Product at Heart 2023 Leadership Forum: Key Learnings and Takeaways
As a product leader, you have a lot of forces vying for your time and energy. It can be hard to get an hour to yourself, let alone a half-day block. But taking time away from your daily demands can help you gain perspective and return to your work with renewed purpose, which is why we’ve organized the Leadership Forum in addition to the main Product at Heart conference. The Leadership Forum creates a safe space where senior product leaders can connect with their peers, share their challenges, and hone their leadership skills.
Whether you were one of the 60 product leads who joined us live at the Katholische Akademie on June 28, 2023—or you’re just curious to hear what we covered—we’ll share a few of the key highlights and takeaways here.
But first, lunch
What’s a business meeting without refreshments? Not any meeting we’d like to attend, anyway! We kicked the day off with a lovely lunch at Restaurant Rialto, giving participants the chance to fuel their bodies and connect with other attendees. The room was buzzing as product leads shared their stories, successes, and challenges, setting the tone for all the open dialogue that would follow in the afternoon sessions. Before we knew it, we were being gently reminded that it was time to promptly finish our cappuccinos and head to the Katholische Akademie to get started with the official programming.
Practice listening and reframing negative thoughts
The world around us is filled with noise. And somehow we’re more attentive to that noise than we are to the people around us. But as a leader, you need to learn to overcome that noise so you can support your team both personally and professionally.
After getting our attention with some cat gifs (the type of noise we’ve been trained to notice), co-facilitators Shaun Russell and Emilie Lindström led us in several interactive exercises in their workshop, “Thinking Beyond and Listening for More.” We partnered up and took turns as “the thinker” and “the listener.” Being the thinker gave us the opportunity to see what it feels like to speak through a problem until you’ve reached an idea for an outcome or exhausted all possibilities, while being the listener allowed us to practice genuinely listening without interrupting or analyzing. It was a powerful experience—how often do you get someone’s undivided attention? It’s surprisingly rare!
In the next phase of the workshop, we practiced radical reframing. This exercise involved generating assumptions and then examining them to determine whether they were facts (something that’s true in the world), possible facts (something we believe but have not confirmed), or bedrock assumptions (deep-seated beliefs that are difficult to change). After determining which assumptions were the most powerful (and therefore the most dangerous), we practiced reframing them by considering the opposite point of view or coming up with solutions. For example, if you’ve identified the assumption, “My colleagues don’t like me because I’m too blunt,” you could put a positive spin on it and reframe it as, “My colleagues really value that I’m honest and upfront with them.”
If you haven’t gone through this exercise yet, it’s definitely worth giving it a try, whether it’s with the people you’re managing, in a group setting where people are getting stuck, or even on yourself. Don’t get discouraged if you find it hard to believe the reframing you’ve generated. “It’s not so much about believing the reframing, but asking yourself what you would do if it was possible,” said Emilie.
Understand your context and observe the 3 pillars of mindful leadership
With our newly developed listening skills, we were ready to give our full attention to Sam McAfee’s session, “Maintaining a Product Mindset During Challenging Times.” Sam began with a quick overview of the challenging times we’re in: there’s economic uncertainty, layoffs and tight budgets, and employees who are seeking purpose and meaning in their work and won’t accept the status quo. All these factors make the leader’s job even more difficult—you need to do more with less and help your team navigate confusing market and organizational conditions.
To put our current struggles in context, Sam shared a brief history of work. Three major changes created our current working world: 1) the industrial revolution, which generated a market for labor, 2) Frederick Winslow Taylor, who separated thinking from doing, creating the concept of “managers,” and 3) the separation of ownership from operations. Each of these changes created a larger rift between individual people, their work, and ownership. And they’re why many companies struggle to create better outcomes for their customers.
As a leader, you have an opportunity to influence those around you, and this might eventually include your entire organization. Sam shared three pillars of mindful leadership to help: 1) grounding yourself, 2) expressing empathy, and 3) tipping the organization. Grounding yourself involves observing your thinking and taking care of your physical self (getting enough sleep, exercise, and nourishing food while limiting stress). These habits create a solid foundation that will allow you to learn new things. Expressing empathy is the most important leadership skill, and it leads to improvements in productivity, innovation, morale, and retention. Finally, tipping the organization refers to the concept of “the tipping point” (popularized in the book of the same name by Malcom Gladwell). You only need about 15% of a population to be on board in order to make a change, said Sam, so focus on your early adopters. Also keep in mind that influence may spread in a way that doesn’t match your org chart. Be aware of this and use this knowledge to your advantage.
Sam concluded by reminding us that organizations aren’t real—they’re constructs that we’ve made up. At the same time, the feelings we have are real. “We’re all reading off each other all the time. But a lot of us aren’t aware of the messages we’re giving off,” said Sam. “We can’t control others, but we can learn to control our own reactions and that has a positive effect on those around us.”
Make it as easy as possible for your teams to pursue product discovery
Many of our problems can be traced back to a disconnect between the teams building the products and the customers or users they’re serving (or a lack of alignment between product and business outcomes). And the best way to overcome this disconnect is to engage in discovery, establishing regular communication between customers and product teams.
In the final session of the day, Product at Heart co-organizer Petra Wille invited Teresa Torres on stage to discuss the state of product discovery in 2023 and the impact product leads can have on their company’s discovery culture. After kicking off the conversation with a few general questions, Petra opened the floor to the audience so Teresa could address their specific concerns.
Teresa said that one of the common hurdles she sees is teams outside product can get protective over customers and want to prevent product teams from talking to them. The way to overcome this is to reinforce the idea that interviewing customers is just one human talking to another human. The goal of these conversations is simply to learn more about customers and what they’re trying to achieve.
Another common challenge is the desire to separate discovery from delivery. Especially when teams are first adopting discovery habits, they often want to gather as much research as they can before making decisions about what to build. Teresa emphasized the importance of engaging in both discovery and delivery on a continuous cadence.
Finally, Teresa highlighted the responsibility leaders have to set the strategic context for their teams without telling them exactly what to do. This is a balance that’s hard to achieve. “Leaders do define strategic context, but we underestimate how much we have to communicate it, how often and in what forms, and how to make this really clear for our teams. This is going to unlock their ability to work on their own.”
A special surprise—and cheers to new connections
As a special surprise for attendees, Christina Wodtke sent along copies of her books and set up a meet and greet station. Now the learning can continue even after the event is over. With their freshly autographed books and a glass of wine in hand, attendees headed to the balcony to take in the panoramic views of Hamburg and enjoy conversations with their new connections.
Bonus: Attendees share their highlights and stories
The value of the Leadership Forum isn’t limited to what happens on stage. Attendees appreciated the opportunity to exchange ideas and share their challenges with each other. Here’s how some of them described their experiences on social media.
“A valuable takeaway from this day is to find the magic between continuous product discovery and delivery, by providing value to both the customers and the business.” – Julie Kamel
“@loomista and @ttorres on fire during the fireside chat at @ProductAtHeart_ 🔥 Loving it.” – Dominic Grzbielok
“‘Thinking beyond, listening for more.’ This was the title of Emilie Lindström and Shaun Russell’s interactive workshop at the #productatheart leadership event yesterday. It is also a good summary of the day itself. Exchanging with peers about how product management will evolve, why we are where we are, and listening to each other's stories and advice.” – Sandra Hinz
“The three things I liked the most: 1. Meeting with 60 exceptional product leaders and chatting about all things product. 2. The interactive workshop by Emilie Lindström and Shaun Russell who managed to make me think deeply about my limiting assumptions and helped me reframe those. I’m still deeply moved by the insights from that session. 3. Meeting two of my personal heroes in the product sphere, Teresa Torres and Christina Wodtke, to learn that they are not only fantastic authors, speakers and thought leaders, but also exceptionally personable people.” – Tobias Freudenreich
Explore the event in your favorite format
Are you more of a visual person? Check out the video recap of the event or browse through the full photo album on Flickr.
Of course, this post only scratches the surface of all the inspiring content from the Product at Heart 2023 Leadership Forum. If you’d like to dig into any of these topics in more detail (and we highly encourage you to do so!), we’ll be sharing more detailed recaps of each session along with video recordings on our blog and in the video archive in the coming months. Watch this space or follow us on social media for more updates!
