Paige Costello: recommendation

Transcript context

…In terms of knowing the insight and knowing thy customer, putting the time, I imagine, is a big element of that. Is that how you do that, or is there anything else along those lines that's just like, "Here's how I get really good at this?" When you take a new role, become best friends with a researcher, and spend time watching customers use the product firsthand because what they maybe report on or are trying to do a study about might be very different from what you observe, but you really just need that front row seat with customers, and so asking, "How do I actually set up time with customers? How do I compensate them? How do I read the tickets?" Whatever. It's amazing how little you have to do to quickly catch up to understanding who the organization is solving for well and poorly, and how people really use your product versus how your teams use your product, especially in organizations where there are heavy dogfooding cultures. It's really risky to become less sensitive to the needs and behaviors of customers because people think they are their customer, and it also becomes very navel-gazey. So I think the more you get out and break up how people are having conversations about what we should do and why, and what we shouldn't do and why, and it's not about your opinion, it's about asking questions, and then bringing insight can really change the nature of the conversation and build trust. I love that. In terms of confidence, you talked about the importance of communicating these things confidently. Is there anything you've learned about how to be more confident? The managing part of it is like having the answer, but is there anything there that you maybe coach your PMs around or other folks of just like, "Here's how you communicate confidence?"…

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