Shreyas Doshi: Better Teams, Better Products

0:00 You know, um one of my personal challenges in my own kinda journey and growth as a leader Was it was easy for me. To judge. other individuals or other teams saying like, Oh, these people are only focused on optics, whereas I am focused on impact and execution, which are the right things to be focused on. And when you start with that sort of feeling

0:22 It doesn't create or make any room for true collaboration. Welcome to the Knowledge Project, a podcast about mastering the best of what other people have already figured out, so you can apply their insights. I'm your host, Shane Parrish.

0:55 If you're listening to this, you're missing it. If you'd like access to the podcast before public release, special episodes that don't appear anywhere else, hand edited transcripts, or you just want to support the show you love, you can join at fs.blog slash membership. Check out the show notes for a link. Today my guest is Shrey S Doshi. He's lead in scaled products at companies like Stripe. Twitter and Google.

1:21 An early member of the product team at Stripe, he led some of the company's largest and fastest growing business lines. Even establishing product manager as a function there. Today he's an advisor. I wanted to talk to Shreyas because I often find when reading his work that we have similar ideas but we approach them and come at them very differently.

1:43 In this episode, we discuss the three levels of product work and where conflict comes from, the difference between evaluating and measuring something. What he's learned working at Stripe that he still uses today. the benefits and drawbacks of a writing culture, what he's learned about decision making that most people miss. how you can systematically grow your competence, the role of opportunity cost, the antithesis principle, the agency talent matrix, and so much more. It's time to listen.

2:14 And learn. Oh I th I think when I was thinking about where to get started, I wanna start with the three levels of product work. So the execution level. the impact level and the optics level. Can you expand on these levels and where conflict arises? Yeah, for sure. So

2:36 Uh this took me many years, almost two decades, of working on products that uh mainly at high tech companies, uh, to really realize Oftentimes conflict between people and teams. arises mainly because um

2:53 We're not talking at the same level. Uh and uh we might have uh, you know, similar missions and similar goals and OKRs and whatnot. Uh, but if we are not aligned on the level at which we are talking, that can lead to a lot of confusion, a lot of just stress uh among individuals and teams. And so the three levels of product work, uh

3:15 that I discovered through my observations were uh the execution level. uh the impact level And the optics level. Oftentimes uh there would be product managers or other folks on my team who would be very nervous before presenting to an executive.

3:32 Maybe it's a product strategy, uh or something else. And uh they'd be very nervous. And so I'd have a conversation with them about like, you know, hey, nervousness is normal in these situations, et cetera. Uh but what's really going on? Wha w what is your real concern? And so they'd often point to past examples where They they would say, Oh, you know, I was talking to the CEO in this last product review

3:56 Uh and I shared with them exact details of how uh we can you know make this uh these goals more ambitious or whatever the case might be. And that just did not land with the executive. Uh and you know, I shared all the details with them, but like I felt like they were confused and now they've asked for this other product review.

4:16 Uh and so now I'm frustrated, right? Uh and and In that example, my observation is that uh again it's it's the case of people talking and expecting different levels. Where somebody who's close to the ground, like a product manager or an engineer Uh you are fixated at the execution level, which is

4:35 You know, what is it uh that I can get done? Uh In a short amount of time. With the resources and constraints I have. Okay, so that's the execution level.

4:46 But oftentimes in these situations the executive the CEO is wants to start at the impact level. Right, they are more concerned about uh well, is this product going to resonate? Fine, we'll build the product, but how are we how are we going to sell the product? Have we thought about compelling ways to do that?

5:06 And how is this gonna affect the company's brand? Right, so th they they want to start with the level of the impact. uh and they want to engage in a dialogue with you of how uh we can make the best possible impact. Uh but then if you come into this kind of product review as the product manager Uh and you kinda drown the group.

5:27 in all sorts of execution level detail Which you think are the right things to share because these are challenges You're facing right now. Um If you lead with that, you are going to lose uh the audience.

5:42 Uh and so and this is merely just one example of where like you know, executives are probably thinking at the impact level product managers or engineers are thinking at the execution level. Uh and uh You know I've also encountered uh

5:57 Team issues, inter team issues, you know, famously There are many organizations where two teams can't work together. uh and they complain. Uh and each team complains that we can't work well with this other team. Even in those situations I've often found that it's actually the leaders of the team that are fixing uh on different things. Maybe the leader of one team

6:18 It is very optics focused. So they are thinking about You know, what are the optics gonna look like if we combine our forces together and work on this initiative? How can we make sure that my team gets the credit? uh that it deserves Uh for doing this work.

6:34 And perhaps another team leader is more fixated uh on the impact level or the execution level. They sweat and you know they kinda litigate and relitigate a lot of details. without really realizing that oh the conflict is present mainly because one is operating at the optics level.

6:52 And the other is operating at the execution or impact level. One thing that you said there that stuck out to me was they litigate the details. Are they litigating sort of like a different lens into the same problem And they keep rehashing their point of view because they think the other person doesn't see it, but they're coming at it from a completely different lens. How do you get out of that? How do you become productive in that in that sort of litigation or argument then? Look what what we end up doing when

7:19 We feel like that the other party is not listening. Is uh that we just Keep repeating our message. And we do it Louder each time.

7:29 Hoping it will stick. And it doesn't. And then we are frustrated. Uh that it doesn't. It's like, you know, I've told you this five times, uh we've had this meeting three different times. And uh I just don't understand w why

7:44 you don't get it, right? Like that's at least the feeling, even if it's not vocalized. The real solution out of this is Take a step back. And recognize what is going on. Recognize that

7:58 Oh, I see this other team. is really concerned about the optics of the situation. So let me explore that more, right? Like you know, um one of my challenge my personal challenges in my own kind of um you know, journey and growth as a leader. Was um it was easy for me.

8:17 To judge. uh other individuals or other teams saying like oh these people are only focused on optics, whereas I am focused on impact and execution, which are the right things to be focused on. Um And when you start with that sort of feeling It doesn't

8:36 create or make any room for true collaboration. So instead, uh, you know, later on in my career when I had this vocabulary and this way of looking at things When I saw these situations where perhaps somebody else, uh some other team leader that I'm to c try to collaborate with Is really focused on optics. I wanted to take a step back then.

8:56 And really Explore their perspective a little more. And perhaps, you know, the reason they were focused on optics is'cause they've been burnt before. Uh that they helped Various other teams with their initiatives in the past.

9:11 Uh and they did not get the credit. uh that uh they felt they deserved. And so naturally now they're gonna be a little bit more wary uh about collaborating with my team on this initiative and they want to make sure that the optics are set right. So it's only through

9:28 Kind of taking a step back and Truly taking the time to explore Their concerns. Like uh w uh I like for instance, concretely, I noticed that uh, you know, in the past uh couple of meetings you've talked a lot about making sure um that executives are aware of the division of responsibilities between our teams. And certainly my team's perspective is that it is a very ambiguous project, so we can't really clarify all the strict division of responsibil.

9:57 responsibilities at this very moment. But uh I wanted to ask you. what your rationale is for this perspective. Uh'cause I really want to figure out a way to make this work. Uh, and so just kinda having that conversation, engaging in the dialogue, trying to understand Where they are coming from.

10:15 Uh I've found opens up opportunities for us to recognize Oh I s is what is going on. uh you care about making sure that these responsibilities are clear for reason XYZ. So uh perhaps we can both achieve our objectives here.

10:33 of moving quickly while yet clarifying, you know, who owns what. Uh. And let's now brainstorm about that. One of the things that you said online that was interesting is that there's a difference between evaluating how something is going and measuring how it's going. Can you expand on that? Yeah, it's often the case, Shane, that um

10:55 you know, you hear in business meetings, right? That um If you can't measure it, you cannot improve it. in certain most of the highly rational uh company cultures uh that I have seen

11:09 Uh these kinds of you know, statements are taken as uh truths. And Over time I realize used in the wrong context, uh they they tend to, uh, you know, cause a lot of damage that we don't even realize.

11:24 And because we feel like we're being smart when we say Oh, this thing must be measured we can improve it. Really the way I I had realized some of the flaws in this thinking. of you cannot improve something that you don't measure.

11:40 Is uh Kinda looking at my personal life. And sort of evaluating. So I I'm a parent. Yeah, and so at one point. I asked myself, um

11:52 Am I measuring? How I'm doing as a parent. Right, or uh or am I measuring how I'm doing uh as uh as a spouse. And While you know the I I clearly improved in certain areas of parenting.

12:10 I had not done any measurement there. So then I started asking myself, well, if I've clearly improved in this area of parenting or this area Of being a spouse. Um but I I don't measure it, I don't track it on a daily basis, I don't have any metrics associated with it. Uh and yet I can tell.

12:29 That I'm improving in these areas. So so how am I doing that? Right, like how many of us are doing all sorts of activities And

12:39 improving in those activities. Without explicitly measuring. uh those up front. uh or measuring those on an ongoing basis. Actually the way I know that I'm improving is because I'm evaluating.

12:54 Right. Uh and and that's where I feel like there's a difference between uh the idea of evaluating how you're doing uh and measuring how you're doing. And then I started seeing uh at many cases uh in many cases at work, uh it was quite similar. You know, if we start Everything with

13:15 Oh, we need to measure this thing first before we embark on this. project or this initiative to improve said thing. Uh there is certainly value in measurement, so don't get me wrong, right? Like again, we should not think binary about this. But in some cases the effort. To measure something.

13:35 Is so large. That it sometimes dissuades us from performing the action. Uh that makes sense. The fundamental sort of observation here is that sometimes evaluating

13:48 How something is going is enough. Uh and sometimes if you try to measure I think You might think you might improve the measurement. Right. Uh but you might not actually be improving the underlying thing.

14:02 So that's the other danger as well. Uh so anyway, those would be a couple of kinda core observations uh that led uh to this insight. Okay, but you're you're a manager or product manager or a leader within an organization and you have scarce resources to allocate. uh the organization has scarce resources, you have scarce resources on your team. Often you need other people to buy into what you're doing. uh with

14:28 With their I guess not of approval, depending on where you are at some level. Uh, and if you're in a culture That is very measurement oriented. saying that, you know, we're gonna improve this, but not being able to quantify or demonstrate how it's

14:44 Improved. It's very tricky to get the buy in. How do how do you How do you go about that? Yeah, it is very tricky and uh I would say this is why The solutions to some of these problems lie uh not with uh An individual

15:00 uh or individual contributor within the company But they lie with the company leadership. Right. Like so ultimately The company's leadership needs to have the judgment uh and uh If they do not

15:14 Things are just very hard. the both the writing I do, the coaching I do, and so on. is focused on uh leaders and leadership. Without leadership understanding These ideas and uh

15:28 These principles It's just very hard. Now all that said. What I've found interesting is That it is possible sometimes to pivot um

15:39 Just gonna intense desire for uh you know showing uh you know Numbers on a graph. With other ways of showing impact. Because ultimately the measurement is not the goal.

15:53 Right. The impact is the good. Uh we hope that the measurement is uh just a proxy. uh for the impact we made. Right. Uh and sometimes we we we forget uh the the the we can't differentiate between the proxy and the goal, right? Uh and so we make the proxy the goal.

16:11 So once you kinda understand that, then ultimately it's about demonstrating impact. Uh one of the core things we need to realize is this idea of You know, leading indicators. Right. So So what I like to do show what like I like to remind people uh in these kind of corporate situations

16:29 Is that ultimately we are after this impact. Right, whatever that is, like customer satisfaction or higher. or greater revenue or greater revenue per customer, whatever the case may be. Right. Uh that's the impact we're after. Right.

16:44 Uh then I like to uh sort of clarify Uh And perhaps using even examples that features like this in the past I've taken, you know, three months, six months, a year, year plus. To show the full impact.

17:00 Right. So so and and that is likely to be the case with this feature too. So therefore what I want to share with you today is some of the core leading indicators we have of how this feature is working. And so and and then I'll go into the leading indicators. And now these leading indicators

17:16 Might be other metrics. So they might be things we have measured. Right, which is like you know, the conversion rate in sales calls. for instance, right, which is a which is an early indicator. um of potential resonance.

17:32 Uh Or the number of customers who've actually purchased the product. S uh and listed this feature as one of the key reasons why. Right. So so I'll talk to my sales teams and kind of get some of those leading indicators to me. From them.

17:47 Right. And again, these could be measurements, right? These could be numbers. But the numbers are so small that like You know, uh all we might be able to say this quarter is like, Oh, we got five new customers Who said that this feature was one of the key reasons why. Right? Uh and you can't really run an A B test of any sort or some like large scale experiment with that.

18:09 Uh so okay, five is good and we've done some measurement. But this is where I like to also add some uh qualitative criteria. Right, which is uh and I did this a lot at Stripe, for instance, when we were working on B2B products, uh that You know, in some cases they took a year or year plus to show direct revenue impact or volume impact. Is I would call out some very big customers.

18:32 That we were able to sign up. And their qualitative feedback. On this recently launched feature. And I would present that in a in a document. Right, saying uh okay, this is what we are hearing from this customer.

18:47 as a leading indicator. Right. So There are ways even in a highly kinda, you know, qualitative, uh, quantitative kinda environment. Uh to kind of pivot folks' attention

19:00 Towards what really matters, which is impact. And then help them understand. Uh how that impact has multiple components, some of which may be measured components. While others are qualitative components.

19:13 Because ultimately at the end of the day, uh You know, uh regardless of um you know what One might cynically think like You know, your company leadership is primarily interested in impact. Right.

19:25 Now sometimes they're fooled in thinking that the numbers are the only way to be confident about impact. Uh, but if you if you can make a compelling case of and and uh you know uh tell a story about how it is actually a combination of some of these leading indicators. And they may be qualitative or quantitative. uh then you'll be surprised how much buy in you can get.

19:47 It seems maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems from the outside the professional managers would sort of gravitate towards quantitative uh indicators whereas founders would gravitate more towards the qualitative What what do you what's your reaction to that? I think if we were talking about general

20:06 Patterns, um That matches my understanding and my observations too. Uh but uh I'll add an interesting Additional observation.

20:18 Which is uh what happens when Uh the company starts to scale. Right. So so now we're going to have to rely on other signals. Mm. And one of the things that uh

20:31 You might end up learning along the way. is that uh Oh yeah, so uh from this point onwards You have to manage by the numbers. Right? Because

20:43 you know, you you're not close to the customer anymore. Uh you don't have as much uh you know strong empathy for customers. As you used to. Uh and uh at s at certain scale Your Instincts

20:57 uh may actually be wrong. Right, the instincts that actually worked for you early on may not work. The challenge though is sometimes uh some founders will kinda lose their way entirely. Right, and they they they again they make the mistake of treating the proxy as the goal. Right, and and they lose sight of the real goal.

21:17 Uh which is impact. Uh so while I do want you to manage with numbers, because that's the only way you can scale Uh I also want you to not forget um that Uh the numbers will only tell a certain story. And so what you've gotta still continue to do is expose yourself.

21:39 Uh to some of the signals. And these might often be qualitative signals. uh in the market. Uh, with regards to your competition, with regards to your customers.

21:50 Um and so, you know, the founders uh that uh have been able to scale really well and their companies have been able to build incredible products over the long term. I have found Uh they Kind of strike this balance really well.

22:05 They do stay very close to their customers. They do stay very close to some anecdotes. uh and don't just kind of manage by spreadsheet. You worked at Stripe and and you know, from the outside looking in, Stripe is one of the most interesting and considered to be one of the most uh well run companies in the world. We've had the good fortune of having Patrick on the show. I'm curious, uh, we're talking a lot about the lessons that you're offering. I'm curious as to what did you learn being inside that culture that you've taken away with you and how do you use it? Yeah, I I just learned so much at Stripe uh

22:42 Yeah, I was there for uh over five years, uh and uh I joined but as they were just uh thinking about what product management means at Stripe and so you know, this was a company of a few hundred people at the time. And uh, you know, already building uh really had had already built a very compelling product.

23:03 And sort of, you know, at least by Silicon Valley standards was adding product management a little late. uh you know,'cause usually you'll have product management added at uh you know, several dozen to hundred or so people. Uh so Stripe was adding product management a little late. Um And uh

23:21 uh had done just fine without product managers. So one of the reasons I joined Stripe was'cause I saw this as what a wonderful opportunity. uh to really understand if product management can create unique value. At a company that has already been very successful without product management. Right. Uh and so uh so that was one of the motivators for me as a as somebody who started my career as an engineer, but had been a product manager for

23:47 you know, over a decade by that time. Um And Іно the first things I really learn. Uh when I joined Stripe is um

23:57 That when Product and thinking about the product and thinking about the Customer experience. Is Everybody's job

24:08 Which it certainly was and and has been at strike for a while. Um you know, kinda thinking about the product. Uh and fixating on what kind of product we're building and why we're building it. And how it's gonna resonate with our users.

24:22 When it is everybody's job. uh, you know, engineers and designers and even sales and marketing and other functions. uh then you can You have at least the ingredients for creating magic. Um and you know, too often what happens uh

24:40 And I've seen this at many, many companies uh in the valley, some of the most successful and modern companies. uh in in the technology space. is uh that at some point Uh this idea of like

24:54 Okay, are we building the right product? Are we building a product uh that our customers will really love? And are we building a product? uh that uh that will win in the market. That's those concerns get relegated. To one function.

25:11 Or a couple of functions. While the other functions get more focused or somehow are asked to get more focused on just like stay in your lane, do your thing, you know, ship your code. Right,'cause and and do it on time and do it at reasonable quality, but that's your job. Right, and nothing else. And if it's something about the user experience, well

25:30 You know, you bring in the expert, the product manager. uh or the designer and and they will tell you what to do. You know, in those environments you just like don't end up building really inspiring products. Right. And so what I saw at Stripe were perhaps like two things I'll flag. Uh one was um

25:50 That Really every function. Was treated as equal. Right? Like really you treated every function

25:59 Uh equally. Right. Uh and now they might perform different roles. But it wasn't like one function was better than the others or one function was higher than the others, right? So so what that enabled is a much more

26:15 Focused and much more authentic. conversation between functions of what is the right thing to do here. Right, like not once in my five plus years there did somebody play the card of like Well, so I am the product manager. So yeah, I realize all this debate and all of that, but since I have this title. And this question is about the product.

26:37 So therefore I'm going to make the call, right? So it wasn't really about like, you know, pulling rank or title, it was about really discussing the idea. Right, so so so that's one way uh that I think Stripe put this in practice. And uh look the other way. Of like the entire sort of fabric of the organization kind of pushing you to build the right product.

26:58 was that the founders kinda lived these values as well. Right. So You know, Patrick and John. Until a very, very long time as the company was scaling and to a point where you wouldn't expect

27:10 The founder to do so. Uh they were talking to customers. They were talking to users. And uh and not only that, uh in many cases they would kinda You know, have a meeting with the customer.

27:22 And send out notes. Right. And another interesting thing I I f uh thing I found is You know, normally when a CEO of a company is talking to uh a customer It is usually

27:37 They're talking to the CEO. Of that customer. Right. Uh but at Stripe oftentimes you would get these notes uh from the founders saying, Oh yeah, so I you know, I went I was visiting this customer And I talked to their customer support team.

27:53 I spent time with their customer support team. To understand whatever it is, how They're using the Stripe dashboard. Right. And so so as you saw this as an employee

28:06 You know, you realize, right, like that this is what the company cares about, right? Like when the founders are actually living the values. um that are put up on the wall. That means that they're not just words on a wall, right? Like you know, we can all say, you know, yeah, sure, you need to be customer centric and so on. uh but the the actual process of doing so uh involves a lot of discipline, commitment and consistency.

28:30 One of the things you said there that I I found fascinating is that Everybody was seen as important and it was seen as everybody's job to look after the customer, which intuitively I I really like because I always hated people saying that's not my job, that's not my responsibility. Or conversely, I hated people putting up that card and being like I'm the product manager. This is this is my decision with no sort of like uh basis for making it that's grounded in in in sort of rationality.

29:01 I'm wondering who's the arbitrator of a tie in those situations. How does that work when you have Maybe two people who are both looking out for the customer, but they're coming at it from very different perspectives. And you have to pick one path and you can't have both. I in the case where all functions are sort of

29:19 equal and everybody's responsible for the the customer. How do you make that decision? So in practice Uh I'll observe a couple of things. Number one, uh this is where a writing culture helps intensely. Right. So Stripe famously uh has a writing culture and um

29:39 A lot of these discussions Uh would start with a document. Right, and they're asynchronous discussions. And and the reason I think it's key is Because

29:52 Just having to write these things down. uh forced a degree of Clarity. uh that is often missing when you're kinda having just these debates verbally. By forcing ourselves to kinda write down

30:07 are thinking. It enables The reaching of consensus. Or a decision uh better than if we were trying to do it all just verbally in a meeting.

30:19 Yeah,'cause again, oftentimes, you know uh when we are doing it in a meeting, we uh there's also like other factors that come in, right? Like it's not just a lack of clarity. And the lack of comprehension Uh but also ego factors. uh that become quite uh you know prominent and dominant uh in how then we decide, right? So

30:41 So I think that's just like You know that writing culture. helped address a lot of this. Where yeah, we might disagree, but now we understand the root of our disagreement better. because you're trying to optimize for this metric and I'm thinking of this other metric.

30:57 So let's have a conversation about that first. instead of again litigating the minutiae of whether there should be a three step flow or a two step flow. Right. Uh so so that is one kind of mitigating

31:11 tactic uh to this Um the second one is um You know Oftentimes, yeah, you kind of had to Take this decision uh to uh somebody else.

31:25 uh typically somebody higher uh up in the hierarchy. uh to make the decision which is like look we've had this uh you know, what we called rigorous conversation and discussion. And it's all documented here in this Google Doc or what have you. Uh

31:42 And we can't seem to decide. I I think one of the reasons that it fails is because it becomes Judgment based. And as much as people like to say that they make judgment decisions, they they don't actually like to make judgment decisions because they like to have a a lot of rationale behind or numbers behind or authority behind

32:02 why they make a decision. And when the judgment is subjective, in this case you have a tiebreaker, somebody has to be an arbitrator of that, whether it's the founder or somebody up the line, but they're what they're really doing is they're exercising judgment. And that's where you get a lot of leverage from. When that judgment's correct. Uh it's really powerful and when it's not correct, uh, it can destroy a company. Absolutely. I I like to observe that, you know. There's a difference between very good teams, g teams that operate uh quite well.

32:30 uh and really great teams, the teams that are not only able to operate quite well on one project, but on multiple projects. And are able to kinda Uh. uh you know, crossfallen it. Uh you know, their goodness to other teams that they work with.

32:44 Right. Uh and I I my one of my observations about the core difference between a a good team and a great team. is the judgment of the leader of that team. What other observations do you have about the difference between a good and a great team? The first one is

33:02 Really the best way to describe it is What is Is there a Is there clarity on how this team makes decisions? And I mean it certainly from a tactical kind of process perspective.

33:19 Uh, but I mean it more from a Almost a philosophical perspective. Right, which is But You know, what are we optimizing for?

33:30 Uh and if you look at all the sort of like you know the great companies out there, right, like they have some way uh of deciding What What makes sense. uh what product to build and how to build the product. How much

33:44 uh attention to detail to give certain things and how much to build fast, right? Um and hopefully some of those are codified in the operating values uh or the operating principles of the company. Uh but does this team have clarity? Uh on that kind of philosophy for

34:03 How they're making decisions. Uh i is is I think a really important factor. And then are they actually following through on it in their day to day.

34:14 Uh so that is one thing I like to call out. Second thing I like to call out is To what degree is the team Willing To bend rules.

34:25 Right. I'm not talking about like breaking laws'cause you shouldn't do that. But to what degree are you willing to bend rules? And there are teams that like want to do the right thing that will follow all the rules. Right. And and they do it for two reasons. One is there is usually kind of um You know, a little bit is perhaps some insecurity, perhaps a lack of adequate courage on the part of the leaders of the team.

34:51 Uh but the other is uh being able to defend When things go wrong, right? So uh you know, following rules is very comfortable. Because if we follow all the rules And it doesn't work out.

35:05 We can just point at the rules. And say, look, we followed all the rules, we followed the process, we came to all the product reviews, we showed you all The mock-ups and all the intermediate artifacts as the rules said. Right. And so therefore now if this product failed

35:22 in the market or fail to win. Don't blame me. Right, like I followed the rules, right? And this is how a lot of operators operate in in organizations. I I call that the McDonald's problem because uh, you know, I I used to work in tech as well and people would do this all the time where it's like I followed all the rules, I got the wrong outcome. And I would say, well, if all you do is follow the rules, you should be getting minimum wage because what we're paying you for is judgment. You need to know when to opt out.

35:51 When that doesn't make sense or where it's leading down the wrong path. And that drove people crazy. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's it's it's so Interesting that People don't see that the reason they're they're getting paid the big bucks is and the reason they the way they'll create alpha uh for their team or for their company.

36:11 is uh through that judgment, right?'Cause if if everybody could just follow playbooks Um, then uh you know, and the they might be wonderful playbooks, but over time even wonderful playbooks become the industry standard. So now if you want to outperform, you need something else, and that something else is always judgment. Uh and so Uh yeah, absolutely, you know, that kinda like willingness to

36:34 Bend rules. And now the question is kind of well, how do I know which rules to bend? Right. That's the next question I get. Uh when I write about these things like again it goes back to judgment. Um Uh uh one you know, I have uh quite a few on the list of like the attributes of You know, good to great teams.

36:52 But another one I'll share. Um that is Often not discussed is just um You know, high agency among the individual contributors of the team.

37:04 'Cause I think like at some point, um You know, a team Say it's like ten, twenty, thirty, forty people, fifty people more. Uh it becomes really important uh not just for the leaders to be ambitious and have good judgment and so on.

37:21 but for the individual contributors to be very high agency people. Where They feel that they have uh the ability uh to end the sort of desire to

37:34 uh influence outcomes. Right. And they are going to uh execute creatively. uh to do that. Uh and in some cases they are going to bend rules. Uh and in many cases, uh, you know, most teams have constraints. Right, whether they're staffing constraints or funding constraints or whatever else.

37:51 Uh and it's this ability of at least a few individuals on the team. You don't need the entire team to be extremely high agency. But the ability of a at least a few individuals on the team to have and and embody this high agency approach uh such that oh actually yes we do have this obstacle, but here's how we're gonna creatively execute around that obstacle. Uh in order to make impact.

38:13 Uh so those would be a few uh th you know, items I would share in terms of kinda that difference between You know, good and great teams. We're gonna go back to writing in a second, but we just hit on the the agency. So I wanna I wanna go down a rabbit hole here, which is you came up with the agency talent matrix. Wondering if you can explain what that is and how you use it.

38:33 Yeah, and so uh you know I As I was thinking back a few years ago about like the the people I've seen that have outsized outcomes consistently. uh both for themselves and for the teams and the companies they're part of. Um I realized that there were some patterns, um

38:53 um between those uh individuals That's when I Ким акрос The storm high agency which uh I believe Eric Weinstein uh coined the term.

39:05 Uh and you know, essentially it's high agency is about Uh it's basically about you know, doing certain things, doing taking on hard things. uh without waiting for condition to be

39:21 conditions to be perfect. Or otherwise Blaming your circumstances. I wanted to kind of marry this idea of high agency that I came across. Uh with the idea of your

39:35 Talent. Right, the degree of talent you have. uh or the degree of competence, whatever kind of term we use there. Uh, and so then you can kinda start to imagine this uh, you know, two by two matrix of like You know.

39:49 Uh low agency uh high agency on one axis along one axis And then low talent and high talent uh along the other axis. Right. And so you get this kinda um, you know, these kind of four uh quadrants, if you will.

40:04 Where uh If you have low talent and low agency, Right, uh, then you are going to be a cog in the wheel. You're going to perform some undifferentiated work. Uh and uh maybe that's essential work. But

40:20 Whatever work you do, uh is not really going to substantially change uh or improve the trajectory. of the team or even of your own outcomes, right? Uh so that's kinda the low talent, low agency uh quadrant. Then you have the high talent

40:37 But low agency. More than Okay, so like these might be, you know, really brilliant people Um maybe they went to you know really amazing schools, they have great pedigree, et cetera, et cetera. But uh

40:52 And we've all worked with such folks uh over time where uh you know, they have tremendous potential, but somehow there is probably, you know something that's kinda stopping them. And they're often kinda looking around them and complaining about Well, but this is not right. And but like we don't have clarity on the cross or goals and we don't have uh you know, we don't have the resources we need.

41:16 Uh and we don't have the cross org support we need and the cross function support. Et cetera, et cetera. Um And look like Pointing these things out by them by itself, I don't think is a bad thing, right? Like you won't need to confront the reality.

41:32 of your situation. But what happens to kinda when you have low agency but high talent is you have the ability to point these things out. But you don't quite demonstrate uh the drive and the resilience, the confidence. Uh and um sort of the creative execution to do something about it. Right, you're waiting for conditions to be perfect.

41:53 And you have this fantasy in your head that when conditions are perfect I will be able to achieve uh the potential. of myself or my goal uh of my team. Uh so that Quadrant I call the frustrated geniuses.

42:07 There is no situation. That is ever going to be uh be up to the standards. the of perfection that they're hoping for. Then you also have the high agency

42:20 But perhaps talent. uh group. Uh and that group I call go getters, right? So these are folks that are just like they're very ambitious, they want to get things done. Um they are uh, you know, often very creative. They're very excited. They want to take on new projects.

42:36 Um they have a high degree of optimism. Um, but uh perhaps they're early in their career, right? And so they don't yet have the talent and the full competence, right? Um so Go Getters is an interesting group and like one other observation um that I made over the over the years. is that uh, you know given generally this is more a guiding principle than a rule, but like

43:00 uh given a choice between hiring a frustrated genius And hiring a go getter? Um If it is a role that has a high degree of ambiguity I would rather hire the go getter.

43:14 Than the frustrated genius. Because I know the go getter will work hard to resolve the ambiguity. versus uh you know complain about the ambiguity. And in many ways, product management, uh, you know, the the role I have done for many, many years. Is a role uh who's Primary responsibility.

43:34 is to resolve ambiguities and act in the presence of ambiguities. So for PMs it becomes really important. um to kind of have this high agency. And then lastly, the last quadrant in this matrix is uh you know the high agency and high talent. Uh quadrant. Uh and these folks I just call them game changers, right? Like they they change the game for the company, for the team, for themselves.

43:57 Um Uh and uh but the reality is that there are very few of them. Right. So if you come across a game changer early in their career. Uh, you better hold on to them, right? And you better provide them with the opportunities and the support. uh that is necessary for them to achieve their potential.

44:14 Um and uh last thing I'll say on this topic is Sometimes go getters. over time become game changers. Because you know with і nafрієin. Now you can increase your competence. So you can go from the low perhaps on the low talent side

44:31 Do the high talent side. Just by virtue. of uh having that much more experience. Um and and so again, you know, in many cases it you know, for certain roles, I would rather prefer a a go getter who's perhaps little bit lacking on certain of the certain experience factors.

44:49 uh because I've found that those experience factors Can be rapidly made up for. I want to come back to the writing culture uh just for a uh just for a second here because I always think about writing as making the invisible visible. So you're taking your thinking. Which all largely happens in your head. And now you're forced to explain it to other people. Because you're forced to explain it, you have to walk through all the steps by which you arrived at your thinking. So you're actually forced to walk through your thinking step by step and lay out some sort of rationale. for why you think the thing that you do and the process

45:19 Of Writing things down is thinking. Right. It is a form of thinking, and it's often the process by which we we come to realize we don't know what we're talking about. So the act of writing it is very helpful for the person writing it, but the act of consuming somebody else's writing is also very helpful for what we talked about when we first started, which was perspective taking. Right. So you're showing me what the world looks like from your vantage point, what variables matter. why this matters to you and how you arrived at this conclusion, assuming you're doing that honestly. I'm curious as to in practice,

45:53 I've never worked in writing culture. Uh with the exception of Furnham Street. But what What is it like in practice being on the inside? Where does it helpful and where does it slow you down? Yeah, I think uh one of the areas where it's extremely helpful is uh when you have a writing culture It becomes more of a permissionless environment.

46:13 You know, in a in a you know, say non writing culture, uh where perhaps the way big decisions are made or proposals are shared. It's usually in some meeting. Where perhaps uh you know we have a discussion. Uh or I walk you through a slide deck.

46:31 Well the observation is that uh All of a sudden, if that's the way uh that big proposals need to be made or even small proposals need to be made. Now you need permission, right? You need permission to join the meeting. You need permission to present at the meeting. You need permission. You need to ask for permission to take a synchronous

46:51 meaningful slot of everybody's time. To be able to share what you want to share. And a true writing culture kinda removes A lot of those constraints. Right. So if you spot something um that uh you think needs to be improved.

47:08 In a writing culture, in a in a true writing culture. You can write about it. Uh and share the document. And uh see what people have to say. See if it resonates.

47:20 Uh and uh certainly, you know, at Stripe as a writing culture, I saw it often where uh there were people, uh, you know, regardless of their role um and their function within the organization, uh kinda wrote down something super insightful. Uh and as they shared it, it kinda spread through various Slack channels. Saying like Oh, this person wrote this doc, you know, you should check it out.

47:42 And now all of a sudden people are going in the dark and posting comments. It's like oh this is actually an interesting point. Can you expand more on it? Or like you know, I don't quite agree with this. What's your perspective? Yeah. And all of this is happening in a fairly permissionless manner.

47:57 Uh so I think that is a uh very key aspect uh that people tend to ignore of kinda this writing culture, and it has You know, done right has like really profound effects on The degree of transparency Cross organization. Clarity.

48:13 Uh And really kinda. Innovative big thinking uh that uh you can engage in. You know, the the the problem is that Not everybody is a good writer.

48:24 Some people have also told themselves stories about, Oh, I'm not a good writer. And so one of the challenges is that Such a culture makes it hard for people who kinda Think they're not a good writer.

48:41 To be able to influence. Right,'cause ultimately You know, any form of communication in an organizational setting is a form of influence, right? So Uh I would you know, I managed uh you know, and mentored a number of people

48:58 would come to me and say like look I wrote this document down. I shared it. It took me two days to write it. And nobody looked at it.

49:09 You know, the executives don't care. Uh or they're just like cynically they're giving us busy work, right? So one of the things I did uh You know in these situations is uh and this was often situations where somebody on my team or in my org

49:26 was kinda bringing me this problem. Uh like what do we do? It kinda became important For me to start sharing some principles. of how you influence VR writing.

49:38 Number one is oftentimes when this was happening when they were describing this type of frustrating situation with a writing culture. I observed that in their the documents had all the right ideas. But it was hard to find those ideas. Like here's twenty pages, but there's like three good ideas in here. Go find them. Yeah. Yes.

49:59 And it was hard to understand the true value of those ideas in that noise. Right. And so so when I observe that I started Why is it the case? Right? And then I realized after kinda some time

50:15 That the reason That some folks do this when they're writing. is because they want to communicate everything they know about this topic. And and and of course when we do that, the story we tell ourselves is Oh, I want to build a bulletproof case, right? So I'm gonna provide all of this detail.

50:34 You write this thing. The the reader is lost. Right.

50:44 Um, and so oftentimes people would come to me and say, Like, look, I have this document. Uh but I feel like I'm not using the right words. Uh so can you kinda lightly edit it? And then I look at the document, I'm like, you know. I have to tell you, like and this is not gonna sound uh Like happy news, but

51:02 I would rewrite this whole thing. Right. Uh, because uh you know, here you are, you're saying like, well, maybe you can just use a few better words, but the problem is not The words. We need to create greater clarity. And that means we have to rethink the structure. We need to

51:19 We we need to write with empathy. Uh for where the reader is likely coming from. Yeah, and that is much more work. Uh than changing a few words here and there. Uh but uh once we kinda like start talking about it in terms of no no no, the goal is not to communicate everything we know about this topic.

51:38 The next step to step to take is then to ask, which is What is the most important thing I want to convey. Right.

51:48 And start with that message. uh in any kind of document and proposal uh in the work setting. You know, share that message very early on in the document. Whatever that might be. You know, our core insight is X. And based on the score insight X.

52:04 uh our proposal is that we do A, B, and C. Actually your proposal to do A B C Might be informed by You know Ten other insights.

52:15 P Q R S T, etc. But That can come later. Right, or that can come in an appendix section. Right, if for for the more curious.

52:26 Right. But if X insight is actually The core insight. Uh then that's really what Uh executives need to know. It it's not a movie, right? Like lead with lead with the best here. Don't don't build up a climate like don't build up for it because most people stop reading. You have I think about eight seconds to grab somebody's attention in an email or document at work.

52:50 You gotta use that time wisely. Absolutely. A movie is an experience. Uh a book. is an experience that somebody is creating. A podcast is an experience.

53:01 And so similarly, a document that you're writing is an experience you're creating. for your target audience. So it it helps to be very intentional. About What do you want them to experience?

53:15 And I'm not talking about fiction writing, right? I'm talking about like just like business nonfiction writing about a certain product or a certain whatever. But it's really important to work backwards. From you know, do I want them to be excited? Do I want them to be slightly concerned? Uh do I b do I want to kinda clarify that like we should be afraid. about a certain, you know, competitor or whatever the case might be.

53:41 Uh and then You know, kind of keep that in the back of our minds, right? Because then as we kind of write the words we choose, the structure we choose, the things we choose to emphasize. Uh you know, change drastically based on Kind of this working backwards view.

53:56 of what it is that we really want to evoke uh in the reader. I wanna switch gears from writing, come back to decision making for a second. What do you know about decision making that most people miss? Truths.

54:10 uh or maxims uh that um We learn or we discover. About the world. And how the world operates. uh and then we use uh those

54:23 Maxims. for um making many decisions. Sometimes We should use the Entithesis of that

54:33 Truth or Maxim. Uh when it applies to us. Okay, so I'll I call this the antithesis principle. one kinda truth that we might know about the way the world works is That uh most people learn better.

54:50 uh when the content or the teaching is entertaining. Right, when when it's entertaining, it's like it's got Край сторіз, амезін аналіз. Uh people just learn better. And there are many people who proudly say, right, like uh uh you know, and I come across uh such folks all the time, uh as a teacher myself or

55:11 as somebody who writes online and so on. is uh that well I only learn through engaging writing. As a smart person who wants to make a big impact. On yourself and on the world, right? If you think really deeply

55:25 About this kind of truth, let's just say. Right, which is most people learn better, learn the best when the content and the teaching is entertaining. Is uh that If you want to help people learn something, Make it very engaging and entertaining.

55:42 So that's the obvious conclusion that almost any smart person will reach. But It turns out there is actually one more conclusion you should draw. to be a better decision maker and to have better results for yourself. Which is

55:56 It is actually not in your best interest To be the kind of person Who only learns from entertaining content. Right. In fact, to go even further than that, you should not even be the kind of person uh that needs any sort of entertainment as a prerequisite to learning. Right. Uh and so I would say that most smart people don't consider this second conclusion.

56:18 Right, and we make decisions for ourselves and we create identities for ourselves. around these kinds of areas because we see these truths in the world and we assume those truths must apply. To us. Right. And that's why it's the entithesis because You know, actually what you should do if you want to optimize and maximize outcomes.

56:39 And your impact on the world. is you should turn yourself into the kind of person that doesn't need any sort of entertainment. Uh to learn something. Right. So because that way You know, while most people will discard a profound book uh that doesn't have an attractive title

56:55 you will actually take a take the time to read that book and to kinda really learn from the book. Uh despite it having a terrible title. Nine. Uh so so that's just like one example. There's just like once I sort of Saw this.

57:09 Um In myself first. I realized that this actually this idea of the antithesis principle applies to, you know, all sorts of things. And I'll just share one more example. Uh and kinda would love your thoughts afterwards is Uh you know, b one of the things that uh

57:28 You know, if if I post on Twitter that You know, a great manager is really important for your career. Right. I will get a gazillion likes. Because it's something people love.

57:40 Right, like which is like a great manager, just follow great people, great leaders. And you will have an amazing career, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Um So So that's kinda perhaps the truth you observe about the world.

57:56 But now what are you to conclude from this? Right. How do you kinda like Act on this observation. Well the first Conclusion you can draw.

58:07 And this is the more sort of more obvious conclusion is that you should try to be a highly competent manager yourself. Uh and you should try to be a really great manager of people. Uh so you can attract Uh

58:23 you know, highly energetic, highly talented people. And you can help them do really good work. But there is a non obvious conclusion that the antithesis principle suggests. Which is When it comes to yourself.

58:36 You should turn yourself into a person. who can do really good work. Even without having a great manager. Even if you have an okay or absentee manager, you should turn yourself Into a person who can do really great work.

58:52 Now this second conclusion Is the non obvious conclusion that very few people draw. Right. And in in in fact most people Will blame in some way. Uh you know, the fact that their manager doesn't do one on ones with them.

59:08 As frequently as they expect. Uh and say, Well, of course this is why, you know, I'm not performing as well or whatever. Uh And you know, perhaps that is a reasonable statement kind of if your early career. But if you're ten years into your career, twenty years into your career, right, and you are in a career which kinda rewards you

59:27 For your judgment and your agency and so on. Right, it is actually in your interest. To pay attention to the antithesis principle. Uh, because again, if you just rely on great managers around you Then you're kinda limited in terms of how much impact you can make.

59:44 Right. So yes, by all means be a great manager yourself and try to be the best possible manager you can. But at the same time don't always expect uh that you can only do good work if you are working for a great manager. So again, this kinda applies to so many examples and I think People make this fundamental mistake when they're kinda just making decisions for themselves for like what works for them and what kind of person they wanna be. I think that's a powerful

1:00:12 Encapsulation Yeah. Which boils down to You need to be able to operate regardless of the circumstance that you find yourself in. If you can only operate in ideal circumstances. you you're only gonna be average.

1:00:32 Because circumstances are never gonna be ideal. And you need to find a way to operate no matter what the circumstances are. Yeah, and and I think the the challenge for many people is that The reason entithes the Entithis principle is not extremely intuitive and certainly it wasn't for me uh early on in my life.

1:00:52 Is because It requires Us to embrace inconsistency. Right, like we we we just like habitually look for consistency. So the thing we observe in the world. We want ourselves to act.

1:01:10 consistently with the thing we observe in the world. Uh but the antithesis principle says That the very fact that you made an observation about this thing in the world, the way the world works, and in all of its imperfect ways. Um It indicates that yeah, sure by all means to

1:01:29 have an impact and to be effective. You need to recognize Um The way the world works. But that doesn't automatically mean

1:01:37 That you also embody. That in yourself, right? Like And and perhaps just to kinda, you know, um drive the example home, the first time I really realized this is when you know, I was just kinda reading, we we've all heard this kind of anecdote, uh and I don't know if it's true, but like it's the What is that? The idea that um

1:01:56 You know, people from A strong impression of you within seven seconds of meeting you. Right. Uh and so so what that suggests is um uh that like, you know, if you want to be influential, if you want to, you know, make an impact. uh you should work towards creating a strong positive impression.

1:02:19 Right, in the first few moments of any interaction. Uh and I think many people do that, right? But w when I started thinking about it for myself, I realized that but If I fall prey to that same bias. Right, I am going to unfairly judge other people who are otherwise great, perhaps. But perhaps they did not make a strong great impression in the first seven seconds. So I need to actually follow for myself.

1:02:47 I need to follow the antithesis of that. When I I'm meeting somebody new. Right. And again that kinda inconsistency is not natural uh to us as humans. And so it kinda like we really need to be intentional about developing it.

1:03:01 I wanna ask you about how you think about opportunity costs as they relate to decision making. Yeah, um Most Of us and most teams certainly. Our uh ROI machines. They are return on investment machines.

1:03:17 uh and the way we evaluate things is uh evaluate work whether to do certain work or not is uh is this going to provide us with a positive ROI. Right. Um And um and again during my own career as a uh you know, as a person who kind of was responsible for deciding what should we build, when should we build it, what should we build first.

1:03:42 Uh. For a long time I used ROI as uh a core Uh. way of thinking about the work we do. So it sounds good, but the the challenge is like you know, the the formula for ROI is like

1:03:55 Yeah, you know, the value you got minus uh the you know the effort or the time or you know expense you put in to get the value divided. by the effort, time, expense, right? Whatever the case might be. Um so so it's a ratio. Right. Now whenever you have a ratio

1:04:14 And you want to increase that ratio. So in this case ROI. Uh you can increase the numer numerator. Or You can play a trick and decrease the denominator.

1:04:25 Right. So you can keep the numerator constant, but if you just decrease the denominator. Uh you can increase the ratio. Uh and so I saw that tendency play out very often. in uh making decisions about what to work on next, what to prioritize, how to think about our priorities.

1:04:42 is uh oftentimes uh you know teams will gravitate towards things Uh Where the denominator is small. Right. So Practically what that meant is

1:04:54 This is low hanging fruit. This is a quick win. Right. Oh, it will only take one day to do it, right? Like And then I'd ask like but what's the impact of it? Well, it doesn't have a very high impact, but again, because it's quick, let's do it. Right. And

1:05:09 And so so we get kinda really seduced by this kind of you know, tendency to want to reduce the denominator. And what does that do? is a lot of Me Too products. It leads to us kinda just meeting table stakes.

1:05:24 It leads to kinda uh picking the safe things. Because the safe things are uh, you know, easy to quantify. Uh and they're safe because they're easy to quantify. Um, and look, I have nothing against those kinds of improvements. I think uh those are important, those incremental improvements are absolutely important. But I find that a lot of product teams

1:05:45 when they're making decisions about where to spend their time. They are solely working on those kinda high ROI things and typically things which kinda just reduce the denominator. Uh and they are afraid uh to pick up the ambiguous thing, which might have a very large return. Uh but uh might require some effort.

1:06:04 Right, and might uh involve just working through the ambiguity. Uh so that's when I realized that actually um You know a better way when you're in a very high leverage role. uh a better way to think about these decisions is through the lens of opportunity cost.

1:06:22 Right, where opportunity cost uh is um you know, roughly it is uh you know, the the value uh you get out of uh you know the optimal option. Right, like uh and and and the value you got out of the option you chose, right? So so the delta between those two, right? The the the option you chose. And uh the value you'd get out of the optimal option. That's what kinda your opportunity cost is.

1:06:48 And when you look at things through an opportunity cost lens, uh what you really realize is uh that for certain things you want to kinda minimize the opportunity cost, meaning You want to pick the thing. That is as close to optimal as possible. Um and so that's kinda how you'll minimize the opportunity cost. So that's why I like to say that

1:07:10 You know, in a high leverage role, you sh your goal should not just be uh to increase ROI. Uh you should also think about how you're gonna minimize the opportunity cost. And the last thing I'll say here is oftentimes people say, But well, you know We can work on a number of different things'cause who knows what the optimal thing is.

1:07:29 Right, we can work on a bunch of different things and as long as those are generally positive. Uh we will be fine. Right. Uh and we can always back track. If they're not.

1:07:40 But the problem I found in practice. Is that it's easy to say in a meeting when we're trying to just like decide on something that like, Yeah, yeah, of course, if it doesn't work out, we'll just backpack. But in practice I saw us never doing it. Right? Like and and so I also looked into why.

1:07:57 And what I realised then is that You know, uh it's kinda like the the IKEA effect takes hold, right? Where we we put in a bunch of work behind this. And so now we think it's more valuable than it truly is. Right, and and now we are going to just like uh you know stick to it, uh despite uh the world telling us or giving us evidence to the contrary.

1:08:19 Uh so that's the cognitive bias there. But there is also more than just cognitive bias, there's a practical issue which is You know, our code, uh so I'm talking about software products for the most part, but it applies to many other products and initiatives as well. But uh our code. is not as malleable that as we think.

1:08:37 Right. We just think oh we're gonna write this code, ship it, and then ah if it doesn't work, we're gonna undo it. We're gonna change it. Uh we're gonna learn, et cetera. And all of that is good. Uh but our code is not as malleable as we think, and so it takes us much longer than Uh to kinda, you know Try to find that kinda optimal thing.

1:08:58 uh we are making changes to the code and at some point our code just refuses to cooperate. And so we left we get left with this kind of highly suboptimal product. One of the things that you've given a lot of thought to that I I do want to ask you about today is how do we systematically grow our competence? You know, one of the cool things in kind of systematically growing our competence is um the idea of uh decomposition.

1:09:27 And um You know, any time we say, Okay, we want to get better at uh decision making. Or uh, you know, in the product world. Mm. A version of that for product decisions is product sense.

1:09:42 Okay, I want to get better at my product sense, uh, which I define as the ability to usually Make the correct Decision. About A product or a product feature.

1:09:53 Um Whether it's macro or micro. uh even in the face of very high ambiguity. Right. Uh and so so so when somebody is confronted with something like that, and that being a core part of their competence

1:10:09 Uh it is very confusing because like but how what step do I take here? Uh So that's where decomposition uh comes in very handy. Because you can look at almost any uh area of competence And you can decompose it. into its constituent elements.

1:10:29 All right. Uh and so so let's take uh in this case again, let's take uh product sense. Alright. Well, product sense, which is again the ability to make the correct product decision. This is by the why, by the way, like some people are really great at consistently building very good products. This is why some companies are very good at uh, you know, building products uh that resonate with their users. is because they really embody that product sense. Uh

1:10:54 in the work they do. Right. So well it turns out Product Sense has three components. Uh the first is cognitive empathy.

1:11:04 Which is do I understand how you think as a user, how Customers think how they approach situations, what will resonate for them or not, right? That is cognitive empathy. Second is domain knowledge, right? Do I understand enough about this domain

1:11:20 about the technology, about the market, about the competition, et cetera, et cetera. Uh such that I can make a decision uh that will differentiate us, uh such that uh, you know, I do understand regulation and the limitations of what we can get done, et cetera. Right. So that's kinda domain knowledge.

1:11:37 And then the third piece is creativity. And and and creativity. is about taking these two inputs, which is cognitive empathy and domain knowledge. and turning it into a concrete proposal for what we are going to build. So you can have the first two.

1:11:52 But if you don't have the creativity On your team. Uh then you can take all those inputs but you won't be able to convert those inputs into a compelling product proposal and a compelling UX. and a compelling go to market approach and a marketing approach and so on.

1:12:07 that will actually then resonate and, you know, lead to product success. So these are the three components of product sense. So now if I want to increase my competence, grow my competence systematically. Right. Uh it becomes much clearer how I do that, which is Okay, in order to grow my product sense, I need to

1:12:27 grow my uh cognitive empathy. I need to grow my domain knowledge. And I need to grow my creativity. Um now there are details of how you might do that. But the point is now you have um you know much more clarity on kind of this systematically growing your competence.

1:12:44 Um, one other tactic I'll share uh on this topic of systematic um Um Competence is You have to understand a lot of people think That um

1:12:56 No. At some point uh in their career, they reach a stage where they start making the assumption that the only way that they'll grow their competence is through projects they do at work. Which is hey, I'm clearly doing all this work. And I'm learning all these new things. Right, and that's growing my competence. And absolutely it is, no doubt whatsoever.

1:13:17 Uh but the challenge is that Some what I ask people to do instead uh of just being focused on learning from projects at work is Is you know, look you have hundred and sixty eight hour uh hours in a week, like you know Take some number of hours and call it your career time. And I don't care if it's thirty hours, forty hours, fifty hours, sixty hours, seventy, eighty, ninety whatever. You do you do you. You pick

1:13:39 Some number of hours in a week. Which is your career time. And your career time. certainly involves all the s time you spend on your work, on your projects at work. Right.

1:13:50 Uh but Let it not be hundred percent. Right. I want you to carve out five percent, ten percent Twenty percent of your career time. Uh and I want you to

1:14:01 Allocate that time. On learning Outside of your work projects. Right, and and this is something I personally did, uh, you know, like since the very early days uh of my career. And I found that what what happens is that kind of even if it's five percent.

1:14:19 Right, say five percent of fifty hours, right? So the in a week. So that's two and a half hours a week where I'm explicitly not learning. just from, you know, doing projects at work. And what that does Is that compounds like crazy over time? Right. And and the interesting part is some people say, Well, but I can't do it because I'm so busy at my work.

1:14:40 Right, I already like don't have enough time. uh to to do all the things I need to do. And now you're saying like Take two and a half hours less, or take three hours less. Uh but what

1:14:51 Вот they miss. Is that Those two and a half hour hours or three hours a week If you invest consistently will make you much more effective and efficient at the remainder of your project time.

1:15:06 Right. So you'll naturally just be able to do things. Uh you know, much faster and much better. In the time that you're spending on your projects. Uh and in fact will take you less time now to do uh you know, to have the same degree of impact. So

1:15:21 You know, of course, the last piece here is this requires you know, a mindset towards growth. This requires some degree of ambition. And this requires taking responsibility for one's own competence. And and so those are prerequisites, right? Without those mindset changes, none of what I said will actually be put in action or resonate with somebody.

1:15:41 Um, because if you are gonna say, Well, it's the organization's job to grow my competence Then sorry, it's not gonna happen. Shares this has been uh a fascinating conversation. We always end with the same question, which is what is success for you? Ooh, I love that question. Um Success.

1:15:59 I define as uh the optionality I have with my time. Uh and it took me a really long time to Um To really understand this well. Um Because I I was always very ambitious, uh, as an individual. And so I wanted to be very successful.

1:16:17 Um but when I achieved certain goals that I thought w you know work towards my success, I was still left uh a little Unsatisfied. Uh and so I kept looking for this kind of what is success for me. Uh and I finally cracked it in my very late thirties.

1:16:32 Uh, which is success for me is time optionality, but particularly Uh it's about Am I able to spend the time I want to spend? Uh on the top three things in my stack rank of my life priorities. And so I have about like a few things that are like, you know, buckets of my life priorities.

1:16:50 So one is career. Uh another is uh family Uh third is interest Fourth it might be friends, uh, fifth might be community. uh et cetera. Right. So like um

1:17:03 I kinda like to think about these buckets uh in terms of like a stack rank. So At this point in my life, what are the top three things in my stack rank? Right. And and that stack rank changes. Uh and then I like to evaluate, you know Am I able to spend the time I want to be spending on the top three things in my stack rank?

1:17:24 And if I am then I'm successful. And so by that metric, I wasn't really successful In my twenties or mid thirties, uh because I was not able to spend all the time I wanted to spend on the top three things in my stack rank.

1:17:38 Uh, but uh luckily now I am. Uh so I feel like I'm kind of uh successful. That's a great definition of success and I thank you for spending your time with us today. Thanks, Shane, for having me. It was uh really wonderful to chat uh and uh longtime listeners, so really, really happy uh and honored uh to have this conversation with you. Thanks for listening and learning with us. For a complete list of episodes, show notes.

1:18:21 Transcripts. And more. Go to fs dot blog slash podcast. Or just Google the Knowledge Project. Until next time.

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