A product and leadership coach, Randy Silver is one of the true weavers of the global product community. He’s the co-host and founder of The Product Experience podcast, runs the Product in the {A}ether meetup, and wrote “What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of Crisis.” Prior to all that, Randy spent years in the trenches as a head of product roles. In this conversation, we discuss:
how to diagnose new stakeholder relationships
the perception issues that can undercut your product team
how to think about making better decisions faster
balancing authority and influence
leveling up our ability to collaborate under revenue pressure
Enjoy!
Topics discussed
(04:00) Moving from a journalistic editor to product editor
(07:34) Parallels between product management film production
(09:53) Missed opportunities & the need for collaboration
(15:21) Alignment with stakeholders
(18:24) Sales misalignment and restructures
(21:10) Diagnosing teamwork challenges with partners
(25:02) Diagnosing your new org via informational interviews
(28:05) Creating a manager README
(30:11) Roles and responsibilities convo for better understanding
(35:19) Guiding conversations and change
(44:22) Did reorganization at Airbnb address strategy misalignment?
(46:18) Defensive reaction within product community to Airbnb
(52:14) Coordinating while scaling
Links & resources mentioned
Find the full transcript at: https://podcast.makethingsthatmatter.com/randy-silver-conversations-create-impact#transcript
Send episode feedback on Twitter @askotzko , or via email
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Related episodes:
#44 Teresa Torres: Habits for clear thinking and better product bets
#3 Christina Wodtke: Unleashing potential with extraordinary teams
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People & orgs:
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Books:
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Other resources:
Manager README: The Indispensable Document for the Modern Manager
