How to Accelerate into Product Leadership (3/4) : Career

Following the kick-off on our path to product leadership on 20 Jan 2022 and adaptive skills on 10 Feb 2022, we followed-up with a deep dive on 3 Mar 2022 on “How to Accelerate into Product Leadership : Career” presented by #ProductTonic Community.

We had 99 registered from the various communities of practices like PM Huddle, Product PH, Product Management SG, UXSG, UXMY, UXPH across Southeast Asia.

Self-guided slides are available at https://bit.ly/ptl-03mar22-productleadership-career

We dove straight in to understand who was in the room with a group constellation activity examining the level of experience we had in product roles. It was great to see everyone joining from a range of experience and willing to take part together to help each other.

To understand better how we each learnt from the various community of practices, we also asked about the types of learning communities available from open to intimate and organisation led to community-led.

In framing the question about “How to demonstrate your skills and abilities in front of people that can help propel your career.” towards “HOW do I wish to create change for the better whole (earth & society)?”, we further examined how lifelong learning is key to the networked economy [Harold Jarche]

Communities of practices like PM Huddle, Product PH and #Product Tonic provide a space to learn together and demonstrate skills and abilities in the presence of others who are entering the system, navigating the messy middle or establishing professional relationships. The Challenge? there are more than 100 communities of practices to learn from with a complex MBA, Corporate Training, Confluence, Blogs etc trying to provide knowledge.

Our take at #ProductTonic is a mission to think about the Wicked Problems and ask “How are we designing for the other 90%”?. We want to create a space for co-creation between young/junior professionals considering “What can help sharpen my skills?”, busy/senior professionals wondering “what is next for me?” and wicked societal problems that requires “Dialogue and co-generative action”. Starting from conversations at the Product Gin & Tonic Bali Retreat 2018, we have since then facilitated retreats and unconference to help uncover some of the concerns product people have about product design & development.

With Product Tonic Lab Cohort 1, we were able to create a space for dialogue with 23 participants, 7 mentors and 3 co-facilitators on the topics of Product Leadership / Decisions / Trust / Sustainability / Resilience / Mentorship / Ownership / Culture / Economy / Self.

This helped each individual go beyond demonstrating their skills & abilities in front of each and towards a concerted effort to imagine what their own purpose was for products that could have a great impact on the larger whole.

During the world cafe segment of the session, we raised 2 questions for the group to consider and learn from each other.

Here is the summary of key points discussed

How do we demonstrate skills and abilities in front of people that can help propel our careers.

• Take initiative to get deeper context, and share insights found to business goals
• Focus on people and working with the right company and fit
• Demonstrating that you are willing and able to take up responsibilities of the role that you are eyeing.
• Mentoring to pass down the next generation

HOW do we wish to create change for the better whole (earth & society)?

• Starting with self-work and helping people become better versions of themselves
• Work on things that bridge the gap between people
• Think about the sustainability and energy consumption of the implementation

Interested to take part in Cohort 2 and 3 starting in April & June 2022?

Check out Product Tonic Lab landing page and stories https://linktr.ee/producttonic

How to Accelerate into Product Leadership (3/4) : Career[facilitated on 3 Mar 2022]

Self-guided slides are available at https://bit.ly/ptl-10feb22-productleadership-path

This series was first prototyped at Product Tonic Unconference 2021 as a topic “Designing your Product Leadership journey”.

#producttonic #producttoniclab #southeastasia #productleadership #productmanagement #skills #skillsdevelopment