Petra Wille is the author of the new book, “Strong Product People: The Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers.” A successful product management and leadership coach based in Germany, Petra joins Melissa to talk through how product teams can meet their full potential, and how leaders can achieve effective whole-person management and mentorship.
Show Notes
Here are some key points you’ll hear Melissa and Petra talk about in this episode:
How Petra became a product leadership coach.
A common complaint from product managers about their professional training is that there is a lack of guidance. There are no career conversations; one-on-one conversations are usually focused on progress updates, revenue updates, and how the product is doing. Managers aren’t focusing on the people development part, and they need to be.
Petra lists the five steps to forming strong product people.
Petra talks about the PM wheel she created which is a framework of skills every product manager should have. Petra says this framework embodies her principles and values, and it is customized for each company she works with.
Petra goes into how she coaches product leaders who don't have backgrounds in product management.
Petra explains that if you want to transform your organization, you have to bring in people that know how it’s done. You have to invest in a community of practice. “Do some basic training in the beginning, then create a community of practice. Make sure they learn on the job while they're actually doing it,” Petra tells Melissa.
If people who know how to do products aren’t given the support, they aren't going to stay with your company. Give them the infrastructure to be successful, Melissa says.
Product managers need to understand and accept that the impact they have now is through others.
Giving people several ways to structure their feedback can help them have an open dialogue and not be worried about hurting other people’s feelings. Basing your feedback on the impact of whatever situation or action occurred within the organization, positive or negative, makes all the difference.
Petra gives advice for product managers who don’t have leaders that are mentoring them.
Resources Petra Wille | LinkedIn | Twitter
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: What are the most common mistakes? You see? Those people make in their first time. People management
Speaker 2: roles playing too much to The Daily Grind to say. So that is one of the things that I see a large, some people call it micro management but I would not, people are just like used to do the product management job and feel the product management role. And it really takes some time to let go and to refocus and think like okay.
Now the only impact that I'm having is through others. So, it's a bit of a meter role and topic now. And that is one big struggle that a lot of people are having. And I'm always following this idea of building a shipyard, from draft LinkedIn stuff Redfern because he was saying this in one, I think in San Francisco to 19, he was using it or that was at least when I heard it.
So the question is okay, if the teams are building the ships and the vessels and two boats, how can I make sure the shipyard around it is for you. Oiled and working well and set up and in a good shape and that helps so many first-time leaders to understand the role a bit better
Speaker 3: creating great products isn't just about product managers and their day-to-day interactions with developers. It's about how an organization supports products as a whole, the systems the processes and cultures in place that help companies deliver value to their customers with the help of some boundary-pushing guests and Inspiration from your most pressing product question. We'll dive into this system from every angle and help. You think like a great product leader. This is the product Thinking podcast. Here's your host Melissa Perry.
Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the product Thinking podcast. Today, I'm joined by Petra. Villa, who is a product management coach product leadership, coach from Germany. And today, we're going to talk all about creating strong product people, which is actually the name of her book. So, congratulations on the book, and thanks for joining us, Patrick, I hope it is that thanks for
Speaker 2: having me, right? To be here
Speaker 1: cat. So, tell me a little bit about how you got into product management. How you became Product leadership coach, take us back,
Speaker 2: it gets back. Sounds good Back to the Future. So I actually started my career as a software developer in one of Germany's largest publishing houses. The name of it is who but border media and I quickly realized that I have a talent for the conceptual part of the job. So my colleagues pushed me always in this direction of hey you really good in talking to the users and the customer.
Could you please actually do this and come back with the Requirements. So that is actually what day. So they really pushed me into this direction and I fell in love with that part of the job. So to say, so I transitioned into more of a project management role. That's what it was called back then. And from there joined sap, did some technical Consulting lift on a train more than in my flat back at the day.
And from there, I decided that I have to move closer to the ocean so to say, I decided to move to Hamburg, in Germany, joined back at the time. Small start-up 80 people start up a Zing, it is something similar to what LinkedIn does these days. It's was a business Network or is business Network and luckily was able to learn from the best are.
So for example, party Kagan was coaching us for quite some time which was a great opportunity to learn the product craft. Yeah. Right from the beginning. So to say enjoyed my time there and then Became head of product later management, managing director of a startup that actually was working in the translation localization realm, I'd say and then, slowly transitioned into coaching and helping other startups to get their product culture, right?
And to build a product organizations. Yeah. And the last five years, mainly focusing on coaching product, people to get better at what they do. And the last two years, especially focusing on product leaves. You've really figured out that so many product people. Yeah, are not happy with the personal development, professional development part of their job. So that's something that I would love product leaders to get better at that, was the idea of the book and that's why I wrote it.
Speaker 1: That's great. So, what do you hear from the product managers about why they don't like their professional training? Like what are their complaints about what they're getting today and most of the
Speaker 2: time. So there is no guidance at all this. This is a pretty common. Yeah, common setting. So there are no career conversations. 10 ones are always focusing on your progress updates and how the product is currently doing, how revenues look like how they kept the eyes are so more. These things are in the center of 10 ones and conversation, they're having with the line managers.
So it's really red that land managers focus on the people development part and really spend some time to reflect on. Okay. What is my Vision for this product person or do they need to learn to be really be a competent product manager in my own definition. And how could I help them get there and read get their coach, and their companion?
And that is something. So it's often really just not happening at all. That's took a lot of the complaints that are here and for productivity are working for corporate companies. It's more of a, hey you get a training once in a while but it's not so much training on the job and that's what a lot of People are missing.
So how can I get better and storytelling? Any tips and tricks are on, privatization a stakeholder management. How should I be doing this? And yes, there are trainings for all these things. But a lot of people just struggle to apply it in their environment and situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it sounds like you probably need some kind of a mentor or hopefully product leaders to actually coach you through that. And look at the situations in it a bit cool. So when you come into Organizations and you're working with product leaders in your book, you talk about, you know, the five steps to really helping to form strong product people. Can you walk me through? What are those different steps that you advise for?
Speaker 2: So again from the perspective of a product leader or product lead and recommended the first thing that they do is reflect on their definition of good. So, what makes a good product person in their context and the company in that industry and in their own opinion. So to say, because if you, if you not having this, how could you actually give feedback or have any performance review conversation with your product, folks?
So it is something that I encourage them to create and it mainly touches on three things which is personality traits. So what are the personality traits that I want to see? And product people usually you have that's what your higher for. It's super hard to build this or to form this. Once you have the people on board for me, this, for example, is curiosity or Depth ability.
Super hard if it's not there. So that's something you want to put on the list and hire for and the next thing is skills and know-how that is really okay. Do I want them to do user interviews? How good do they use? The interview skills need to be in our particular situation.
Maybe it's more of a technical role than maybe that is not the number one skill to have but still important. So all of this is the skill card and then for sure there is a bell you bit to it. So what are your values? What Are the values, your team should share or your team already shares and what new hires should be sharing so that's step. Number one is a bit of Define your good. Now I have to get up the blog post because otherwise it's super hard to remind him while I'm talking about them. If you won't mind, I was able to do. Number one, I'm writing too many blog posts Melissa.
Speaker 1: I've got I think the one I was following along with is called yeah ingredients. Yeah I have it.
Speaker 2: Okay. Number two is a clear idea of where each p.m. is today and what their next step should be. So that can be just take a page of your journal and really write down the names of the people on your team and think about this, usually rather Way vision for them. So what can they ultimately become? Sometimes it's just something like, okay, they really good.
So their storytelling is already something what a really strong add some Maybe we can help them make this as a solid skill in their career or that helps them in their career so that it's a rather vague thing. And then the more tangible thing is the next bigger Challenge. And for me, this is like, okay, would in an ideal setup and world, what would be the next product or initiative?
I would assign them to so that they actually can apply some of the skills.
They're currently forming or something like this, and that can be a side project. It can be a more strategical product they could work on or it can be just, like helping with the onboarding of new colleagues. So that is Step. Number two, have this vision and think about the next bigger Challenge. And step number three is, obviously to come up with a shared Vision, so you should go talk to them and really figure out how they see their next steps.
How you see their next step and have this conversation and hopefully create a shared vision? Of what they could ultimately become and one status done. I recommend to work with smaller development plans. I really like to keep it clean and light wide because otherwise it's a nobody's doing it. But if you have something like, let's say pretty Sation skills are not yet where they should be, then that could be a conversation and you could use a framework that I'm using is called the future self.
Super simple just is what is their current Status, when it comes to prayer decisions or how does it feel to not have this skill at a decent level? So, for example, the product manager constantly needs to argue with other people of are depressed, decision of their backlog. People are complaining behind their bags that the privatization is not or in transparent or something like this, then the to be.
So how would it feel? How could others tell that the skill has improved? And the last one at last bits to it, His actions. So really small steps that would bring them closer to this. I'll deal or a future self. So to say. And then give it a bit of a time frame, I usually advise people to do a three to four months development plan of future self because otherwise it's super hard to keep track and yeah, keep momentum on this one.
So that's the future self bit and I think that was in Credence number four and the last bit is Diz, you need a commitment to follow up with. Them on this particular topic sometimes. All it needs is ask them if they want the nudge, every once in a while and you should remember them about the action items that they want to look into.
And sometimes it's more. It's a regular checkup in your 10 ones and really, like, look at the action items, make sure that they're working on it. And it really depends on. Yeah, product maturity, seniority level, all these kind of things or the leader still has a to have a bit of experience, how to handle that each and every of these conversations but that is the five main ingredients or to say
Speaker 1: great. So the first ingredient sounds like all this is kind of predicated on knowing what a good product manager is, right. Do you have like a framework that you use where you're like? These are the skills that every single product manager should have and then what types of flexibility or kind of adjacent stuff for each company? Would you
Speaker 2: customize? I would Is customize, whatever you're using for this purpose. So luckily there are there are several Frameworks out there that you could be using for that. It's not like 100 but currently in the process of collecting some of them to put out a blog post soon. And the one I'm using or I have created is called the PM wheel.
So the product management wheel and it's real because it talks about eight buckets. And so, for example, is she able to understand the underlying problems of the user and the situation, the company is currently In, is he able to find solutions for these problems? So that's what we usually call Discovery, right?
The first two buckets and then we go into topics like planning and get it actually done with the team and getting the software out of the door, the reflection, listen and learn part. So now that it's out there, what are people saying about it?
How are they using it? How are the numbers team and motivations? Or does this product person? Know how to work well with team? It's personal growth. That's a bucket because I want to have this conversation in 10 once. So are you investing a bit of your time and your personal development? That's why it's one of the things on my assessment and then the last one is agile, which is a bit weird because it's has overlaps with the get it done part.
But I meet so many product people that don't know, the Bare Basics of agile product development, it's right. I really like this bucket. And yeah, talk about things like agile principles and values and all these things, not so much the rituals and yeah, scrum or kanban or all this kind of politics. So more like the underlying mechanisms of agile and that's why it's a bucket and all of these Dimensions Aid of them as mentioned come with at least 15 questions.
So more like is she able to do dis is he able to do that? So it's more of a yes yes no thing that you can be doing here and then Get an overall score more or less, and you have an idea of what could be development areas. Once you have done this assessment, it's something people could download. It's on my website, strong product, people.com it's for free.
And you could try use it, but I always encourage people to make it yours. So please don't use mine, use it as an inspiration. I have two other blog posts out there where people explain how they customized it. And from these blog posts, you've really see the day added their own dimension. Ian, for example.
So corporate citizenship is something our Nick Hitler added to his p.m. will because he said like in his environment, this is a key skill to have. So that is something that he wants to have in his conversations with his product folks and that's why he added that and I think that is really please do customized it.
It needs to be your definition and there is no one-size-fits-all broad definition for product people. At least not from my standpoint.
Speaker 1: What do you do in a situation where like one Your clients might customize this or have you ever had this happen? Actually, I guess is a good question and they customized is so much. It's not really like a product person anymore. Has that happened before
Speaker 2: one. They were not yet my clients and we didn't end up signing this contract. It was a bit of a say agile. Save scared, Child Company. Yeah, and I'm not I'm not a big fan of this framework. So yeah and they've really customized it to to weird
Speaker 1: place. Yeah. I think it's really interesting. I've done a similar pattern and I have my like own rubric for what I would do on there and I see so many companies I think especially ones that don't like they're not typical software product companies or they're going your Transformations or something and they you kind of you say okay let's define like what a good product manager is and then they dive down into like velocity and And all the all the things that we would say is not a product manager.
Things more project manager, ish more deliverable oriented. Not really why I focused more execution focused. How do you ensure when you're coaching especially these people? I guess who don't have backgrounds in product, tons of product leaders out there, right? And that situation, how do you first get them to understand what their team needs to be doing.
Even if they've never done it before,
Speaker 2: really depends a bit under the setup and demand a that I got from the Any that I'm working with ideally, I'll try to get the Mandate from the product organization. I'm not from procurement so that's the other end of the scale procurement by stuff and then nobody actually knows what to do with it. So but if I'm in touch with the product organization and they are really happy to work with me, then this is usually not not a hard thing to do because then I look at what they get.
So my first question is always, okay, is their role. Description, I can work with. Is there any assessments used in your company? And it often is the case that the answer is yes. If they using assessments and it's often things like for your improvement, turn furry stuff or its 360 Degrees razza soft skill focused assessments because that's what they can use on all of the roles they having, right?
So communication skills are there where they should be and then they usually happy if I bring something like the PM wheel and ask Um, hey, what do you think? Should we go through this exercise of customizing this to your needs? And then use it in the coaching sessions. And if I'm working with PMS and we go through the wheel, they all like well this is pretty cool because that's easy to answer answer questions.
So it's easy to answer them and it really Sparks some ideas of things that I could get better at even this unknown unknowns so things that they haven't. No, I haven't had on their radar. To be things that could be adding to their role or could improving at. So it's more of an inspiration thing. And it's really rare that they like rejecting it or yeah, Frankenstein, the hell out of it.
So, it was so most of the times, they're pretty happy with it. Reintegrated and some of the things they're doing and they always encourage companies that even if they're not using it on all product people use it still could use it for your folks.
The folks you're managing and working with even if none of the line, man. Major is into all of this assessment stuff, the product managers could still use it as a self-assessment tool, even with their teams. So I saw braid efforts from people using it, with their developers and maybe an agile coach who has a good sense on what they could improve on and give feedback on a daily basis because this feedback on a daily basis.
Stuff from how a particular meeting went to how the pregnant is perceived when she's giving a talk, that makes the difference. So sometimes, if you land managers not there or too, busy to take care of all of these things, your team could be helpful as well. Sokka.
Speaker 1: Did you know I have a course for product managers that you could take, it's called Product Institute over the past seven years. I've been working with individuals teams and companies to upscale their product chops through my fully online school. We have an ever-growing list of courses to help you work through your current product.
Dilemma visit product Institute.com, and learn to think like a great product manager. Use code thinking to save $200 at checkout on our Premier course product management. Ins. So I've heard is a situation to where I get some product leaders, especially in large company Transformations. Right? They've got hundreds sometimes of middle managers, who are managing product, people who've never done product management before then, they've got to basically create the rubrics and then Coach, these product managers in my experience, like, I always get asked, okay?
How do we like train the product leaders in product management and then let them go train the Managers like, what do you really advise for those companies? Like, do you think they can take all those middle layers and level them into product managers? Like what do you do when you get deep into that? And how do you help them? Kind of develop the rest of the product managers in there?
Speaker 2: I think I'm still forming my opinion on this. There is a current take on that, but maybe if we would do this podcast again, I would change my opinion. But currently. So my current take Go on. This one is if you want to transform an organization, you have to bring in people that know how it is done and then they could be a leading, by example, and people the others can go to and ask for advice.
So for that, that's something that you need. And then you really need to invest on this community of practice. So where people are actually saying like, Okay, that's that's a nice blog post. I've read the other day and I think it could be helpful. For us. So let's call a meeting and try this methodology or framework all these kind of things because if they've never worked in product, that is some things that they need to do, right?
So they get in touch with all the Frameworks. All of us are so familiar with all these jobs to be done and all the story mapping, which is great, but they've never done it. So they need to get work and I need a bit of hand-holding there and how to do it the first few times. So if the product leaders are Up to do that.
That is perfect. You find if the company is up to bring in some coaches and people that help the folks to do it the first few times that is perfect, you find. I saw way more people transition into product in a really nice way that I would have thought some years ago because it is possible and if they are already subject matter experts in whatever the company does and have this have this focus on the customers and that happens in many, many roles.
As we know. So customer support all these roads have already did. Oh, I really want to help this customers because that just is a weird thing that we ask them to do. So please, can we fix this? And I think it can be trained, but you need to focus on. Of course, do some basic training in the beginning.
Then create a community of practice, make sure they learn on the job, while they're actually doing it. Get them to work. So put them in front of users. That is always. How can you make them? Leave the building? The first time that is A critical moment. I'd say, yeah. And then you really need to invest on coaching and it can be the coaching of the product leaders.
If they are happy to do it the coaching with the PM's afterwards and it's a bit of a training menu that you need to build ups or for free things. And so many of these companies are not connected to any of the great product communities. Like for example, my enter product, they never heard of these things women and product, awesome selection and super You could share so many things there and hear what others are doing and where they're struggling.
So that is all for free out there and so many companies have never heard of these things. And then there are cheap things like buying books, and running corporate book clubs, or all these kind of things, or great learning opportunities, not super expensive. And a lot of the bigger companies are so focused on the training, which is a Pity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find that it's all the stuff that you're talking about is Community Practice the books. Everything else is just it's so needed to be able to make that shift. And and what you were saying in the beginning to is kind of where I landed after doing this for a while. I, I don't actually think you can change an entire corporate structure culture or way of working without inflicting it with inflicting. I don't know if that's the word but might be no injecting, that's probably the word, exactly. Yeah, injecting it with some people who've done it before and who like really a body that culture and can help create that shift. But I get
Speaker 1: The time companies that are like, well we can't do that. Like we can't possibly higher and somebody from the outside and I'm like, yes, you can. If you want to pay them some good money, people will come and work for you. Like, yeah, don't be cheap and and don't try to make some people,
Speaker 2: enjoy some people. Actually enjoy this from transformational moments, right? So yeah, I had
Speaker 1: a friend who is like a super experienced cp0 for growth stage companies, and he wants to go be a product leader at like a Aunt bank or someplace. That's going to do a transformation now because he's done the growth stage thing so many times and he's like, I'm a little tired corporations move a little bit slower, but like, I could easily make a huge impact there without, you know, working 20 hours a day like, if you see world is and he's like, I want to go and do my best and be able to have like a normal work life balance there, but it's so interesting because he's, you know, talk to those companies and gotten in there.
Speaker 3: They're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, yeah, we're not hiring right now. I'm like your, you need people, like, what's wrong with you? Like, you need, like, you've got a product leader that's like, yes, I'd like to go to a bank, which is not something you hear every day. No, he's a good one. And yet, you're like, oh sorry. Like we don't have an opening like me can make an opening. Like he could train all of your people and three seconds and, you know, it would be my answer. Yeah, but that like blinders on it like oh no we can't. Possibly like we just got to work with. Who we have just
Speaker 2: really shocks me ever again. Yeah, and sometimes did they decide to hire a few people but and they have like, 250 product people, or what they called, Product people what they have real names to product people and then they hired to ones that I experienced and that is super hard for those two, they will get frustrated. So I'm currently at a 50-50 rates. I think you really have to. Yeah, yeah, that is 2% more or less need to know what actually Product is all about before. You could really be sure that the product culture will be forming without a lot of investment from the outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Like, if, if the people who know how to do products aren't given the good the by, in the support, and the other people around them to actually like work with, they're not going to stay there either. Yeah, and I think some of the companies are like well, we tried that we try to bring in other people and they left.
It's like yeah because you didn't give them the Sure, they needed to be able to be successful there. Yeah, yeah. So changing gears a little bit. We're just talked about a lot about Lee Transformations, but let's talk about experienced product people who are now the first, first time, product leaders right there.
Managing, this is like a huge jump and I see people struggle at this right, like everybody, everybody so desperately trying to go from like senior product manager to director of product or BPO product, whatever you call it wherever you are. But, you know, managing product managers for the first time, what? The most common mistakes you see, those people make in their first time.
People management
Speaker 2: roles playing too much to The Daily Grind to say. So that is one of the things that I see a large, some people call it micro management but I would not, people are just like used to do the product management job and fill the product management role and it really takes some time to let go and to refocus and think like okay. Now the only impact that I'm having is through Others.
So it's a bit of a meter Roland topic now. And that is one big struggle that a lot of people are having. And I'm always borrowing this idea of building a shipyard formed rough LinkedIn stuff Redfern because he was saying this in one, I think in San Francisco 219, he was using it or there was at least when I heard it.
So the question is okay, if the teams are building the ships and the vessels and two boats, how can I make sure the shipyard around? It is really well oiled, and Well and set up and in a good shape. And that helps so many first-time leaders to understand the role a bit better.
And yeah, it's just like, that is something that a lot of first-time readers struggle with and then a lot of them struggle with the feedback part and really care about the people that you're working with and not because then not able to do. So they think it's just like not professional. They have to be now both professional boss ladies.
Boss, cafes and cannot be. Yeah. At a friend's, is the wrong wrong word for it either. So that's not a good wording. And if not a good framing for it either, but you still can remain really human care for the people, you are working with, try to be a companion, their coach, even if there may be the same age or maybe even older than you are.
But as long as you do and you're having open conversations, giving them Feedback. I think this is just the right way to go but it's the yeah, biggest things that I see go off road.
Speaker 1: Sometimes yeah, I definitely see those two as well. I've struggled with the second one myself when I was first people managing, I don't like confrontation. So I'm like it feels. It feels confident ational. How do you get people to understand that the safe space and like have that open dialogue and do the hard feedback if they're like worried about hurting people's feelings or anything like that? That I know that was a big struggle that I had.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, so for most of the coaches, I was working with so far. It tremendously helped to give them several ways, how to structure their feedback, and just like, put them to practice. Because once you understood that, for example, the shit sandwich, is not a good structure for giving feedback to braise criticism praise.
It's not something people want to hear, but if they understood that things like, okay, describe what you are. The of describe what the situation was. And then describe the - or maybe even positive impact, this could have to somebody's career and then it like, ah, yeah. Okay, the impact makes all the difference because it's not that I want to point out something - or just one Flex a like your performance was not very chippy and it's more of the impact and really stand feedback.
That's more helpful. So that that helps a lot of people. And then this is just ask people if they want feedback before you actually give the Feedback that changes the conversation tremendously.
So that's a great hack coming back to the five main ingredients. If you don't have a definition, how good looks like for your situation and your company and in your personal opinion, then it's way harder to have this conversations if you have this framework and all of the people at your team know that you're using the same assessment on all of them. Then feedback becomes less often - thing as well because then you're just like pointing out the gaps between your different Mission of a competent product management manager and the current skill level of the person you're talking to.
So that makes it way easier and takes a bit. Yeah, the personal part out of the feedback so
Speaker 1: this is really nice. It's a lot more objective. That way you know when I first started managing people, that was something I struggled with. I think it's funny because like as a consultant I can give anybody feedback and it doesn't bother me because I'm also like it's your show. So if you don't want my feedback and you don't like, I'm pretty Direct.
And I know how to sugarcoat it, you know, I know, I know, but I get my way when it's like, insulting thing, but I always think it's interesting. And I've heard it from other people who started managing teams computer with them everyday and then you're like if they don't change, now I have to move them or he was get to a certain point that's scary, right? Because it's like you're not going to improve they've got to move on and getting comfortable with that.
Took me a long time and I feel like now I'm good good at it but like that I feel like scares so many. People with their fans.
Speaker 2: Time for me, it was the exact same thing and to me it made a difference. Once my coach told me back at the time that in leadership you have just three ultimate things, you can be doing, you can hire the right people, you can promote people that are really doing the job. Well and ultimately, you need to fire.
The ones that are not living up to your performance expectations, because the company is not a family, right? So there it's not unconditional. Love, it is actually bringing us together. It's money in the end that makes the world go round. So So to some extent, there needs to be this healthy performance culture and once I understood that, that was kind of liberating because it was part of the leadership deal to let people go to sometimes or defined and that's another reframing another seed for them sometimes.
It's just like they don't get what role is all about or they actually get what the role is all about but it just don't want to fill this role. Maybe not now or maybe never. And sometimes it's just that they're lacking their capacity. And if they don't get the role, it's often my fault as a leader because I haven't explained it.
Well what are my expectations if they don't want it? Then it's yeah on us and to find a new seat that works better for them if they don't have the capacity. Then it's more a discussion of okay is it? Because of their lacking know how then we can actually get them to training or is it that they need to? Yeah just recover from the divorce they just get or Something like this. And then all we need to give them as more time, which is fine for certain amount of time, right? And that helped me a lot to have this kind of. Okay. Sometimes, I just have to find a new seat for them that fits better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also better for them at the end of the day to, which I think made me get a little bit more comfortable with that idea like it, you know, not everything has to be a fit and not everything has to be perfect all the time, right? And if somebody is not thriving in that role moving them into a place where they can thrive, I was actually the best thing you could possibly do for them. So yeah. Yeah, that one's definitely hard. I know it was for me I hear it from a lot of other people to or managing people for the first time they're like, wow
Speaker 2: with yeah. Yeah. And if you have done it several times, I sell product people turning into awesome quality assurance folks and people. Yeah, so product, folks, getting to suffer engineering, all these weird Transformations and then if you see that, Work and people really like, happy lighting up after they made the transition, then I think it gets easier but the first two or three ones are super hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then on the flip side to, I was just thinking about this. What if you're? And I've heard this from a lot of product. Managers actually got one of these questions on a dear Melissa talk. I said, I did somebody asked us and I think this is a good one to get your thoughts on to like, what if you are in the role of a product manager.
And your boss is a product leader who just doesn't get It and you're looking for the development, they can't provide the development. I've even seen situations to where the product managers themselves. Actually have pretty good potential but their product leaders don't recognize it, don't develop it.
So they're feeling like they're crazy because they're trying to do the right thing and their product leaders are like, no, that's not what I want and they're like that. This is what a product manager does. So in that situation, like what can the product managers do?
If they don't have a product leader that they report to, who is kind of mentoring them, developing them, or even like understanding what they should be doing or encouraging them to do the right things.
Speaker 2: The last bit is to hide this bit. It's not rad. I'm having this in my coaching conversations but product people say like hey but I'm reading all these books out there, escaping the build trap, and all these lovely books and I get what my role should be all about and what I should be doing, but it's just like not the Where I can apply all these techniques and then it always depends.
It always is a conversation of love it, change it or leave it. And a lot of people don't change hard enough so you can do crazy things and companies and try crazy things before you actually get fired usually. So that is something that I encourage people to do really think about other things, think outside of the box, other things that you could try to convince your maybe just your team to doing things differently.
Lee and if your team is successful, then it's maybe easier to convince the rest of the organization or something like this, but it is really hard thing to fix. And if your boss actively, this encourages you in, doing some of the good things product people do, then it may be necessary to go interview at another company, but let's assume your product lead is on more or less at the same page about your product rule and what product you Should be doing but they don't have the time to taking care of it. Yeah, to decent amount of their time dedicated decent amount of their time to it.
What I usually recommend people to do is form their own small, Learning Network, what you need. And that's that's just like, go find these people.
So you need people that are able to give you feedback on a daily basis. So really, I was mentioning this before how this particular Meeting went or how you did the Retro facilitation or whatever it is. So this daily tasks related feedback Plus usually not the same people Behavior related feedback. So things that I do that other people don't like or find strange or weird.
And this is something for example, developers, find super hard to point out. They are good and giving task-related feedback when they see me struggling with my retrospective that usually not shine. Pointing this out but for the more behavioral feedback, it might make sense to ask your line manager and hand this bit over to them.
And so that's the feedback part that you need to nail. Then the other one is you need to find someone who has a vision for you and really has this.
Okay,
Speaker 1: I believe you
Speaker 2: can become a great product person and that often times is a mentor outside of the company. That is something you could be looking for. Maybe it's a senior product person in your organization and if you're a junior person, that often is the case that one of the seniors or principle folks, really see the great young Talent early on and have this idea of how you can become a great product manager.
Let me help you get there at least with some of my time. And then you need to have this person who has this definition of what a competent, Pam would look like in. Ideally this company context again, it could be a senior peer again, it could be your line manager, if in doubt you can hire. For example, a code for a decent amount of time, short amount of time to work on one particular topic, that you're, you think, you're not yet competent or all these kind of things.
But then you need to create this little room. And I see a lot of these groups forming in the SEC immunities or they're the big ones where people are SEC.
Hey, that is a particular skill. I want to get better at anybody else out there. I would love to read this book to get started, but maybe we can have a monthly thing that we check in on the skill just like 20 minutes a week and dedicating to improving that. I think this is something people could be doing. If their land managers are not having the time to take care of that.
Speaker 1: I think that's really good advice. Yeah, I find that a lot of people who are very strong product people. It was not necessarily their line managers who were the mentors, right? They went They tried things, they pushed boundaries. They found other people to kind of Mentor them. They found it outside Community. They found peers to talk to. I think that's a huge one too. It's like, you don't always have to go find like a, super, senior product leader. You can talk to other people in the same role is you and you'll learn some stuff to think amazing.
Speaker 2: Maybe one day when we all back at conferences and all these things and meet apps are a great way to engage with other product people. And a lot of us share the same struggles. So yeah, I would always encourage people to reach out and you were mentioning something which is like contributing to the global product community.
So to say, that is another thing that people are not doing often enough. So why not writing a short blog post about the book you read and just like even if 20 other people already commented on this book, where do I not share your take on it and what you learn from it and what you try to apply? So first of all, the authors are always happy to read.
You did when applying the techniques and you still can find four or five other people that like your blog posts and then you become this little Learning Network. So, put some of the things you have been learning, even if it's just like blog posts, you enjoyed reading, all these kind of things but start contributing to the overall product Community.
I think this is another great opportunity
Speaker 1: and that's fantastic advice. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast
Speaker 2: Petra. It was fun. Um thanks,
Speaker 1: it was fun. I really like talking to you, is it people who are listening to this Petra and I've slacked each other a bunch of times and been in this little Community for consultants for a while that we've never met in person. So it was really good to hear your philosophies
Speaker 2: and finally, yeah, finally. Finally
Speaker 1: get to connect. So if people want to read
Speaker 2: your books called strong product
Speaker 1: people, can they just buy it on Amazon
Speaker 2: anywhere else perform Amazon? Hulu. Amazon is good
Speaker 1: 3, and then, where can they connect with you? Learn more about you read her
Speaker 2: writings. She pretty active on Twitter, which is at Loomis de ello, wooooo l00 mes ta and then it's strong product. People.com where I can find a lot more about the p.m. wheel, how to use it, the future self, how to use it, and I'm writing a Blog on my personal website, which is Petra - philly.com as well. Yeah, that's where I put most of my content. You can engage on LinkedIn, follow Instagram, whatever you prefer, I'm there. To
Speaker 1: create. Well thank you so much again and for those of you listening please go check out, Petra's tools. She got lots of canvases, all this fun stuff on our website. That is going to be so valuable for you and tune in next week for our next episode of dear Melissa on product thinking. We'll see you next time.
