Tami Reiss: Product Leadership Coach on C-Suite Career Growth & Thinking of Yourself as the Product — Be Yourself Podcast

Tami Reiss

Product Leadership Coach — on Helping C-Suite Executives Get Even Higher, Thinking of Yourself as the Product, the 3 Questions Every Leader Needs, and Why the Solution Is Always Right Next to You

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55 minutes
Product Leadership · C-Suite · Career Growth · Coaching · Management

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About the Guest

Tami Reiss — Product Leadership Coach & “Tami from Miami”

Tami Reiss is a Product Leadership coach who works with C-level executives from all around the United States. She is an amazingly positive individual — in Sergey’s words, someone from whom he has learned a great deal. Her unofficial name is “Tami from Miami,” though her clients and her impact extend far beyond any single city.

Tami’s core coaching methodology draws directly from product management: she guides leaders to think of themselves as the product. That means defining who you are for, what unique problem you solve, and how you continuously iterate your own career strategy. It is a framework that resonates especially with product managers and tech leaders who want to move up — and stay up — in the C-suite.

Her Method
Product thinking applied to career growth — treat yourself as the product, define your user, solve their problem, and iterate on your own career roadmap.
Who She Works With
C-level executives from all around the US who want to use their product skills to advance their careers and get even higher in their organizations.
Her Superpower
Asking the right questions at the right moment — and helping leaders realize the solution is almost always right next to them.
How to Work with Tami
Schedule an intro call via Calendly to see if she is a match for you: calendly.com/Tami/intro

Episode Chapters

0:00 Teaser 1:28 Tami Presents Herself 3:54 Should the Coach Have Hands-On Experience 8:30 Tami’s Coaching Sergey Using Basketball as His Sport 10:25 Case Studies of Tami’s Clients 13:02 Example When the Solution Is Right Next to You 15:40 Dealing with “Dumb Questions” and Personal Sounding Boards 17:05 Individual Always Has More Context 18:15 Why Sergey Named His Podcast “Be Yourself” 20:12 The Pivotal Moments in Tami’s Life to Go for a Change 25:42 Can We Become Independent by Staying in Corporate World? 31:00 Where Tami Finds New Customers 34:05 Most Common Mistakes Among Product Managers 34:45 Not “My Team” but “Our Team” 36:38 The 3 Questions That You Ever Need as a Leader 37:00 What Is the Vision Here…? 41:00 HubSpot’s Transparency Rule 43:50 You Want Employees to Be Vocal 45:45 Identifying Our Real Goal 47:04 Bob Iger’s Disney Motto 49:45 Crystallizing Sergey’s Mission 51:20 ‘We Help People Spread Ideas’ 53:05 Helping Tami to Get on TED Stage

Key Quotes

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it keeps my brain moving which is the way I like it to be

Tami Reiss
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I always say when I provide you advice if it doesn't feel authentic to you tell me why

Tami Reiss
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that investment is the most worthwhile investment you can make because it makes all the rest of the decisions easier

Tami Reiss

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Also on the show:
Bill Fanning — CEO of TALK Talent on Authentic Leadership, Curiosity & Building a TA Community That Actually Works →
0:00 Teaser
Tami Tamar re is a product strategy leader with almost 20 years of experience working with tech companies that's one of the reasons I love coaching because every day I deal with a handful of clients with different businesses different perspectives different skill sets different challenges and there are common threads but it keeps my brain moving which is the way I like it to be
Sergey maybe you can tell me about the pivotal moment in your life when you realized that the path that you had chosen uh wasn't something that fulfilled you
Tami I always say when I provide you advice if it doesn't feel authentic to you tell me why
Sergey your real passion is helping people spread ideas
Tami yes for sure the videos are the method in which they spread ideas
Sergey and with the be yourself podcast the podcast on expressing our true selves today I have Tammy riss she's a product litter coach the founder of a company that's called Product litter coach hi Tammy how are you
Tami hi thanks for having me I'm doing good it's early in the morning for me
Sergey yeah okay I hope you're up for a thoughtful conversation
Tami always up for a thoughtful conversation
1:28 Tami Presents Herself
Sergey maybe we can start off by you shortly introducing yourself and uh what are you doing as a product Li coach that seems appropriate for the be yourself podcast
Tami hi I'm Tammy often called Tammy from Miami because that's where I live and grew up uh and now the product leader coach I have spent the last 15 plus almost 20 years uh in product management in different capacities I have lots of fun stories I uh have alternated between being in house and being a consultant and for the past three and a half years I've really focused on helping product leaders be awesome so that's working one-on-one as a coach with product leaders leading group coaching sessions for executive women in product and doing a variety of other training and coaching sort of things that are all involving product management management in general strategy documentation product mindset outcome Orient thinking and other things like that
Sergey I can see that you use the word Boutique consulting firm so you only work one on one do you work with groups
Tami uh Boutique meaning more that I focus on product leaders so that's first of all generally in technology companies generally in B2B SAS companies so it's a specialized thing and as I was saying to uh a group of uh Consultants yesterday who are thinking about be going out solo one of the things that I do that General coaches do not do is that because I have a Consulting background I also give advice so I very often say I'm not a therapist I'm your coach I'm going to look at the field I'm going to tell you based on all the data points that I have from the hundreds of companies and hundreds of leaders I've worked with what I see happening here and what I think you should do um and that could also be around organizational design or growth strategy or marketing or Partnerships or anything else which comes from my expertise and my experience as opposed to Simply Executive coaching
3:54 Should the Coach Have Hands-On Experience
Sergey this is a very interesting point because I once stepped into being a coach a consultant it didn't worked for me and you know I was under the impression that since I in my late 20s I built a business and I work with um American consumers I had I thought that I had it all covered to become a successful coach uh and then in one of my recent episodes I had a guy who's a seasoned CPO probably his one the person who you could could be like a coach for a chief Mark harberg he's an author of the book I know good friends really oh my God so and he said that actually the best coaches like he brought an example of like the World of Sports that the best coaches are not were not necessarily great players themselves and that was like an eye opener for me uh I can see in your description that you are on the sidelines and have the view of the entire playing field maybe you can give me your perspective who are the best coaches should they necessarily have the hands-on experience or they can be great observers collecting all the best practices and then teaching others
Tami I think that it's a combination so I think to become a coach especially in a specialty like technology um and not be providing only generic advice you have to have at some point been an operator and so I think that you need to have done it you H need to have worked in the environment you need to have gone through a few not one but a few cycles of the experiences that you will have in the workplace uh and that would be the same if I was coaching teachers or something else right I think that there's a a True Value to having lived it and been in those person's shoes or something similar to their shoes that being said being a coach doesn't necessarily mean you were highly successful in that role because there are lots of people who are highly successful in that role because they're good at coaching individuals like within their team yeah but they are necessarily good at coaching people on their level they don't always know why they're good at their job they don't know the data points and the trends that make them successful in order to help other people repeat it and so much of coaching is teaching so much of coaching is listening and therefore like you have to be good at that stuff more than you have to be the best at the actual operation and function and so when you look at Fantastic coaches in the sports arena most of them at some point were athletes in their sport they played on the court they've played on the field and they weren't necessarily the best but they had a great understanding of the sport and therefore could see opportunities that not other people have like they have a more strategic mind than necessarily athletic ability and so uh I have been in the trenches and I don't personally love it like I don't love being focused on one thing for years at a time that doesn't bring me joy and if you're going to be a head of product VP product CPO you should be dedicating yourself to a company for at least three years and I get bored and that's one of the reasons I love coaching because every day I deal with a handful of clients with different businesses different perspectives different skill sets different challenges and there are common threads but it keeps my brain moving which is the way I like it to be
8:30 Tami’s Coaching Sergey Using Basketball as His Sport
Tami but um for for the athlete thing what I what I talk about when I'm talking to people who are thinking about working with a coach I asked them what sport they played so Sergey what sport did you play
Sergey basketball
Tami basketball okay so basketball you are on the field you are the person who needs to shoot the ball pass the ball dribble the ball Etc a coach who's on the sidelines sees not only the small peripheral vision you have but the entire court and they can say to you things like hey when you were going down Court you missed that your co-player like someone on your team your teammate was sitting down there at the basket and it would have been faster to pass the ball than for you to dribble and go for the layup right and they were open down there so they would have probably scored and that's because you didn't see that they also can say something like hey when you're doing your free throw shooting you need to do more follow through on your hand or your left hand is positioned incorrectly and it's causing a Bad spin if you just change the angle a little bit right and that is what the fine-tuning that coaches can observe and see based on pattern recognition of all of the players and the whole court and at the same point you're the player so you have to do it in an authentic way that feels right for you so it may be that you need to bend your knees a little bit more it may need to be that you vision yourself in a certain in way it may mean that you need to think about it and say okay I'm not going to immediately look down court but as I'm dribbling I'm going to make sure I lift up my head to look down court and after three dribbles I'm going to say okay I see a person there in pass then I'm going to count to three and make a choice or something else right you'll have to come up with your own system but the coach is there to help get the best out of every player
10:25 Case Studies of Tami’s Clients
Sergey Dy it seems to me that the people who you work with you become pretty close with them because in order for you to have the big picture they have to give you enough data points right about what's going on because obviously you can't be there observing from the sidelines what's going on in their organization therefore they need to really give you all the ins and outs of what's going on can you give me some glaring examples of the people who were hitting the ceiling who just couldn't overcome something you knew that there were more in for them and the maybe some little things not even the big things that the little thing that they didn't notice you held them to uncover in order for them to make this next step
Tami sure um I've got tons and tons of stories like that uh but the one the two that come to mind are I had had a client who I was working with and she was at a big technology company where they had a very formalized promotion process and a lot of getting a promotion there was visibility and seeing results and having lots of people in your corner and she had a perspective that very often she would be in a group of other product people and engineers and she would come up with the solution to a problem that was suggested and then someone else would take the Reigns and make that solution a reality and what would happen is someone would say o I'll lead that initiative and she said to me I don't want to step on their toes which was fair right that's who she was as a person she didn't like to take other people's Thunder and so I changed her frame of reference and I said to her if you were involved in this project or initiative would it be more successful and she said 100% because she's capable and smart and it was her idea right like so she had some sort of understanding of what was going on to come up with this solution that other people were excited about and I said great so don't think about it as raising your hand to step on someone else's toes and share their Thunder think about it as raising your hand to ensure success of the project or initiative and it changed her entire Outlook and trajectory
13:02 Example when The Solution is Right Next to You
Tami beyond that I I had a client who was a seasoned professional like one of my favorite clients of all time and she turned to me at some point and said hey I don't know if I'm giving good board slides because I've never seen anyone else's they're confidential and I'm just not sure I've been doing this for a decade but no idea do you have templates you could show me and I said absolutely I do have templates absolutely I'm happy to look at yours and give you advice based on what I know from investors from Boards of directors about what they like and what they don't like but also who are the users of your board decks and she said the board and I said great go do some user research and that meant to her because she was a product person to talk to the board ask them what their pains and gains and needs are ask them what what they liked and didn't like about what she was providing and I said to her I said they look at lots of other board decks right theyve been presented to by dozens or hundreds of other product leaders they know what good looks like and they can and you can ask them hey what else are you seeing other product leaders do that I should incorporate to make this better for you and again like it just it opened a door for her to realize that the board wasn't just a group of people that was sitting on the other side of the table they were people who could be her Partners they were people who she could rely on they were people who she could talk to and use for her growth because at her level there aren't very many people she could turn to I I often say like the reason why people need a coach more and more as they go higher and higher is it's harder and harder to turn to your boss for advice either because they they've never done your job because very often if you're in the SE Suite the CEO has never had your title whether that is ceso head of customer success Chief Revenue officer Chief marketing officer Chief product officer Chief technology officer there is a high probability that your CEO never had your title and therefore they don't know how to be a great operator in your role and at the same point turning to them to for advice only decreases their trust and confidence in you that you can't do your job by yourself so this is we need to find this
15:40 Dealing with “Dumb Questions” and Personal Sounding Boards
Sergey so interesting because for me this been one of my um pain points asking dumb questions you know in my
Tami yeah I I I personally believe that this a superpower I feel that if you are a you're not afraid to show vulnerability and admit that you don't know stuff you know you ain't going to grow because you're you're you're just gonna feel embarrassed sort of asking this question
Sergey this actually jumping like like off you what what you said that people can't turn to their boss asking for questions so the solution for them is to actually find someone like you to ask this qu these questions just not to be embarrassed right
Tami it could be someone like me um I'm now working with a group called sidebar which creates personal advisory boards for people so that you have a group of peers to give you advice on an ongoing basis one I'm one coaching isn't for everybody there are lots of other options out there but I do think it is good to have a sounding board I I really do think it is very functional and can really accelerate you and accelerate your growth to have a group of people you trust to give you advice and so one more thing that you mentioned um earlier
17:05 Individual Always Has More Context
Sergey that I just wanted to touch on the nature of the individual having more context than I do
Tami 100% agree and so there are a few things that I say to help combat that so number one I always say when I provide you advice if it doesn't feel authentic to you tell me why if you who always have more context about the different people in the different situations don't think it will be successful tell me why and I will provide new advice because if you provide me more data points I can be more informed and I'm not invested in being right I'm invested in you being awesome so the more information you give me the better but as you noted it's only from their perspective so I do also offer a lot of my clients the option to use some of their sessions for me to talk with their boss or some of their peers in a sort of 360 fashion so that I can understand what other people are seeing as their weaknesses what other people are saying as what makes them awesome beyond what I'm seeing from the stories they tell
18:15 Why I named my Podcast “Be Yourself”
Sergey my podcast is called be yourself and you know uh I was contemplating a lot about how I want to call my podcast and it all comes from my personal experience I reflect a lot on my life and I have a Blog but then I realized that even though I like writing I can see you you you do writing a lot even though I like writing I like speaking even more and actually when I heard you on Tatiana's podcast you were such a high energy and I instantly knew that I wanted to talk to you because in a way I recognized myself in you because I also like a full cup you know and people tell tell me like I want to listen to you just because like the of the energy right and so uh the podcast be yourself initially I wanted to call it like find yourself because I've gone through this transformation and I change I I pivoted from a corporate life right I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and uh I went through uh all the stages from the you know from bootstrapping and then we found investment and and then all all these board meet meetups and then I would come to the office imitating uh such a big big boss who knew all the answers even though I had no uh you know I I didn't know what the future hold whatever so I did held and I didn't know if we would even survive as a startup you know so and then I left and uh now I'm building this uh agency production agency where we help people to start their own podcast believe it or not so um and for me I'm uh one of my most interest like the one of the biggest interests for me uh for
20:12 The Pivotal Moments in Tami’s Life to Go for a Change
Sergey people who change something in their life is what was that moment like for you you said that uh you wanna be more of a jack full traits you want to you want to have a wider perspective right what maybe you can tell me about the pivotal moment in your life when you realized that the path that you had chosen uh wasn't something that fulfilled you and you wanted to go for a change maybe not moment maybe a series of moments or what held you maybe some person a role model it would be something that I'm super interested to know about
Tami there are so many people along the way that have helped um I have lots of sounding boards but the two pivotal things that come to mind are when I I was running a consultancy and I decided that we needed to sell it and I helped the owners find a buyer and theoretically everyone has been happy with how that turned out um and I had a meeting with a friend of M named Trace wax and he said well what do you want to do next and I said honestly what I want to do is work with an ADV Venture Capital fund as a product person working with their invest to help those companies do product better because if they aren't doing product better they will fail like they will just crash and then you're throwing out your money so why not invest in someone like me to work with those companies that job did not exist in 2014 2015 outside of like maybe two or three Venture Capital firms and generally they were hiring people who had previously been a CPO within their ecosystem and therefore I went to work in house and I enjoyed it um I had fun at just works and I got an email one day from Melissa Perry that said I was talking to trace and I was trying to recruit him for this role working with an inside Partners as a CPO in residents and he said I'm not the right person for you Tammy is and he forwarded me an email you sent to him three years ago on the topic
Sergey oh so so that person basically introduced them to some like opened the door for you in a way
Tami yeah but it was because we had had that conversation it was because I had put it down in writing it was because I had a very clear sense of what I wanted to do even if it didn't exist right I wanted to create this idea and three years later it was a more common thing and then I got to do it and I had so much fun and I hope to be able to do it again and again and again but what I learned in that experience was number one I don't really like working for private Equity firms and I was tending to be on the private Equity side of insight and that's a personal preference there's nothing wrong with private Equity it simply isn't my preference the kind of uh returns and schedules that they're looking for um but also that I loved loved loved loved working one-on-one with product leaders like I loved working with people who were already near the top of their game to be even higher right to to elevate people who were smart and capable and take them a level higher get through whatever their ceilings or walls that were blocking them and help them fine-tune the way they talked about things so that they could get Buy in so that they could build trust so that they could build confidence and I got to work with a a CPO named Kevin broom who um throughout our our time together but one of the things I helped him with was a particular board meeting and afterwards he was so grateful that I was the sounding board for him because he had been proposing a particular kind of growth and I said I think it would be helpful if we at least explored the other ways you could grow to make sure that this is still the best option and we came up with at the time 10 strategies for growth which then eventually became the 16 strategies for growth which is now a checklist that anybody can go through and say like okay I thought I needed to go up Market but let me look at the other options out there and see should I in fact do a part partnership channel should I instead do self-service what are my goals right am I trying to increase Revenue increase retention lower costs and that was awesome but he wrote to me one day and he said Tammy like you as a sounding board you took my ideas and you put them in order and you polish them in a way that they were more successful right because it's so hard to be the player on the field and not be looking at the ball it's your job to keep your eye on the ball not to look at the whole court and so it was at that moment that I bought product leader coach.com I still had a full-time job and I just said this is what's next for me I know this is what's next for me I don't know if it's two years down the line or five years down the line or 10 years down the line but whenever this adventure ends and Co ended it this is what was next and so I I enjoy what I do
25:42 Can we Become Independant by Staying in Corporate World?
Sergey it's a telling story you know I had the like a beef not a beef but an argument with one guy on in on his Instagram he said that if you want to go solo if you want to leave your job you first need to create some sort of a found some sort of a I don't know like U foundation for you to leave so you can't leave right away you know and I and I and I came from a different perspective I said like hey before you actually go all in on something you can't like kill two birds with one stone you can't combine efficiently you can't for example you want to be a consultant in in independent consultant but you're still having your 9 to5 life right so I mean like how effective can you be in marketing that you're now an independent consultant so your experience uh supports the idea that you actually have to stay stay like keep your job before you link link out or not
Tami I I think that it was just more that I enjoyed my job job right like I enjoyed what I was doing and it wasn't that I wasn't getting to do one-on-one coaching I was also doing a lot of other things I was leading roundtables which I still enjoy I was writing content which I still enjoy I was working with a fantastic group of really smart dedicated people right I just knew that at some point it would be over and that this was going to be my next step I didn't run for it I didn't like leave my job very much was I'm enjoying this this is the part I enjoy most I think I can make something just out of this later in life um but that being said I think that the nature of what your friend was giving you as advice for that like Foundation or support that depends on your own risk tolerance and your responsibilities so I worked with a woman who um met me at the industry conference and she was the CPO of an educational technology nonprofit and I I just loved her and I was like I want to coach you I don't even care if like you can't afford me like we'll find a number that works for this nonprofit I thought she was fantastic and for a variety of reasons that role ended for her and she was looking for new roles and she had an opportunity to work for KH Academy um and she said to me the job is as a senior PM not as a chief product officer I'm not sure if the title decrease is something I should really like avoid and run from and we had a conversation about what her personal situation was and it turned out that I was like I was like you have a child do you have healthare like are you the person responsible for health care in your family because in the United States Healthcare is tied to your job and she said yes I am my husband is currently working on a PhD or something like that right so healthare came through her she was a sole bread winner supporting her family and I said yeah take this job I said not only is it a good brand and a good opportunity like you're going to learn and like there were a variety of reasons why it was the right job and she's happy there she's been there for a year and a half now but it was about her situation right there are people who have Financial Independence or they've saved a lot or they know they have super connections or they don't have fam to support right I have uh I have friends who live in Los Angeles who they alternate who's doing like the lowincome thing like going back to school or starting a nonprofit and they they alternate who's doing it because they say in my version of supporting my partner is that this is the five years I get to do this thing while they are working hard and in another five years I'm going to be the person working hard to make sure we can pay our bills and otherwise but they're going to get to work on a passion project and that's the way they operate and there are lots of different ways to do it but I think that the main reason to have some sort of support or Foundation is that you don't want to make decisions simply because of pressure and anxiety and fear oh my God and so you want to be able to make good choices and that depends on making sure you're okay
Sergey I can't agree more because I took this leap of faith I left my job you know and I started like developing this new Enterprise and at times I had to uh speed up you know or just remind people my my leads for example remind them about hey do do do you w to uh do you want to work with me or not then it
31:00 Where Tami Finds New Customers
Sergey obviously hurt my reputation right because people don't want to be rushed uh especially you know when they when they're on still on the fence if they want to buy something or not they might think that hey if you need me so much uh maybe I don't want to work with you this is an interesting psychological
Tami yeah you can't come off as desperate a better question to ask is what can I do to make this move forward right what questions do you have that are causing a delay
Sergey uh tell me tell me about the source of of new new clientele for you is it solely Word of Mouth do you have a lot of media appearances do they help maybe for all the people listening to us who are about to try going on their own um what what is what is what what has been working for you in terms of um lead generation Channel and marketing
Tami um there are a lot of different channels I have um the best Channel I've ever had is still referrals so that whether that's my clients or people I've worked with or people like Melissa who used to be my boss who refers me people um who often come through the uh CPL accelerator program um but in my case there's also LinkedIn writing that I do there's speaking at conferences that I do there's podcasts like this that I do they tend to be more a matter of brand building and awareness so it's more that it's out there I don't think that every time I post something someone's going to read it and then I'm going to get a a a meeting for a potential client what I do think think is that by having this vast library of podcasts where I'm talking and uh blog posts that I've written Etc that when you search for a topic that is a problem for you that is a question for you right you're thinking about how do you improve your executive presence you're thinking about how do you get a promotion you're thinking about how do you get a job when you're not sure you have all of the qualifications all of those sorts of questions we have that if I have content out there that gives you good advice then you will contemplate saying hey maybe I should talk to this person to get more personalized advice because the advice I'm going to give out into the public is obviously going to be more generic and so that's my Hope by doing all of that stuff and posting on LinkedIn and being part of communities and and having conversations is that I Believe by giving free advice I become a more trusted source of advice and then when people have bigger problems that they want to have a more vulnerable and intimate conversation about they will potentially turn to me as the person that could help them
34:05 Most Common Mistakes Among Product Managers
Sergey what are the most common mistakes that product managers do that you can't you you just you just hear hear and observe and see all over the place because it's interesting because I as an owner of the of the the production agency I am a project manager basically I'm a product manager so I have my exceptional like I can't give them more praise or an ex exceptional technical Specialists we got we have a land of amazing technical Specialists here here in Ukraine but at the same time they do need gu the guidance right
34:45 Not “My Team” but “Our Team”
Sergey um so tell me about maybe some some something that um product managers project managers always do like uh Overlook if in terms of working and motivating their people especially when it comes to delivering uh the technical solution
Tami so it's interesting that you said motivating their people so I think one of the things we do wrong is we think that like these are our people they're team members right it's a collaboration it's partnership so that's first of all yeah but they're not employees they're they're me
Sergey yeah yeah
Tami so that that's first and that's something I really had to work on like I had a boss when I was at pivotal labs who I would say something like my team my engineers and he would say no they are the engineers and the team like they're the team you work on not my team and it was a like he Graham like really drilled that into me and I was like I Now understand why you're mentioning this because it changes their relationship right I'm I'm not any more important than any individual engineer's perspective I do lead but I lead through them believing that I'm heading in the right direction like to lead means that people will follow and to encourage people to follow is a partnership as a collaboration and so that's a big thing but the way you do that I think is the thing I see most people missing out on I say the role of product management is to decide what to do next we are the people in the room that decide what to do next we are the deciders there are lots of inputs we have to decide there's lots of communication we have to do listening and then explaining why like what it is we decided but the thing that I see most missing and this is why I've been giving this speech called the only three questions you ever need is the steps
36:38 The 3 Questions That you Ever Need as a Leader
Tami before that and bringing people along more on that Journey so the three questions I talk about that lead up to number three which is where should we go next what should we do next is where do we want to go that first question is
37:00 What is the Vision here…?
Tami where I think the most is missing which is what is the vision here for the company what is the vision here for the product whose problems are we trying to solve what part of the market are we trying to serve right answering that question and having that be your Northstar and having that be well communicated and well internalized by your team members so that they feel it and they are inspired by it and it is a guiding light for them when they make their decisions that step at whatever level CLE is always missing it's so often missing and then there's this in between step which is where are we coming from right you choose your point out there and then before you can choose your next point you have to know where you are right now what's your current location and this is why a lot of product operations and data driven product management and data driven decisions is becoming more popular because a lot of people would just choose where to go next without realizing what was Data telling them what are what qualitative and quantitative analysis could they do to understand what's currently going well or not but to me that's only a piece of the puzzle and it's a reflection of what's currently going on but in order to know what you want to change from that current state you have to have established where do we want to go yep and so that would be the number one thing
Sergey yeah okay what's number two
Tami well the number two would be the whole my my team thing like the feeling like you're the CEO uh of the product like whoever wrote that needs to just be burned or something and of course I'm going to find out it was something someone very very important um but it it it it was just a really poor reflection of how to work in the world like it it did it didn't reflect cooperation it didn't reflect collaboration it didn't reflect the nature of getting the most out of everyone you work with and that we can't do this alone um and all of the things that I think are so crucial to being a successful product manager product leader um and there are lots of by the way different versions of this as you go up right so when you're a product manager you have to see your engineering and design team as your Partners when you are a manager of product managers or director of product manager group product manager whatever you want to call that your number one person becomes your engineering counterpart and you have to see them as a very clear partnership and work as if the two of you are co-founders or co-parents for this group that you're leading and that's the same all the way up as the number one person that's most important for your partnership for your success but once you reach like a VP or sea level you have to recognize that the other parts of your SE Suite the other VPS are your first team right that together you and the other VPS are going to bring the company forward that you're going to help the company grow and that it's no longer just your product Silo and the product and Technology Silo that you're focused on you really need to focus on how product and engineering integrates into the strategies of sales and the strategies of customer success and their pain points and their goals and the other teams and marketing and operations and implementations right like there's so many other teams that get involved and you have to see yourself as part of the leadership team and not only the product team
41:00 HubSpot’s “Transeprancy” Rule
Sergey I remember hops one of the I was really really into the hopspot culture code I remember okay back in 2018 or something they released their culture code book was available online and it was it it it was one of the points I remembered is that um transparency doesn't equal democracy so there is still a decision maker you are still a decision maker right but I think what you're talking about that you gotta you got to be transparent and open about why you're making this decision right and at some point explain and even even if someone disagrees just yeah lay out all all all the all the insights all all the data that you have to support your vision it would be a nice exercise if you need to support your idea moving forward right try it out with with your partners with your colleagues than try it with your peers or board members and so what I would say
Tami is 100% yes you should always test out things before you go into an important meeting and know what's going to be the result um what that is like a big point of advice for executives is like the meetings before the meeting right like one-on-one meeting with everybody so that you understand how to phrase things what the value is of what you're talking about that you might not have understood before what objections are coming away so and what you just mentioned about HubSpot and transparency and how transparency doesn't equal Dem Ry you are a decision maker as a product manager you are a decision maker you are the person who decides what to do next there's a lot of weight on our shoulders but good decision makers explain that why and Empower other people to make decisions and they may not want the weight on their shoulders of these bigger decisions but people still like autonomy and control over their sphere of influence and so you want to be empowering them to do that by providing good wise good North Stars good guidelines and that's how it works better and also that they can feel more secure because they haven't made the bigger decision that wasn't their choice and but what you said about building a case I 100% agree like you have to show the team the data about why you've made these choices but if someone disagrees I wouldn't say it's only me who has to build a case I should be listening I should respect the people on my team and the fact that they are smart and that they are dedicated to the same mission and vision as I am and instead of I'm willing to sound up their opinions some people are so scared because of the lack of leadership they think that they they do not have the right to to speak right but if they're going to speak up rather than saying I have all this data that
43:50 You Want Employees to be Vocal
Tami says I'm right ask them why they are vocal what what is causing you to speak up why are you passionate about this what data points do you have that show your idea is going to help us get closer to our goal which is why I again say where are we going is the number one thing you need to have because then you could have the team have a discussion about okay we've now got two options on the table two different perspective persectives about how we can get closer to our goal based on where we are now right and then have a constructive conversation where it's no longer I as the product manager am telling my team what to do it's I as the product manager have information from certain sources other people on the team have information from other sources we are both presenting options for how to move forward and we are presenting cases for why we think our options are going to be more impactful at getting us where we want to go and then having the team have discussions and I from my perspective when you have a respectful conversation like that more often than not the two people who are disagreeing if they're really authentically listening one of them realizes the other person is right but when you're fighting it's hard to admit that but when you see yourselves as part the same team aligned trying to get to the same goal it isn't about being right and it isn't about you your idea being the one that went forward you know that you are successful when the best idea moves forward as a team you are successful and that's a really big shift
45:45 Identifying our Real Goal
Sergey I I have so many thoughts right now that I juggle with in my mind because um what I remember from Simon syic ideas is that money like let's talk about this question where are we going we all we all want to we don't want to say that where we're going is making more money it's like it's such a cliche it it it's not something that you can advertise it doesn't sound pretty but you know for a lot of people the goal is actually but is is financial right uh so I would
Tami disagree
Sergey you disagree you think because Simon he argues that money is only the fuel to get to your goal it's never the the goal itself right
Tami I agree and I understand so for I think we should start with understanding what do we really wanna achieve what do what do we want people other people our customers partners whoever to associate our our brand with right um I don't know I listened to this interview of um Bob Iger Disney Disney
47:04 Bob Iger’s, DISNEY’s Motto
Tami CEO uh he's he's saying that our mission is uh spread happiness oh my God it's such an amazing Mission such an amazing um goal right but it's too broad so sometimes you know having this clear Crystal Vision is is so difficult you know in order to align the Stu
Sergey it is difficult but it's worth the investment
Tami it's worth the investment in time and that's what people misunderstand yes it is hard yes coming up with an inspirational vision mission North Star that is customer Centric and not financially Centric and allows for people to understand what their role can do to contribute to it is hard but that investment is the most worthwhile investment you can make because it makes all the rest of the decisions easier it prevents analysis paralysis it prevents second guessing and self-doubt it prevents fire as remorse it prevents all of these anxiety filling things that eventually lead to decision fatigue and people not wanting to make decisions or throwing decisions or having countless meetings that don't get resolved into a choice right they keep pushing off a decision all of that is wasted time and energy because you haven't made that initial investment in really having a Clear Vision in really having a clear Mission at whatever cascading level that needs to be and well communicating it and well instilling it in your people it is the most important thing you can do and if you've ever been part of a company that's like that and I've been part of them twice technically three times when I ran one it is truly a different experience it is a different experience when you are part of a company that says we want to change the way the world learns it is a different experience when you say we want to help entrepreneurs grow with confidence it is a different experience when I ran ran a consultancy and our goal was to help other people sustain the agile practices they wanted to do we weren't there to build code we were there to help them run better technology organizations
49:45 Crustallizyng Sergey’s Mission
Sergey to be honest with you it's as I'm talking to you I'm actually crystallizing my own mission and my own Desire with my agency I I don't want to merely help people do a bunch of podcasts and release them every single day I actually want to help people to create amazing video products you know because video is my focus and I I really want people to tell be able to tell stories through the conversations in the video format you know so it's it's my that that's the
Tami what your real passion is helping people spread ideas the videos are the method in which they spread ideas for sure but your vision is to help thought leaders spread their ideas widely in ways that resonate in ways that uh people are gravitated to it that are audiovisual which means it's better for the ear and the eye that it's hitting more than one sense right that's why you want to help people create videos to resonate with facial expressions and with the emotions to you know on the human level that's what I'm really really but you you want people to connect to ideas yeah yeah yeah that's
51:20 ‘We Help People Spread Ideas’
Tami you want to help thought leaders spread ideas I mean I would change your mission title to be we help thought leaders spread their ideas because that includes podcasts that includes blog rating that includes video right and you want to be full service as an agency helping people be their authentic selves right and to spread what they authentically know to be true so that other people can know it so that other people can employ it so that other people can use it
Sergey and it's different right you could see now how if that is your mission how your employees will think differently about what they do here's an example of Tammy helping um coming up with the vision so everybody this is how it works actually
Tami cool uh yeah no I I'm happy to do Vision Consulting for anyone like Northstar Consulting I'm very happy to do and I often do it in seconds and more than that like I do it in seconds and then you have to iterate on it like I whatever I just produced for you is not perfect you'll have to adapt it again as I said I will provide you with advice it has to feel authentically you you should change it to be authentically you you're the player on the field but that's a really good example of the way that I coach right like I've synthesized a good amount of information really quickly I'm going to give you strong actionable advice I'm going to explain to you why the advice is valuable and why it's different than the path you were going to take before and hopefully I've convinced you to adapt whatever it is I've just provided you into something you can move forward with
53:05 Helping Tami to get on TED stage
Sergey super super useful really powerful and inspiring tamy thank you so much it was a blast
Tami thank you this was so much fun I I really enjoyed the conversation I'm glad that my interview on Tatiana's podcast about branding inspired this conversation because they were definitely very different conversations but equally enjoyable
Sergey yeah we live in the same city right now she's also in Kev now
Tami yeah amazing
Sergey okay guys so if you if you need to maybe use tamis Services I will leave all the links to tamis websites resources in the description other than that thank you so much for being with us
Tami yeah and I would say that if you're inspired by these three questions that we just went through I give a talk called the only three questions you ever need and I'm giving it for free free right now to any group that wants to do it virtually because I'm trying to get onto a Ted stage and in order to do that I need to do a lot of iteration and a lot of feedback so if you want to have a conversation and learn about how to use these three questions in your organization in your teams in nonprofits you're part of or anything else please schedule something with me I'm happy to do it uh it's like cle.com where to because where to is the most important question and um I really would would love to keep spreading these ideas