How to ace Meta-style leadership & drive PM interviews

0:00 Thank you everyone for dialing in today to this lightning lesson. Um my name is Ben and I'm going to be hosting this session with a couple friends of mine who are um really impressive people to me uh in the space. So I've been spending the last couple years really helping people get ready for meta style uh product sense and analytical thinking interviews primarily. I've done work with both Robert and Brian uh in the vein of helping people for those two interview types. And I think um the number one thing that's been coming up for uh for me that is like the biggest gap in everything that I'm doing these days is is actually not product sense and analytical thinking related, but it's more about once people pass those interviews, they then have to get ready for uh the leadership and drive interview at Meta and at some other companies. They might not call it leadership and drive, but it's basically just getting buttoned up for behavioral interviews as product leaders. And um you know, the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized instead of trying to kind of do do it all myself, I wanted to um Why is there someone whiteboarding?

1:05 Okay. Yeah. I don't know where if everyone else just saw that, but Well, we we should not be whiteboarding uh on this right now. Feel free to kick back and and just just listen um and enjoy the conversation. But yeah, I'd say Robert and Brian are two people I really respect when it comes to getting ready for the the behavioral interviews that are used at places like Meta, um the leadership and drive interview. So, we wanted to take this session today to go deep deep on that. Um so, before I let um Brian and Robert introduce themselves, I'm just going to we're not going to spend too much time looking at slides during this session, but I just want to um have a few a few slides to start with some housekeeping. So, Brian or Robert, can you give me a thumbs up if you see this, uh, this these slides?

1:48 Great. So, um, some housekeeping. Uh, this session is going to be recorded and emailed to everyone who RSVPs after the fact. Um, if you know someone who would benefit from this that didn't even know about this, so they didn't RSVP, they can always sign up later. You can just share the recording link that you get over email and they can put in their email and they they'll get the recording email to them as well. So, that's actually how a lot of people get this content. They don't necessarily have to be here live. Same applies if you just have to drop at some point. Life life happens, work happens, so don't feel like you'll miss out. You'll you'll just get the recording later. Um, if you want, you can turn off your video during the session. Um, at the end, we'll do some Q&A, but even that's going to be primarily chat based, so there really won't be a need for people to share your video on this. So, no pressure at all to do that. And then this will go by pretty quickly. So, if you miss something, again, like recording is going to help a lot. Um, and uh I think you're all muted by default. So if it doesn't if it's all the same to you, please uh just stay muted so that the recording quality doesn't get um interfered with in any way. And then please hold questions until uh the end and use the chat for that. Uh if you drop questions in as we go, it will most likely get ignored because um I'll be kind of like facilitating the panel until we get to the end. So if you've got questions, I know you're probably really antsy and excited to drop them. I've been there.

3:08 just like wait until the end, you'll have a chance to ask them. Um, I also noticed having hosted probably half a dozen of these lightning lessons at this point, uh, people have a tendency to plug their, um, like their LinkedIn and and like there's some like a promotional element to like what people do in the chat. I would really ask that you don't do that. Um, please. So, just kind of keep the chat clean so that when we get to the Q&A, there's not a lot of noise to sift through. Um, yeah, go ahead, Ryan.

3:36 >> Hey, Ben. And I noticed one of the participants is also recording the talk and I'll defer to you, Ben, of course, but I understand you're recording it and there'll be some edits based on what you record. So, I think I would prefer it to only be recorded by you. >> Where uh yeah, that's a good qu. I didn't see that. Where are you seeing this, Brian? >> In the chat, it says uh this is an automated message to let you know that my tactic extension is transcribing this meeting so I can give my full attention to you. Yeah, I guess that this at these days that's almost inevitable um with things like granola. So, I think as long as they're not transcribing like the the video or recording the video, there's actually nothing I can do about that other than boot them. Um so, I'll probably have to let that slide, Brian.

4:22 I don't know if I there's anything I can do about that one. >> Okay, that's fine. Um yeah, but Tony, feel free to disable that if you um want want if you want in can. >> We just won't say anything mean about bots that might offend it. >> Yeah, when when >> Sorry about that. I didn't even know that uh it was turned on by default. I'll try to disable it. >> Cool. Thank you for that.

4:48 um these days best practice for people I would say use like one of the quieter ones that doesn't make itself known and it just avoids awkward conversations but that's an that's a separate opinion um okay so with all that said let's keep going so today we're going to cover um how real calibrated interviews interviewers evaluate the notoriously ambiguous um leadership and drive interview at Meta um if any of you are getting ready for it you might know what I mean there's a bunch of materials s out there, it's kind of hard to get figure out exactly what they're looking for and how this interview plays out. So hopefully this will help with that. Um you'll get a feel for what great sounds like across the key dimensions that are being evaluated in the leadership and drive interview. So things like resourcefulness, growth mindset, ownership, conflict resolution, and ultimately some tips on how to best prepare and practice um for these interviews.

5:41 So um we'll start with some intros. we'll have a panel. Um that should get us to probably like the 45m minute mark if people need to drop. Um like I said, you can watch the uh Q&A after the fact. So with um with that said, I think I've mostly done my intro before I've you know been teaching this course that I teach on Maven and do a lot of the coaching work I do now. I spent time at various early stage startups uh as the head of product at a series A company called Continuum. Spent some time at Attentive um which is a leader in marketing tech. Before that, I was at Meta for a couple years working on guidance for small business advertisers.

6:16 And then before that, a series of earlier stage startups. Uh, some of which worked, some of which didn't. Um, but yeah, that's kind of a bit about me. And then Robert, would you uh would you like to go next and share a bit more about your background? >> Thanks, Ben. Yeah, so I'm Robert Hamilton. I'm a full-time coach, mostly working with PMs, but I also have a few clients who are engineers and people who work in strategy. I started coaching in 2020. Prior to that, I was at Meta. uh Meta. I worked on VR when it was still called Oculus. Uh and uh I was also PM for spam uh at Meta for uh for just under a year when I started. Prior to that was a startup. Before that, I was at Google long time at Google, eight years. I worked on mobile search. I created the Google search app. Uh the one that's on iOS and also the one that's on Android. In fact, I created them before Android and iOS existed on other platforms, but most of you are probably too young to remember those. Uh I worked on Gmail. Uh, and then I was a PM on the Android team leading all the Android apps. And my last role at Google was working on Nexus devices. So again, for those newer to the business, um, Nexus was around before Pixel. It was how Google partnered with OEM. So, uh, I spent a little bit of time as a hardware PM and that's where most of my gray hair came from.

7:27 >> Thanks, Robert. Brian, you want to go next? >> Yeah, sure. Hey, so I'm Brian Kemler. I'm a product lead currently at Door Dash. Uh I have about a decade and a half of product management experience uh at Door Dash, at Google as well as at Meta. I got my start launching 0ero to1 products in underserved markets like Thailand and Burma for big Google products like Gmail, Google News and uh and search. Uh, I've also worked on self-driving cars, privacy, early privacy preserving um technology and that I worked on um privacy and access privacy and accessibility. And so I've kind of morphed into a trust and safety PM. I think the one through line in my career has been I've been using a lot of AI since uh you know well well more than 10 years ago and AI has been that kind of uh continuous streak through the work that I do and so now it's like super exciting to see how AI has come to the four in terms of how we build as product builders.

8:36 >> Awesome. Thanks both of you. And for just to kind of set some context for the group on how we all have kind of interplayed into each other. Um Brian and I actually met when Brian joined Meta. I was uh his assigned uh I guess onboarding buddy at at Meta. And even though I think he came out at a level more senior than me, I think I kind of helped him just navigate the culture there. And he stayed longer than I did.

8:58 I think a little over four years if I'm not mistaken, Brian. um and grew there uh really nicely after having an incredible run at Google uh for for 10 plus years. So Brian and I have just like stayed close and in addition to being an incredible um kind of like big tech PM that Brian is, he's also been doing a lot of work to help candidates get ready for interviews, he has some interview coaching materials and guides and has a Substack uh that he has. So we'll plug those at the end. But Brian is someone who's also been joining the office hours in my my course for the last I think like six, seven months or so um this year. So my my students are well well familiarized with Brian and have given me like tremendous feedback about how helpful his his thoughts have been to them and their interview prep.

9:39 Um and then uh Robert uh we've met through a community called Supra community for product leaders and uh Robert ping me one day. He's like hey like I think I have a lot of thoughts on on leadership and drive interviews and behavioral interviews. Would love to come on your podcast. So he came uh to the Super Insider podcast that I host and did an incredible episode. So, if you end up wanting to hear more from Robert too, I would highly encourage you to check out that episode of my podcast, Super Insider, episode 60, I believe, uh, that Robert joined us for. Um, okay, without more intros, so I'm going to stop screen sharing now because you're like, "Wait, we're already at Q&A?

10:13 What's going on here?" Um, so the way this is going to work is we're going to cover uh the three main topics that I mentioned and we're going to keep it conversational. Um, I think actually the way to do this is I'm supposed to spotlight the three of us so that we stay front and center. So, let me just do that. Okay. So, I think now Robert, Brian, and I should all be the main view. Um, and I'm going to mostly be facilitating a discussion here and they'll be sharing thoughts. So, I think where I want to start um maybe is with uh with with Robert. Um, and Robert, I want to pose a question for you. Um, just to kind of get us all in the same headsp space, which is, um, in Meta, like the three primary interviews that they use, at least for most product managers, as you get to like senior leadership, there's additional kinds of ones, but for most people that interview at Meta, they'll run into three types. Product sense, analytical thinking, and leadership, and drive. um what makes the leadership and drive interview different um in your view relative to the other ones? Like what are the things that you think Meta is really trying to sus out in this this interview?

11:25 >> Great question. I think it's because it's case well it's it's real life case based right the other topics are really all hypotheticals. So they are about bringing your intellect to solve a problem whether that's in product sense or analytical thinking. Whereas leadership and drive is really all about how you show up as a PM and as a PM leader. So it is personal. It's not hypothetical. It's about real things. You know very early on people learn you know if you get asked tell me about a time you resolved conflict. If you go into a here's my framework for resolving conflict that's terrible right? It's like no I want to hear about a real instance. We can all read a management textbook. We can all, you know, we all know the classic playbook for conflict resolution, but when have you actually done it? So, it is it is not really about a test of your problem solving skills where you're, you know, you're given a situation and as asked to uh to dive into it and to come up with with ideas and solutions. It's really about you relating how you show up as as a PM.

12:26 And we'll talk more as we get into into some of the detail about about how to do that. Well, but it is it's not it's not what have you worked on. That's the other key thing. It's like if you end up explaining your projects in in great detail and like you know the technical problems that you solved, you're not going to do well in leadership and drive. It is really about how you show up and the people the people and the organizational aspects of PMing rather than you know solving a hard technical problem or or you know doing amazing user discovery. We care a lot less about those things than as I say I'll keep using the the term how you show up. I'm sure Brian has has good perspectives on this too.

13:05 >> Yeah. And Brian before before you go just to kind of like check in. So I think what what I'm hearing from you Robert is like as you think about the product sense interview which is largely about your ability to take a very ambiguous prompt like how would you improve you know a certain product or how would you build Google you know a parking solution for Google maps or these which allow you to demonstrate like the skills of um setting a mission statement for a product and explaining the rationale the strategic rationale for it and then doing segmentation and picking like problems for a chosen segment and then coming through solutions and then picking like narrowing in on a V1 which is very like product sense skills related and then the analytical interview which is all about your ability to measure success and kind of like gauge the health of an ecosystem through metrics. The mutual exclusive the the signals that meta is looking for in these interviews is mutually exclusive. So what's remaining after trying to evaluate those two interviews is basically how does this person show up as a leader? How do they motivate people? How do they deal with kind of like the personal side of this job? not like the hard skills or like the absolutely >> that part of the job >> and that mutually exclusive way I think is is a great way for folks to think of it. If you find yourself doing product design or talking about the sort of analytical thinking topics in leadership and drive a stop because they are mutually exclusive that's a really great way to think of it and and that applies to the other two as well actually that's that's a really good framing Ben that's definitely how the ven diagram looks there's there's kind of no overlap.

14:30 >> Go ahead Brian. Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it and just like put >> I think I stole that from you actually if I'm not mistaken. I think you kind of helped me find the words for the mutual exclusive signal. So maybe you get the credit there. >> Robert uh >> uh no Brian I think you you you planted the m because it's different than Google. We talked about how at Google there's some overlap in the signals that they look for in these interviews where at Meta it's almost like every interview is kind of looking for a very concrete set of signals that is not being evaluated in the other interviews.

15:00 >> That's exactly correct. So yeah, so I think look in a nutshell like I totally agree with all the fe feedback that Robert just shared and what you said Ben as well at the end of the day leadership and drive interview it's a retrospective behavioral interview inherently it's subjective right so this is not about the you know the quantitative the methodical of analytical thinking or or or product sense which isn't to say it doesn't have um a methodical part of it because these answers have to be structured they have to be rigorous just like the PS or AT uh interviews, but as a behavioral retrospective interview, this is your chance to shine based on past performance being maybe not completely but reliable indicator of future results. Right? So they want to see how you express your leadership abilities during times of duress. at times of duress are like anytime you're shipping a a product there is you know there is conflict um between teams conflict between individuals um conflict between rank and file and management and leadership and drive keyword being leadership you are expected as an APM as an L4 or ICPM to be a leader you are expected to lead the team and model behavior and those are the signals that Meta is really super diving into and drilling down on.

16:32 >> Yeah. Awesome. Great. Um, so let's double click into what those actual areas are, which is I think the second kind of part of what we want to cover in this in this lesson now that we have a foundation. So as we think about u and this is not like proprietary like Meta has a publicly available PM interview guide that everyone can just go to their website and and find. the the key dimensions that I think Meta is looking to evaluate uh in the leadership and drive interview uh fall into four primary buckets. Uh the first one is resourcefulness and results. Uh which is all about can a candidate really deliver results when things go off the rails or when they're lacking resources. Um and can they get on the scoreboard in a in a certain way. The second bucket is seeking growth and learning which is does a candidate seek feedback and learn from their mistakes or do do things just like happen to them and they keep going um without without changing anything about how they operate in the world. The third bucket is around taking ownership and accountability. So does this person actually step up and lead without you know really being told and do they do they take responsibility for what happens um and learn from it. And then the last major bucket, the fourth one is really around conflict resolution and team collaboration and how this person builds trust, navigates conflict, aligns with stakeholders. Um, so those are the four main buckets. I'd love to go kind of maybe one one by one with the two of you and hear a bit more about what are the kinds of things that as you reflect on uh your experience as you know interviewers and you know maybe even as coaches for people when you're like wow that's like a really good answer. What are the kinds of things I know we're not going to have time to get into specific stories in this format, but what are the kinds of things that stand out uh along each of those dimensions that you know you feel like make a very strong response? And maybe Brian, we could maybe start with with you this time, but as you think about maybe that first bucket, the the resourcefulness uh bucket, I'm I'm curious what kind of stands out to you there.

18:29 >> Yeah. So I think this is all about like you know exhibiting attributes of the company's values and one of the company's values is scrainess right and so can you deliver results in the face of setbacks in the face of surprise in the face of surprises and how do you lead the team through that and so I think this has a number of sub subcomponents so one is like can you foresee and anticipate like, you know, the things that can go ary when you're building um products and and and features, right? If those things are outside of your immediate circle of control, even if they're, you know, a second or tertiary circle of uh of of of control, do do you take responsibility and ownership over them or, you know, just kind of throw up your hands and say, "Oh, well, you know, there was a dependency on this framework team. they didn't deliver the API, so like we had to slip our things out. Or are you the kind of PM that like builds and establishes that relationship with a PM anticipates things in like anticipates things in advance when you get some early signal that things are going sideways or could could be delayed. Are you able effectively to go in in in there in a proactive way, get your hands um dirty, influence that team and get the thing and get the thing done all while balancing um the needs and requirements of both your team and whatever team you have a dependency on.

20:03 Um lastly I think this is you know largely about operating in a realm where there's a lot of ambiguity and one needs to demonstrate um you know bringing clarity to that ambiguity um being resourceful and and again scrappy in terms of like making assumptions and deliver delivering things anyway even if it's not perfect or even if you do not have the clearest um guidance.

20:33 I appreciate that, Brian. Robert, anything you would add to that that you think people should know about that part of the interview? >> I think a lot of it is about um being able to ruthlessly prioritize. You know, there is a saying at Meta that if it doesn't hurt, it's not prioritization. That like you really do need to be focused on the right thing. It's like if you can't do both, which one is most important? and really knowing that making sure that your team is focused on the right the right goals is is part of driving results. And I think on the resourcefulness side, um there's, you know, there's lots of of kind of analogies about what role the PM plays. And I think the one that Meta probably leans closest to um is the conductor analogy, like conducting an orchestra. But I would also say that at Meta and lots of places that are scrappy sometimes you have to step in and play the instrument yourself and being that like kind of oh I don't have a data scientist oh I don't have a U I can't get a UX researcher to go and find out about this as a PM again building on Brian's point if you just hold up your hands and say so no no user research for for us like well no find out find a way you know do it yourself steal borrow an expert from another team whatever it happens to be, but just keep your team moving forward and and that kind of scrainess um is is at the heart of it.

21:58 That's like if you need something, then you know do whatever you can. Don't and and and keep moving, you know, don't wait. I think that's the other thing. And uh adding to Brian's point, I think, you know, all the way through this probably one of the worst things you can do in L & D is to blame somebody. That's like, oh, leadership didn't support us. Oh, the other team had the wrong priorities. Any of those things. It's like, well, if you needed the other team's priorities to change, why didn't you go in and change it? You failed to get leadership support. You know, is it is it if it's like leadership didn't support my idea, well, that's that's on you, right?

22:38 That's not it's not that leaders decided badly. If you had the right idea, you should you should have driven it. So again, I think again we'll talk more about this in ownership, but I think that that um any anywhere where I see someone blaming where it's like, you know, my engine lead wasn't wasn't proactive. It's not to say you can't criticize people, but or or to point out their weaknesses, but you should be doing something about it. And I think that's also part of resourcefulness. You know, oh, if my engine lead isn't hugely collaborative, I've got to help them become collaborative. Again, that's that's part of resourcefulness is like piling in to do whatever. So, yes, be the conductor, but know that sometimes you you got to run down into the orchestra pit and actually pick up the instrument and play. You won't play it as well as an expert, but it'll get played. And that's that's kind of what matters in uh in these situations. Um that's it's not my fa necessarily my favorite analogy of what a PM does, but I think it's the one that resonates with MetaBrian. I think Naomi um who is one of the like PM elders I think that was her preferred and Ben you probably remember Naomi talking about the kind of conductor model.

23:48 >> Yep. Um there's all kinds of different I think analogies I've heard people use internally for like how they they see the the role of the PM there, but I think that conductor one and it's a culture of influence, right? So, it's like the ability to get people to to do what they what you want them to do by convincing them that it's in their best interest versus because you have like explicit authority um over them. Um and then this is a good moment as we kind of transition maybe to the second uh u dimension that candidates are being evaluated on to kind of um plug something that I think every candidate should know which is that um you know when you think about product sense interviews there's kind of like a big question that you get asked and the whole interview flows from there.

24:31 Analytical thinking interviews might have like a main question with some clarifying questions followed by a trade-off question um at some point in the interview. As you think about leadership and drive interviews, you could have an interviewer um start an interview with one question and not really knowing what the other questions are going to be. And Robert, I think this was kind of more of the bucket that that you fell into as an interviewer is I'm going to ask you one big question and kind of follow my curiosity to get as much signal as I need across these various dimensions that we're going to get into from one trail head per se in in that conversation. And then Brian, I think you might fall into the second bucket of interviewers that might maybe you actually did have kind of like more explicit questions that you liked to ask or you like to ask that allow you to get the signal on each of these dimensions.

25:12 Would you guys both agree that that's a fair characterization characterization of your strategies as interviewers? >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. >> Cool. U and I think that's helpful for candidates because sometimes they just don't know like if all the interviewers show up the same exact way or if there's some variability. So I want them to be prepared for for both. Um, okay. So, now let's get into the second dimension that, um, is is all around like seeking growth and learning opportunities. So, um, I forget which one of you went first on on the last dimension, but let's rotate it. Um, yeah. What what stands out to you about this dimension, Brian?

25:44 Brian, you went first or or Robert went first. >> I went first on the last. >> Okay. So, Robert, you >> and Robert, please touch on your your modification to the STAR framework because I think that's probably very largely related to this this uh >> Oh, sure. growth and learning dimension. >> Uh am I that predictable? Uh no, that that's that's a good a good uh a good thing to add, Ben. Thank you. Um yeah, the opportunities to grow and learn.

26:10 Again, this is in leadership and drive, right? So, we're looking for learning probably not technical learning. Oh, I learned about building evals. Yeah, great. You should as a PM be learning new technical things all the time. But this is learning about yourself, learning about your weaknesses, your areas for growth, figuring out how you PM, where the gaps are, and really demonstrating that you want to fill those gaps. So, you know, you pretty much always get a question the intent of which is what are you working on right now? And it is not, oh, I'm building, you know, a new bot to do this or I'm it's like, what are you working on on you? You know, which aspect of PMingming are you trying to improve? And and I kind of call everything else technical.

26:52 There's like behavioral learning and there's technical learning. Behavioral stuff is about yourself and we're always looking for people who are very reflective that they reflect on both failure and success. Um something we talked about on the super podcast I think Ben was that sometimes when people get a question like what's the project you're most proud of? they kind of forget to reflect because it's like oh we did this and it was great and and meta um does ask a lot of kind of probing kind of not negative questions but you know when did you struggle to support your team effectively or when weren't you able to get leadership support because a lot of learning comes from those tough situations where things are difficult when things aren't going well for us so do be aware if you get asked you know what's been your biggest success as a PM make sure you still bring in some reflection that's like yeah we shipped and it was amazing and we got lots of users or we drove lots of revenue, but I can't help feeling I could have helped the team to focus better or if id learned more about users before we started, we could have shipped sooner by having more focus or whatever it happens to be. And the and the star framework, which you know, most people know situation, task, action, and results. Um, I like to add an L and a U, which means it's not quite so nice an acronym, but the L is for learning.

28:07 That's what did you learn through that process? Again, not really a technical learning. You know, I learned that people's past experience will impact their judgment. If they are new to something, they might be afraid or they might be they might be worried, you know, about their ability to uh to handle it for the first time. Other people may be jaded because they've done something so many times, you know. So, so that might be uh you know, a learning from a situation. It's a learning about people and learning about how people behave and how people engage. And then the upgrade particularly for senior leaders is the most important piece. So it's like what did I learn? The upgrade is how have I changed the way I behave to bake in that learning because I don't know about other folks on the call. I learn something pretty much every day.

28:52 My ability to wrap that into my behavior is is definitely imperfect, right? There's things I learn and then a week later I'm like, hang on, I already learned that. Why did I make the same mistake? So the upgrade is to say so now when I join a new team I like to look at all of the individuals figure out where they've come from what their biases might be what their strengths and weaknesses are so that I don't get caught out later on. So that's that idea of like I have up and the reason I use the word upgrade think of it like upgrading an operating system. It's like we've you know we've patched that bug. I won't make that mistake again. And the learning that I had from that situation it now carries with me and it changes the way I behave. And if you can you don't have to bring those those things in unprompted. You know lots of interviewers will say what did you learn through that process. Um, but if you if you can bring them in unprompted and and talk about that uh and and don't feel you have to save learning for the end.

29:46 That's also a common thing. You know, sometimes if you're talking about the six month or a year project, you probably learned things along the way. You don't have to wait until kind of the project's launched and then say, "Oh, I learned about stakeholder management early on." Talk about it when it feels natural. And also be before, you know, before we we hear from Brian, I would say that about being natural. Don't copy the way other people do L & D answers.

30:11 Like don't don't be a robot. Like be you. Talk about things the way you talk about them. And that's where, you know, just being natural um across the piece, not uh and and again in the reflection, you know, some of the best L & D interviews, I've had people, you know, really kind of feeling like, oh yeah, that was really tough. And their sense of frustration comes across. That's a great thing. If you see someone who's really frustrated, you know, I was struggling to get the best out of my team and I tried this and I tried that.

30:41 Like I would I would much rather see that than see someone who's really polished and much rather see that sense of sense of kind of struggle. Uh but yeah, the learning and the upgrade stuff, you can bring that in organically. Most interviewers will prod you towards it, but either way is fine. You don't have to you don't have to bring it, but if you can, then then do. Yeah, thanks. Um, go ahead, Brian. I'd love to hear what you have to add.

31:10 >> Sure. So, I think I like if I could if I could title this so everybody like sort of really understands like succinctly and concretely what growing continuously means. I would title this growth and feedback in a 2 by two grid where there is um growth for self and growth for others and feedback for self and feedback for others. So, a lot of this is they are looking for signal on um you know, not just like, hey, I'm Brian. I'm committed to my craft of being a PM to Robert's point of getting better at being a PM. Um but as like hey, when did Brian get hard feedback?

31:55 How did Brian take that hard feedback, assimilate it and like really use that difficult feedback, that failure, that launch that went arry and assimil assimilate that into his persona as a P as a PM so that that would never happen again. Right? So that's the first piece. That's the self piece. The second piece, the other piece, I think there's two dimensions, but this is this is the most concrete part of it is like, okay, now that I have learned that lesson, how have I proactively helped, taught, coached, advised, andor given hard feedback to other people on the team, not just product to design, anybody XFN. um how do I approach that process and methodology of that feedback to support other people's growth and the like and the team's health, company's health, the success of the user. So I think that is really the signal that they're going for here.

33:07 >> Yeah. Yeah, I think what I'm hearing across both of these is that there's kind of like um minimum bar that some people might have for what they think sounds like a good story that ends with, you know, like the action kind of reaching a certain conclusion. But meta in particular is just so um maniacally focused on finding people who can really go that next level of like how they internalize like what they learned. And Brian, to your point, like if you if you learned something so deeply that you found yourself then giving someone else feedback about it and you talked about how it helped them upgrade their behavior, like that's I think kind of like a a home run story as far as like really internalizing uh some of these learnings. So, I love that. And I want people to shoot for the moon with their stories. Like don't hold back. Um, and Robert, you have something you like to kind of share, uh, or something that stuck with me, which is like, you know, the the the story, um, the story almost always has another chapter. If you if it ends with like a failure, there's like another chapter to that story, which is about the success that follows the failure and just making sure you remember to kind of land that plane uh, with that with the end of the story. Um, okay, now getting into the the third dimension. So, we've talked about resourcefulness and results and scrappiness. We've talked about seeking growth and kind of like demonstrating how you've um internalized learnings from experiences and mistakes and failures uh to level up and upgrade your behavior. And then the third dimension here is around really taking ownership and accountability. So, how does this one feel different to you guys as you think about the signal you're looking for as interviewers? And for those first two dimensions, what feels different about about this one? You want to dive in, Brian?

34:53 >> Yeah. Yeah, sure. Sounds good. Sounds good. So, like on this one, I think um it's embodied in the adage um I as a PM take all of the blame and none of the credit. Now, that's different in an interview. In an interview, you want to take all of the credit. uh and you can take some of the blame but in in the daytoday job as a practitioner of the craft of of of PM you are really supporting um the team and if something goes wrong the bottom line is upon you as a PM and so these you know so like think when you're crafting your stories think about those situations where um you know something went ary and it wasn't that you blamed engineering or design or XFN or some exogenous factor but like you take responsibility for um everything.

35:46 So I think that's the first um you know that's the first piece and then I think the second piece is like really a commitment to user company team and probably in that order I think you know if you look on meta's external stuff it's like they have meta metamates and me something like that um I I always add user on top of on top of that that's my that's my addition because I think like user is the highest like the highest value company second team, team third and just displaying that commitment and that through line from that user through the needs of the company and down into the like operational aspects of the team and getting um you know getting the work done and then embodying and exemplifying that um commitment to the goals and objectives and and the work.

36:40 >> Love that. Thanks for sharing, Brian. Robert would love to to hear your thoughts here. Yeah, I think that's part that I would would add on to that which is very much about as part of the ownership piece. You got to really know your charter and know what you are responsible for owning and don't be afraid to intentionally expand it. So it's like my team could you know if we owned that we could have more impact. Um, and as I was thinking about this call, I'd like there are certain trigger words for meta. Anyone who's anyone who sat in a PSC meeting and impact is one of those trigger words. If you use sprinkle the word impact in your interview, it's like, oh, I wanted to make sure we had the most impact. Anyone who's ever been in a PSC review will be like, oh great, you focused on the right thing. Um, but you know, if you think, oh, I realized that if we took on this extra project, we could increase our impact. It's like that ownership of like extreme ownership of what you already own, but not being afraid to say we should also have that. Maybe no one owns it right now. Maybe someone else owns it and you feel you could do a better job, but not not having a fixed mindset, you know, which is well, I was given these this this list of things that I own and that's it. I'm going to stay in my lane and and and not adapt because, you know, meta changes all the time. like there's there's things you know its ability to adapt is probably its its greatest strength. Uh and and to adapt quickly um not to say it doesn't make mistakes but that's if you adapt quickly making mistakes is less important because you can make the mistake and then undo it and move in a different direction. So I would say that again ownership and accountability are like if you think you should own something um and this is something I saw a lot of meta is like you know people you should go and grab it and and and demonstrate impact through through that and um you know Brian's point is spot on about you know taking taking the blame is like you may not be responsible for a thing that went wrong but you should be responsible for fixing it and finding a way around it.

38:39 Um, and you know, that's that's that's a big part of this. >> Is there is I mean I was going to save this for Q&A, but we're already on and I think I'm just curious like do do you guys think there's such a thing as taking too much blame or taking too much responsibility for for a failure in an interview setting at least? >> I I I think I I think this is the delicate balance of the behavioral of the behavioral interview, right? So let's say you know there's some sort of scenario I'm waiting for a team to release an API like their engineer gets hit by a bus like am I responsible for that engineer dying? No. Um but I am responsible for um thinking through thinking through the things that could go wrong having a plan to ant in anticipate them and like where risk is medium or high. having like having a having like a plan B if not already um anticipated then certainly like certainly certainly on on tap and like I do look at myself as a PM as the overall responsibility for you know the success of the um of of the product or the feature the the timeline the delivery like all of you know all of those things that is that is like 100% on me even if even if that person has gotten hit by the bus like I think you don't want to throw yourself under the bus too much here, especially if it's a situation where you maybe did make an obvious or unforced error, mistake, that type of, you know, that type of thing. And so these are all about finding that balance of um being able to introspect genuinely.

40:24 But like if you had some like laying horrible thing that you did that was like totally opposite, I don't think I would use that for one of these questions. I would pick something that is like a little, you know, not vanilla and generic, but something maybe a little a little less um blatantly um incorrect. Yeah. And I think, you know, a common follow-up question I use is, you know, if you were faced with a similar situation again, what what might you do differently? And it is okay to say, actually, I think that went pretty well.

41:02 I I would probably pretty much do the same thing. If you say that every single time, it's bad. But it is okay to be good at your job. You can have a successful launch where you acted well. you should have already had some reflection about maybe I could have, you know, but but there are times to to Brian's point when it, you know, things go well and it's okay. You don't always have to be kind of digging in the in in the muck, but um it's okay to say actually I think that went pretty well and you know, I I probably wouldn't change anything. Don't don't artificially create something just for the sake of answering that question, but don't always push back on that.

41:39 There should be times when you think I could have acted sooner or I could have spent more time building that relationship or whatever it happens to be. But you definitely can take take too much blame. Um, and taking blame without introspection, which was I think a key part of what Brian said. It's like just saying it's all on me. Well, if you don't learn from it, then there's no value in you taking the blame. It's like the blame is is is a phase you go through in order to get the learning. It's like what could I have done? Hey, you know, maybe this is on me. What could I have done differently? That's what use the blame for. It it's it should be >> um part of your process, but it's not it's not the focus of your answer. It's like how did I how did I improve as a PM through this tough situation? And sometimes taking the blame and thinking, was it me? What could I have done differently? Is is part of doing that work on on your on your process. Yeah, I I love I love Thanks for exploring that kind of um double click because I think to summarize what I just heard. Um is that you don't want to share an example.

42:44 Um Brian, I think what I was what was what was coming to mind is you don't want to share an example or a story that sounds like sheer incompetence of some kind. Like there's like a core >> Yes. >> aspect of >> the bar is definitely higher than incompetence. >> Yeah. Like so you obviously don't want to go like if you actually that that's like the that's like below the bar of where where we want to be with our failure stories because that leaves a doubt in the mind of of the interviewer that you're you know there's bigger issues um as as a PM but um so finding that kind of story that you learn from I think is the key rather than something that's like fundamentally like I did the best with what I knew at the time and if I had this information here's what I would have done differently is kind of like somewhat of a recipe u for what great sounds like. And I think it's okay to reference emotions. Like one of my stories is um we were down a user experience researcher. I led the user experience re research expedition. I always fashioned myself as an excellent writer and an excellent communicator.

43:42 And basically the feedback I got on my my deck was that it wasn't structured enough and I needed to do a redo. And like I I took that as kind of an like I took it as kind of an ego hit, but I took a bre you know like I took a breath. I assimilated the the feedback. I went like I went back I re I reworked the deck and then I went around to the stakeholders and got like feedback on the deck again and they said, "Hey, the deck was like amazing. The second rev, you know, was amazing." And so I think like it's okay to reference like, "Hey, like I took it as a little bit of a blow." Like that shows that you're human. Nobody expects you not to be human. You are human, but like that you're not acting, oh yeah, like I I pushed back. I said this is ridiculous.

44:26 I'm a great No. So, so it's like it's all about finding that balance and being authentic. >> Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Now, uh just because I'm keeping my eye on the clock, uh but I think this is this is great. So, I I I want us to cover the fourth dimension, then we'll have some some more time for maybe a question or two. Um so, we've talked about the the first three. Um the final dimension is really about conflict resolution and team collaboration. Um and so conflict is really triggering for a lot of people.

44:57 So my question, you know, like when you think about, sorry to use, you know, brute language, but like when people think of an that they worked with who was like just like unpleasant or like someone who just like steamrolled them or like a manager that was really toxic, right? Like those are the types of conflict that can come to mind for people. So, I'm just curious like when you think about strong answers from candidates, what are there any like themes for the kinds of conflict stories that you think lend themselves really well to to these kind of interviews and the way they they get presented?

45:27 >> I feel that things that that rumble on are much more powerful than things that are like a quick spike of conflict where you you kind of go in and you know like almost anything that gets resolved in a day or two. I'm like, really? Was that a conflict or just a difference of opinion? That was like, you know, I got the people in a room, we talked it through, they agreed. Like, that's not a conflict. That's that's kindergarten conflict, you know. It's it's not um it's not significant. And it it also needs to be something which is is is material. You know, it's like it has to be impacting a problem. I would also say that not part of it is seeing that people are not afraid of conflict and even I would say at higher levels of creating conflict where necessary because sometimes it is important to like push back and to handle that and I don't think there are that many questions about that usually it is about resolution but you know you you do have to have a healthy relationship with conflict and part of that is being able to not just avoid you know, it's like, oh, conflict avoidance is like avoiding fixing other people's conflicts, but also perhaps not stepping in, you know, not pushing back and not not generating conflict. Um, and again, focus on the behavior. You know, I had a uh a client I was working with who in their L & D uh at Meta, they this is before they worked with me, uh I should add as a caveat, they started explaining the story and they were working for one of the ride share companies and the their conflict was about a conflict between the two sides of the business around tipping uh drivers and and riders having a different perspective and the meta interviewer after 2 minutes stopped them in the tracks and said, "I am not interested in how tipping works on your platform. form. I want to understand the conflict with the other person.

47:21 >> So they were like, it's not about tipping, it's about your relationship with the other person. And then that that interviewer, I think, did that candidate a huge favor by by doing that. And I just wanted to share that today as an example as like don't overexlain the conflict, explain the the behaviors because there's always differences of opinion. U Brian, I'm sure you have thoughts on that kind of is it the is the is the matter at hand the conflict or is the conflict the the >> people problem like the the the drama between the humans. Yeah. I'm curious what you think Brian.

47:56 >> Yeah. I mean I think if there's an opportunity to and I totally agree with Robert's points. I think if there is an opportunity to tie the conflict to the impact for user, company, team that is like really important especially when you're if you're using star you get to the end and you talk about like talk about talk about the results right so um you know is is is conflict is okay and compare and contrast like Google was I'll just be candid Google was slightly more conflict avoidant than than Meta and Meta was more embracing of conflict But primarily and overwhelmingly I would say in an absolutely healthy kind of way where it was like pretty simple and straightforward to be like okay Ben's the monetization PM, Brian's the privacy PM like even before we get into that um the the room like we understand a little bit about each other's perspectives and worlds and that like for Brian to get his whole thing Ben's going to have to lose his whole like lose some of his and vi and vice versa that there's like an inherent trade-off between privacy and monetization, right? And so it is okay to go into that room and have that conversation, sus sus that out and then agree on that like escalation path forward, right? So what they are looking for is that you know you're an adult, you're a mature, you're not bringing in like emotions and you're focused on like data and that like the the two stakeholders in this like say trade-off situation can you know level up to um you know a high like a higher value be it like I said at the company the user um level or whatnot.

49:35 >> Got it. So great stories here s like are not about the detail the details about the specific you know PRD level disagreement about what what the right solution is but it's these kind of longerstanding um these things that have like a deeper kind of way that they're impacting people psychologically perhaps or like like the behaviors but but there's maybe like the ability to diagnose as an adult what the maybe incentive structures are that are causing the conflict to happen and maybe demonstrating like initiative in the process of calling that out, leveling with the other person, identifying the mismatch, and if maybe like incentive structures need to get rearranged or revisited so to to align people so they could work together collaboratively um in in a healthy way. Like that's basically like um one way to tell a story about resolving conflict.

50:24 >> Yeah. Or just leveling it up to like figuring out what the common denominator, common ground is. >> Yep. Well, that's actually a perfect tea up for my my first, you know, Q&A question here, which is I'm probably not the only one that's kind of hearing you guys talk through these and and saying like, hey, like this sounds like there's some overlap between the kinds of stories that can demonstrate like resourcefulness and like focusing on results and like learning and growing and taking ownership and accountability and resolving conflict and especially if I'm tying the conflict resolution to like, you know, ownership and, you know, resourcefulness and like results. So, like I'm curious uh to get your guys' take like um do do you think that candidates when they're getting ready for for these interviews, which is like our last kind of part of this this session. Do you think when candidates are getting ready, they should prioritize kind of like preparing and practicing and just like reflecting on stories that almost like allow them to check as many of the boxes that we've talked about as possible because they'll have the most kind of things to talk about without having to like context switch in the interview.

51:30 Yeah, I I mean I for me I feel pretty strong feel pretty strongly and I have a very distinct preparation style that I think works for me and how my brain works cognitively. But what what I do is I try to load in these stories prior to the prior to the interview so they are in like random access memory that I could just get them instantly rather than be sitting there in an interview um trying to get the mental backup tapes off the back of the truck and onto the loading dock and into my brain because if I'm doing that that's going to take a lot of time and these are very nuanced scenarios where emotions and feelings and subjectivity come in. And I really want to be thoughtful and intentional about how I describe them. So, I never want to like be like plucking um plucking one of these stories from um from, you know, the backup the backup tapes live in an interview. So that's basically >> So assuming you have limited limited RAM that you could kind of jam with the stories that you want to use during the interviews, do you do you generally uh and I'm sure that this advice probably varies based on like the person you're helping get ready for interviews, but do you generally try to coach people to um get like a smaller number of like really rich kind of like rich stories into their RAM? Um, or do you say that >> the more the better and even if they're like a little shallower, you'll have a story for each kind of like specific, you know, thing?

53:01 >> Yeah, I mean, I think like I have a worksheet on this and like I can share it later, but um, you know, for each of these four interview types, like I think having two to four stories in the hopper is good. And then like for for me just prepping myself if I have two to four stories for each each of these and then I go through them like once just writing them down that's all I need.

53:24 >> Yeah. >> I don't need anything more. Different people will prep differently and may need to like go through more verbosely and rehearse the stories. So it just kind of depends. But I think that's the continuum. But I think minimally have two to four stories, different and diverse stories for each one of these and you'll be in good shape. >> Yeah. And I think I agree with the with the cache size. I think if you have 50 or 60 stories, you're you're going to you're you're going to have a a ranking problem. Um, at that point and adding to to Brian's point about understanding those stories, don't be too rigidly attached to the way that you explain a situation. So, I sometimes think of it particularly with clients who who are visual thinkers. I say your story is a cube. You can rotate >> the cube so that a different face faces the interviewer. So you know if an interviewer seems to want to understand a lot about how you work cross functionally talk more about that whereas if it's about how you you support engineering teams or you know they seem to want to care more about that. So don't be afraid to kind of adapt your story a little bit and and as I say we're like rotate the cube because the same story that same launch that same uh refactor that same you know new integration or whatever it is you worked on there's lots of ways to tell the story to demonstrate how you show up.

54:48 So, but but definitely know what your stories are. Um, try and make them rich, but don't you don't have to bring out every aspect of every story and answer to every question because there isn't time. You're going to have to choose kind of where where to focus. >> Thanks, Robert. Um, yeah. Okay. So, um, I'm kind of now Okay. Actually, before uh before that, and I forget Robert, Brian, you guys have hard stops in three minutes.

55:15 >> I do not. I get I don't think I do, but let me multitask and check. >> Sure. >> Okay. Uh while while we're doing that, I was just going to ask you guys if you have any other kind of like in before we get into Q&A, any final kind of like uh tips for for those listening on ways they could practice. We talked about lining up the stories. We talked about making sure you you have stories that map to each of the dimensions. We talk about um writing out and like you know narrative form maybe journaling um just like what what happened just to kind of get it all available and like really making sure that the learnings from the stories um are are clear and and top of mind. Um any other specific like tips that you would give people on how to like practice and get ready for this interview?

56:01 One is to actually work work with someone else and ask them do you see any other traits or interesting aspects of this story because I quite often a client will share a story with me and I'll say oh this is also a really good fit for this kind of question and I think often we we have we can have a a kind of uh a slightly narrow view of our own story and if you share it with someone else they're like oh hang on that sounds like you had to do a lot of conflict resolution. Oh yeah, I guess I did. You know, so so either probably another PM or or a coach or somebody, you know, but they can give you that perspective which might make your stories more versatile than than you think. Uh and that's definitely something that uh that that I see happen quite regularly. So yeah, check work with another person, you know, um and uh it's not exactly a mock. It's more of a kind of hey, what do you think about this story? Where could it be? You know, how could I use it? How might I use it?

56:56 any any just like before you move on to Brian any uh Robert do you have any thoughts on people on how to like identify if it's not like a mock is it like do you recommend it be with someone who's like worked at the company where they're interviewing or like any qualifications or >> I think working I think working at the company um you know that can be hard to find but I think there are ways to do that I know I think you're working on something like that Ben to help people get connected with someone who who is at the company right now um that's definitely preferable uh you know ideally a calibrated interviewer, but but yeah, somebody who's worked there, somebody who uh who's working there now, those are all good things, but I think uh someone who's been a PM for a while is better than nothing. Um so that would be where I would kind of put the bar is like, you know, someone who's been a PM and been a PM in a few different organizations. I would say that's that's kind of the minimum minimum qualifications for that role.

57:49 >> Great. Yeah. Brian, any other tips or practice advice you'd give people beyond what's been said? Yeah, I mean I think I think you know STAR is not my favorite framework, but it's the framework I use for this. I think like trying to introspect or interrogate different frameworks and adapt them isn't like particular isn't isn't going to like get you a lot of mileage relative to the things that we're talking about. like having the set of stories in memory so they're ready to be deployed, being able to improvise and and and talk about them um in a in a systematic way in an authentic and genuine way where they are they are talking about failure but they're not talking about like in in incompetence. Hopefully nobody has examples of uh of being in in incompetent and like just trying to find that right trying to find that right trying to find that right balance talk it out you know talk it out loud and I would also say that the same rigor the same um structure should apply to this in in interviews like in the abstract that applies to um that applies to product sense and analytical thinking if you're using an internalizing star. You should get that. But it also helps at the beginning of these interviews like to way point. Okay. So, I'm going to give you I'm going to give you an example about a time there was a there was a con conflict. Uh here's how I'm going to break that down. And like A, B, C, and D. Now I'm doing A. Now I'm doing B. Now I'm doing C. D. Summarize. and just like all of those good like waypointing and communication skills and keeping your answers really down sub four minutes target three like target three minutes because your can your interviewer will press in your interviewer will um prompt and provide feedback like the example that that Robert gave. Um so just really keeping them taught.

59:46 >> Yep. Great. Okay. Um, so last thing before we jump into Q&A, I just wanted people to know, um, where can they go if they have to drop and they just want to know more, where can they learn what you guys are working on or is there anything they can do to be helpful to you? Um, maybe I think Robert introduced himself himself first. So maybe Brian I'll I'll start with you if there's and we'll we'll include anything we plug in the in the the email followup, but like what would you tell people?

60:14 >> Um, yeah. So like if you want to keep in touch, connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm trying to kind of grow my audience and and base. I share a lot of information there. One, and then two, I have a sub substack which is multiplier.pm and the my paid subscribers get access to um my 14 product management interview um interview guides and templates which include product management um resume and lots of resume advice and and that sort of thing. So, the paid portion of this conversation is over.

60:50 >> Appreciate that, Brian. I'll include links to that in the email. And Robert, where would you send people? >> Uh, so my website has details of my coaching practice. It's accelerationcoach.com. Uh, as I mentioned at the start, I kind of have three aspects to my coaching. I have exec coaching, which is for people who are in a role, want to grow and thrive in that role. They're not necessarily looking to move right now. Uh then there's career guidance, helping people figure out what might be next, what could be next for them, and then what we've been talking about today, interview coaching to really help people maximize their chances of success. So I coach across all of those three things.

61:22 I do write. There's a a writing section on my site. Uh I'm not currently monetizing it, Brian. I'll talk to you about that, but uh super short articles, lots of perspectives on PMing and and leadership. And uh yeah, if you want to ping me on LinkedIn and chat about anything um help figuring stuff out, then uh then you can also find me there. >> Great. Um on my end, I will plug my my Maven course. Um so I teach a course for product sense and analytical thinking interviews. So basically, if you're get if you get to the point where you need the leadership and drive interview, you will have needed to first ace these two interviews. Um product sense, analytical thinking. Next cohort kicks off mid-occtober. Um, so if your interviews are planned for, call it the um, uh, beginning to to middle of November, I think my course could probably end up being a good fit for you or later. Some people like to get ready in advance. Um, and if you use the promo code leadership um, for this lightning lesson, you'll get $200 off the c the price of the course. Um, and you can email me with any questions about that.

62:25 Okay. Um, so with that said, I'm pulling up the the the questions and maybe we'll do more like we'll do like a in the spirit of lightning lessons, we'll do a lightning round to get through these questions as as fast as possible. Um, okay. So, the first one is, if you're telling a story about conflict resolution, uh, is a story where you resolve the conflict one-on-one um, more advisable to use than one where someone else had to get involved to help resolve the conflict?

62:55 >> Yes. Yes. >> Cool. Great. >> Are we lightning enough? >> Yeah, that's great. Let's keep going. Um, so, um, let's see. Uh, any thoughts on how to prepare a story without knowing exactly what you'll be asked and to not sound rehearsed, knowing it needs to sound organic and structured. So, basically, how do you get the right stories prepared without, you know, while coming off like not overly rehearsed?

63:27 I think bullet points rather than super detail. Like have the key things down and know the points you probably want to hit in each answer. It's the old thing about know what you want to say but not how you want to say it. Um and don't overrehearse. Sorry, obvious one. >> So talk points over scripts. >> Yeah. >> Brian, anything to add there? >> Yeah, I mean I generally agree. I think I I think it's going to depend a little bit on the candidates's um preparation style. Some people pref prefer scripts.

64:01 I do I do not. I prefer the method that Robert enumerated like have the story top of mind, be able to like recall the salient details and then point point smash my way through it. >> Yep. Um there's a question here around uh I said you know you want to shoot for the moon with your stories. Um what I was just basically trying to say there I don't want to take up too much time is that um basically like going the extra going the extra mile with the story to show the the upgraded behavior and how you like like paid it forward to someone else like you learned so much that you really like paid it forward to another person later. Um it just walks through that whole journey. So, I think that's more what I was kind of saying is like almost like um like um like punching through the story, you know, like don't don't stop when you hit the target. Kind of like follow through it is kind of another analogy that comes to mind for me.

64:58 Um uh qu thought any thoughts on how to respond to what what are your weakness questions? Um, and I think we talked about this a little bit earlier, obviously, like don't get into incompetence territory, but like is there anything that strikes you as like good types of examples of weaknesses or attributes of weaknesses to talk about? >> Yeah. I I you know I I I have like a little trick here that I sort of alluded to like before which is like in my story where I acted as the user experience researcher like one I'm kind of backhandedly saying in a in a positive way like tooting my own horn a little bit where I was like hey we didn't have a UXR scrainess I did that right then I'm thing and I didn't engineer it this way, but I think it's something that you can reverse engineer and and and learn from, right? So, it's like, hey, A, I'm like punching above my weight because I'm taking on this new this new thing.

66:02 B, I'm not saying my weakness is I'm not a good communicator. I'm saying a subset, a very narrow subset, mind you, of my communication needed needed a tweet. basically needed a a nip in the talk which is like hey my presentation could have been more structured it could have had a better through line it could have had a tlddr like whatever it was right it's a genuine story and so I'm you know so I'm saying that like there's this like sort of narrow point thing so I'm not you know I'm I'm I'm great at communicating in a in a ad hoc fashion I'm great at like you know a narrative fashion but maybe just this like one thing this this PowerPoint or slides thing needed needed improve improvement.

66:48 Um, but it was genuine >> and it was real and I actually think there's a huge amount of value in doing this type of introspection. All of this work actually made me a better PM and my stories are not BS stories. that are like legitimate stories and I came to those stories by authentically introspecting on like my career and my career stories as a PM. So, this is going to like benefit you either way. It's like the hard thing is a doing that introspection and then b outputting it in a way where you're not like completely sharing the you know the the the the harsher aspects of of of the introspection.

67:35 >> Yeah. And I think you can say things like it doesn't come naturally to me to do this. So I have to I have to make the effort. I have to step up. You know, I'm not naturally like this. I need to be like that as a PM sometimes. And I'm aware of that deficiency, that that bias, that tendency. And I I work with it. You know, it doesn't it doesn't have to be, you know, oh, I struggle to prioritize like that. That's you know, that's that's going to get you under the incompetence bar. Absolutely. But I'd like in these situations I sometimes have misstepped and so I'm really aware of that and I'm working on it. Um you know it's it's really about the the fact that you are working on something and um the weakness question is something everybody should have thought about.

68:21 It's again to Brian's point about if you're trying to come up with something on the fly that that is a terrible one if you haven't thought about the superpower question, the weakness question, like those questions are several orders of magnitude easier if you thought about them beforehand. They're very very hard to do cold and most people think, "Oh yeah, I know what my superpower is." Like, can you answer it really well, though? Like, you've got to practice those those topics. Um, and and the same with the weakness one.

68:47 >> Yeah. Same with the receive difficult feedback and given difficult feedback. I thought I was going to say the same thing. Yeah, >> feedback is a gift. Like and and you should embody receiving it as a gift and and and and for me like sometimes I can do that. Sometimes like everybody else on the planet, my ego gets bruised, right? But do I have enough emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and wherewithal to take my emotions and my bruised little ego, put it aside, open up my ears, and like take that in even if it's hard in the moment. And that's that's like in a nutshell what they're looking for. And you have to be able to embody it. It's hard to be able to embody it if you're not embodying it.

69:32 It's hard to fake it. >> Yeah. And I think for me the the the like the perfect ending to a lot of those stories is how what went from like a very difficult to have conversation ended up making me like really close with someone. It was almost like it brought the it strengthened the relationship and like we ended up doing these things later that we would have never done if the relationship wasn't stronger or something like that. Um okay. Um, you both agree uh more recent stories are better than older stories or do do you think it's okay to use older stories um that are less recent if if they're just like the better stories?

70:11 >> Bias towards recency, but don't let a good story go just because it's it's from the past. So I I would you know it's it's it's narrow but um sometimes the best stories are from a few years ago. Um so >> I you know it's tough one but >> I have a like cognitively hacking way of addressing this. So, you know, everybody has probably heard of the cognitive re bias, recency bias, right?

70:46 Which is like, oh, you know, like, um, Ben and I have been best friends for 30 years, but he was a jerk yesterday, and I'm pissed off at him, and that's what I'm thinking about, right? Um, so for your negative stories, I actually think it's better to have older stories. >> For your positive stories, I actually think it's better to have more re more more recent ones. So like when you're demonstrating scrappy scrappiness or leading the team or helping resolve conflict like if you can you do not have to if you can choose the more positive ones as the more current and recent ones and choose the older ones as the negative ones and like you know does that like change the game on an interview? Maybe, maybe not. But I think you're playing on h human cognitive bias there and that may work in your favor.

71:39 >> Yeah, that's really neat. Really neat. >> That is that is really smart. I've never Brian, I don't think you've ever shared that with me before. Um but that sounds almost like a cheat code that completely stays within the rules of the game because um my default bias when someone says that to me is, "Wow, they used to be this negative thing, but look how amazing they are now." Right? Like that's the that's the obvious way your brain will will interpret that. even though there's probably plenty of more recent examples of negative stories, but you're just choosing to not present them, which is a a smart interview strategy. So, wow. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That's great. Um, okay. I think um yeah, I don't I I think um that's probably good for now. I know we're like 15 minutes over, so I want to be mindful of of everyone's schedules. Um folks who have other questions, you know, Robert and Brian already mentioned how you can stay in touch and and follow up with them. Um, thank you both for taking the time to do this and thank you to everyone who took the time to listen to this. And for those of you who got locked out, I forgot to re-upgrade my Zoom plan when I got back from Europe.

72:39 So, only 100 people could join, but we maxed out 100. I didn't think more than 100 would come. Um, so, um, to those of you who are watching the recording, sorry you couldn't join live, but hopefully you still got a lot of value out of this. All right, that's it. That's a wrap. Peace. >> Thanks everyone. Thank you. >> Bye, guys. Thanks so much. >> Bye for now. Bye-bye.