Category: Team
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What does it mean to be a product leader?!
A few months ago I sat on a panel with some great product people* and the topic of product leadership came up. “I’m not a product leader” I thought to myself. A good people manager perhaps, but not a leader?! Was this a case of impostor syndrome or a need to understand what product leadership…
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“When They Win, You Win” (Book Review)
Russ Laraway is a military commander turned people leader, currently working as Chief People Officer at Goodwater Capital. I recently heard Laraway talk about his first book “When They Win, You Win” on Jason Knight’s great “One Knight in Product” podcast and it prompted me to read Laraway’s book. Laraway’s frustration with a lack of…
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My Product Management Toolkit (53): Giving and Receiving Feedback – Part 2
I know I’ve written about feedback before (see My Product Management Toolkit no. 30 for example). I know I’ve admitted that receiving feedback isn’t something that comes easy to me. And I know that I can definitely improve the ways in which I give feedback. Learning about feedback was one of the reasons I recently…
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My Product Management Toolkit (51): Thoughtful Disagreement
I like that Ray Dalio thinks there is such a thing as ‘thoughtful disagreement’. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d probably told you that there’s no such thing as disagreeing thoughtfully. In my mind, back then, it was simple: you either agree or disagree, and that’s it. Over the years I’ve come…
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My Product Management Toolkit (47): “Different Hats”
Working cross-functionally is a critical part of product management. Products are never developed or improved in isolation. They are the result of engineers, designers, marketeers, sales people, legal counsel and product managers working together. To do so, understanding the people that you’re collaborating with and what’s important to them, is a vital prerequisite for achieving…