybody has questions, get them into the Q and A. But Alice asks Alex asked a question around how to manage upwards when other leaders don’t know the basics about product. 

[00:41:01] Kate Leto: Oh, it’s tough, isn’t it? It’s frustrating. I totally get 

[00:41:03] Janna Bastow: that.

[00:41:04] Yeah. I work with a lot of people who come to get ProdPad on board, and this is one of the things I struggle with is them trying to prove that a tool like this should exist and that they deserve to have tools, or, this is how product. Works and therefore let’s get this on board for the rest of the team.

[00:41:18] So I can imagine it being a universal problem. Yeah, 

[00:41:21] Kate Leto: absolutely. I’d love to ask Alex what you’ve tried so far. But I classic coaching, make sure you’re asking the other questions. I’d like to know what you tried. 

[00:41:30] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:41:32] Kate Leto: So I think again, I’d start with the fact that it’s a human talking to a human and try to understand their perspective, if there’s a way and I know this is super hard being a team member trying to influence somebody who might be up the ladder a bit further. Yeah, but try to understand what they know and what they don’t know. And it’s sometimes it’s almost like it’s a drip feeding process. And.

[00:42:00] Giving some information about, why this is important to you, what you think it might bring to the organization, how it can help fill a need and just again, it won’t happen overnight. Unfortunately, I wish it would, but to try to build a relationship with this stakeholder or manager that’s based on, Kind of the reality of the situation, why it’s really important to consider this and how they can learn more about it.

[00:42:24] Hopefully, we’ve talked about bringing in ahead of product that has no product expertise or something like that, or DP that has no product expertise. Hopefully they’re, they’ve got that learner’s mindset. And hopefully they’re going to be open to working with somebody who might have more product experience and you guys can learn from each other.

[00:42:43] Doesn’t always happen that way. Yeah. So I think it’s a practice and patience. Yeah. And perseverance. But not, but also just trying to meet the person where they are, realizing this is the experience they have is going to help you in other ways. So how can you bring this to them in a way that, that is helpful, that’s, that can help them move in a in a place in their understanding too.

[00:43:08] Janna Bastow: Yeah, absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head when he said, they’re just people. And a lot of people look upwards to management and assume that management knows exactly what they’re doing and why they’re making decisions. And ultimately they’re just people. And I actually like to reframe this and think about these people as no different than your customers.

[00:43:24] They’re just different types of stakeholders. And your customers aren’t always on board with understanding why they want something a particular way or can articulate exactly why they’re doing things right. And so you do discovery. You start figuring out what job they’re trying to achieve and what problem they’re trying to solve.

[00:43:40] And you ask the same questions or the same type of questions you do of your customers, but ask them upwards, ask them outwards, use them internally as well to do that 

[00:43:47] Kate Leto: discovery. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a great approach. Bring curiosity into it. 

[00:43:54] Janna Bastow: Yeah, exactly. That, that trait that got you into product management isn’t, is going to serve you well all the way up to the top of the rung.

[00:44:00] Yep. And somebody has asked a question here around do you have any thoughts on making a sideways move from being a product leader with lots of domain knowledge to moving to companies to learn a new industry, to become a stronger product leader in the future? I wonder if this is the same as anonymous attendee, you asked the same thing, the similar question earlier.

[00:44:19] Kate Leto: Okay. So a product leader, let me just play this back to you. Make sure I got it. A product leader who has. A lot of experience in a certain area or industry and might be thinking about moving to a completely different industry. Yeah, I would ask them what are their concerns? But basically product, as we’ve talked about from my experience, understanding.

[00:44:43] Some of the foundational or like fundamental aspects of product, and having that growth mindset and having that curiosity and understanding, the fundamentals of things like discovery and delivery and how to bring that all together can be transitioned into any, pretty much any organization.

[00:45:01] I think the challenge you’re going to have is one, believing that yourself. And two, perhaps working with stakeholders who feel like you don’t have the subject matter expertise, therefore, you shouldn’t be there or you shouldn’t get hired. And I think that again is more about how you tell your own story.

[00:45:19] Yeah. And how you present yourself. But I think often that people that are hesitant to make that move are and I don’t mean to. Put this on the other person entirely, but just from my experience, like it’s because there’s something with the, within us that doesn’t feel confident about making that move.

[00:45:35] Maybe we’re concerned about, going into something completely new and unknown, maybe not, maybe we’re super excited about it and that’s great, but. I would try to unpack what’s the concerns that you’re really having. Is it concerns about yourself and your own performance?

[00:45:49] Is it concerns how other people are going to look at you and how they’re going to perceive you, because I don’t think the product skills are going to be the problem. Yeah, I hear 

[00:45:58] Janna Bastow: that. So do you have any advice for folks who are looking down the barrel of either applying for a role that’s inside the company or outside the company or advocating for themselves upwards to, to get themselves into a product leadership role?

[00:46:16] Kate Leto: I think it, it varies so much by every organization. I think

[00:46:20] I really think the key, a key thing to lead with leadership is knowing yourself and feeling comfortable and confident with yourself. And that comes across and how you make decisions, even being able to say I don’t know. I’m going to think about that. It comes across and how you communicate and work with your team members, your fellow team members, your peers, at that point, how you try to grow relationships with stakeholders and with managers.

[00:46:44] But in my, from my experience and my study and my practice, a lot of that just relates back to, who you are and how you feel about what you do. I don’t. I’m sure no matter what role you’re looking to move into, there will be certain must haves, right? We’re back to a job description with the must haves and the nice to haves.

[00:47:04] I’m sure there will be certain must haves for and boxes for you to tick. And that’s always a good thing to do. But I would also take time to think about, what can you offer in this new role? What is it about who you are and how you work with people and your mindset to learning this new kind of leadership world and what that’s all about.

[00:47:24] Because I really think that as you’re stepping into a leadership role, it’s, it is this different skill set and how equipped are you and ready are you to take that 

[00:47:32] Janna Bastow: on. Yeah, I love that thinking around, identifying what problem you can solve for the organization if you were to move up, right?

[00:47:39] If you were senior, what change would you make? And you put some more tangible traits on this. You’re more specific about it, I’ve often seen people who are ready to move up into leadership roles are often playing. Leaders in their own teams in the first place, right? And how they talk about their goals, their shared goals, how they own failure, how they coach other people’s side roads.

[00:47:57] So these are all things that people can probably be doing now. And if you’re doing this stuff, then maybe this is a sign that you will move into a product leadership role in a smooth way. Yeah. 

[00:48:08] Kate Leto: In my mind, leadership’s really about the impact you want to have on, in your team and your organization and maybe even the wider world.

[00:48:15] With your customers and beyond. And it doesn’t necessarily mean a certain level in an organization, right? That’s fair. And it doesn’t mean having a certain personality type. Yeah. It’s in my mind, it’s more about who you are as a person and how you bring that. Yeah. Every 

[00:48:31] Janna Bastow: day.

[00:48:32] Absolutely. All right. Thank you, Kate. That’s all the time we have for questions. Just to wrap up, folks we are going to be having another webinar. It’s going to be on March 12th, we’re going to be talking about how to convert your timeline roadmap to the now, next, later, and how to get your team on board with that.

[00:48:49] So this is one of those more practical ones that you can Put a feather in your cap talking about how you’re going to be able to get people over to the now next later roadmap. And you will be leaving with a couple of these get takeaways. We’ve got a course that you can use, that you can use, take home to, to use, to learn how to do this as well as a template that you can use a presentation template that basically helps you sell now next later to the rest of your team who might be hanging on to the timeline roadmap format.

[00:49:16] So join us for that. That is March 12th, same time, same place. We have a further webinar planned, which is going to be March 27th, where we have Erin Weagle joining us. She’s written a book on design, so we’re going to be talking to her about decision making at scale. We’re going to wrap up there.

[00:49:33] Couple other points. If anybody has any other suggestions of experts we should have on board, here’s a selection of some of the few experts we’ve had over the years here. Who else should we invite? Who else needs to be in that in that the next webinar? So let us know send us an email or drop it into the chat now.

[00:49:53] And finally, should anybody be interested in trying out ProdPad yourself, as I said, we have a sandbox that you can try, which has a free version of ProdPad, which, editable, and you can play with, and you can share it around, but we also have demos of ProdPad. So one of our product experts there to show you around.

[00:50:12] So on that note, I want to say huge thank you to Kate. Everybody say thank you. Kate, thank you so much for joining us here today and thank you all for your questions, for pitching in. Good to hear from you all. Good luck with your product leadership journeys. It sounded like some of you are right on the right path.

[00:50:29] So I’ll definitely see you around and see you all at the next one. All right. Bye for now.