How To Be An Empowered Product Coach (With Nick Jemetta)

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I think being pragmatic and recognizing that in most organizational context you you can't just take inspired, empowered, or transformed or any of the other great work that folks like Marty and SVPG are producing and and just boilerplate that into organizations. Because you've got a little thing called organizational context and human beings to think about. And sometimes you might have to go counter to the most popular belief. Sometimes you have to take a more securitous route to achieve what might be smaller outcomes in organizations that are further along in their product journey. Welcome to the Product Agility podcast, The missing link between Agile and Product. The purpose of this podcast is to share practical tips, strategies and stories from world class thought leaders and practitioners. Why, I hear you ask? Well, I want to increase your knowledge and your motivation to experiment so that together we can create ever more successful products. My name is Ben Maynard and I'm your host. What has driven me for the last decade to bridge the gap between agility and product is a deep rooted belief that people and products evolving together can achieve mutual excellence. This week we're joined by Nick Dumata. Nick Dumata is a product coach with a wealth of experience, not only in product coaching, also being a product professional. Nick was fortunate enough who spent time with Marty Kagan a couple of years ago and since then has looked to further transform his product coaching based upon the works of mine. Inspired by those around him and what Nick talks to us about this week is how to really be an empowered product coach. What it takes to make sure that if you're going to start as a product coach, what you need to start strong. How can people make the transition from, say, an agile coach to a product? And between us, we both share our thoughts and our own musings on the ethical nature of production agile coaching to how to avoid many of the pitfalls that we all come across. If you would like to ask Nick some questions, then make sure that you subscribe to the Productivity Podcast if you're made aware of when the Sheave live streams come about. Now Sheave is a consultative company run by myself and we are having many of the guests that come onto the podcast join us or live Q&A S exclusive behind the scenes conversations about books that they've offered. So make sure you reserve your spot for a conversation with Nick Jemata or maybe even David Pereira talking about untrapping product teams or Jeff Gotthelf coming and talking to us about OK Hours. And welcome to the Product Agility podcast. Today we are joined by and I'm going to say Nick, for some reason I want to say Nicholas, but yeah, Nick, who is a friend of a friend, maybe now a friend too, who I spoke to a number of months ago when we're lining this up because of the amazing work that Nick does around raising awareness of really important issues that I think are tangential perhaps to maybe the core of what we talk about on this podcast, but extraordinarily important. And today we're going to be looking into product coaching. So, Nick, thank you very much for joining us today on the podcast. Thank you for having me, Ben. It's, it's taken a few months to get here, but really happy to be here. And as Ben said, I'm, I'm Nick Gemetta and I'm a product coach, a products advisor and also a well-being speaker. So I exist within the product world, but I also spend a lot of time in the world being world. And I think to your point, can we think about how to get the best out of product people? I think we often spend too much time thinking about product process, whereas we really should be thinking about the human beings. And what I mean by that is let's think about product mindset, product culture, product leadership. So they're the world's that I coexist in. What is? He said. Product culture. Product leadership and product mindset. Product coaching. Is what we're here to talk about today. We are, and listeners of the podcast will know that. I have spent a long time in the professional coaching world studying professional coaching. And I I chose to go in and learn about that because I was concerned that perhaps I was not being ethical and also annoyed at myself because I didn't know when I was coaching and when I wasn't because I didn't really know what coaching was. And I think that we're in this age now where product coaching is building up, its Q dot and it's becoming more recognized in the industry. And I think that there is still a lot of grayness, perhaps, as to what exactly being a product coach means. And perhaps that's where we can start. I'd love to know when we think of product coaching, how would you describe it? Wow. Talk about an incendiary question to start. I love juicy topics. I should be clear right up front that I'm not a qualified coach. That is something that I'm thinking about. But for me, when I think about product coaching, what I think that really means is that on the other end of the of the phone or the other side of of the table is an individual that has at hand practical experience building products, leading product teams. And they act not purely as a coach. I think when I think about coaching, it's for me a bit of a catch all term for using good coaching practices, being an advisor, being a mentor and sometimes being a bit more directed and being more like a consultant in all honesty. And I'll be really curious, you know, when this episode airs to see how the audience responds because as I've developed my own product coaching craft, it's very clear to me that there isn't really one definition of what that means. But I think at its core you cannot be a great product coach unless you've had at hand product experience and why is that elaborate a little bit for us because I think. What a great product coach does is they work on the individual or a series of individuals. If you're supporting A-Team, but without the knowledge of what it means to build products, you can never really make those people effective product people. And what do I mean by that? If you've never worked in a team that's done discovery, If you've never worked in a team that's done delivery. If you've never worked in a team that has spun up, OK, Rs. If you've never worked in a team that's run a design Sprint without any of that practical experience, the value that you're adding to the people that that you're supporting is always going to be extremely limited. And I don't mean that from a process and methodology point of view. I mean that from a mindset and a qualities point of view. Unless you've been in the trenches, unless you've had the conversations, unless you've made the mistakes, unless you've learned the lessons, I don't believe that you can be an effective product. Kind. Hearing you say that has really got me thinking because when you are a professional coach, the thing that you don't do is give advice. And another way of seeing that is that if we are faced with a human and let's say they've got three types of gaps which need to be filled, they've got a knowledge gap, they have a skills gap and they have a motivation gap. If you're in a professional coaching capacity, then you can't give them knowledge. You can't teach them stuff. You can ask them questions, Have them reflect. And then maybe figure that stuff out for themselves or they can be then motivated to go off and learn that thing. But you're not going to teach someone something to fill the knowledge gaps which they have at the same way the skills gaps is something they're going to have to go away and practice. So you wouldn't give them guidance or advice on how to kind of how to build those skills gaps or anything else. As long as they were motivated to go and do it, then they would actually should go away and they would go and practice those things. And you can help them find ways to motivate themselves by helping them focus on the future and help them understand where they are all for the process of just simply asking non leading questions and reflective questions. And so I think then what we're saying as a product coach, and this is similar in many respects into being an agile coach, is that you're not just there to ask questions to help people reflect, you are there to fill a knowledge gap. You are there to support them actively in developing those skills as well, and that's why that experience is so important. Is it because you are expected to fill those knowledge gaps and provide that support? Or do you think it's because it's absolutely necessary that you must in order to be effective? I think it's probably context dependent on the individual. You might have 10 years of product experience, but you would still benefit from coaching. Then it's more akin to your question of, well, is it a skill, knowledge or or mindset? Yeah, that you're looking to fill. And that is very much down to the individual. You say I'm a products advisor because then I feel like it gives me a little anyway. OK, yeah, yeah, kind of shift and change and be a bit more fluid when I'm partnering with someone. The two most important things I consider a the fit between the two of us and the alignment of values. Because both of those things ultimately lead to whether or not I can successfully help that individual achieve their outcomes. It's fundamentally down to the individual or the set of individuals to determine based on the outcomes I'm trying to achieve, how much prior does this individual need about my context. And by my context, I might be talking about the the professional product context, the industry context, or maybe that individual wants to find another human being that. Is either very much like them or perhaps is totally the opposite to them. I think whenever we're talking about this kind of operating mode, if I can call it that, I would encourage every individual to take the time to really think about what they need. What kind of shape person does that look like? How credible are the people that you're engaging? Can you get testimonials? Can you get recommendations? Do those individuals give you time to get to know them or are they trying to do a hard sell? Are they trying to push their services on onto you? And I very much try to operate more, more in that space of positioning myself as an expert in many areas, trying to give out as much free content and value as possible. Because I want to attract the right people to me very much against pushing myself out into the world and pushing myself onto people just for the sake of engaging and finding work. The work for me has to be meaningful and the fit really has to be there because I would hate to take money from an organization or a product leader and at the end of that, of our time together, they don't feel like I've added value or move materially towards their out. Comes because that is not a good use of time for me or for them. I'm curious to hear from our listeners, but the impression I've always had in the agile world was that agile coaching was often a a push onto the teams. And maybe it's just because I haven't been listening properly or maybe because it's just something that people haven't been sharing. But I can count on one hand the number of teams I can think of that have asked for an agile coach rather than that. And then I can count on many hands the teams where I know that some central function somewhere higher than an agile coach and then pushed them on the teams whether they wanted them or not, which is very different to professional coaching, which is always a pool which is much more aligned to what you were saying. Nick. Which is has to be that relationship, that fit and it has to be something of value. So if you listen to this and you have been in a situation where our team has pooled your services as an Agile coach, right? Let us know on LinkedIn what was your experience of that? Because I'm not sure if that's the norm and maybe this is just my skewed impression of the agile coaching industry. There's a difference here to be drawn between the the industry and the profession. Because I think that in the same way that professional coaching is a profession, it's also an industry and within the industry falls many different types of things. So when you think of product coaching, would you say it's currently a a profession or an industry? Nick, Wow, you really are coming at me with these rightful questions, aren't you? Sorry, Nick, for the listeners, I didn't prime Nick in any of this. I didn't even know I was going to ask that question. Feel free to park it if we want. Nick, it's a heavy question. I won't explore it, but I'm curious. I'm going to ask the question back because I'd like for you to expand the question so that I can understand what you're asking. Yeah, sure, sure. So if we look at, and I got this from a book, actually I think it's from a book, Excellence in Coaching. It's a like a collaborative set of essays. And it talks about how professional coaching is an industry because for a long time when you look at, well, not professional coaching, perhaps coaching at least as an industry. Because within that there's many different forms of it. You've got your more traditional directive management style coaching which was very popular before organisations such as the ICF really became well known, which is very much your manager telling you what to do, which is similar to site say sports coaching where often sports coaches. There is a lot of reflective questions, but they will also be saying try standing with your foot a little bit more pointed to the left than the right next time you do that. So it's much more directive. Professional coaching came about and it was much less directive. It's much more about reflection and thinking that a person has what they need. There's lots of different shades in between that. But that's the coaching industry. So to turn up and say I'm a coach, well that's fantastic. That's like turning up and saying yeah, I'm a human. It's like great giving a bit more information about what type of human you are in order for me to understand exactly who I'm talking to here. Because when people turn and say, yeah, I'm just a human. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. And in order for us to get to know each other and gonna need a little bit more information. And the same way of coaching, which I think is why is some of the issue when say if I'm out for a drink somewhere and I say I'm a coach, everyone's like, what does that mean? Not a sports coach. It doesn't mean anything because it's too broad. So as I'm wondering with product coaching, is product coaching like an industry? And within that there's lots of different shades of it? Or is a is product coaching actually like a very a specific thing, a specific profession that you can take, or neither or both? I think it's probably both. I'd say it's in its infancy. So I I think it's still trying to work itself out and what I mean by that is sort of in the conversation that that we're having today and no doubt continues to have as your listeners feedback, we're having this debate about what product coaching really is. I've already indicated that my definition will be different to many others. So I think even in its infancy as an industry we are seeing different shades. You know you you will see folk a truly applying coaching methodologies and our qualified coaches. In some parts of the world you might see a product coach akin more to a mentor. I see a lot of product coaches that actually position themselves more like trainers and facilitators. Now I am seeing more and more agile coaches that that seem to be trying to shift their position to product coaches and and you know I I I don't make any judgement on what that means for them. I think it really depends on do they have genuine product experience or at least the desire to, you know, shift modes. But the the profession itself I think is we're really only just getting started, you know, if I look at. Again, I'm not that close to the Agile coaching world, but I know that from a professional standpoint, it's grown. There's lots of certifications, accreditations. Anyone right now can call themselves a product coach, and I think that's incredibly exciting, liberating and empowering, but also potentially quite dangerous and sort of touched on the ethical side earlier on. If anyone can call themselves a product coach, what does that mean for individuals engaging? That's that's why I made the point that you really need to take your time as an individual or a leader or a set of people that that want to engage this kind of human to your point, get to know the human and figure out whether it's the right type of human for where you're trying to get to. OK. Also, I'm going to share a few things and then I think maybe we'll get into some practical stuff around product coaching. Yeah, great. But I just feel really compelled to cover for few things. All things I'm really excited about. Coaching isn't a regulated industry, it is self governing. So it isn't like being a lawyer or a doctor that actually or even even a counsel this counselor. I think there's regulations around being a counselor as well with psychotherapist. Yeah, you you have to adhere to certain things and there is a there is the governed sanctions. If you don't do those things, coaching is entirely self regulated and as a consequence if you go back 20 years before the ICF was around, it was much more like the Wild West. Many people would call themselves professional coaches. Now if you look for a professional coach, you would generally look for that ICF badge or some kind of ICF credentials to say actually work. If this person has that badge, I don't really know what that badge means, but they've got the badges. That must be OK and you scratch the surface. Actually, it means that people are following a certain code of ethics and they've been through certain training and they've proven themselves, which I think is wonderful. And there's always issues with things being self governed. But actually I think that the ICF has become a somewhat gold standard. But all the time things are, if there isn't that kind of self regulation, there isn't that gold standard. I think it does leave us as a profession, as an industry open to poor quality coaching happening and things happening which we would like to avoid. And I know that if you look into the agile world, you have IC Agile who have done a sterling job at really formulating what an agile coach is. However. That has not become the gold standard and I'm not sure if it ever will. In my opinion, far too many people out there who are working as, I'm going to say, agile coaches. I can't talk about product coaches because a product coach so tend to have met seem to have had decent experience. But too many agile coaches and scrum masters out there have never worked in a product creation team, a software delivery team. They don't know the pain of a journey anguish of having to work with other people and come together to create something that works and makes a difference to somebody. And I think that's. A fundamental gap, and I think that there's some people who can do a good job about that, but I think it is enhanced because you're able to have a more accuracy of empathetic understanding for the people that you're working with. And I think it's a big issue. So I do hope that if there ever is a product coaching code of ethics or somebody which comes together to say this is what the goal standard of product coaching is, that it really does make clear that you need that experience in the field in order to be effective at what you're doing, 'cause this isn't professional coaching. This is about giving people advice. It is about teaching. It is about supporting them on the ground. It is about being a sounding board. It's much more than just asking the powerful, reflective questions and guiding people to figure stuff out on their own to further make the point. I think you really need that experience. As you said Nick, I've worked with individuals teams, leaders in in lots of different What what was most important to me was ensuring that I was delivering the value that we were looking for aligned to the outcomes that we'd agreed. And had I been in a pure coaching mode, it would have been on me to say, well actually based on these three outcomes, if I'm only gonna ever be a coach to you, I may only be able to help you achieve 50% of one of those outcomes. And that's fine if you're gonna have that conversation upfront and you agree that contracts and inverted commas with with that individual. But if you can expand the definition, and this is where the word coach is still problematic. Here I'm going to just use advisor for now, because yeah, let's stick with it. Yeah, if you can expand. Your world view, if you can, between you and the individual individuals you're working with, agree in that contract that, yeah, I'll be clear when I'm going to switch modes and why I'm switching modes, and I'll be clear on my role versus yours. But by using that more flexible approach plus pairing that with the empathy and understanding that comes with having been in the field, you go from achieving 25% of the outcomes to 150% because not only you delivering against the outcomes, but very often you're going over and above. And that to me is what is so powerful about twinning at hand experience with the experience that that comes from advising, that comes from working with different people in in different industries. I said earlier I don't have a coaching qualification. I do actually think that would be valuable. You know that I think the best products, coaches, product advisors have the at hand experience, they have those human skills. But yeah, ideally they probably should have some kind of coaching qualification as well I believe. And whether that is a new standard or whether that's using something like the ICF, it's certainly something that I've that I'm thinking about. And I know that many other coaches in the communities I'm in, once they've nailed the first two pieces, that coaching qualification is always the bit that that many others are thinking. What is this? Is this what I need to do to get myself to that gold standard and hold myself to very high standards? I think it does give people the ability to then consciously apply certain techniques and certain mindset when they feel it's the right time. And I think that for me, I was doing lots of stuff. But it was almost unconscious. Like, I just learned to ask certain questions in certain ways. The moment I learned, oh, that's that and that's that. Oh, OK, And this is how OK. And I could then put things in the right place in my brain. I could then pick and choose. And I became much more ethical, considerate and that, dare I say, effective. Because I think one of the issues when it comes to coaching is that our desire to give advice is often linked to our ego. And I turned on the radio this morning. I'm not even sure how this is going to work. So this may hit the cutting room floor, but I'm a big fan of David Bowie, the Ziggy Stardust, and as far as from Mars, there's an amazing album. And so I popped on the radio this morning, the Ziggy Stardust was playing and it started on the line, making love with his ego. And for the first time ever, I think I understood that line. And I thought, I think sometimes that when we are in situations where we're with someone who we're like, wow, OK, you're a person. I'm here helping you. And you've you've got always responsibility and you can see all these things. And I really want to impress you. And when you say and you start giving some advice, you end up kind of, dare I say like making love of your ego a little bit when the advice is landing and you want to give more and you want to give more. And it's the self perpetuating thing where if you don't understand the professional coach, you haven't got those skills and you can't put on those certain things. You can't catch yourself and say actually maybe I just need let them figure this one out. Yeah, I mean it's I'm, I'm nodding along, 'cause that is the essence I suppose, of what would separate a great product coach from an average product coach, 'cause I always believe that in my job when I'm most effective is when I make myself redundant as fast as possible. You know, my job is not to build indefinitely, to create the conditions where if I leave I take a huge amount of IPA and prior knowledge with me. My job is to build long lasting, repeatable, sustainable. Behaviours and mindset shifts in the leaders, the teams and the organisations that I'm working with. And it's sometimes that will take months or years, sometimes shorter. But you know, my intention is that as soon as humanly possible they should be moving on. Why? Because they've built the skills, they've built the capabilities, they're on their own growth journey. But also there comes a point where the value I can add, it becomes a diminished return. And I will, I will. I will always be really upfront with people and say the fit and the value is great now. But as soon as one of those things slips, let's have a conversation and if I'm not the right person, I want to help you succeed. And I've got a whole raft of incredible coaches that offer different lenses and perspectives to me that can help you continue on that on that journey. And that's quite a scary place to be, right? As a product coach, someone that's passionate not only about seeing people succeed, but making money. It's a win Win. I want for humans or humans that I'm working with to be in a better place when I leave them than when I found them. I think it's a very grown up thing to say the type of leader or senior person in an organization that I like. That's the type of things that they say. And I find that when you do that, the relationship is good. It doesn't mean you end your relationship any quicker. If anything takes, the relationship lasts longer because because they know that you're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes. Yeah, I there's a few gigs that I've got into where I've been like I'll do a few months when I'll be off, 18 months later, you're like, wow, I'm still here and I think that's what's needed. My question to you Nick, is when you start with a new client, how do you prepare? For that product coaching gig, and if you need to draw some context around that to make it easier to answer, please do. But I'd like our listeners to hear your advice and experience as to how you prepare yourself so that to coin a phrase, when you start that product coaching gig, you start strong. So, you know, I've said already that a lot of the work is more of a pull than a push. What I tend to know is that the organisations, the leaders, individuals reaching out to me have got a sense of who I am, my values, you know, my my beliefs, how I might approach that kind of engagement. But equally I've worked in product long enough to know not to make assumptions. Is that before any engagement started, before we're getting into thinking about contracts and and payment terms, all that kind of stuff, I always wanna have a conversation and that conversation might be half an hour, it might be 60 minutes, it might be two hours. But I always want to understand from the individual's point of view, you know, what has motivated them to reach out. Why now? Why me? What alternatives have they considered or tried that didn't work and why? What do they believe would would make a successful engagement? So trying to understand their perception of the value of us working together and and the type of outcomes that they want to work towards, why they're important and how that might feel. Because for a lot of the work I do, particularly when it's in transformation coaching, it's not an overnight success. To to your earlier point, you might be working on this for 18 months or two years. There's going to be a lot of bumps along the way. So trying to take someone from sometimes a difficult spot, they're into what they hope we can achieve together and then baselining that and just figuring out whether or not they're being a little bit over ambitious, whether it's realistic or whether actually I think we can push a bit. Those types of of conversations I think demonstrate the win, win mindset. They demonstrate a more grown up ethical approach I think to the world that that we're talking about. But it also means that both sides can evaluate fit, both sides can check alignment on those values. Because we all know tools like and platforms like LinkedIn are wonderful, but until you meet on video or face to face, it's very easy to apply veneers. It's very easy to inflate what you've achieved, how you've achieved it. It's very easy to hide behind thought leaders. It's much harder when the rubber hits the road. When you're having a conversation you're talking about at hand, experience the strategies you used, how you would approach the engagement, what you would do if the engagement started to go catastrophically wrong, what you've learned from other. Engagement Now I I don't believe in hiding my content and my perspectives behind paywalls. I I want, I want folks to come and work with me, having known a lot about me and a lot of what I've done. Because I honestly think to your point, that that sets you up for as not only a strong start, but a fast start and a valuable stuff. Because for folks like us, you haven't got that long to to demonstrate why you're there. Yeah, you're not trying to drag your heels for months and months on it. Yeah, you want to show value, you want to be active, you want to agitate, but you want to also respect where teams and individuals are AT. And the other kind of aspect of my work that I think is held really valuable for my clients is because I've worked in at hand teams and yes I I understand the thought leadership. I try and be a thought leader in certain aspects. I also like to be super pragmatic and practical. I don't have playbooks where I can literally draw on, you know one one page for for one problem. Yes, I I understand the methodologies. I have a series of frameworks and and and tools and methodologies that I will use, but they're context dependent. I think being pragmatic and recognizing that in most organizational context you you can't just take inspired, empowered or transformed or any of the other great work that folks like Marty and SVPG are producing and and just boilerplate that into organizations. Because you've got a little thing called organizational context and human beings to think about. And sometimes you might have to go counter to the most popular belief. Sometimes you have to take a more securitous route to achieve what might be smaller outcomes in organization that are further along in their product journey. And it's only by having these types of conversations. It's only by doing product discovery. Everything I've talked about is, is in essence me using my discovery mindset to better understand and build shared alignment and context with whoever is engaging with me. When you said you're a test root, what did you mean by that? So what I mean by that is if you were new to product, say today, you might look at your organizational context, look at one of the many methodologies and frameworks that are out there and say if I use this framework, I use what this person said, it's going to work and I implement it day one into my organization. By day two I'm expecting it to be success. The reality is so far away from that. So what I mean when I say is a security through is that you might have to take three or four steps backwards or sideways or rounding circles before you actually start to make progress, right? And it it might be that you want to talk about, say, prototyping for example. But if the organization has never prototyped, then maybe prototyping is not the first place to start. Maybe. The first place to start is, well, let's just get a baseline understanding of what it even means to build products. So what I'm trying to articulate there is that I think you should be clear on the principles and hold those principles true, but be very fluid in terms of how you're actually delivering those principles and bringing those principles to life. OK, excellent. You also said win win mindset. That's the COVID, isn't it. I believe you know better than me. I I don't think so. Where I've coined that from? No, I think it's in my in my subconscious somewhere. Honestly it like his stuff's, I think it gets a bad rap. It's kind of seems like a bit of a management faddy thing I think by some people. But so much of it is actually very useful. And I Remember Me and a friend of mine, Caroline, who I met at Henley Business School. When I started in coaching, we were teaching leadership team about some leadership coaching. And yeah, we covered a lot with Kobe. Stuff is better. The win win mindset versus like win, lose and lose, win and all this. This is the idea of actually there isn't scarcity, there's it. If we believe there is enough to go around, then we can have a win, win mindset. It doesn't have to be I win and you lose or you lose and I win. It doesn't have to be that way which loops back around to what you were saying before. You know that. Yeah, if we. Go into a situation and it isn't working or that maybe there is someone better who can help and it's a it's a win win because you know that there will be other work for you. Even if it does mean that someone else comes in and takes that takes that opportunity, Well, you weren't the right person for it. Your your questions, I made a note of them because they thought they were great. When you have these first one to two hour conversations with somebody and you're saying what has motivated you to do this? Why now? Why me? What alternative have you tried and what will make a successful engagement? I think there's some good good tips, good questions to ask. I really like those. I'm going to steal them if that's OK. That is on one condition. You need to, you need to tell me what other questions I'm missing or what questions you're using steal from you. Well, indeed from your listeners, yeah. My guess is that what. First of all, these questions will end up on some kind of carousel available LinkedIn. So do make sure you're following the productivity podcast. Myself and Nick made aware when we released said carousel. Secondly, yeah, listeners, let us know what questions you'd love to ask, what questions that you help you start strong. My favorite question because I definitely cover the same to questions that you do in various shapes and forms. My favorite question comes from a book written by Paul Barber and Lucy Widdowson, which is a Building Top Performing Teams, which is a professional coaching book. Book and we're going to I'm getting them on the podcast soon because they're just wonderful, wonderful humans but never stuff when it comes to professional coaching. And they always suggest asking the question, what does the future need from this team? That's a great question, right? Definitely stealing that. And and The thing is, it is great when you ask it to the team member, right? Or the team as a whole. When you ask it to the stakeholders, all of a sudden you've just got this treasure trove of information. And I find it's a one question for me which which generates a huge amount of insight. It is what I would call a powerful question. And sometimes what I like about powerful questions is that they can confuse people because then they will say that what do you mean the future and what do you mean need? If what I find is once people vent on question the question, if that does happen, I don't take that as a negative thing like oh, I didn't ask the question properly. I just take it as they're actually really beginning to engage a higher level of thinking and that their brain is working overtime to try and figure out like how, what the hell does this question mean? And I find that that is really powerful then because people really dig deep and really think about, yeah, what what type of future do we even want? And if they can't even ask them, well, we don't know what the future is. Then there's there's a whole other treasure trove of questions you can ask after that, say, that's that's my favorite one. That's a great question. And asking those questions allows you to both uncover the insights but then adjust your approach again based on the context that's that's in effect what you're starting to to understand. I think the other thing that that question does is it gives a very clear indication about the priority that you need to put on specific product behaviors. And I think that's another thing that in my coaching is that once you understand the context and you hold your your principles very close, then it's really about understanding well what the great product behaviors look like within this context. Because great product behaviors in Spotify or in Open AI are going to look very different from great product behaviors in a bricks and mortar business that is only just beginning to. Think about what it looks like to build digital products and that, you know, that's where that that more nuanced conversation is just so critical and why, again, the that poor mentality eventually gets you to the right outcomes. Yeah, now it's interesting you. Yeah, I'm not there. My brain was on fire of different, different thoughts because I remember what you're saying about differences. Spotify, open AI and then typical bricks and mortar. When I was talking to Dan North and Jeff got Health and we're talking about how do you help big organisations compete with smaller product organisations. And the idea, you know, the relativity of it all, they whatever you're doing has to be relatively suitable to your context. But then I think often it boils down for some to to speed, but you don't have to. It isn't about absolute speed of delivery, it's about relative speed of delivery. You have to be quicker and more adaptable than your competition. If your competition isn't open AI, you don't have to be quicker and more adaptable than them. You don't even have to be as quick or adaptable as them. It doesn't matter. You can learn some stuff from them, but all the stuff they're doing is based upon their competition, not your competition. And I think this is where the people beg and steal and they pull. Maybe they over borrow a little bit from other well known organisations, when actually they don't spend enough time thinking about actually what's relatively. Suitable for us right now. So the question that I was going to ask was somewhere else in my mind. I can't seem to bring it back. Is this going to end up on the cutting room floor as well? Maybe, Maybe. Nick, we've been talking for a deceptively long period of time and it's been been wonderful. So many great pieces of practical advice, some great questions to ask people. I said we're definitely going to be extracting some of this and using out on our social, so be sure to follow us so you don't miss some of that. What I'm wondering then, if we just flip this around, then for the last kind of 15 minutes and really begin to focus on if I am a product leader, if I'm a team and I am looking for someone because I think, oh, we have a we have a gap, something isn't quite working for us, Maybe we need a product coach. There's What kind of things can they be looking for, and what kind of things should they be feeling which would spur them? To then decide to begin the search, I think getting a product coach or that shape human in is always going to be very unique to the to the context as we've as we've talked about. But you know where I think a lot of clients that I work with tend to reach out is where they're feeling friction, where they're not moving forward either at the pace or in the right direction that they wish to go. As you as you kind of touched on earlier or perhaps where there are a bit of a fork in the road and in the walls of of the of the organization. They don't necessarily have the skill set that allows them to figure out which of those 234 paths to take. And that of course is is going to be very individual. I think it's probably important to say here that product coaches in general will be most effective when there is a relative level of critical support within the business. So what I mean by that is a product coach who's going to be fantastically successful if the CEO believes in the product team or if the CEO is is leading leading the change to the product model if the CEO is not. In in that space then you've just got to be realistic about the amount of change that a that a product coach can bring you. And sometimes it's OK to say well actually at a more senior level we're not in the place that we should be that that's still fine. Product coaches can do amazing jobs. As you said earlier locally, you know there's a product coach called Pippa and I've completely forgotten her surnames. You're going to have to put it in the in the show notes. But she she, she talks about this great concept called pockets of brilliance. And what that really means is we don't always have to bring external folks in to try and change the entire organization overnight. Yeah, we can really look to make meaningful change within much smaller context and we can start to show rapid quick wins and those rapid quick wins compound overtime. They're the sorts of things that that that I would be you know, thinking about and considering and it it also means that there's a level of vulnerability and a level of empathy and self-awareness there. Particularly for a product leader, it can be potentially quite difficult to appreciate yourself and to recognize yourself and in to communicate that with the team to say. You know what I need? I think we need a bit of help. I need a bit of help. And I think that there's still too much stigma that we assume that leaders should be perfect and impenetrable. But the reality is leaders are human beings and therefore they're on a constant growth journey, just like the rest of us. I think that's where having a product coach who they can see as a peer maybe makes them feel more comfortable to be present and open to them because you don't feel like you're being, you're not being looked down upon and at the same time you're saying something to someone that's actually going to get where you're coming from. Are you up for a little challenge, Nick? I'm always up for a challenge, especially if you haven't prepared me for this. In the agile coaching world, there was always this idea of a smells. Are you familiar with this, like Agile Coaching smells? I wish I've heard it being reference, but go on, tell me. I wish there was a better phrase for it. It's things that you see here feel that indicate to you that perhaps there is a something where growth might help improve things. So you were talking about friction and forks when it comes to product leaders and they they feel some friction on which a fork in the road and maybe? People that are listening feeling a bit of connection to that and then they're in the organization and they're like, oh, hold on, like I'm seeing this thing and I don't think it should be that way or I'm doing that's happening and I don't know why. But there's something that's a bit fishy. And what I'm wondering is if we can have a go at just very quickly and try to come up with maybe a couple of smells each, but we take it in turns. And I I was like, if I was to go first, just to kind of frame it and give you an idea, one of the smells which came up this week when I was training people and come up quite a few times recently is. The an abundance of OK arse when all of a sudden OK has been sold is this like wonderful thing. And you look around your organization like, wow, we've got like 200 key results across all of these teams. And something about this just doesn't feel right for me. That's a that's a smell that there's some of properties I speak to. They're like if is this right, is this how we should be doing things? And so that's my opening gambit first, right? And I will, I will counter your gambit with a smell and let's let's use that word as we're embracing it, which is where you are shipping and not able to demonstrate value. So what I mean by that is you're in a cycle of delivery, but you're not able to articulate either the individual value of each of those pieces or you're not able to understand the compound effects of what you're shipping overtime. Great one. All right, I'm going to go for like granular feature based Rd. maps, even sold a good and what a road map should be. And then everyone's telling you to put all your features on a road map, and then the demanding dates for each one of those. And it kind of feels like a Gantt chart but you just haven't created in Microsoft Project. You've done it in my I like that that little twist at the end. I wasn't I wasn't expecting that is how old I am. I don't even know if people still use Microsoft Project over this sort of thing but I used to use it. So clearly we're we're a similar age. I don't know how I'm punched the time, but I will go with with with my second smell, which is that in conversations either with stakeholders, with your leadership team or with your product team, if we can call it a product team. If the word assumption is never used right, that's a good one. I felt like we could do this forever a bit. A little bit of smell tennis. Well, no, that's what I'm wondering. I just, I was just daydreaming a little bit thinking, oh, could we dyke, is there a series that could be done on product smells, you know. Yeah. Carousels, some LinkedIn posts. I don't know because I'm guessing that Agile coaches smells have been around for a long time. But I've never heard many people. I mean people. Jason Knight, for example does some because Leah Tarrant does some good stuff here which kind of talk about some of the smells, but like a nice little easy to consume figure just like some. Some common product smells. I think I was more tickled by the best by the name of product smells rather than actually maybe the value of it. Yeah, there's a great no go in there somewhere thinking products, yeah minds when I was looking for David Pereiras book. I'm trapping product teams. He has one picture where has ideas going through a chain of a process and then he's part of his fingers is saying if you're not collaborating and you're not kind of experiment with your ideas, what you end up with at the end is a big turd. And he's actually got a picture of of the the wow, the turd emoji in his book. And I said that's strong, man, you know and that is a that's a product smell right there. I'm wondering, Nick, we are running out of time, but I'm also keen. I don't want to end it quite just yet. Can we talk very quickly about transitioning into the role of a product coach Now I I appreciate maybe, but what we're not saying with this is anyone can do it. Absolutely not. I think you need to have that experience to be credible and to be able to act well within the role. But if people are listening to this and they're like, oh, hold on, like a lot of this sounds really familiar and I have got some experience in this domain, I'm wondering what do I? Need to do to kind of transition into this role and be be Someone Like You Nick like what is it that they could do. So there are many many avenues to to shift to product coaching just like they're hard to get into product. I think one of the first things that anyone should do is check out some of the content on Silicon Valley because they they regularly talk and and and really champion product coaching as maybe an industry and a profession as as we talked about earlier and you know between Marty and Christian and some of the other partners they've written some really great content on what it means to do product coaching and some of the things to to think about. So I'd just like to signpost folks over there. Yeah, obviously following folks like us and there are many other product coaches on LinkedIn, I think gives a good indication of what it actually means to be a product coach. And we're a friendly bunch, you know, I'm always open to having conversations if people want to try and explore that as a as a career. You know, one of the reasons that I was most inspired to follow this career was when I was surrounded by 49 other coaches that dare I say it were much further ahead in their journey. I think taking inspiration from people that. A further ahead is a really useful mindset shift. Instead of it being a comparison, use that individual as inspiration. And many of us when we've got the timer always happy to have those have those conversations. I think practically speaking you talked about experience which I think is a non negotiable. You also need to be very realistic that just because you say you're a product coach and just because you have that ambition, there's a big difference between saying it and actually finding clients and making a business from it. So think about your individual circumstances. I I would never have considered shifting to product coaching were it not for, you know, a difficult experience in my last employed role, but also just practically I had financial runway and we kind of talked about that kind of prior to us coming on air. Being a product coach means you have to build credibility. Building credibility takes time. I would hate for anyone to listen to this and thing. I've got experience, I've got appetite, I've got enthusiasm. I'm going to become a product coach, throw in the day job and then find that actually. They don't now know how to pay the mortgage. It sounds quite simple and maybe it sounds a bit boring, but I I speak to so many people that are following my journey and want to follow a similar path. And when I start to interrogate them a little bit more, they're at feast or famine stage. If they don't find their first client within four weeks of starting a business, then they're in financial difficulty. Yeah. And I I can't with good conscience suggest that that's a good approach for anybody to take. No, it's I. The advice I was always given was have nine months of money in the bank. If you're going to do it, you're going to go out alone. Have that money in the bank. But who knows, you'll start and maybe it'll be wonderful and then you just got a nice little nest egg. Or perhaps it won't. And for most people to be, you have to have a hard yards. I can think of so many people I know that have taken jobs in the last couple of years because they're it just hasn't worked out for them in whatever change of career they wanted to do, it just didn't work out. It's really hard doing this work and it can be quite lonely. It can be very rewarding and I think This is why it's important that we find ways to network with each other and to meet up and to do things. Because otherwise it's incredibly lonely and dare I say sometimes a little bit dull When you're just grinding away on your own, you know it's other people that make this really enjoyable in my opinion, really great. You mentioned about following Esterdicum Valley Product Group and we will put some links to that into the show notes. You mentioned somebody early called Pippa. Was that Pippa Top? It was Pippa, if you're listening. I'm so sorry I forgot your surname. It's it's post holiday. Yeah, you could have just said. I think Ben might have edited it really badly and missed a bit more. I remembered your surname too late now. They're too late now. Whoops. So we'll put Pippa's LinkedIn URL into the show notes as well. Now Nick, if people want to find you, LinkedIn clearly a very good place to find you. If they wanted to learn more about anything else that you do is is linked the resource for people to learn more or are there other avenues or here here is an honest truth and this will resonate with anyone who wants to consider this shift. I've been doing this for 2 1/2 years now and I still don't have a website that is work in progress. The reason I don't have a website is because I've been too busy working with clients and and delivering value so. Right now check me out on LinkedIn, but I am now holding myself to account publicly on on the podcast. The website is a work in progress and it will be live so that at some stage I can finally say check out www.storiesmatter.iobut right now there won't be much on there I'm afraid. No, that's okay. Well thank you. The commitment is made. Does that. But you want to say let me know when you want this episode to be released and we'll make sure that we'll time it accordingly, right. We might be waiting a while. Yeah, right. So Nick, we are going to be doing a live stream together. We are. I'm just putting it out there now. We haven't got a date for that, but we will let everyone know. So if you want to come and chat with Nick and I on LinkedIn or YouTube, we'll be live on both platforms. We may even be live on Instra and TikTok by that point. Given the Love Tick really like us. We get like get trash on TikTok and we also get some really aggressive, nasty comments, which is good fun. Go on TikTok and check out some of some of the comments sometimes because they are class and we'll be going live. And the topic, Nick, what are we going to be talking about? Product coaching, I think. So I think we'll let's leave it nice and vague. For now, because we've got plenty of room to pivot, Yeah, we're going to be too, about product coaching. So if you're interested in product coaching, if you're interested in what it takes to be a product coach or hiring a product coach or any of the things we've spoken about, make sure you follow nickel LinkedIn. Make sure you follow the Product Agility podcast on Link and then you will know the date. Nick, thank you so much for giving us your ears. Whatever you've been doing, I hope you've enjoyed whatever you've been busying yourself with. Whilst listening to me and Nick, I delve deep into the maybe the essence and the real the nuance of product coaching. Nick, anything you'd like to say before we end? No. Thank you so much for having me. I hope everyone enjoys it. Looking forward to the live stream. Excellent. Thank you everyone. We'll see you. I'll see you. No, you'll hear me next week.