Product Tonic Lab Cohort 2: Welcome!

The Product Tonic Lab (PTL) Cohort 2 kicked off with 14 participants in the welcome call counting the host, Michael, and other co-facilitators. I volunteered to be the Scribe for the event, not knowing that I had large shoes to fill, but was eager to share with you all the thoughts and observations shared by the group as we opened the program

Centering and mindfulness as the beginning

After agreeing and clearing out some house rules within the group, we started the session with a mindfulness session led by Michelle Ow. The exercise was a simple but deliberate breathing exercise that anybody could do while seated on their work station.

Personally, I thought it was a refreshing way to start a product-centered program because it set the tone with the kind of activities we would do together and the mindset that we were expected to approach them in. Succeeding sessions, we were told, would also start off this way and I couldn’t help but let my inner yogi jump in joy.

Identifying our values as individuals and as a group

We spent some time afterwards to run a voting session that helps us identify our individual values first and then visually see what we as a group collectively find important.

The values I personally selected were aligned with the Personal Values Assessment I did prior to the program (as this was a recommended pre-work) but participants were welcome to select values on the spot. Once the voting session ended, the values with the most votes were continuous learning, personal growth, and openness and although these were regarded as the “most popular values”, Michael noted that since our group was as large as it was, it was no surprise that the values that represented us was as spread out as it was.

Participants were then added into small groups in a 1–2–4-ALL format where we were able to share the values we selected with our peers alongside our intentions in joining PTL Cohort 2.

Notable insights shared were the realizations that even though we selected similar values, a value’s meaning may differ from person to person and there was still merit in learning more about a different perspective and gaining a deeper understanding on a topic that we thought we already knew about. As an example, the value “making a difference” was interpreted as making a difference on a future generation and to the community by one person, while also being understood as letting external factors make a difference on one’s self by another person.

Another insight was that some values selected by a person were actually a more granular definition of another value. For example, well being as a value is not achieved if the person does not also exhibit independence and humor/fun in their life — since these two values were needed to be honored in order for well being to be achieved.

Why are we here?

Product Tonic Lab was built to help individuals navigate “The Messy Middle of Careers” which is defined as the part in our professional lives where we’re neither in junior-level and entry-level positions nor are we at the executive level yet. Michael, as the program coordinator, felt that there was a gap in the learning offered by MBA programs, Corporate Trainings, and Self-Learning resources for mid-career individuals and that was how PTL’s program structure was formed.

Notably, a percentage of the proceeds earned by the program gets donated to the Baan Dada Children’s Home which supports disadvantaged children situated in the border of Thailand and Myanmar where they are brought up as a family under the guidance of the Neo-Humanist foundation which aims to contribute to sustainable development of the individual, the community and the environment. PTL proceeds specifically help fund their university program that aims to sponsor a child’s education from covering their school’s tuition fee, school supply cost, and even their accommodation while attending university.

With a focus on collaborative learning and co-creating our journeys, the PTL Cohort 2 kicked off with a promise of bringing participants through the sessions in a state of flow using materials that are within the scope and difficulty that the participants themselves define as both challenging and fulfilling.