Many years ago, I started pondering this question. What makes a high performing product team? What can I learn about this and how do I apply my findings in practice? The theory is pretty simple: Build something both customers and your organization value, do it with a great team. But the practice of this isContinue reading “So you want a high performing product team?”
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Vulnerability – a key skill for product leaders
It takes a healthy dose of courage and self-awareness to be ok with vulnerability. To become aware of how it affects your relationships and to start consciously using it to improve your working relationships. It took me quite a few loops to become aware, start experimenting with it and start learning how vulnerability turns intoContinue reading “Vulnerability – a key skill for product leaders”
How to make difficult product decisions with more clarity?
One of the key skills any product person (or leader) has to master is making decisions. There is likely not going to be a single day in the life of a product person where we’re not asked to make at least 30-50 decisions. They could be simple things like reviewing the request pipeline from theContinue reading “How to make difficult product decisions with more clarity?”
Women are natural leaders – we just don’t think of ourselves as leaders
If you follow what is going on with any of the latest research on what creates innovation and thriving teams, you’ll quickly understand that there are a lot of leadership principles and values at play that simply come natural to women: The only thing women often don’t bring is the confidence that they are andContinue reading “Women are natural leaders – we just don’t think of ourselves as leaders”
Building a sense of interconnection into a team
We all know that sense of shared experience when we sit around a campfire with a group of people. Teams are also made of multiple people coming together to jointly go after a specific goal. And very often new teams struggle to figure out how to actually arrive at a sense of “we” as aContinue reading “Building a sense of interconnection into a team”
Powerful questions about leadership
When we learn something new, we are best set up to retain information and create new habits, when we are following one of our own interests. The latest research from neuroscience shows how our brain literally shapes itself following what we put our mind to, what emotions are present, and how we move our body.Continue reading “Powerful questions about leadership”
Agile makes sick
“Agile makes sick” was the provocative title of one of the sessions I joined at the Agile Cologne open space a few weeks ago. Obviously the session title was meant to provoke. Obviously the person bringing the topic deeply valued agile ways of working in principle. And yet: he had good examples of people whoContinue reading “Agile makes sick”
Psychological safety does not magically feel good
Many of us have read the research by Google on psychological safety as a signifier of high performing teams. And many organizations, team leaders and team members would love it, if we could simply turn a switch and voilà, our team has psychological safety. So why is it so hard to get psychological safety bakedContinue reading “Psychological safety does not magically feel good”
Emotions in Leadership
Whether we like it or not, and however much we’d like to think of ourselves as rational human beings, we are living in bodies that have strong ties to their emotions. And if we are leading a team of other human beings, we are not only connected to them through rational thought (think goals, projects,Continue reading “Emotions in Leadership”
The role of interconnectedness in product work
“What makes an excellent product manager?” was a question I was recently asked while speaking to somebody who is currently working remote in a product role. One of my favorite responses to this is how Marty Cagan describes the role of a product manager as being in charge of “discovering solutions that are valuable, usable,Continue reading “The role of interconnectedness in product work”
Inclusive Leaders 