Podcast

Teresa Torres is one of the top product coaches in the world, and one of the people who has most impacted how I think about creating and bringing things into the world. She teaches a structured and sustainable approach to creative work that infuses decisions with customer input, and has coached hundreds of teams of all sizes around the world. She is also the author of the newly-released book, “Continuous Discovery Habits,” which I think of as the missing operator’s manual for product teams and more broadly, I actually consider a must-read for anyone doing creative work.

I say that because the the framework we discuss in this conversation isn’t really about products at all: it’s about critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving in a world that’s always changing and irreducibly complex. And the genius of Teresa’s approach is that it is a simple set of habits that you can adopt in your work to increase the odds your bets pay off.

We talk about all things product discovery, how to increase your sense of agency and overcome obstacles to being more creative, career strategy, and how to balance the unsolvable, built-in tensions that are inherent in all creative work.

It’s a privilege to bring you Teresa Torres.

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Courtney Bigony is the Director of People Science at 15Five and the creator of Positive Product Design, which is a methodology to align tech products with the latest science of human thriving. She studied with the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, and holds a Master of Applied Positive Psychology degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She was named a 2019 Workforce Game Changer by Workforce Magazine, and has contributed pieces featured in Forbes and Huffington Post.

I have been eagerly waiting for months to release this episode and I am so excited to bring this to you. We go deep on Positive Product Design, which was just named a finalist in Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas. In addition to that, we go deep on positive psychology and how to use it as a foundation for a fulfilling career, discuss how to craft your work around your values passions and interests, and geek out on a bunch of books that you are definitely going to want to add to your reading list.

Please enjoy learning with Courtney Bigony.

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In this episode, I share a simple mental model, ARM, for thinking about crafting fulfilling work that has emerged over many conversations in the last eighteen months.

The ARM model is a mental model to help you intentionally craft a more fulfilling job and career.

I get really fired up about career-related topics, because I really care about seeing a world of people that are fully alive. And work is a huge factor in crafting a life that makes you feel fully alive. So getting this area of your life to be a source of energy, meaning, and positive emotion is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

This is the first time I’ve talked about this model, and I’m curious to hear feedback, suggestions, disagreements, etc. Feel free to let me know via email or on Twitter!

Update: I’ve now released a follow-up episode answering four questions about the model that have come up since this episode was released. Check it out here.

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This conversation features Barry Brown, a dear friend and mentor. He’s one of those people I feel really, really grateful to have in my life. Barry helps leaders all over the world be more of who they are, and be more effective in bringing forth the contribution they seek to make in the world.

Barry is someone I call a “shaper of shapers,” and by the end of this conversation, you’ll understand why.

We dive right into the deep end about what it means to be a grounded, humble leader, and what it means to embrace the limits within our work as a pathway to our individual and collective evolution. We also discuss how to bring a craftsman mindset to your work.

For longtime listeners of the show, you may recognize Barry’s name! This conversation was one of the first episodes I released, back when this podcast was but a twinkle in the eye. And, for a bit of trivia, it was actually the first interview I ever recorded for the show. So this is as OG as it gets here. I’m republishing this conversation, because the show has grown a lot since this early interview, and I think this conversation deserves more love. I’ll do this once in awhile, to highlight an episode and feature it to all the people who weren’t yet listening to the show back when it first dropped!

So with all of that, please enjoy Barry Brown.

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Eric Steege is an energetic product leader with over a decade of experience leading large-scale innovation-focused product teams.

With what I think might be a perfect background for a product leader, Eric actually started his career as a pro soccer player and then a Division 1 college soccer coach with a masters in sports psychology! He’s been a founder and product director as well, and currently works at Amazon AWS, building the world’s largest community of product management and innovation consultants. Basically, his teams help other companies adopt Amazon’s secret sauce for building new products and businesses. He’s deep

This conversation goes into an area that I’m really interested to explore more deeply, which is about how to approach culture building. We riff a lot here, exploring different ideas around how to approach your culture like a product.

Please enjoy learning with Eric Steege.

Enjoy!

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Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management consultancy, and the author of “Escaping the Build Trap” which is one of my favorite books on product.

She’s the creator of the online school Product Institute, where she has shared her scientific approach to Product Management with over 3500 students and since 2019, she’s taught on the faculty of Harvard Business School.

In this conversation, we discuss the “missing middle” layer in organizations, how to create and maintain a product strategy, how to assess whether you want to work with a company, product operations, and much more.

After you listen to this, check out Melissa’s new podcast, Product Thinking, which launched after we recorded (link in show notes below).

Enjoy!

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Sarah Avenir is a full-hearted leader who models the strength of vulnerability in her experiments with creating sustainable businesses that are good for people and sharing her journey on the way. She is the CEO of Andyet, a people-first growth and creative web consultancy founded in 2008, and is the author of Gather the People, a book I really appreciated in which she introduced the world to a deep-not-wide marketing theory built on genuine vulnerability and authenticity.

I really enjoyed this conversation exploring people-first growth and bridging the gap between authenticity, spirituality, and leadership. I hope it inspires you to step into the next level of your leadership with a full, open heart, as it did for me.

Please enjoy Sarah Avenir.

Enjoy!

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C Todd Lombardo is a data and design obsessed product leader, currently the VP of Product and Design at MachineMetrics. He’s a mentor at TechStars, a global speaker and consultant on all things product design and customer experience, and is also on the faculty at Madrid’s I.E. Business School, and Baltimore’s Maryland Institute College of Art where he teaches graduate level courses in design, innovation, and data visualization.

And because he’s obviously bored and looking for more interesting things to do, C Todd has also co-authored three books published by O’Reilly, with his most recent book being Product Research Rules which is one of my new favorite guides to thinking about product research.

This is a fun conversation that really explores how to think about the questions that we all are asking — often unconsciously — that shape our lives and work. Talking with C Todd made me a better listener, thinker, and question-asker, and I think it’ll do the same for you.

Please enjoy C Todd Lombardo.

Enjoy!

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Michael O’Bryan is on a quest to transform the way organizations understand and support human development, interaction, and performance. An expert in the fields of community development, organizational culture, and human wellbeing, he’s spent more than a decade working directly with resilient yet underserved populations, including veterans, adults in recovery, returning citizens, and families experiencing homelessness. 

Michael lives at the intersection of arts and the social sciences, speaking, teaching, and consulting nationwide in his quest to transform the way organizations understand and support human development, interaction, and performance. 

This conversation explores the science of our humanity, and how understanding those mechanics gives us a chance to create systems that lift up all of us instead of just some of us. I hope it pushes you to think about creating truly humane systems wherever you go, as it did for me.

Enjoy!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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Dianne Frommelt is the Chief Product Officer for 15Five, a company I am a longtime fan of. They’re on a mission to create high performing, highly engaged teams, and to create a product that helps everyone who uses it to be and become their best selves.

In this conversation, we go deep on the types of practices that can infuse your values into your team’s rhythms. We talk about what it looks like to craft a strategy and navigate roadmapping conversations, outcomes thinking, how to approach taking on leadership of an existing team rather than one you get to build from scratch, and much more.

And if nothing else, you’ll walk away from this episode with a great set of practices to try that will help you and those you work with feel much more connected and have deeper, more trusting relationships with each other.

Enjoy!

And if you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give me a little feedback via this SurveyMonkey link. (It only takes one minute.)

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