Hi, everybody. It's nice to virtually see you. My name is Lisa Schneider and I am talking about leveraging the product mindset for successful leadership. Um I've been doing product for close to 20 years. So I like to say I've been doing product since before.We had a name for it. I feel like I've learned a lot and I'm happy to share that here today. So one of the things that I wanted to talk about was sort of the rise of product and, and product leaders on linked in the number of job listings um worldwide for CPO S Chief product officers has increased five X in just a couple of years. So something that was sort of a niche job and people would be like product. What is that um is becoming really, really popular and common. And so it's a great career path and really um helpful to learn, sort of how the skills you learn coming up can help you pivot into those c level executive roles. Um the CPO role, you know, it has been around for a while, but it's changed in a couple of ways. So what I wanted to point out is this idea that like, you know, maybe around 2009, you know, I don't take any of this that literally.

But, you know, we started kind of like seeing CPO S in, in tech companies. Um by 2016, the idea was that the primary collaborator was the VP of engineering, right? Or the CTO. And so it was still very much a you're kind of off in your walled garden, you're doing product and engineering and that's where you sit and that's where you focus. But what's really happened is that the collaborations have changed so that the CPO is really part of the executive strategy team working with the CEO and working with other sort of sea level folks um in the C Suite. And this is pretty typical of these roles, right? Harvard Business Review talks about the fact that as you get into these roles, you're expected not just to sort of focus on your vertical, but to really work cross functionally on strategy at a very high level. So the product skills that can help you do all of that really are basic to the product mindset, but I never like to assume. So I want to talk a little bit about what they are. Um So the first thing is asking why one of my funnest jobs was working at Merry Webster. And yes, Funnest is a word. And so when I would get interviewed and people would say, what's your favorite word, I would say my favorite word is why.

And everybody would be really surprised because they thought like I would pick something very obscure or very pretty sounding and I would always say, don't underestimate the small words, why really solves problems. So asking why. Yes, Tanya. Excellent. Um and I'm looking at the chat so if anybody's not, that's what I'm responding to, right? So asking why it's really important, why do you think that, why do we assume that? Why is that important to you? Right. Really, really important product skill. Another one is being problem focused, right? So when people say like, you know, oh let's do this feature, our response is or or kind of is supposed to be. Well, what problem are we trying to solve with that? Right? How will we test it? How will we know what is it supposed to do? So the idea of being problem focused and not solution focused is really key part of the product mindset. Another one is outcome focused um and problem could be opportunity. Exactly. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's a really excellent point, right? And so outcome focused, right? What, what are we going to get out of this? How are we going to measure it? Right. What does success look like? How do we know really important we talk about being user focused all the time, right? So that it becomes this user first user first, right? We want to put the user first.

Um, and we're going to talk about sort of how that can play out in some different ways in, in the sea level. So that whole set of, like, we're focused on problems outcomes and users becomes really important, but we're going to learn how you can pivot that in some slightly different ways. The test and learn mindset really important. Right. Like, oh, somebody has a different idea. Oh. That's interesting.

Let's test it and see. So that's super important that we don't assume particularly as we get up to that c suite, right? I think historically, um there's been a very lot of like, oh, I'm the sea level. I know what I'm talking about. I know the answer and I always say like, I don't know the answer. Let's test it and find out, right? I don't care what I think. I, I want to follow the data um being cross functional uh becomes super important and we'll talk about that. So, you know, we think very much again, right? That 2016. Ok. I work with the CTO and, and we're in our little bubble. Um I don't even think that was true in 2016, to be honest, right? It was sort of more of a general point, but the idea that you know what this is going to affect marketing, this is going to affect sales, this is going to affect customer service, right? How do we both think about what the the impact of our work is and also include those people in upfront planning. Earlier on that cross functional mindset is super important. Um also being transparent, right? This is how we do this, right? We use different decision um matrices, right?

There are like frameworks that we use for a lot of things I like to show my work, right? I found it to be really effective. And I've had people say to me like, oh, you know, because I can see how you decided which project to prioritize. I don't take it personally when it's not mine because they can see how the thinking is, they can see that it isn't personal, they can see that we're really focused right on outcomes on opportunities. And so that transparency is really important, especially as a senior leader where it can be a little bit harder to be closer and to gain trust. Um And of course, empathy, right? Being empathetic and thinking about, I think this is really f uh related to user focused because the idea that you can be user focused without really thinking about sort of their problems and their experiences doesn't make sense. But I always think that that is really worth calling out.

So tho those are sort of the core skill sets, let's talk about sort of how those play out and what that means. Uh And the most important thing is I I sort of called this meet your you new users. So we talk about, you know, being user first and user driven. So who are your users? Um And your new users are your fellow C suite, the CEO and the board. And so what I mean by that is there's, there's this idea, a little bit of first team and a lot of you may have heard this expression first team. So your first team, if you're, you know, a CPO, might be the chief marketing officer, the chief financial officer, right? If there's a sort of chief customer service officer, you know, obviously the CEO, but if you think about those partners as your users, how do you give them an excellent user experience? That that is something that really can change the dynamic and take those skills of thinking about user experience. What is your problem? How do I help you solve it so that it doesn't become like product against marketing or product against finance, right?

You know, at a lower level, it's really easy to think like, oh, you know, financial person and CFO is just a being and you know, they are a block to funding or whatever it is, but, you know, at the sea level, they're your partner, right? And they can be your friend and they can be a big help as long as you think about, how do I give them an excellent user experience? Right? How do I become someone that they turn to to help solve problems. How do I become somebody that they feel like they can count on in terms of being a strategic partner that will really make you a very effective CPO. Same is true for the CEO, right? That's your immediate boss. Um This is probably true for any immediate boss that you have, but especially the CEO, um that is juggling so much and under so many pressures. So, really think of about um the folks that you're dealing with at a high level, how do you give them an excellent user experience? How do you become somebody that they can rely on and count on it and really see as a partner will help you be very effective as a leader in general, really influential in strategy.

Um And of course, right, trickle down now to your product organization, the next opportunity you have is to really um impact strategy. And so I'm gonna pause here and just answer questions as they come up because I think it's good to be interactive. So, um Heather's asking does cross functional mean that being able to work on a cross functional team but have your own expertise or it means that one can wear multiple hats. Um I think it's usually the former right, that you're on a cross functional team, but you have your own expertise. So, for example, um you know, I'll think about the CFO as my partner and so we're on a team together but I have my own expertise, the CFO has their own expertise, right? We're not interchangeable and ultimately, the CFO is gonna make the calls in their purview and I'm gonna make the calls in my purview. But I think at a high level, it also means really thinking about how, how do I collaborate with these people as opposed to um push my ideas to these people is maybe a better way of putting it.

Um And so again that all of that is going to help you sort of impact strategy. But the, but the thing that I think is most effective is to break this pattern, right? Here's something that often happens, right? We kind of understand the mission and then everybody comes up with feature ideas, right? And they're like we could do this, we could do that. Can you get it on the road map? When can this get done? Right. That's my favorite. I have an idea. When can this get done? Can you get it on the road map? And so folks can be super frustrated by that. And so a thing that can break that is um this product planning hierarchy and you know, everybody's got their different tools. This happens to be one of my favorites. So I do want to take a moment to talk through it a little bit. Um So the first one is the mission, right? Why do we do what we do? That's the thing that you know, people usually have particularly in start ups, right. There is a sense of like, we know what the mission is. Um what's the vision, right? What is this going to look like when we're done? I mean, like you're kind of never done, but what is this going to look like? Right. You know, we, we are starting with an MVP, it's kind of smaller in scope and, and this is what we envision when we're done, right? What is the objective?

What are, how are we going to impact measure impact, right? What are those metrics? Is it, is it dollars, is it revenue? Is it some kind of other number? Is it market share? You know, is it number of people, is it changes in systems or processes? Right? Um particularly if you're in, let's say some kind of social enterprise organization, right? Did we make something accessible to more people? Did we change a system that was problematic? Right. But like how is it that we're going to measure um what, what it is that we're doing and then how we're going to approach getting there? Right. This is the general thing, right? Um I could go from here to L A, I'm in New York. I can go in a boat. I can, I can't go in a boat, it's gonna be really long, but I could go in a boat but it'd be really long, right? I can go on a plane. A train a car, like what's the strategy? Then you know, there's all of these steps to doing those things. But first you need a general strategy, then you get to the product road map, which is really about prioritization, right? Which things are we going to prioritize? And then you get into that like product plans and features, right? We think about like experiments and bets and things that we're trying.

And the reason that this is so important as a strategic planning tool and the reason that you can bring this into the sweet suite and be so effective is that whole middle portion, right tends to get either maybe left out or assumed or it's done like let's say in your product organization, but not at a broad level and shared with the company.

And when that happens, that's when people don't understand, right? Why are we doing this product or I have an idea? Why are you saying no to it? And the reason that they maybe don't understand why you're saying no to it. I don't know if you can see my mouth is because these, these in between pieces are not clear, right? If it was really clear, well, here's where we want to end up and here's how we're going to measure it and here's generally how we're getting it right? We have a agreement on these things. You'll find a lot less tension and push back about these things and these things are where you see a lot of tension and push back. So as a leader, as a CPO, if you can bring this into the C suite, you will see a huge change in the conversations and the level of productivity of the conversations um and in them not getting stuck as often. Um And then the next thing is what I call kind of like bridging the product sales gap. And this image of volleyball I used because I describe this as like, you know, sales like throwing something over the net or product, throwing something over the net. So this goes back to that question about cross functional collaboration, right?

So if I'm in product and I build something and I hand it over to sales and marketing, I'm like, here, take this out market, this sell this and they haven't been involved that feels really tough for them. They're like, but that's not what the market wants like or that's, you know, like not a messaging that's going to resonate whatever their issues are. Um You know, from product perspective, the thing that happens all the time is sales comes back, right? I just had a meeting and the client wants this and their big partner, we have to do this right away, right? Or I just had a meeting and they'll buy it if we build this thing right away. And the question becomes like, when can we get this done? Right? And so they're lobbing the ball over the net. They're like, hey, I got this ball here. Now. It's yours. When can we get this done? So the thing you want to do is do not immediately answer this question. This is a false binary, right? Can we do this? Yes or no. When can we get this done? Give me a date, right? Give me a date or tell me no, that's a false binary. And the reason is because you want to think about the client as your user. So you go back and you want that whole same conversation, you say, oh, the client wants this. That's really interesting. I'm so curious. I wonder why they want it, right? I wonder like what their, what problem are they trying to solve?

And if you can get the salesperson to bring you back into the conversation most of the time, they're really happy to do that. And the reason is it takes the pressure off of them and also the client will usually talk to the product person differently. The clients so happy to have direct access to product that they'll engage in a conversation. They don't feel like they're being sold when they're talking to products. So they'll have that exploratory conversation, you know, and start answering the questions because as we know, sometimes the features that people ask for are not even actually the features that they need to solve the problem, right? They're a little bit jumping the gun and So again, if you can stop the game of volleyball and turn it into a collaboration and reframe the conversation to a product led one, right? You can really change that. And I have so many case studies of these, but like, you know, I went into an organization where there literally were like five clients. It's not even that many. And the five clients, there was, there was a spreadsheet and they had five different like things that they needed.

And there were these big expensive meetings where they brought in like everyone in the product and engineering organization and marketing was there like on paper, it was cross functional, but it, it was all about the client wants this. How can we do this? When are you going to do this? And when I came in, I said, wait a minute, let's find the through line, right? Like what, what is actually happening here? Like this is five clients were doing these five bespoke things like is this really necessary? And it turns out that in fact, we were able to find a single through line of what problem they were trying to solve and create one partner platform that would work for all of them. And so, you know, it was almost like too good to be true except it was really true. Um And, and I think if they, yeah, this is Tanya, this is a great question, right? Like if they refuse to ask the clients, these questions, the question is like at what level? Right? Are, are they refusing? And, and again, how do you then why are they refusing? Right. Because, you know, can you bring them a case study? Can you say? Well, you know, here's an example of like, you know, we've, we've uncovered this thing that turned out to be totally scalable, right? Um What is their block? Right? Are they under pressure to make a deal?

Like under again, have that empathy, understand their pressures, give them a good user experience. So you wanna stop like the the head to head going against each other and make it more of a discovery with the salesperson, like figure out how do you get them to understand, not force them to understand but bring them to understand that this questioning can help because if you can do what I'm describing, right?

This was a social enterprise start up also. So like resources were really lean by, by finding one thing that we could build, then everybody was aligned with that and then we were able to build that it was scalable. You can sell it to more people, right? How do you show them that this will work out better for them? Right? How do you get them to bring you into the conversation? So they're not the ones on the hook for it is the other thing, right? So it's like not about them asking. It's like, can I come in, bring me along, right. Let me hear directly from them. You know, give them examples as to how discovery has led to clarification, right? And bring them into that process. So they're a part of it. Um So we only have a couple of minutes left. This is a short session just real quick. I'll give the takeaways and we'll have uh one or two minutes for questions. So really approach your C suite and your CEO and the board as your users, right, your first team and your key users and really figure out how is it that you like bring them in and give them a great user experience. It will make you really effective across the organization and then that will trickle down into product, but you're not only focused on product. Second is using the product planning hierarchy to align stakeholders around impact strategy and not features.

And again, we're really short for time, but I would not be surprised if you all had your own case studies of where there was alignment like where you did. I always call it like go slow to go fast, right? Take the time to figure out that messy middle, those middle things because it will be much easier to align, unlike decisions around features and prioritization. When those things are clear, if you can do that at a strategic level across the company, so everyone's bought in, it just makes for a really incredible culture and then the last thing is to get involved with client requests so that you can reframe those um in, in really more of a product thinking way and sort of end that game of volleyball.

So that is leveraging the product mindset for successful leadership. I'm really um happy that you all were here and we have about a minute and a half for questions. If there are any further questions, you can drop them in chat. I don't think, I don't think I'm able to let folks speak. All right, we'll give it another moment. OK. Yeah. What happens if the organization is still lifting to product led or product thinking? I think, you know, this is, this is about leveraging this once you're in the C suite. And so all of these conversations and thinking about how do you bring them along as users, right? What is their user journey to come to this? How do you solve their problems so that they understand that this works for them? Um That's really the way that you would do it as an executive if you are, you know, lower and again, it can depend. But if you know, if you're lower than a VP, right, your, your impact is going to be different. You can do all of these things but, but you know, they might not trickle up as well. But you know, you can try, I would just say like use these everywhere, try everywhere. Um Because once people understand and they have that light bulb moment. It can be really helpful. Um So thank you all.

Again, we're at time it was really a pleasure and enjoy the rest of the conference.