YouSaid · the spoken record

Ken Norton

lines on the record: 65
first: 2022-07-24
most recent: 2022-07-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“That was awesome. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the chat, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast, and even better, leave a review which helps a lot. You can also learn more at Lenny'spodcast.com. I'll see you in the next episode”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amazing. Ken, this was such a special episode unlike any other podcast that I've had so far. I can't wait for people to listen to it before I let you go. Where can folks find you online if they want to reach out, learn more? And then how can listeners be helpful to you?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Those are really good questions. I'm going to steal them. Final question Who else in the industry do you respect as a thought leader? Imagine this list is very long, but what comes to mind? Well, this”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round where I'm going to ask you a few questions and whatever comes to mind. Just give me an answer, and that's it. Very simple. Does that sound good?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, cool So here's the question just to keep it simple What's one piece of advice that you would give people trying to hire a product manager? What's like the thing that Think is most maybe missed or useful.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Awesome. Very helpful. Next question is around I think your most popular post that you've ever written and maybe the thing that kind of puts you on the radar of writing is around how to hire a product manager. And maybe this is where you mentioned donuts the first time. Is that right or no?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you have any rules of thumb of like how many of your ideas slash resources should go into these big ideas versus incremental 10% bets? Or is the general advice just like people aren't thinking big enough often enough? So you should always think a little bit bigger than you naturally will.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now I don't have to write it. And I love to just hear general your kind of general take on what this idea is and how to think about 10x versus 10% bets.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Amazing. That was very tactically helpful, and I really appreciate all those resources, and we'll definitely link to all that in the description. I have just a couple questions I wanted to ask you outside of coaching around some of your posts that you've written before we get to our exciting lightning round. One is around this idea of 10x versus 10%. So you wrote this post about the importance of thinking 10x versus 10%. And I was like, oh, this is going to be great. And then I googled. Oh, Ken's already written about it. So I'm glad that you have written about it and written about it so well. Great.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One last question about coaching. For folks that want to find a coach, do you have any advice of just like how to find a coach? And then what questions can you, what are like a couple questions you can ask to evaluate if they're a good fit for you?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Another inner critic tactic. I've heard that I kind of used for a bit that was helpful is to give your inner critic a name, like Jim. And you me like, Jim, not right now. I don't need you right now. Yeah. That kind of helps.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Speaking of difficult and squishy, I'm guessing that one of the biggest challenges that people you work with face and one of the most recurring themes is imposter syndrome, people having imposter syndrome. Something definitely I went through, and it comes up a lot on this podcast. What usually advise your clients to do when they're feeling imposter syndrome?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the reason people don't do that work is because it's so hard. It's difficult conversations or difficult. And we talked about this with Shreas, but just like it's a rule of thumb, the thing that is hard is probably the thing you should be doing. It's like a compass pointing you to the thing you should do.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Awesome. We will link to all those in the description of this podcast so folks don't have to google around. I have a couple more coaching questions before we move on to a few other topics. One is just what are you finding are the most common blind spots for product people in general? Like how are people shooting themselves in the foot most?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Resources that you love for either the values work or learning these questions to ask yourself. We can put them in the show notes if nothing comes to mind immediately, but is there something you would recommend people check out?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A demo or to try their free sandbox that's unit.co Lenny. Someone that wants to do the sort of work but can't find a coach can't afford a coach, is there something people can do on their own that you'd recommend to help them kind of shift their mindset and do a lot of these things that you've been describing?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
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2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That are just looking for actual concrete advice on how to do a thing. Is that right versus coaching? I think so. And, you know, this is where the words are squishy because there are a lot of people who are mentoring who are also stepping into a coach role occasionally. There are plenty of managers who are great at coaching as necessary. So the sort of skills run the gamut, but it's a question of how much are you looking for someone to tell you the right way versus how much do you believe that there even is no right way. It's ultimately going to have to be your way. And that's a different place, a different point in your career, different levels of journey. It's part of why I tend to work with probably more senior executives because they don't looking to me to tell them how to do the job. They've already learned how to do the job. It's just something deeper that's going to need to break through from that.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the journey is different for everyone. And I think ultimately this is part of why, quite frankly, coaching may not be right for everyone, right? It may be, you know, if we go back to that video game analogy, if you're looking for someone to just teach you the tutorial so you can learn how to play the video game and there's this jackass like me saying next to you and saying, what's important to you about playing this video game? You're going to be like, just how, can you tell me how to hold the controller? Can you stop? So it's not always right. It's a place where I think oftentimes people recognize that they've gotten all advice, all the frameworks, all the rules, all the tricks, all the tips. They've learned that they've mastered it. They've tweaked it. They've optimized it. They've recognized the shortcomings. They've customized it. And the emergence that's required for them to get to the next level is just going to come just as much from inside them as it is from outside, if not more. That's when that shift is made. And that's called mentorship, right? I think for people.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, it really does vary. You start to pick up on that shift when it's less of the goals being defined externally and more of the goals being defined internally, right? So you'll have a conversation with somebody who's new to coaching and you'll say, what do you want? And they'll be like, well, I want to get promoted to VP. Okay. Why? Because I want to because I want to be a VP, right? It's like, well, what's important about being VP? Well, because eventually the answer is, well, because it's there, right? And that's the thing that I'm supposed to do. And then you start to notice the shift and it starts to become more of, you know, well, because really what I love is, you know, what's important to me is creativity. And I want more creativity in my life. And I want more ability to challenge other people, right? And so you start to kind of disense and sort of more from in than from out. And that's where that shit.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Uncovering this about themselves, or another mindset shift that you can make in one of these other buckets similar to the idea of, I'll think about people liking me over the long term versus immediately.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I want to change something and it doesn't involve a whole bunch of other people convincing and persuading them getting into an executive. It's all me, but it also in some ways makes it harder because it is all you. And this is, you know, in coaching, it's all about you, right? It's all about that. Who am I? What matters to me? What underlying belief systems, inner voices are challenging me in ways that I want to be challenged? What is my unique? I mean, I love the word authenticity. It's like you were just talking about like, what is my authentic way to lead? And then how do I center that rather than trying to fit into someone else's definition of what leadership might be? And you may recognize I can't be that authentic way of leader at this place or in this place type of company. But I know how to find it and I'm going to go find it. Do you have any more examples of either someone?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tap into what your real true sense of purpose and vision is and then use that to navigate the world. It's interesting that so much of this is just mindset. It's not like learning a new skill as a leader or product manager. It's just seeing yourself in the world differently and all of a sudden you kind of unlock your career. Is that what you find? Absolutely. And that's why, you know, I think so much of the focus on the skills, the frameworks it can be limited as you develop these capabilities because it's inner work, right? We're talking where we're talking about is this is this is all me. Now that's empowering. There's empowerment to be able to say”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love connecting with other people. I like helping people grow. I like helping challenge people. I like, I like helping, right? And then it was like, what are those parts? If I unpack those, oh, that's why I loved managing that team of five, because I got to do a lot of it. That's why I hated managing that team of 35, because there's no time for it. And then you start to say, okay, what if rather than just randomly meandering through my career, I actually elevated needing to connect, wanting to be helpful? And then you're like, what would it be like if I went into the helping professions, right? It's just a reframing of move through your career in a way that seems externally to fit some definition of success and to start to define that internally, right? And that is the very definition of the reactive versus creative mindset. Reactive allowing the world to set the expectations and try to meet them.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly right. And then once you start to understand that, you start to develop a better way of finding the right place, the right environment, the right role. When we began the conversation, you asked me what brought me into executive coaching. I would feel these sort of, I would describe it as flying too close to the sun in my career, right? I would have a team, I'd be managing a small team, I would love it, I would enjoy it. And then suddenly my team would grow. I'd become more senior than I felt comfortable being. And then I felt like I wasn't getting to do the quote-unquote real work anymore. And then I would be just completely disheveled and dissatisfied. And then I'd go try to go find a smaller team or even stop being a manager. And it was a very meandering, reactive path. It was like, I was eventually, every so often I was catching a wave and I knew what it felt like to be on the wave, but I didn't know what the characteristics of the wave were. And then through coaching, I was like.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You realize that there is this sort of this wiring in there that needs. This is what I talk about this sort of operating system. It needs to be rejiggered to start to make sense of what if it did and how might you know. The point you just made about how you can realize that you can be successful in a lot of different ways and you don't have to be this one architect of a leader really resonates with my experience. I actually had an executive coach for a few months. And that was probably the biggest unlock for me. We did the strengths exercise, which a lot of people do. And the main thing that she helped me see is like, you can do all the things that you want to do through the lens of the strengths that you have and not have to force yourself to be good at these other things because there's many ways to accomplish the same outcomes.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Forcing me to see places I'd made connections that the connections don't really need to be made. There's a lot of instruments and tools we work with in coaching. There's 360 degree assessments that are very helpful here that will start to help you understand, hey, here are places where you're operating rapidly. Here are places where you're operating really creatively. Because by the way, most people are partially somewhere in that journey. It's a developmental process. And to start to be able to get the feedback, the dopamine hit of seeing when I do it this way, it actually, it's more effective and it doesn't cost me as much. And I'm happier and I'm enjoying it. I'm seeing that it's working is oftentimes a big part of this because there is this belief that it won't work. The number of times when I'm with a client and coaching and say, well, what if you did do that? And they go, it just won't work.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like, okay, what is the underlying belief I'm making about what leadership is there? There's an archetype that I have in my mind that is incompatible with this way. And so there's a need to confront that. Okay, what makes you believe the only type of leader is the leader that orders people around? Maybe that's all I've ever seen. Maybe I don't believe it's possible to be any other type of leader. Maybe there's an inner critic that is convincing me that it's not who I am. And so part of it is this sort of redefinition of what does leadership need for you, for you authentically. What would it be like in my case to lead with purpose and be decisive and lead with vision and to have other people felt like they're being brought along and listened to and participated and create safe spaces for other people to, like that was the sort of question there. And it took people challenging my point of view, Turk working with a coach, asking me questions.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wait, that's not that easy. And again, it is very individualized. I think there's an appreciation that You have to understand what is holding you back. And this is a lot of the work that I'll do with my clients is what is the sort of underlying expectations? What are these underlying beliefs? I believe that my style was incompatible with being the leader. I would have said, I can't be a CEO because, you know, I'm not tough enough, right? I'm not strong enough. I'm not commanding enough. I can't command a room.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Harpy. And that was part of the unlock for me. Again, I care about other people. That's a natural sort of gift that underlines it, but it's a redefinition of how that serves me, if that makes sense. Say someone's in that first bucket, and I was definitely in that first bucket. And I still want people to like me. And I still probably have flaws there. But say RPM and you're like, oh man, that's exactly how I am acting right now. It sounds like is the Corvid just a mindset shift going from I need people to like me to what you just talked about of okay I'm gonna shift to I just want them to respect me over time and and is that kind of the core of it I know it's probably not that easy but how how should someone behave through in that bucket right now yeah it's not it sounds easy right and and this is part of what's hard about this it always sounds easy when you describe it having gone through the journey right sort of like we you know talk to somebody on the summit of Mount Everest and they'll be like yeah you know well I could just climb this mountain that's how I got here and you're like okay”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That are causing you to fall back on some of these fundamental ways of operating and not let go of them, right? Because the answer for me wasn't stop caring about other people. I wasn't going to do that. That's a value of mine. It's part of who I am. But take the caring about other people, the empathy, the connection, and direct it in a more creative way where you're operating now from a place of purpose and vision and not reacting and protecting and defending and wanting to be liked. For me, the key to that was letting go of needing to be liked and redefining it as an admiration that takes place over time. So rather than I want to leave this room with everyone liking me, I started to realize I want to be the type of leader where a decade later people say I would work with that guy again in our”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My only archetype for doing that was the autocratic controlling type. I was like, I don't want to be like that. That guy's a jerk. That's a fascist. I don't want to be a fascist. I do care about other people. And so many of our examples and archetypes are these sort of equally ineffective reactive ways of being. And so no wonder I didn't want to be like that because that's also not very effective either. But there was a sense for me of redefining, you know, this is where coaching is powerful is this, what are the underlying assumptions and beliefs that you have?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My way or the highway autocratic will move against, wanting to win, wanting to be number one, wanting to excel through wanting dominance, wanting control. This would be another tendency. Often one of those feels natural to you and another one feels just so incredibly distasteful that you can't imagine possibly operating that way. And this goes into sort of the underlying beliefs part. You'd asked, you know, if you had told me early in my career when you saw me being passive and people pleasing like that. You just got to stop caring what other people think, Ken. You've got to start being, you know, you got to be more pushy. People did say that to me. That was pretty common probably in my performance reviews. Very common, you know, even people worked for me. We're like, you need to push back.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“you know it was it was hurting me when it came to purpose and execution and decisiveness and so again these aren't these aren't bad there's under usually underlying tendencies that are very good it just starts to have a cost as you as you become more senior it's like the the gears start to kind of grind to a halt a little bit um another way is more of a needing to be right sort of head type protecting one's own ideas sometimes called a move away from type distance arrogance criticism sort of retreating into your own ideas and head And then the other is will not be a surprise is the more controlling.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wanting to be approved, wanting to be loved, wanting other people to like you. This was me in my early part of my career. Same. Yeah. So this is, you know, you kind of like heart type, right? It's sort of sometimes called move toward other people. A lot of that came from my environment, right? I was coming up with product management. No one necessarily knew what the job even was. And I had no authority and most people could just ignore me if they wanted to. And so I sort of had to meet other people's expectations, please them, want to be accepted by them. seek their approval. And it was sort of this what we call complying approach. And here, this is why this is so vexing, is it actually worked really well, right? It was pretty effective. Other people liked working with me. I listened to them and I sort of considered everyone's needs and made sure everyone felt heard. But there came a point where I started like I gave away so much power that”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We think of there's really sort of three of these postures. And anybody is probably more than one of them. So this is not pathologizing. This isn't putting you in a box. But probably one of these will resonate more than the others.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you've nailed it, which is that fear, like operating from a place of anxiety, right? There are different ways depending on our mindsets, our approaches. I like the word postures because it seems to click different sort of ways that we retreat into this reactive mode. Fear anxiety is the way, right? It's sort of like that's how you know. You're just like, oh, I'm bullying. I'm blow the line. I'm just like, I'm seeing problems. I'm seeing threats. Our brains are hardwired to do that, right? So it's not like that's wrong. These are brains that learn to do that. I don't know on the tundra, like being chased by wild animals, right? So this is our normal way of being. There might be Desires and needs that force you to operate that way.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's because that other question of how do you do it is such a hard one to answer. And it's not an easy thing that Houston's kind of flip the switch of. And it sort of goes back to this notion of like a redesigning that internal operating system, sort of how you confront the world, what underlying belief systems and assumptions you have that are causing you to operate from that place. Can I ask a quick question just to clarify the two sides? What's kind of a sign that you're in the reactive side of things? I think one thing you said is you're worrying a lot about how people think about you and make sure that they like you. Anything else that's going to tell a listener like, oh, maybe I'm falling into this trap.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The effective part is as actually a question we can answer, which is yes, it is more effective. Bob Anderson, Bill Adams are two management scientists who've written extensively done a whole bunch of research, and they have looked at every possible dimension you can imagine of success, both leadership capability. They've looked at revenue, brand, profitability, everything, and have shown, yes, create this creative form of leadership is in every possible way positively correlated with success and reactive leadership is negatively correlated. So yes, it works. Yet according to their research some 70 75% of leaders are primarily operating reactively. So most leaders are operating from a place of fear, reacting, seeing problems and threats.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Everyone else then immediately says a couple different things. That sounds amazing. I'd rather have that or hear a moment when I've felt that. But that's usually followed up by a couple of questions. I don't know if that works. It doesn't sound very effective. Is it possible, is it possible? And then how do you, you know, how do you do that?”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even in the world of sports, there's like playing to win versus playing not to lose, and it's sort of this concept that's come up again and again. And leadership circle calls it creative versus reactive. And that's the term I'm going to use. I like that. And here's the distinction. Simple. Are you responding to the world from a place of fear where you see problems and threats? You want to be right, you want to be liked, you're defensive, sort of inward approach. Or are you responding to the world from a place of openness, possibility, curiosity, passion, growth, purpose, right? Very simple concept. Pretty much everyone understands it. Right? Makes sense.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There is a sense of sort of stuckness that comes from that. What I've come to realize is this is the precipice of, I think this is a pretty fundamental concept in leadership. And I'm not the originator of this. So this has come up again and again and again. It's not new. It's going to sound familiar. It's not even, it's like the flood myth from Gilgamesh showing up and all this sort of oral histories of the world, right? It's not new. Conscious leadership group organization that I'm a big fan of, they call it above the line versus below the line. Brene Brown calls it daring versus armored leadership. Sage versus warrior.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In unexpected ways. The physics start to get weird. You're on a level where you're floating. I don't know what the right metaphor is here, but you start to recognize that there's been this huge change. And the most frightening part about it is you look around and everyone is looking at you like you're the designer of the game. And you thought you were playing. And that's often what it feels like when you move into a leadership role. And to come back to this sort of sense of like, what got me here is not going to get me there. And sometimes, you know, I work with a lot of leaders and sometimes that's come with like a pretty significant cost, right? This juxtaposition, maybe your happiness, your health, your marriage. There's been this sort of existential crisis of, I don't know if I love this anymore. Maybe it leads to burnout. Maybe it's not even that dire. It's just a sense of like, well, I'm looking around and I need to be something. I need to unlock something else to continue on this path.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Tutorial, like your first job is sort of learning the rope, somebody's teaching you. You maybe have managers that are giving you simple little missions that you can succeed at. And if you fail, the consequences aren't bad. And you sort of like it does feel like a little bit. And I've talked to, you know, I felt this way, talked to a lot of people who are in their career. It does feel like you're trying to learn the rules of the game, trying to figure out the physics. And you want to run up the score. You get better at playing the game. You fail, but you start to develop some confidence that when you fail, you'll learn from it and you'll get better. You get really good at the game, right? You get promoted. You get rewarded. You unlock new levels. Teach other people how to play the game. You start to feel really awesome about yourself. But then suddenly you're put in a place where you realize that the rules of the game aren't so black and white. There's a, you know, maybe there's like there's a long delay now between when you get to see what you did and the score of it. Things start to be.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What an amazing analogy totally hits home in a good and bad way. This is a really good segue to something I wanted to chat about, something that we talked about before the recording, which is what you're finding to be one of the bigger unlocks for your clients. And it's also a concept that you've been spending a lot of time refining and you're finding is helping people shift and specifically shift their leadership mindset. And so I'd love to just hear you talk through your thinking there. Yeah, it does sort of lead into this. You know, maybe another analogy that might work for your listeners if you think about product management, your career arc and sort of where you are challenged from a mindset perspective, in some ways it does feel like the early part of your career, you're learning to play a video game. Hopefully there's a”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Respond and adapt to that. And so I think we go through a lot of those shifts in our career, right? The driving example is simple, actually probably too simple. Forces us to respond and adapt. So there aren't even rules of the road in product. But I think this is sort of what we're talking about, this question of the internal operating system I've developed my ability to restructure it such that I can succeed given the demands that have been placed upon me.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But now your place in the world has shifted such that the internal meaning making and self-complexity that is required requires a complete reboot of the internal operating system in order to allow you to thrive there. And so when you talk about this kind of question of how much of this is skills, how much of this is tactics, how much of this is learning versus how much is internal growth? The answer is it's both. But the shift that is required is very much around how your inner self can make meaning and respond to the demands of the world around you so that you can succeed and thrive and this sort of this mindset shift that happens. You know, the skills matter, but by this point you're sort of beyond the place where you've learned the skills. There's mastering the skills, but there is the sense of, you know, what developmental psychologists call sort of self-complexity, the ability to sort of.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And your sort of internal mindset for confronting this challenge is not going to suit you, right? The way you used to sort of approach the world. And maybe put it in like product leadership, product terms. Everyone around you's got some real pithy advice about the things you're forgetting to do. It's sort of like, hey, you forgot, don't forget to check your mirror. Everyone's got a framework, right? Ah, do you know about the 10 and 2 framework? Wait, what's the 10 and 2 framework? Oh, you just put your left hand on the 10, your right hand on the 2 o'clock. That's the only thing you're missing. Here's a great medium post about that. And then you're like, that's not the problem. The problem is I have not adapted to the complexity of the world around me, right? And so there is this sense that, you know, what is interesting about driving is the world hasn't gotten any more complex. Driving's always been driving.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now suddenly you're behind the wheel of the car. This is what my son is doing. And wow, is it different than you thought it was going to be? Is it way more complicated? You have to remember, check your mirrors. You got to look before you turn. You didn't even know what that assignment. You didn't know what those stripes meant. It is just overloading with complication.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, if you think about it as a, and when you're a kid, just cars just go places. Like you get strapped in and you just wait and you get impatient and then eventually you go somewhere. And you're not even consciously aware of the concept of driving. Just cars just happen. And you're sort of, you know, not even aware of it. As you get a little bit older, you start to become curious. You start to figure out, oh, that wheel has something to do with it. You turn the wheel. Maybe you start to understand there's pedals. But it also just seems really simple, right? Just like you get in the car and you drive it and you go somewhere. Maybe as you get older, you end up maybe even being a little bit of a smart Alec about how easy it looks when you start. It doesn't look hard. I can do this.”
2022-07-24 · Lenny's Podcast · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source