Vlad Loktev: belief

Transcript context

…And one thread that I've noticed across all these things, and noticed working with you, is it's not like just making a case for something you could disagree with. It's showing the data that will convince them they are wrong, or here's what they're missing. It's not like a speech. It's, "Here's the data," and asking them, "What data would you want to see to convince you this might be not as you-" Totally. I think I remember doing a Q&A with the whole company on the Instant Book topic. This was a very long time ago, but I still remember where instead of, again, advocating for a point of view, I just asked all the people that were concerned what their main questions were, and then we just tackled them one by one and we would talk. There's just something very disarming when you embrace the questions, you embrace the negativity, and you have an open mind that maybe there's some things that you missed and some things that you didn't consider. I love that. Okay, there's so many little nuggets already through this that I just want to come back to and make sure people take away of how to be more successful. And this is not just as a product leader, this just as a leader in any company. The first is advice around thinking about impact above all else. And the very simple heuristic that I wrote down as you were talking is ask yourself, "What are the priorities for the company? How can I impact these priorities?" And to do that, think about the levers that drive the business. And where do I think I can make an impact to drive these priorities and drive the business? Two is inquiry first. When you disagree with something or when you want to say no, start with understanding, asking questions, dialing up inquiry versus advocacy, versus, "Here's what I think." Poking the bear, which is really fun, just this idea of don't be afraid to disagree with someone in power. And your advice here is disagree with, "Here's data you may be aware of here. Have you seen this? Hey, check this out." Or, "What is it that would convince you you're wrong?" And then is there anything else I missed? Otherwise, we'll go on to more.…

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