Transcript: What Goes On in a Product Manager's Mind: Loneliness, Empathy & Impostor Syndrome | Maayan Gotlib (Symbol)

Eyal David: [00:00] Hi friends, this is Eyal. You've reached Product Builder, where you can listen to the most interesting product conversations. My journey began in 2012, when I learned what product is, at my startup. Since then I've worked in the industry, and since 2017 my company has been consulting for a variety of companies. My drive is to help all of us become better product people. And before we start, if you're enjoying listening to Product Builder, please rate us five stars on Spotify. It'll give me great feedback that the podcast provides value to you, and it would make me very happy. So come on, let's begin. Hi Ma'ayan, how's it going? Good, how are you, Ma'ayan? Wonderful, so glad you came. So glad you invited me. You've also come to talk about a topic I'm not used to talking about here, so we'll give a bit of an intro. Come on, go ahead. I'll actually tell a bit about you in a second, so Ma'ayan is here with us, she's a product mentor and PM in residence at Symbol, a VC, and we're here to talk about the psychology of product management, or whatever we decide to call it — really, what goes on in a product manager's mind on the emotional side?

What the episode is about: the psychology of product management

מעין גוטליב: [01:03] Emotionally. Emotionally. In the heart. It's a connection, the way I see it. But yes, that's what creates back pain,

Eyal David: [01:09] which is really both here and there. Right. So Ma'ayan, let's tell a bit about who you are and what you do, so let's run through your background a bit. I'll start with Mamram, right? Do you want a few words from there? Yes, sure.

The path: Mamram, Leverate & Autodesk

מעין גוטליב: [01:21] So I really started at Mamram, I was in the army for ten years, which surprises me a lot too, I started as a developer, development team lead, I had a quick stint as commander of a programming course, and I had three years where I did a role that was, let's call it, the closest thing to product there was — there wasn't really product in the army back then. Then I moved to a startup called Leverate, it was already a fairly mature startup, on the order of 70 people when I joined, in the forex world, I got to build two products from scratch, a trading system, one on mobile, one on desktop, and afterwards I managed the trader-side systems team. A short visit — a relocation to New York, back to Israel. I see you took a trip, okay? No, actually it wasn't a trip, the trip was at the end of the army.

Eyal David: [02:11] Like three months in New Zealand, done properly. So let's go over this for a second, and continue — so how did you actually get into this first job at Leverate,

מעין גוטליב: [02:18] you basically went on a trip and a job was waiting? Wow, it doesn't work that way, as we know. Actually I got out of the army, and I had it very strongly in my head that I wanted to do product, I'm not entirely sure why. I will say I got to know it through my sister, who was also a Mamram alum and did product afterwards. I wanted it a lot, I thought the chances of finding a product role, as a first job in civilian life, were very low, and I'll also say it was a different time, we talked about this too, there was much less demand for product management then, the profession was even younger than it is today, and I also got lucky, I reached a place where someone I'd been with in the army worked, and he highly recommended me, and I also think that really the need — like the things they needed for the role, fit my abilities very well. There was both a recommendation and I was a good fit for them. Right. So where did it go from there? So I really did three roles there, an amazing experience, there's something about entering your first civilian job, doing product from scratch, you learn so, so, so much, and I'll say that's how I got seasoned over time, and in my last role there I also practiced management skills, and also went up a bit more into strategic areas, and then in the next role I actually moved to Autodesk, I came to lead the Israeli product team of AutoCAD, at the branch here in Israel, when our focus was on AutoCAD mobile,

Eyal David: [03:39] an amazing role, really, I enjoyed it there. I have to ask you, so how do you do it on mobile?

מעין גוטליב: [03:46] Challenging, you just do it. There are also amazing professionals there, I think this role had a lot of connection between, on one hand, corporate worlds, that bring with them, say, the complexity of the AutoCAD desktop expert system, it's heavy, it has a heavy engine, programmers there on desktop, working on it for 30 years, very professional, and some connection to the Israeli startup world, something more dynamic, you know, mobile, releasing versions every two weeks, a more flowing atmosphere, so you just connect these two things. Did the product turn out well? I arrived when the product already existed, and actually one of the main challenges we worked on there, was to replace the product's infrastructure, which wasn't really based on AutoCAD, with the AutoCAD desktop engine, Adik — my manager there, Adik Mittelman, and I even gave a talk about it at Product X, you can find it online, an amazing project, we mainly dealt with understanding how to replace the infrastructure of a product that's in production, with really over a million users, on the fly, and in a reasonable time, the whole move took about three years, it really was super fun and super challenging.

A sabbatical year, workaholism & returning part-time

Eyal David: [05:05] And then you took a breath, a year-long breath, and found yourself actually at Symbol.

מעין גוטליב: [05:11] Yes, yes. So it really was a change, a plot twist that I really, didn't expect to happen — let's say that toward the end at Autodesk, I already kind of knew I wanted to leave, and the natural next step for me was to go be a VP Product at some startup, and I was already talking with friends elsewhere, and started cooking something up, but I was after some personal crisis, and I realized I needed a break, and that's how, honestly thanks to my partner, who helped me understand that we're not talking here about a break of two or three months, maybe actually it's even worth daring to take a year — it was a very un-Ma'ayan move, for me, and it was amazing, so I took a year off, I breathed, I got some air, I did a bit more Ma'ayan, and then I realized that I really wanted to come back to a part-time position, because I'm very much a workaholic, anyone who knows me has seen it, I think there are a lot of people like that in the market, the phenomenon is very prominent, and I realized that if I went back to the same place, I'd keep working excessively, and I need to exercise that muscle of work-life balance. So how did you find a part-time position,

Eyal David: [06:21] and even something very much oriented toward learning — how did you actually find it? Actually I was looking to combine a few things,

מעין גוטליב: [06:29] Symbol is really a part I did, a part I really do today, and I got lucky, a friend, named Racheli, who today is a partner at Symbol, brought me to work there.

Eyal David: [06:41] Amazing, so okay, you got to come a long way, saw tons of products, and today you're actually a partner, seeing startup after startup, and advising them at the level of how it actually works? So at the fund I'll say,

מעין גוטליב: [06:53] I do all kinds of things, a significant part of it is actually accompanying the portfolio startups in the areas of product management. The nature of the work is less about ongoing accompaniment — when I came to the fund I thought that I'd, I have half a day with each startup, and I'll sit with them, and we'll work on things, and then I realized that it just really doesn't work that way, and it doesn't fit what they're looking for. And so we analyzed it a bit,

Eyal David: [07:17] and just changed it. So take us back a second, okay? So you started sitting with startups,

מעין גוטליב: [07:23] you got to a point where you sit with them half a day? Yes, I took two startups, and tried to sit with each one a day, and half a day a week. What happened there? It was a mess. I'll say, first of all startups run at a pace where half a day a week is just not relevant. You arrive, you come back a week later, they did three pivots in the middle, the context, it just — it didn't fit. And I did feel like I was managing to give value, but it's not enough, and I'll also say, Symbol is a generalist fund, a first-check fund, generalist, that means we meet with startups when they're just the founders, basically, there's no team, they need... they need a product person who works,

Eyal David: [08:07] and also product is a very small part of everything they do. I understand they want to take that off their plate, but okay.

מעין גוטליב: [08:13] Right, exactly, but in half a day a week I can't really take it off their plate, I can come and advise, and give a bit of direction, and maybe help a bit on specific topics, like analytics, but I don't... I don't really know their content. Exactly. And it wasn't enough. And then we realized that... like, I did manage to give value, but also, I'll say, it takes a lot of time to get into their content world, for someone to give me the context. And what we realized is what we called microservices at first, that it's better for me to just come in each time on some issue, and advise. So say, I can come into some startup that's at the beginning of its path, do a focused product-market fit workshop with them, like, I don't know, take a week, some two or three meetings of a few hours, or even less, and they gained. I can come in and do a review of specs for them, or if a company has now reached a point where they're hiring product, sit with them, help them, sharpen what they're really looking for in product, how to onboard this person, right? So like, I smell here

Eyal David: [09:13] that we moved from a qualitative approach to a quantitative one — basically, let's understand for a second now what the problem is, divide them into buckets, do a quick job to find the eighty-twenty, right? Uh... And you can bring the most value in the least time, basically.

מעין גוטליב: [09:25] Right, but I don't think it... I don't think it becomes quantitative, like I think

Eyal David: [09:31] it's still... You're right, you're right, I'm just saying that okay, you can't surgically go into each one, let's see what can help the whole. Right, right. So what did you discover? First of all that it can help, and also

מעין גוטליב: [09:43] that it really depends on the chemistry with the founders, and really depends on what's going on with them at that moment and how much they have, and how well I fit in terms of my knowledge and what I can give. I'll say that in some of the cases I found myself really doing mentoring, and in some cases I also just became the one they sit with once for lunch and pour out everything they have. The whole soul, huh? Nothing to be done, it's all soul. And from here actually

Eyal David: [10:07] so okay, you did a few of these and then suddenly a thing was born, right? Right. Suddenly this role took shape.

מעין גוטליב: [10:13] I'll really say that alongside, alongside accompanying the portfolio startups there are other things I do there. I'll say that one of the most amazing things I think the fund does is groups. Groups of what? So that's it, we started with a group for first product managers at startups, over time it got the name Zero to One Product Club. This whole story started with me realizing that it's challenging for me to give value to the portfolio startups, and I just started talking with product people at startups and understanding what exactly the challenges are that they face, what was hard for them, what's hard, how to break it down — it's clear to me that the difficulty focuses on reaching product-market fit, but how do we make it a bit more concrete and broken down, and after very many conversations I realized there's a crazy pain point here that recurs all the time: these are people in a super challenging role, there's a lot of being alone there, there are tons of challenges in working with the founders, because there's expectation-setting that's very partial, many founders don't really know what they need up front, or they know and it changes, in the end they take their baby that's so important to them and that they toiled over, that they made the product with at the start, and they brought in some nanny who's a professional and very good, but why would I release my baby so easily to someone else like that — and in general startups are complex, there's no data, there's a lot of sensitivity about working with customers, and all this before the work-life balance that didn't exactly exist, and the total chaos of processes that don't exist, and we just opened a group, something between a learning group and a support group — the intimacy is very important to us, it's on the order of ten, by the way twelve, women in the group, who just meet once a month, and every other meeting two people bring some use case from day-to-day, something they're dealing with, we as a fund don't presume to come and teach, I mainly do facilitation there of course, together with Racheli and Yuval who also contribute a lot from their knowledge and experience, and amazing things happen there in the group, I'll say something about the open living-room atmosphere, and about how hard it is for people in this role to find other people who experience the same thing with us — so what does such a meeting look like, like

Zero to One Product Club: groups for first product managers

Eyal David: [12:31] you're saying we only, you don't facilitate it at the end of the day, you don't bring — I imagine myself in a situation it's really hard not to lead something like that and try to solve it in their place, really hard,

מעין גוטליב: [12:43] and here too I came to the first meetings and I did facilitation and prepared and all that, and what I understood today, we're talking about product managers, we love to talk, we know how to talk, and I can say that in the first two meetings there was the matter of letting the group connect more, I engaged in letting the group connect and here and there give a bit of my knowledge, there's enough knowledge in the room, I don't really people are really good at helping each other, we do bring a lot of wine to loosen up the atmosphere, and it's nice with the first group and the second and the third, so we also already did a meeting — we should check maybe about the reason they come, so it doesn't get boring.

Eyal David: [13:25] Sorry, I cut you off, so how many groups have there already been? What does it look like? Is it really in cohorts? Yes, yes, so there have already been three groups

מעין גוטליב: [13:31] and then we did a meeting where we understood that we're actually building a community here, and we brought everyone together, and I'll say that not long ago we opened a first group for developers, big, yes, because in general the fund understood that obviously there's tons and tons of focus on founders, but if we're already dealing with early stage, this whole matter of first employees at a startup, wow, they really experience tons and tons of difficulties, and product manager is part of that, and there are many other roles that experience it, and now we're trying to give an answer to everyone. There really are a lot of components that can cost a lot of money along the way

Eyal David: [14:07] if you look at it, okay, cool, so you want to, so I'll ask you now the standard question we always ask here — so after you've looked, after this whole career you described, and the various companies, and now that you're actually doing a drill-down and really double-clicking on product managers at young companies — so what in your opinion is the most important skill of a product manager?

The most important skill of a product manager

מעין גוטליב: [14:31] Oh, there are so many, I'll try to focus it. I think the first thing I look for is some spark of leadership, okay, we all kind of have very many sources sources of leadership in each of us, so knowing how to identify your source of leadership and bring it to drive and rally without authority — we talked about this a bit earlier — another very significant thing, actually more something related to that same mentality, is breaking a big problem into small problems, and explaining simply, that's super important in my view, communication too, and ownership — ownership is really

Eyal David: [15:07] the basis for everything in this role, yes, so that's a good answer, so for product managers at young companies too do you feel it this way? Or are there things that maybe if I work at a big corporate or at Autodesk for that matter, I can maybe specifically choose — the things I said

מעין גוטליב: [15:26] I feel are really the basis of, like they're the foundation of the role in my view, so yes, I think it's relevant

Eyal David: [15:32] even more so at a small company — and I'm trying to see if you distilled additional things that came up from these meetings that maybe are relevant to product managers just, I'm trying to put myself, yes, in such places, so beyond ownership and that, I think, I think it's a really good ability to dive into details much more maybe than at a big company where there's someone who shields me, I don't know, in my view it seems important, and if you also need to prioritize between things then maybe ownership is something that's very, very strong in these places, just saying, in the end it turns out the CEO is now traveling to some conference in Vegas, so you're not the acting CEO but you're kind of — if I did — he also traveled, just saying, you're the person who needs to steer the ship and say — I think it's tougher than, I don't know if tougher, but it's a bit different, no?

מעין גוטליב: [16:26] First of all, it's really different, it's really a very different role, and I think it's very, very tough, I don't know if you're the one who needs to steer the ship, I think it really depends on the role you take, there's the product manager at startups who are more junior who come in, and there are those who are more senior and experienced, and there are also some founders often. I do think — no, I did all of them, heard about them — I do think that the matter of dealing with changes and with dynamism is something that exists in this role at every type of company, and it's most, much more so at startups because there's total chaos at startups, and knowing how to find yourself within that, knowing how to invent processes and change them every few weeks because the company suddenly grew, or every few months, and also knowing how to adapt myself — I think corporates tend to change less, at a startup there's also a lot of the matter of — I think there's always the matter of adapting myself to what the environment needs from me, what my manager needs from me, but at startups it's even more extreme, you come in and you really need, in my view, to understand what the founders can't do themselves and I can give them, and I talked like — I got to talk with a lot of product managers at startups who say, well, a lot of what I do isn't product management, but I feel it gives the most right now, well at startups like what for example? In an extreme case, to bridge between the founders — we also had this, and sometimes people at startups sometimes do admin matters in the office, you find yourself as the one who orders things for the kitchen, and that's what's needed right now, well it's fine, and sometimes I'm the one who sits and develops and helps them do ping-pong on their thoughts, but that's what advances the company right now, and you know, sometimes you do marketing and sometimes you do sales, those are things that are a bit more understandable to them

Eyal David: [18:17] what did you think? I don't know, it's actually intriguing everything from everything, so okay, cool, now let's dive maybe into something broader because we really want to look at all types of product managers, and also product people in general, because a UX person can have the same symptoms for that matter, so these are things you discovered that recur and that are worth talking about on an emotional dimension — there really are a lot

מעין גוטליב: [18:47] I thought we could start with something that's more in the basics, like say, managing without authority is really a topic we all already know and talk about, that it's one of the main challenges in product management, and that in the end we lead teams of people that we don't manage, and sometimes it's also complex, I work with a few developers on my team, sometimes there's also a team lead who does manage, he manages them, I need to give him room, and without authority we're really left to rally our leadership sources, each one and what they have, sometimes I'm very smart and sometimes I'm funny and sometimes I'm just a charmer, and I work with these things, but the question is what happens when you hit some landmine, because I came with these skills and sometimes it's not enough — I remember myself as a PM relatively early on, and I come to some grooming meeting with the team and I prepared the epic and everything sat organized and we start breaking down the user stories and then someone from the team objects, but what an objection, like I'm trying to break it down and I'm not succeeding — and is there a basis for this error? I mean, does it cause you

Leading without authority & empathy as a work tool

Eyal David: [19:59] to shift uncomfortably in your chair at the level of the basic assumption? Sometimes at first no,

מעין גוטליב: [20:05] and afterwards yes, you know, nothing to be done, we're human, and it's also a matter, I think many times, of how much out of interest — in this case it's the developer but it doesn't matter, whoever's standing in front of you pushes, and it's also many times even more for me because he's pushing in front of all kinds of other people, and what happens to me when suddenly someone half-explodes into the meeting, he makes me feel small next to other people, and I think one of the tools that most help me in this place, and over the years I learned that it's really super important for a product manager, is empathy empathy is like, when I talk about it then sometimes people say, what, do you think I'm not empathetic? I really think we're all empathetic and it's something natural, but I think in this role, it can be a tool that serves us and me, it's really — I'll say this many times empathy in the sense that I can take that same developer who blew up my meeting, there's always the one who kind of likes to blow up meetings, and say, okay, let's try to understand him a bit more deeply, exactly, because in the end, like, this person, he's probably the one who cares most on the team — I don't know if the most, but he cares a lot, and he's also probably a very good professional and that's why he insists, and he doesn't insist because something hurts him there, and if I know how to understand him better and see him, I'll come to the meeting in advance after I've sat and thought about how what I'm going to say touches each of these people and where it meets them emotionally, then I'll manage to run the meeting better, but to do that I need to sit with these people beforehand, to mark these projects of mine and say, okay, here's a person I want to sit with for coffee from time to time and get to know, and when I know people better I know better how to anticipate them, and I'll say, it's mutual, actually I have an interesting example in this context of something I had to work on at Autodesk, I told you about that big infrastructure project we did, and it really was something kind of, a decision that's not trivial to push through, we took a project that was planned over three years and cut it to about a year, and it was clear there would be a lot of objections, and I thought and built a presentation and convinced the leadership and went and did a roadshow with this presentation, and I'll say I focused a lot both on management and on the stabilization team because it was clear to me that's where the especially hard points were, and then one day I had the day when I knew I was presenting it to the developers, and the evening before I stayed at work late, like I started polishing the presentation for them, and I realized that, well, I don't know how it'll meet them, I don't know exactly what's there, and luckily two tables away from me sat one of the developers, and I said, do you have half an hour for me, come, I want to show you something, and I showed him the presentation I want to go over tomorrow, and I really tried to understand where it meets him, what's there, and I'm going through it with him and I see that suddenly he has a little twitch like this at the mouth, and I say to him, what, tell me, what annoys you, where does it set you off — and I learned a ton in that half hour, I learned what hurts developers about this thing, and also how to present it, and I really think this amazing tool is that, like, the moment you show vulnerability and the moment you come with openness, it draws openness and vulnerability from the other side, it's a mutual thing, and without meaning to I also created empathy as a PM, and today that same person is already my spokesperson within development, already your ambassador — amazing

Eyal David: [23:45] like in my head I think, wow, you pulled off a great marketing trick here, because like it's also the question that comes up for me is, it's interesting, do you think your past as a developer was an obstacle here, like maybe you already said I don't

מעין גוטליב: [24:03] understand their head, I'll move forward and all that, because for me it happened, I think in the early stages when I was closer to development, definitely — specifically at Autodesk I already hadn't developed for a long time so I kind of didn't even presume that I don't know, but I was totally, in the first few years when I moved to being a product manager I was very much in this place, and I was also a less good product manager because

Eyal David: [24:27] I was totally in the development head, and can you give another example of empathy about something like some other trick, not a trick but actually, you know, something like that you can share with the listeners to take it to practice around how to activate empathy, or you decide I think in general you said okay, before I go out with twenty I'm actually sharpening them

מעין גוטליב: [24:51] and I try to be very empathetic to the other side, but you also talked actually about habits of I reflect with him or her

Eyal David: [24:57] and like there are very much things that you maybe around, I don't know, work you talked more about the matter of the kickoff, the product thinking, I wanted to say grooming but we're not going over grooming anymore

מעין גוטליב: [25:09] right, right, because I thought about it, that I'd say — I want to note this is in the days when agile wasn't it was so long ago, but yes, no, but actually like

Eyal David: [25:21] there's also the ongoing work where a developer can be at their desk in some low, and like to show empathy there is also something that I try to do there, totally, I think it's all

מעין גוטליב: [25:33] the time, like we're now talking about developers, it's also not only, right right right, it's everyone I think in the end it's just about being in good touch — I think it can be to drink coffee, and it can be to eat lunch, and it can be a person or to come and ask what's going on, and... and I see that someone is silent so no, and I think more so, and I know, yes those places of people who didn't say what was in their heart and afterwards it exploded, I'll say all of us. What matters is openness, it's mainly openness. And it's also true when working with founders, and it's true when working with stakeholders in general overseas. And it's true when working with managers, right? This whole matter of managing up, yes, which I don't know how much more we'll get to talk about, it's a whole world — no, right? I'll say I also, at that same Autodesk, had a situation with a manager who was very complex for me, a manager from the United States. And one of the things that helped me most there too was empathy, it's really insisting on the topics, to understand where he comes from, and over time I understood how far it is from where I come from, so I really need to look at him, and not at me, and many times we're so much in the tasks and want to progress, so we're focused on ourselves, and it's natural. But as this kind of creature, you know, the product manager in the organization in touch with everyone, so we need to do a ton of work of asking what's in it for the other side.

Eyal David: [26:58] Right, right, right. And I see that when we talked actually about this thing, its inverse is also — I don't know if inverse, but there's the matter of loneliness, right? Right. That you want to be empathetic, but on the other hand, you also mentioned loneliness in the context of founders earlier, want to touch on that? Let's go.

Loneliness & impostor syndrome

מעין גוטליב: [27:19] It's also hard to be empathetic when you're lonely, not when you feel loneliness. It's also very hard because you often feel the empathy toward yourself. You're alone, right? Yes, it's also an ability where like, you need to suck it up. Yes, right, loneliness is another crazy element of this role, it has tons of aspects, I think it starts, I think young product managers meet it a lot in this experience that I work with tons of parties in the organization and everyone thinks, like those pictures on Facebook, right? What do my parents think I do? What does development think I do? What does customer success think I do? And everyone thinks something different. And there's also the matter that many times I work as part of a team, and the developers have each other, and then I also work with the marketing folks, and they also have each other, or I work with team leads or directors of development, and they too, within their teams, but I'm very much alone. And another aspect of this thing, is that it also connected to impostor syndrome, we talked about it a bit earlier, that sometimes as a product manager, I'm the one leading some strategy, or pushing some feature or outcome, and I say, come on, I'm taking the whole organization with me there, and I rally all my leadership, and I say confidently, that this is what will get us out of the mud, or move the needle we're currently focused on, and what if not? And there's also a lot of loneliness in this place, it requires me to really rally a lot,

Eyal David: [28:42] but now everyone expects, and at startups it's super hard, it's onward, it's felt in the group. Also more weight on your shoulders.

מעין גוטליב: [28:49] Right, we're like facing founders, whose business it is, that they... and go communicate now a message you didn't say no to, maybe you don't believe in it, you take it from the founder, it brings him down, and on the other hand the team objects, and then it also leads to loneliness or to a place of impostor, right? Really. This matter of loneliness is very hard, and my feeling is that impostor syndrome is something that intensifies together with loneliness. Like, something in this role raises the feeling of impostorism even more, because I'm alone and I have no one to talk to about it. And in this context I think it's super, super important, to make sure that the product manager, like, in my view. First of all, to make sure you have support. It can be someone on the team, I'll say that I, as a beginning product manager, had — someone on the team who was a kind of big brother, and I would just come to him, and really... vent. Vent everything, cry if needed, laugh, everything. It's really important to understand that others also experience this. If it's not someone within the team, sometimes when we rise in roles, to management roles, many times there are no peers, so a group of peers who go through the same thing, like the group at the fund, and it can also be a mentor, who's in a place that... or was in the place I was.

Eyal David: [30:04] So it's super, super important for it. Maybe you should create such a service, I don't know if there is one, interesting. Interesting. But I'm glad we touched here actually also on giving empathy, also on receiving empathy, we... right, right. We got to both. I think also about loneliness, like... the thought is that maybe it improves over time and maybe that's it, but it can always catch you at any company whatsoever and in any role. And are there more stories that you kind of remember that... like, that you actually heard from people who came to you at the meetup, I want to say meetup, it's not a meetup. The group, yes. The group, yes, who really talked about loneliness, because it sounds to me, at a small startup, really acute.

מעין גוטליב: [30:49] Wow, I don't think there'll be anyone there who didn't talk about loneliness. There really were tons, it's either because I'm leading a strategy, or because they don't understand... specifically at startups it's also extreme, because product managers who arrive, they're kind of on one hand in leadership, but they're not the founders. And then the founders have each other, development has each other, like everyone has some support — going to have another hour. Yes, like you remembered earlier. And I'm really alone, and everyone expects things of me one way or another, and I have no one, I have no one who really understands me all the way.

Eyal David: [31:20] That's it, in these places there's also in general the dimension that you're busy all — it's true almost everywhere, but especially at small ones, that you're busy all day, and then you reach the end of your day already kind of down, down, and then maybe you feel lonely and that, so in general it's a snowball. Right, right, that's why these groups are so important, really. And there's also the matter of saying no, that you can... that you can talk about it too because of it. Because it's also a place where in the end the matter of loneliness comes up. So we also, it's kind of a very worn-out topic on the face of it, this thing of saying no, and everyone knows it's a very significant part of the role, and it's being a good product manager.

The courage to say no

מעין גוטליב: [32:01] But it also brought a lot of complexity with it. Actually I can give an example here about something that one of my mentees actually experienced, that one of the account managers she worked with, and she scheduled with him to go over the plan for the next quarter, and he cared a lot about some feature that his customer needs, and she decided no, because it doesn't advance the product toward the strategy the product needs to go to. And she told him no, and he suddenly starts negotiating with her, and he said to her, no, but last quarter you told me you'd give me now, and you're not giving, and you need to give me later, and besides, the one who did the role before you would give me, and you do it much better. And really, she felt kind of in shock.

Eyal David: [32:46] Now maybe it sounds strange, but these are things that happen. Yes, I'm developing on it here, but the question I want to ask before you continue is, she took it with her, and then she went over it with you, right? Yes. And where did we take her in the conversation with this?

מעין גוטליב: [33:02] I think... yes, we... sorry, yes, we're not in shock, but we do still want to keep him happy and rally him despite the thing, so how did you communicate it? Really. So I'll say, by the way, a moment before the communication, in my view a very important stage is awareness and acceptance toward myself, right? That's a second to be aware that this thing — what is it? It moves me and I'm angry, stuck, preoccupied or frustrated? So a moment to give it space and accept that this is what I feel and that it's okay, because a lot of people also get stuck there, and the next stage really was a moment to breathe and try to understand how, contrary to what maybe comes naturally to her, she doesn't get sucked into this war, right? She doesn't go down to these places, but stays in some higher and leading place. So we, to begin with, to a place of why she thinks she needed to tell him, and why, in her view, that means being a better product manager, and why she wants this product strategy. And then a second to sit, breathe, eat some good carb,

Eyal David: [34:00] and schedule the conversation for the next week. What does that remind you of? What does it remind me of? It reminds me that I came here today. That's true, but also managing boundaries with small children. Wow, really. Because in the end it sounds a bit — I'm not analyzing her, but it sounds a bit like she has an issue with managing confrontations. And if she doesn't surface this boundary now, then next time it'll continue and continue, so I really love what you did here. Really. And also really, it's also with the kids,

מעין גוטליב: [34:26] yes, this deep breath for a moment, and waiting, and scheduling the meeting only a week later, and also a bit of carb for a carb. Yes, so I'll say that... and returning to this meeting a week later, in a place where she's a storyteller, and she takes a moment to tell him a story, and brings him back to why the strategy, and why this product strategy is so important and so right, and somehow to try to bring it to a state where they leave the meeting where not only does she remember why, thanks to this thing being a good product manager, and more than that he also appreciates her more, and if possible also along the way to remember that he's ultimately committed to some customer, and it's really hard, being told no, and maybe she can give him something small instead. Maybe there's some small thing that here would help with this customer. And thus, and there, at the end of the meeting they're friends and he appreciates her more. And maybe he can also build a better case, and go talk with his friends, and find more cases like this, and then there'll be a need to do it. Really. Really, that he'd build a case, why this thing is worth money? Beyond...

Managing stress: meditation, small wins & humor

Eyal David: [35:24] There, we'll see it already. That's it, now I think something we didn't talk about is the matter of tension. Yes. There's actually tension facing other parties, there's tension of your own life, there's tension of — I said back pain, I didn't say it for nothing, I really remember, I really remember this tension. Because the body also speaks. Really. About what we feel. Wow. An episode like this is going to interesting places. So tension is something you do talk about, there's... I'm sure it comes up all the time, there are all kinds of meditations, matters that... for me it just worked, meditation.

מעין גוטליב: [35:58] Yes. Other things, that you kind of... Wow, there are a lot, yes. First of all, each with what works for them, yes, I specifically also study philosophy somewhere, so a lot of things also come to me from there, also meditation, also breathing, also a moment to take a break, and even within the office, from everything I do, and ten minutes to sit aside not with the phone, but to deal with something else, even to sit for coffee with someone, looking in the eyes, and not talk, or to go for a walk, yes, and also things that sometimes help. And I also think that sometimes within the crazy load, just find the space, yes, how do I create for myself some five minutes of breathing.

Eyal David: [36:41] I'm with you, I think another thing that just worked for me — so meditation is one thing, a second thing is to try, at least for me, to create small wins, when you're in a very tense state, so also for you, also for the team, also for the employees and so on, then it helps a lot, and then you build it over time, and things feel lighter. A second thing, I think it can also be a result, is to sit and talk about the tension in the room, just, if you're in some meeting, so actually raise it for a second, and maybe a great idea will come out of here, from the very fact that we didn't leave it under the table,

מעין גוטליב: [37:11] right. And talked. Right, and I'll add humor to that. Sure. No, using humor.

Eyal David: [37:18] Ah, humor, a sense — that you'll tell. It really helps, here, like, I just remembered, because you talked about this elephant, yes, let's address this elephant. We have to like that. Just some humor, or a second, for me it sometimes helps to do some zoom-out and look at myself from the side, or at the room from the side and say, come on, how funny, what's happening here, how funny that we started fighting for a moment over this thing, or that we're here in some frenzy around this production bug, and in the general picture of life, everything will be fine, we'll solve it, so any zoom-out, perspective, and a lot of humor. Cool, so actually, if we think for a second about Symbol and the meetings you do,

מעין גוטליב: [37:55] who, in your opinion, is the segment that's most suited to come? So Symbol's meetings are really very, very focused on product managers who join as first product managers at startups. Until now our groups were focused on more veteran companies, already, I know, five, six years of experience and up. Also for the founders themselves? No. There was a stage where we opened one group where we had a lot of dilemma about whether to mix them or not, and we did an experiment with one group and decided that we actually want to keep it separate. There are other things intended for founders. But the groups are that, I do, kind of — it's a small peek and that, that I'm kind of considering opening some group about product managers, that wouldn't necessarily be focused on startups. Also, because I think this platform is amazing, to let people just talk with people who experience similar things to them, in an intimate and open and living-room situation, that's not the networking and mingling, the abundance in the industry, but something of really talking in depth. So...

Eyal David: [39:03] how long does such a meeting last?

מעין גוטליב: [39:06] Two and a half hours. Ah, there's depth, okay. Yes, the point is the depth. The point is really to give time for going deep and also, I'll say that the conversations, admission in quotes or not in quotes, to these groups, they're also important, it's important to me that these be people who have the ability to do reflection, exactly, who want to share, who are ready for it. And we also invest quite a bit of time in connecting the people with one another.

Eyal David: [39:35] So there's also a validation process here. Right. Cool, so there's clear value here, so we'll leave your details and it'll be easy to reach, and easiest... LinkedIn, shall I leave it? Yes, yes, totally. Cool. And we'll also put, if you have some landing page or something, we'll gladly put it. We'll arrange something. So okay, we've really reached the end of the episode, we made it through. Ma'ayan in ten years, where will she be, what do you wish for her?

מעין גוטליב: [40:01] I wish for the Ma'ayan of ten years from now. First of all, to be happy, because if there's something I learned, and understood mainly in this year off, that was the most important after health, it's happiness. And another thing, is to do what's right for me to do. I think for a long time, I'm a career-minded person — and I see it a lot in the women around me, we run, and the industry runs us forward, and we do what maybe is kind of expected of us, or what we think we need to do, and I feel that at least in the last year or two, I much more precisely dial in what's right for me. Both the tension that's right for me, and also the kind of work that's right for me. And that's not a trivial thing. So to do what's right for me, and also the continuation.

Eyal David: [40:44] So I'll sum up, work-life balance, and probably also some other dimension that would be fun for you to work in. So if this idea of industrial psychology speaks to you, then you should run before someone else does it. Cool, it was so much fun for me. Wow, for me too. I can't believe it's already over. It really flew. Come on, so see you in the next episode. Bye, good time. Bye, Ma'ayan. Hi friends, thanks for listening. If you found this podcast valuable, you can subscribe, follow us, of course for more episodes, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other app. Of course if you didn't find us on some app, I'd be glad if you wrote to us. We'd be very glad for five stars on every platform and that you follow us so more listeners can be exposed to us and find the podcast. You can also find the previous episodes on any app or on the YouTube channel, and bye-bye.