Every once a while, I find myself out of ideas for the day’s post.
So, I inevitably find myself scrolling through my favorite feeds, going through my Feedly, and/or just clicking about hoping for some serendipitous inspiration.
It works from time to time.
Often enough for it to be something worth trying.
That’s until I remind myself that the solutions I seek are probably not out there.
Instead, they lie within.
I just need to remind myself to pause, take a deep breath, and think.
I’ve begun reading “The Socrates Express” by Eric Weiner.
Eric Weiner’s style is to take us on a journey around the world and make us smarter about something with a healthy dose of humor along the way. In this book, that something is philosophy. Every chapter in this book is thus about a famous philosopher and their contribution to philosophy.
At the end of a chapter about Socrates, he made an interesting observation. Nearly every great philosopher made their impact by sharing powerful observations about the world and the human condition. They had their own distinct style and approach to making these observations. Some did it with a lot of emotions, others with characteristic pessimism or self deprecation, and so on.
Socrates, however, was unique in only leaving behind a method. Socrates’ legacy isn’t about what he wrote. In fact, he wrote almost nothing. Everything we know about him is thanks to his student Plato,
His legacy, instead, is defined by his approach to thoughtful conversation – the “Socratic method” that relies on questions to spur critical thinking.
It is a powerful way to think about legacy. A legacy that is defined by the how instead of the what.
My notes for the day in the past four days came from one speech.
I wouldn’t have done this a few years back. I would have posted all four anecdotes in one day.
It is one speech after all. Why does it need four posts?
I’ve come to appreciate the importance of soaking in lessons. I could have shared all four stories in one post but I’d have forgotten about them just as quickly. By thinking about these lessons every day for four days, I’ve absorbed them better.
It can’t end here either. I need to re-tell these stories a few times to others and write about them some more. Assuming I do that, maybe, just maybe, I’ll remember them at a time when I need them.
Maybe I’ll remember that I shouldn’t get too upset about being a sugar cookie for the day or to sing when I’m up to my neck in mud.
And then maybe I’ll remember these stories again in a similar situation the next time. And again.
I will only have learnt these powerful lessons when they become part of how I operate. To learn and not to do is not to learn.
Soaking in them is a helpful first step in that process.
Today’s post is 4/4 in the series on Admiral McRaven’s wonderful commencement speech at UT Austin (click for part 1/4, 2/4, and 3/4).
Every day during training you were challenged with multiple physical events — long runs, long swims, obstacle courses, hours of calisthenics — something designed to test your mettle. Every event had standards — times you had to meet. If you failed to meet those standards your name was posted on a list, and at the end of the day those on the list were invited to a “circus.” A circus was two hours of additional calisthenics designed to wear you down, to break your spirit, to force you to quit.
No one wanted a circus.
A circus meant that for that day you didn’t measure up. A circus meant more fatigue — and more fatigue meant that the following day would be more difficult — and more circuses were likely. But at some time during SEAL training, everyone — everyone — made the circus list.
But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students — who did two hours of extra calisthenics — got stronger and stronger. The pain of the circuses built inner strength, built physical resiliency.
Life is filled with circuses. You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core.
But if you want to change the world, don’t be afraid of the circuses.
In each of these stories, Admiral McRaven refers to wanting to change the world. He had a nugget on that too.
“Tonight there are almost 8,000 students graduating from UT. That great paragon of analytical rigor, Ask.Com, says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime. That’s a lot of folks. But, if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people — and each one of those folks changed the lives of another 10 people — just 10 — then in five generations — 125 years — the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.
800 million people — think of it — over twice the population of the United States. Go one more generation and you can change the entire population of the world — eight billion people.”
Awesome speech. Thank you, Admiral McRaven, for putting together this masterpiece.
We’re onto post 3/4 in the series on Admiral McRaven’s wonderful speech (click for part 1/4 and 2/4)
The ninth week of training is referred to as “Hell Week.” It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment, and one special day at the Mud Flats. The Mud Flats are area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slues, a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.
It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors. As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some “egregious infraction of the rules” was ordered into the mud.
The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit — just five men — and we could get out of the oppressive cold. Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up — eight more hours of bone-chilling cold.
The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything. And then, one voice began to echo through the night, one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing. We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.
The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing but the singing persisted. And somehow the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.
If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person — Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan, Malala — one person can change the world by giving people hope.
So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in.
Another beautiful beautiful story from Admiral McRaven.
This story triggered a memory of a blog post from a few years ago where I’d observed something similar. When we’re stuck in shitty situations, it is easy to underestimate the power of some humor and cheer.
Small things can go a long way when we’re all up to our neck in mud.
Continuing from yesterday’s anecdote from Admiral McRaven’s excellent commencement speech, today’s post is another anecdote called “Sugar cookie.”
Several times a week, the instructors would line up the class and do a uniform inspection. It was exceptionally thorough. Your hat had to be perfectly starched, your uniform immaculately pressed and your belt buckle shiny and void of any smudges. But it seemed that no matter how much effort you put into starching your hat, or pressing your uniform or polishing your belt buckle — it just wasn’t good enough. The instructors would find “something” wrong.
For failing the uniform inspection, the student had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand. The effect was known as a “sugar cookie.” You stayed in that uniform the rest of the day — cold, wet and sandy.
There were many a student who just couldn’t accept the fact that all their effort was in vain. That no matter how hard they tried to get the uniform right, it was unappreciated. Those students didn’t make it through training. Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform.
Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie. It’s just the way life is sometimes.
If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward.
Powerful idea. Beautifully articulated.
I came across an awesome commencement speech by Admiral William McRaven titled “Make Your Bed.” He shared 10 lessons he learnt from his SEAL training. There were a few anecdotes that resonated deeply. I thought I’d start with this one.
Over a few weeks of difficult training my SEAL class, which started with 150 men, was down to just 35. There were now six boat crews of seven men each. I was in the boat with the tall guys, but the best boat crew we had was made up of the the little guys — the munchkin crew we called them — no one was over about five-foot-five.
The munchkin boat crew had one American Indian, one African American, one Polish American, one Greek American, one Italian American, and two tough kids from the midwest. They out-paddled, out-ran and out-swam all the other boat crews. The big men in the other boat crews would always make good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny little feet prior to every swim. But somehow these little guys, from every corner of the nation and the world, always had the last laugh — swimming faster than everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us.
SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status.
If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not the size of their flippers.
Word.
A note for new subscribers: This post is part of a series on my notes on technology product management (this is what I do for a living). You might notice that these posts often link to older posts in the series on LinkedIn even though they are all available on this blog. That is intended for folks who only want to follow future product management related posts. Finally, for all those of you who don’t build tech products for a living, I believe many of these notes have broader applicability. And, I hope you find that to be the case as well…
Overview of what we’ve covered on “Notes on Product Management” so far:
– Overall: The PM Role, The 4 key skills, Remote + Pandemic PM, 5 Decision Making frameworks/heuristics, Problem finding/solving with executives, 5 habits – high velocity product teams, Getting in – I
– Skill #1 – Problem finding: Most important skill, Problem statement and hypothesis, Building Strategy, Validating problem statements and hypotheses
– Skill #2 – Selling: Sales and Marketing, Writing for executive audiences
– Skill #3 – Problem Solving: Roadmap, Product specs
– Skill #4 – Building effective teams: Knowing thyself, Your manager, Product team culture
We covered the paths into product management in last week’s post. This week, we’re going to focus on improving our chances when we get the interview.
The 4 interviews
We’re going to focus on the 4 main interviews – (1) Product sense, (2) Product strategy / analytical ability, (3) Product execution, and (4) Behavioral
These aren’t the only interviews. Some companies and roles may have other variants and some may combine interviews – e.g. Product strategy + execution. But, these 4 elements tend to be tested.
These map in the following way to the 4 skills we’ve been covering in past editions.
(1) Product sense:
The product sense interview is the most important interview of them all. Nailing the product sense interview doesn’t get you the job – but, it gets you close. Messing this up, on the other hand, guarantees rejection.
How to prepare: I’ve written multiple posts about problem statements – so I won’t belabor the process. But, the short answer here is – develop a habit of working through the fundamentals every time you see a product.
Once you cover these, you can begin to approach the solution space –
– The Test: How would you structure a lightweight test to see if our hypothesis lead us to the success metrics?
– Risks: Are there any key risks you need to call out? (think: technical challenges, go-to-market investment, etc.)
In the heat of the moment, it is tempting to rush into finding a solution. But, doing this well consistently requires us to be rigorous about thinking problem-first. So, the best way to prepare is to keep practicing this with problem statement teardowns. Do this for all kinds of products
– Products you love
– Products you don’t like
– Physical products
– Products in companies you are interested in interviewing for
Work through this for at least 20 products and write or type your answers. Over time, it’ll become second nature.
Where candidates stumble:
– Jumping into the solution space too quickly. This is the most common area where candidates stumble.
– Business problem focused. Prioritizing business problems instead of user or customer problems never ends well.
– Ignore large risks and technical challenges. E.g. If you have a problem that involves thinking about a live video solution, you better be thinking about challenges like technical infrastructure and content moderation.
(2) Product strategy / analytical ability
The product strategy test is more prevalent as the role gets senior while more junior candidates are tested on analytical ability. As is the case with problem finding focused interviews, these are important to get right. And, getting these right isn’t about getting to a “right answer.” It is a matter of pausing to understand the problem we’re solving and structuring our approach to the solution.
How to prepare: There are 2 common variants of questions:
(i) How should we grow? (e.g. should we acquire xyz, should we build abc, etc.?)
All tech companies grow via 3 ways – a) build, b) buy, and c) partner. It helps to start here and work through the costs and benefits of each of these options before focusing on the most promising option.
ii) How would you diagnose this problem? (e.g. engagement is down today/we need to grow revenues/our onboarding flow is not leading to retained users – what would you do?)
The key in any diagnosis problem is to construct the equation. There is always an equation. Here are 3 revenue focused example equations.
You can also map out similar equations for engagement or retention. Needless to say, make sure you map out the key equations for the company/role you are interviewing for.
It is also important to work through 10-15 estimates with real numbers – i.e., do some old fashioned multiplication and division. There is always a possibility you will meet an interviewer who’d like to test your ability to guesstimate – particularly in growth focused roles.
Where candidates stumble:
(3) Product execution:
This tends to be a relatively easy interview for folks who have good past experiences. It is correspondingly hard when you’re trying to break in. The simplest way to do well here is to take on a product side project before you interview as it’ll help you have some stories to talk about (we’ll get to this below).
How to prepare: There are a sequence of steps involved with building a product that raise questions.
(Note: We haven’t covered b), c), and d) as yet on this newsletter – more to follow in future editions)
Where candidates stumble:
– Naïve about alignment and conflict. They either miss it or back themselves into a hole by refusing to think about aligning incentives and getting executives involved if it isn’t working.
– Ignore go-to-market. “Build it and they will come” rarely works.
– Ux miss. Complete absence of thinking about user experience details when designing a screen.
(4) Behavioral/leading teams + selling
This interview is standard. They tend to help make the yes/no decision on candidates assuming they’ve passed the above interviews. I think these interviews are a big opportunity if you’re looking to break into product management as they give you the opportunity to shape your narrative in the minds of the interviewers. You can move them from describing you as “that data scientist candidate” to the “candidate who loves building community products.”
How to prepare:
i) Meeting the bar:
– Create a compelling self introduction: You know they are going to ask you to “tell me about yourself” – prepare a compelling self introduction in ~2.5 mins that beautifully brings together a) your why, b) your progression and what you’ve learnt, and c) why you’d be a great fit by showing you have the skills required.
– Nail 5 key stories with the help of a behavioral matrix: Start by building a behavioral matrix where the rows are key stories/experiences and the columns are areas you believe you’ll be tested. These vary by company – but, they typically involve some combination of leadership, influence, communication, and the company’s values/principles. For example, if you’re interviewing at Amazon, you need to make sure your stories map with the key leadership principles. Once you make your list, write each story out in detail (use the STARL framework to structure your thoughts – situation, task, action, result, learning) and pick 5 key stories that you practice until they flow naturally.
– Ask thoughtful questions: The Firstround blog had a recent post detailing ways to approach this. The key here is to be thoughtful about the questions you ask. I have, for example, always asked my interviewers for feedback on how I did and any advice they have for me. These are authentic to me as they flow from how much I value learning and I’ve been fortunate to receive candid responses on both of these nearly every time.
ii) Exceeding expectations:
– Go in with a clear strategy: When interviewers debrief, they’re going to be describing you with 1-3 words or phrases. Be intentional about what those should be and make sure it keeps coming across in your interview processes.
– Don’t just tell them what you did – explain your thought process: The expectation in a behavioral interview is that you’ll answer the question. But, you can exceed expectations by explaining how you’d approach such situations. For example, “Tell me about a time when you dealt with conflict” could be answered with a situation. But, if you started with a line that went something like – “When I find myself dealing with conflict, I focus on doing 3 things – understanding the other person’s point-of-view, having a direct conversation, and then escalating to an executive so we make the right decision for the company. I did this recently when….” This clearly gets to the point of the behavioral interview – to understand how you’d deal with challenges on the job and highlights your structure and thought.
Where people stumble:
– Ramble without a sense of time. This is the most common offense. I’ve occasionally stopped folks from continuing a self introduction that was approaching 10 minutes.
– Vague about their role. A simple rule – tell your interviewers about what YOU did in a situation. Candidates who couch their answers in “we” don’t inspire confidence.
– No structure. It helps to be structured and precise in your answers. This isn’t as much a red flag in junior roles as this is a learned skill. However, an absence of this becomes costly as the role becomes more senior.
Now that we’ve worked through the details of the interview process, I’d like to leave you with 3 things that help when you’re attempting to break into product management:
i) A product management side project: There are 3 variants of this stacked in priority order:
a) PM project in your company: These aren’t easy to come by and require finding existing PMs who are able to find a spot + are willing to take a bet on you. The best opportunities tend to be those that folks tend to avoid. Find the most unappetizing edges of the product or customer experience – bonus points if you can contribute to these with your existing skills. Your PM partners will be happy to have your help and you get an awesome opportunity to learn and potentially have an impact.
As an example, my first PM project was going through thousands of apps as we began beta testing our LinkedIn Audience Network, categorizing them, and surfacing them to our leadership to make decisions on our approach to quality. Totally unappetizing for most – perfect for me to get my foot in the door. :-)
b) Build an app or website: This is the next best option. Build an app yourself or find friends who are willing to go through the process of building something useful. The biggest benefit of this approach, if you don’t have a technical background, is that you’ll get an education in technical basics. Think through decisions like – What cloud vendor will you use and why?, what language will you build the app in?, are you going to set up a NoSQL database?, what should the database structure be?, what APIs will you use?, etc.
c) Write: If none of these are possible, consider writing. Do problem statement and user experience teardowns on a blog. Your audience need not be anyone beyond your mom or spouse. Just attempt to teach someone – it will clarify your thinking.
ii) Think in 5 year horizons – don’t fall into “I want the dream role now” trap
Most fellow prospective PMs are trying to get their dream role in that dream consumer tech companies. Do the opposite. Start by getting in – find niche areas where you can add value, get into lesser known companies, or find roles in the product team in companies you care about. Then, find ways to keep moving toward that dream job.
This is especially true if you are limited by immigration system problems. You may have to prioritize immigration until you have stability and make suboptimal choices. That’s okay.
It is a marathon. And, the only person we compete with is ourselves.
iii) Prepare hard and remember there are 26 years letters in the alphabet
When you attempt to break in, you get very few shots. This is especially true if you are limited by your immigration situation. So, the best approach is to prepare hard and aim to leave little to chance. Here’s an approach to structuring your preparation that I recommend –
– Start with 10%-20% of prep focused on an overview of the different interviews and how you plan to approach them
– Do 2 mock interviews with the toughest interviewers you can find – this will help you calibrate and understand where you need to put in extra effort
– Next, go into preparation mode and get yourself to 80%-90%
– Do another 5-6 mock interviews and re-calibrate
– Then, work your way to 100% prep / confidence
Ask for plenty of help (you can pay it forward later) and ask around for folks who are tough interviewers. You’ll learn the most from these interviews.
Finally, even if you leave nothing to chance, there’s going to be plenty of chance involved. But, this is when we need to remember that there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Keep at it.
The path isn’t linear.
And, you only need one to work out.
I hope this helps. All the best!
I made a couple of dumb mistakes over the weekend.
These were largely inconsequential mistakes – the kind that I won’t remember in a few years.
But, that didn’t stop me from kicking myself and feeling frustrated when I thought of them.
Why was that?
Perhaps I was falling prey to over-estimating the current moment.
Or perhaps my ego was hurt at my displays of obvious stupidity.
Or perhaps I simply expected better of myself.
Or perhaps it was a combination of these and a few other reasons.
Regardless of these reasons, there was also the fact that all the self-kicking + frustration accomplished nothing.
It was all wasted energy.
I knew this when it happened. It didn’t stop me from doing it wrong though.
To know and not to do is not to learn.
Much to learn I have.
Growing up in South India, summer fruits always had a place in my heart.
Mangoes were always special. Watermelons were a highlight in the scorching heat. And, watermelon juice was thus a treat. So was lemon juice – with a pinch of salt – after a game outside. Nature’s gatorade.
Since we moved to the United States, we’ve added other summer fruits to our list – blueberries and grapes have been climbing up the list.
But, my favorite new discovery over the past couple of years has been a new fall fruit I’ve come to love – persimmons. As wonderful as mangoes and watermelons are, eating either requires a fair bit of effort.
Persimmons, on the other hand, can be eaten as easily as an apple – but are (arguably) much tastier. They have the right amount of firmness and are filling.
So, I’m feeling especially grateful for persimmons today. They make fall extra special.
A Learning a Day 