September 13, 2021
In 1983, The Police released the album Synchronicity with the still-popular “Every Breath You Take” (according to BMI, it’s the most-played song on the radio over the last 40 years).
A decade later, the Academy-Award-winning movie My Cousin Vinny came out.
What do these two things have in common besides Generation X nostalgia?
Let me explain.
In 1983, I was a junior in high school paying all my own expenses, except rent, by working as a cashier at a hardware store while taking extra classes at the high school and community college. Living in a hostile environment at home in LA , I missed my mom and sister who had moved down to San Diego.
What got me through those hellish high school years were the teachers and close friends who were there with me, to paraphrase a line from The Police’s award-winning song, every step I took.
If I had walked alone through the abuse and neglect, I don’t think I would have made it. Possibly, I would have committed suicide (I thought about it everyday).
Was it nonetheless hard to ask for help?
Yes.
Then, about ten years later when My Cousin Vinny came out, I was in a wheelchair living in a New York apartment building with stairs.
I could not actually walk — alone or otherwise. Fortunately, I had friends willing to literally carry me out of the building. And so they did one day in 1992 so I could join them to see that movie. I felt both humiliated and grateful for their help.
And the final scene had a big impact on me (spoiler alert).
The main character, Vinny, is driving and his fiancé, Mona Lisa Vito (played by the wonderful Marisa Tomei) asks him why he’s not excited about winning the big court case.
Mona Lisa Vito: So what’s your problem?
Vinny Gambini: My problem is, I wanted to win my first case without any help from anybody. [emphasis added]
Mona Lisa Vito: Well, I guess that plan’s moot.
Vinny Gambini: Yeah.
Mona Lisa Vito: You know, this could be a sign of things to come. You win all your cases, but with somebody else’s help, right? You win case after case…
[pause]
Mona Lisa Vito: Oh, my God, what a fucking nightmare!
Despite my evangelism for asking for help, I admit that I would rather say that I got my first corporate job alone (I didn’t), or that I got into the Harvard Business School without the moral support of my friends (I would not have even applied), that Creative Good’s success was primarily due to me (it wasn’t – the team played a huge role), or that my career since has been mine alone (not even close).
So, why do I continue to ask for help and suggest you do the same?
In this regard, my advantage is my past disadvantage.
Through repeated life challenges – see above – I had to learn to ask for help or I was literally going to fall down.
So, I listened less to my ego and more to my friends, colleagues, and mother (who, as you know, kept insisting I ask).
Today, looking back over my life I can see that I have indeed won most of my cases – nightmare!
To help you get that same outcome, I launched the councils in 2003 and, today I am re-conceptualizing the program.
Here’s a preview: CG Councils is becoming an “every step you take” program aimed at helping members “win every court case” throughout their careers.
In other words, we are creating a longitudinal program of services like Career Evolution Coaching, Peer Coaching Calls, 1:1 coaching, and roundtables to help you from potential, to promoted, to Board member, and beyond.
Phyl
P.S. Thanks to longtime member, Paige Nesis, for sending me the link to My Cousin Vinny’s final scene.
Fall Keynote
- The What & Why of Continuous Discovery – Tue, Sep 28 @4pm ET
Teresa Torres, Author, Speaker, and Product Discovery Coach
Talk Type: Product
Audience/Roles: All Roles
To register: Click here to email Britany Chism (register your teams to join too!)
Most product teams are starting to adopt discovery best practices (e.g. interviewing customers, usability testing, experimenting). However, many of us are still stuck in a project world. We do research to kick off a project, we usability test right before we hand off to engineers, and our primary means for experimenting is a/b testing. These methods are better than nothing, but the best product teams are shifting from a project mindset to a continuous mindset. In this talk, we’ll explore the key differences between project-based discovery and continuous discovery and give your team a clear benchmark to aspire to.
Bio: Teresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, coach, and longtime friend of the Councils (she was a moderator of one of our Product Councils at one point). She’s coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries and has taught more than 7,000 through her Product Talk Academy. She’s the author of the recently published book, Continuous Discovery Habits, and blogs at ProductTalk.org.
Recent Talks and Activity Recordings
- Clubhouse and the Audio Revolution (not recorded)
Jonathan Ehrlich, Partner, Foundation Capital
Talk Type: In the Moment
Audience/Roles: All Roles
Two things to know about Jonathan Ehrlich:
1) he co-led the seed round in Clubhouse and was thus the first venture capitalist to spot its potential;
2) he’s a Councils alum with an interesting career arc.We held an informal conversation with Jonathan about Clubhouse, the future of audio, and Jonathan’s career journey from a mostly offline retailer in Canada to relocating to Silicon Valley and reinventing himself.—
Bio
—Jonathan Ehrlich is a Partner at Foundation Capital who invests in early early-stage consumer, marketplace, commerce, and SaaS startups and technologies. He joined Foundation Capital in 2013 as a partner after spending nine months with the firm as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Before joining Foundation Capital, Jonathan spent 17 years as an operator during which he founded three companies, built a $100M+ revenue business, and ran marketing for Facebook. He is the first institutional investor in Clubhouse and currently sits on the board of Bulletin and Chord. His Foundation and personal investments include Shelf Engine, Mainstreet, Truepill, Hooked, WayUp, League, Front, and Flexport. When not working, he can be found on his bike or chasing his four kids around.
- No Ego, Part 2 (not recorded)
Cy Wakeman, Best-selling Author and CEO
Talk Type: Leadership Development, Culture
Audience/Roles: All Roles
We had a follow-up session with Cy last Friday that was amazing. We did NOT record it due to confidentiality. We will be planning more.
In the meantime, you can watch the spring keynote with Cy, which was a GREAT session. Members loved it. I collected live case studies from members, which I anonymously shared with Cy to get her reaction on what was to be done. You gotta watch to see her great answers.
Cy Wakeman is a drama researcher, global thought-leader, and New York Times best-selling author who is recognized for cultivating a counter-intuitive, reality-based approach to leadership. Backed by over 20 years of unparalleled experience, Wakeman’s philosophy offers a new lens through which employees and executives alike, can shift their attention inward, sharpen their focus on personal accountability, and uncover their natural state of innovation simply by ditching the drama.
Deemed “the secret weapon to restoring sanity to the workplace,” Wakeman has helped companies such as Google, Facebook, Viacom, Uber, NBC Universal, NASA, Pfizer, Johns Hopkins, Stanford Health Care, Keurig Dr. Pepper, AMC Theatres, White Castle, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and countless others learn to navigate our rapidly changing world using good mental processes to harness energy wasted in workplace drama and reinvest that effort into achieving profound business results.
- Battle Buddies – A Way to Support Your Teams
Craig Hopkins, CIO, City of San Antonio
Talk Type: Leadership Development; Skill Builder/Practitioner
Audience/Roles: All Roles
We ran a short QnA-focused webinar with Craig to introduce an idea that has taken off in his org, the City of San Antonio, where he is the CIO.It’s called Battle Buddies. So, what is a Battle Buddy?Adapted from the US Army, a battle buddy is a partner assigned to an employee in an organization who is expected to assist his or her partner.Even though we are not in military combat, Craig says our corporate responsibilities can feel just as stressful and overwhelming at times.A battle buddy is not only intended for comradery and support, but also to help reduce stress, provide professional and leadership guidance, and at times, get into the trenches together to get things done. Since we will each be watching each other’s actions, we are all battle buddies to each other, as partners and as a leadership team, driven by our mission while adhering to our Core Values.Craig talked about how this has worked in his organization and how to set it up in yours.
- JTBD in Large Distributed Environments
Jay Haynes, Founder & CEO, thrv.com
Talk Type: Product; Skill Builder/Practitioner
Audience/Roles: All Roles
Jobs To Be Done has proven to be an effective methodology for building much better holistic end-to-end products and customer experiences.
*But* CG Council member companies with large distributed environments are finding it difficult to apply JTBD in effective ways.
Jay Haynes, CEO of thrv, and a global expert on JTBD will come and speak to the Councils community on this specific challenge of using the methodology in large, complex technology environments.
- Groundwork: Get Better at Making Better Products
Vidya Dinamani and Heather Samarin, co-Authors of Groundwork
Talk Type: Product
Audience/Roles: All Roles
Product leaders are all too familiar with the one to two-year period it typically takes to train and coach PMs. Product leaders hire smart people and then work with them individually, guiding them through how to think about product management, and watching them develop. Vidya Dinamani and Heather Samarin wanted a much faster way to help cultivate efficient and effective product managers that consistently create products that delight customers, regardless of the industry, the environment, and the development methodology that the team employed. They took years of experience as product executives and working with hundreds of teams as product coaches to create a framework to Get Better at Making Better Products.
The design philosophy and methodology behind Groundwork was created to help product leaders be confident that their teams were committed to solving the right customer problems, minimizing costly rework by using individualized needs, and leveraging actionable personas in big and small product decisions. Vidya and Heather want Groundwork to help product teams have a much higher chance of success in the market—and help every product manager shine.
Join Vidya and Heather as they share the background, principles, and methodology behind the Groundwork to help you, and your team, get better at making better products.
- Making the Case for Empowering Your People
Marty Cagan, Partner, Silicon Valley Product Group
Talk Type: Product, Leadership Development, Culture
Audience/Roles: All Roles
From Marty: “I have long been interested in the difference between how the best companies work, and the rest. Working with both types of organizations for so many years, there are many differences ranging from culture to process to staffing to roles to techniques. But at its core, strong product companies empower their people, and most of the rest do not. My focus over the past few years has been tackling this issue head-on, which means the product leadership. In this talk, we’ll discuss why this model consistently yields better results, and what’s necessary to transform to work like the best.”
Marty’s Bio: Marty Cagan is the founding partner of the Silicon Valley Product Group, which he created to pursue his interests in helping others create successful products through his writing, speaking, advising and coaching. Before starting SVPG, Marty served as an executive responsible for defining and building products for some of the most successful companies in the world, including Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, and eBay.As part of his work with SVPG, Marty advises tech companies of all sizes and stages, stretching far beyond Silicon Valley. Marty is the author of the industry-leading book for product teams, INSPIRED: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love, and the upcoming book EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products. Marty is an invited speaker at major conferences and top companies across the globe.
- See talks from the last month and beyond here.
