Likes Quiet.

Transcript context

…It also relates very much to your idea of thinking of your career like a PM thinks about their product where one of the tactics is to imagine the ideal scenario and work backwards from that versus incrementally what's the next thing? What's the next thing? So in this case, she was thinking, "Here's where I want to head. Okay, what's the next thing to get to that direction?" I love that. This episode is brought to you by Webflow. We're all friends here, so let's be real for a second. We all know that your website shouldn't be a static asset. It should be a dynamic part of your strategy that drives conversions. That's business 101, but here's a number for you. 54% of leaders say web updates take too long. That's over half of you listening right now. That's where Webflow comes in. Their visual first platform allows you to build, launch, and optimize webpages fast. That means you can set ambitious business goals and your site can rise to the challenge. Learn how teams like Dropbox, IDEO, and Orangetheory trust Webflow to achieve their most ambitious goals today at webflow.com. Okay, going a slightly different direction, I'd say the post that you've written that has most resonated with me was about introverts and how hard it is to be successful as an introvert, and that basically have to learn to be an extrovert as an introvert because in business extroverts are most valued. Can you just talk about of your insight, what you've seen around this and how and your advice to introverts like me about how to be successful in business, what you need to change? Well, first, I love the book, Quiet by Susan Cain. She talks about the power of introverts. Unfortunately, the world doesn't see the way the world the way she does. I wrote this post. It was the secret bias no one talks about, which is the workplace is really favoring people who can speak up. And I tell the story of somebody on my team who's just an amazing product manager, and yet every time she came up for promotion or calibration, people were like, "Oh, what does she do?" And it was because she was not good at broadcasting or explaining what she does. I would take her to executive meetings and she was really bad at answering questions or talking. And so we would prep and prep and prep. I just knew her skills and I could see her every day moving the product forward. But for some reason people... Because your peers also have influence over people's ratings and their promotions, and I was constantly just trying to figure out how to get them to see her brilliance. I asked her once, I said, "I noticed that you never answer questions when we do these presentations." She's like, "Yeah, because I'm a processor. And by the time I process, I feel like the conversation has moved on." And so I really feel like the world, it's not built for somebody like her who's a brilliant product leader, but people couldn't see it. And I realized that so much of what products and just general leadership is, is not just doing the work, but actually... It's not just having the product, it's having great product marketing to go with it. Let's call it that. Okay, so I've been in product and I've been product marketing. You make a light bulb, but you're selling light. I really think about how that she was making amazing number of light bulbs. She was lighting up all the houses, but she was not marketing the light. And I think that was the thing that was really missing. Is that fair? Absolutely not. There are a lot of people who are born introverted. Is it fair that a product manager who isn't introverted, isn't extroverted is struggling with that? No, but that's the world we live in. And so it's one of those things where you get to choose what you do. First, I think for the individual is realizing that you are your own best marketer. You have to actually share what you do. If a great product is out in the world, but no one is told about it, did it exist? And so one of the things that's very important is really to get that product marketing. The second part is we should change our workplaces so everyone can be successful. And I think that that's a really important skill. As more introverts get into leadership, they need to actually change the world to make more space for people like them as well. So one of the things that I found was in my leadership teams over the last several years, we had this thing where we all vote, but we vote offline in a document and we put a number in and then we put our comments in. And that way everyone has an equal voice in this document. several years, we had this thing where we all vote, but we vote offline in a document and we put a number in and then we put our comments in. And that way everyone has an equal voice in this document. And then when we talk about it, usually, of course the extroverts speak first, but everyone has a vote and we can actually see what people's point of views are. And I love that. I love that when there's something we used to do at Facebook is we used to go around in a circle and everybody would give their opinion in a meeting. I do that still today. I ask every single person as a business leader at this company, would you do this? And even I joke with our chief legal officer, Greg, I say, "You are a business leader and the lawyer. You can't just say, well, legal advises X." I'm like, "But what would you do?" And so nobody can take a backseat to decision making. Everybody has a voice. So there's so many of these kind of bias interrupters, things that we can do to actually make the world easier for those who weren't speaking up and taking 80% of the air in the room. And I do think that we have to craft a workplace where everyone can be their best.…

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