Transcript: From Babysitter to Partner: How Product Leaders Earn the CEO's Trust

Eyal David: [00:03] Hi, this is Eyal, you're on Product Builder. We're already starting the episode, but before that, do us a favor and follow us on Spotify or subscribe on YouTube and help us reach more ears. All right, let's begin. Noa, how's it going? All good. Great, so glad you came. Thank you very much. You're Noa from Infinity, did I say that right? That's right. Correct. And basically we're going to talk about a very interesting topic around the relationship between product and the CEO. But before that let's get to know you a little so we know who we're talking to. So you're actually the owner and founder of Infinity — want to tell us what it is?

Noa Ganot: [00:42] Yes, gladly. Infinity is the company I founded eight years ago that, in a certain sense, helps product go back to being what it's supposed to be, what it was when I joined product. So I help companies connect the product and the product teams to the business strategy and sell more easily. And I help experienced product people, product leaders, become who the company really needs them to be, and to know how to do all this work, which is much more than...

Eyal David: [01:17] ...just a skill — it's a profession. So Noa, let's stop for a second on the sentence you said, because I remember that in our prep call too we lingered on... ...whether you'll be the one your company needs, the product person, or the product person your company needs you to be. Let's dwell on that — there was a story there. Tell us what's expected, and tell us the story as an example, it was really good.

Noa Ganot: [01:38] Look, in my view, first of all product is the most beautiful profession in the industry, and product leadership within it even more so, and on the other hand it's really one of the hardest. You need to master so many skills that sometimes contradict each other. You have to be really good at data and really good at the psychology of people and really good at strategy and really good at details and at business and at technology. All of this often makes people fixate on the doing — why do I need to do this, what's the right template for the document now, and which tool should I use. But those things aren't what will let you make the impact you came to make as a product person. For that you need much more, you need to be able... ...to sit comfortably in management discussions, you need to be able to work with the CEO properly, you need to be able to rally people. And basically my whole approach to product is... ...it's holistic in the sense that I really take all the different layers and raise the level on all of them together, because otherwise you get something very unbalanced that won't do the job.

Eyal David: [02:53] Which makes a lot of sense, because in the end what's our role? To connect the business to the practical, to ground it so it meets users and really makes money or some impact. So take me to the story, the story was good, let's dive into it. Sure, the story is basically how I got into product. Originally I'm an engineer by background.

Noa Ganot: [03:11] I was a developer, a system architect, and a development manager, and I loved it very much, and in my head I wanted one day to be a VP R&D, I really loved it, and what happened is that I... ...never worked with product in those roles of mine, this was before there was product under every green tree. And I think those professions also very much teach you to think before you act. So I found myself arriving at a new company as a development lead, talking to my boss and he says here's what we want you to do, you have one person for four months, and I, as I'd learned, said wait, wait a second, sure I'll do it, one person for four months, but what are we actually trying to achieve here? And he told me, and that's it, and I went, after a few more questions I went to learn a bit of user research, market research, and I came back to him and said listen, what you're asking me to do isn't going to get the company to where you want. He was shocked, he really really didn't expect it — what, a development manager giving reasons? That's also obvious, but there was pushback here. It's not that I came and gave him a speech and he asked where to sign. After he picked his jaw back up off the floor, he gave me a kind of challenge, okay, what you're saying is interesting but why, and so on, and I went to do more research and came back, but in the end he was convinced and accepted it. I hired four people for a year, and wow, that project was a huge success. It was a very specific tool that had no further development horizon afterward, an insane reward. But toward the end of the development they came to me and offered me a role in the business. The essence of the role was to help the salespeople sell the company's product easily, the company's products, and to help development understand what the market is saying, what customers are saying. And I agonized a lot over whether to take this, because I said I want to be a VP R&D, like why would I now go in a different direction, but I told myself that VP is a very senior position. And the broader background could help me on the way there, so I took the role, and in parallel I also started an MBA specializing in strategy and entrepreneurship, and these two things just... ...really changed my worldview. I remember one of the first courses I took in the MBA, it was a strategy fundamentals course that really... ...changed how I look at business success and what it takes to succeed in business, because until then I had a perception that there are business people who just know what to do and were born with it. And basically in that course and in the degree and in my work, where I brought it right into the day-to-day in the new role, I saw that it's not like that, that the business world really is a jungle. But there are trails in this jungle and you can learn to recognize them, and when you walk the trail the path to success is much clearer, even if along the way you have to change a million trails, which is part of the... ...part of the journey. So I really fell in love with this world and didn't want to go back to development, I had to recalculate my route. Everyone I consulted with told me I should go try this thing called product management, that's roughly what people knew to say about that PM role in Israel back then.

Eyal David: [06:52] And that's it, that's what I did, and the rest is history. What a story, fascinating. What a thing, that you actually went into strategy when you were aiming for VP R&D — really interesting, and you ended up an entrepreneur too, we can probably talk about that as well. Like the jungle story, it helps to have a compass and a destination, and then it probably also helps to measure yourself on the way to the destination. Cool, we'll also talk about strategy here I'm sure, because if it came up in the conversation we really can't just skip it. We don't have some north star setting the conversation for us, but we'll definitely touch on it. I want you to tell us a bit more about Infinity in depth, you touched on it just a little but it'll accompany us going forward I think. Who's actually the customer, what's your ICP, basically who's the customer you're addressing and what do you actually do for that matter? So...

Noa Ganot: [07:45] I think about my clients in general, if I look at the types of companies that work with me, it represents Israeli high-tech very very nicely. A real mix of everything, from everything, mostly B2B but there's also B2C, lots of startups but there are also... ...bigger companies, unicorns, and even public ones of various kinds. Very very diverse verticals, from medical devices through... ...really B2C products, and a lot of cyber of course. I don't understand that stuff, tell me, lots of cyber? I told you. That's surprising. And do you actually feel that...

Eyal David: [08:34] ...the conversations happening today are the same ones that happened when you started? How long ago did you actually start? Eight years. Really eight years? Yes. What do you feel changes over this time? I think the most significant thing is less in the world and more in my ability to explain what I do.

Noa Ganot: [08:53] That's maybe, if we're talking about product, something worth pausing on for a second. When I set out, you talked about how I eventually became an entrepreneur, that's not something I ever thought I'd do. And basically I said I'm going to do product consulting, I was really after over 20 years of work, I did both my degrees alongside a full-time job, I needed to rest a bit. What do high-tech people do on a break? They consult, right. So that's how I set out, I found myself, when I went independent, a business owner, I started working at it, but from the outset I wanted... ...to build a business? Well, I wasn't sure from the outset that I wanted to build a business. But it's a lot of work, that's what I'm saying, I didn't go off on vacation. Of course, of course. To build a company and run a company and grow it, no, that wasn't the intention, that wasn't the intention, the intention was that I said like... ...wait, I'm not looking for my next job, I'm going on a break, and then during this break, since I'm not a person who only knows how to go to the beach and read books and meet friends, I said then I'll consult, it'll give me a bit of pocket money and also keep me... ...engaged, and that's what I did, I registered, I really wrote two posts, one on Facebook one on LinkedIn, I do product consulting, thank you very much, a new path, goodbye and see you. And to my surprise people came to me, but who came to me? The ones who came were those who... ...know me and knew that if they sat and thought with me, good things would come out, because I actually didn't say anything. About what I do, what product consulting is, I had no idea how to define it either. And it's a bit similar, say, to a startup that has amazing technology, but now wait, what do you do with this thing. Really, when I was in my last salaried role I was VP Product of a startup. With crazy technology, we wrote algorithms ten years ago, but the question of how to take it to customers and what the market really needs and what to offer and where the value is... ...wasn't so clear, and that was part of my role there. So basically what happened to me is that I fell in love with this thing, and I feel that what I do today really... ...reflects all of who I am and my whole history very very faithfully, and then I understood that I need to start marketing. Because if I really want to do this then it's worth starting to do it seriously, and then I had to ask myself really who the ICP is. And what value it gives, and what I told you earlier, that I actually work with a very wide variety of companies. But every company has a different need. If it's startups that just raised a seed, then a lot of the time I work with the founders on getting to product-market fit and on what we should even offer. And how to crack every deal, I really go over their Design Partners with them and over how to advance to the next stage with each one and what to say and what to show. And how to build the deck for the next meeting. I think the next stage where companies turn to me is when they've already grown. And suddenly it's not enough that everything's in the founders' heads, and you need to bring some order and align, if there are already say... ...dozens of people, and suddenly when things aren't fully tightened up then everyone pulls a bit in their own direction, and that way it's hard to produce results and there's a sense of chaos. The next point is usually when the company has already grown to hundreds of people. And the founders still hold it very very tightly, and suddenly they lift their eyes and say wait a second, but there's no one here to lead this if I take a step back, and then they really want to... ...build the product. Which exists and does product ostensibly but not at the level of strategy and leadership and partnership.

Eyal David: [12:52] Apropos the topic we said we'd talk about, that the CEO really needs it in order to be able to lean on this team properly. And apparently in each such segment it really looks different, right? Like the team at an early stage of the company, the team that's there, and also entrepreneurs like you said, are in a different place.

Noa Ganot: [13:12] In the second type of company, when I heard this I thought, that's also the kind of customer who usually comes to me. The first thing I think I see is that precisely you don't need to be there, what are you doing?

Eyal David: [13:22] But come on — and it always makes me squirm uncomfortably, but tell us for a second really how it looks in really early-stage startups when you go into them and really go over things with them, it really intrigues me, and you go over their pipeline with them, I understand, how does it look, what does such a session look like? First of all, I don't work with startups at the really early stages.

Noa Ganot: [13:47] Usually I work with them after the seed stage. At the early stages they run on intuition; I work when there's something that needs to be delivered, and now a lot of the questions are wait, so what do I need to do tomorrow morning, often the founders come with a backlog that's very very rich for that matter. That just needs order, and in order to be able to bring order I take them to a place of wait, let's see where you meet the market. One of the things — right before I came here to the recording I was in a conversation with such a client. It's very very easy to get confused, because the most important thing at this stage is to meet customers as fast as possible, which anyone who ever... ...rolled around the entrepreneurship world knows to tell you. The problem is that bringing it to fruition, where you really have to make complex decisions, is much harder, so... ...the place where you don't mind doing things in a patchy way and having them break tomorrow morning and having to... ...rewrite everything, in a certain sense you have to be there, you have to be in this discomfort, because if it also matters to you to do things right, and that's... ...also, whoever says no no, I move fast and I don't care about doing it right, a lot of the time in daily life they don't operate that way, because development already started working on this feature, so what, now I'll stop them midway? True, this customer isn't fully responding to us right now, but we already promised him something so we stay there — no, what, he has to be chased after. In the army they say 'pursuit to contact,' it really — this should be the compass, if we talked earlier about the compass in the jungle, at this stage this should be the compass. And yes, we go over really every, every customer, and see what's stuck for them and what's needed, how to talk to them at the next meeting, which feature is right to deliver to them, many times. A lot of the startups want to show how much they bring AI into the equation, and say, in questions of — drop the AI and see the value from the AI. The user experience in the early stages, I'm saying, it's a waste to invest in it, you want first to see the, let's call it, the AI experience, to see that this AI, this magic that you say you're going to do. Whether you even know how to do the magic, whether the buttons are in the right place and how exactly you start a conversation and end a conversation and all sorts of things like that. Teams invest a ton and go to studios to do design for them, and all this when actually the question going through the customer's head...

Eyal David: [16:43] ...is, does he really know how to do this thing. I completely agree with you. Just a moment before we continue, click the link to the Product Builder WhatsApp group in the episode description and join the community, there you can continue the discussion, ask questions and be the first to get updates on new practical episodes, we're waiting for you there, and now back to the episode. The whole thing was AI, and you even need to move faster as you noted, and I even think about the fact that I have customers whom people now even hang up the phone on because they're Israeli, so things fall apart in general, so you really need to move fast. And what I also thought when you said, yes true you still need to but make sure the button, they notice it and see it on the screen and click it, but beyond that I very much agree with you that what happens afterward is much more interesting, it's not at all certain you even need a button if you're... ...building an AI agent that knows how to bring order to the company's finances, in the first stage just give them a report generated offline, you don't need the interface of talking to the product now, totally totally totally go for the value, I agree with you, fast, and check it, but if there is a button... ...if it's a factory, what button do you make? A button. You have — I just thought about B2C, and how there I actually wouldn't focus at the start on that thing, because I want as many people as possible to come in, but I totally agree with you, right, it's something a bit different. Now let's talk for a second about the state of mind of entrepreneurs, you touched on it a bit, the state of mind of founders at this stage, right? Where they are, holding on through gritted teeth like you said, when they come to you and ask okay what's next, basically in what state of mind do they come to you?

Noa Ganot: [18:20] Listen, here I answer both as someone who accompanies them, and also as one myself, standing... not of a tech startup but yes of a company. It's very very very confusing, there are so many contradictory factors that ostensibly can take you in all sorts of different directions, in general. A startup is of course a journey of uncertainty, and often the uncertainty is even greater, not because you don't know what the future holds but because you can't even hold the present in your head. Basically technology is something so so powerful that you can do infinite things with it. Infinite things is something that very very much makes decision-making hard, like anyone who has kids and wanted to send them off to kindergarten in the morning knows that you mustn't tell them here's a closet, what do you want to wear.

Eyal David: [19:14] You need to give them a red shirt or a blue shirt, or to have prepared it the day before. But actually the matter of focus, I very much agree with you, that's also what I see. And if we take even a very practical example, then Noa at the start of the journey, when she posted the post, could have gone after anything that came her way, or alternatively find the path she wants and go to it, totally. So let's actually climb up, now we said we'd talk about the CEO, we're talking about founders, come on let's jump, so let's go to the next type of company, we went up a level, wait let's focus on the CEO. Maybe later, in the company after that in size, the CEO won't be one of the founders, so it's a whole party, so you go up, you go up a level basically, and now we actually talked about companies, that you said, we talked about who the employees are, what was actually the next step, say, yes. What are the CEO's pains there and what state of mind is he in? It sounds to me very lonely, even lonelier than being...

Noa Ganot: [20:06] ...alone in a small company. It's very lonely and very stressful, because you already have your runway that's being eaten at a much more significant pace. And your worries are really also about, am I marching the company in the right direction and are we really going to change the world like we want, but also much more concrete things. The quarter isn't great, and I have a board meeting and what will I tell them, and on the other hand you're building a team. You're approving salaries in huge sums, think about a high-tech company of a hundred people, the money really really really flows. When you feel it's not working for you as it should, that you're not getting what you really need, it's very very frustrating. And also very scary, because you built on this working well, it's the relationship with the teams, it's people being able... ...to really take ownership of things and lead in a significant way, and it's not happening. And I had, there was once a CEO who shared with me with amazing openness. He told me that he feels that in the relationship with the product team he gives more than he gets. Did you hear that? It's every time, yes it's... ...crazy, like if the CEO feels he needs to babysit the product team then there's a problem here. One of the things, when I did — again, it's not necessarily a CEO, it can also be, if it's a bigger company, the GM of your division, it can be a senior enough manager. When I did the market research toward the Product Leadership Launchpad program, which is really for companies... who aren't yet directors and want to bring leadership and strategic thinking, I also spoke with their managers. Because they're actually the ones who ultimately give the budget, and I asked them about their pains in growing the team and so on, and one of them told me a sentence for the pantheon, he tells me I want you to turn them from babysitters into parents.

Eyal David: [22:17] It should also be said that the product team that's already been built senior, I think, less so in a company this size it's different, from that one or two product people we're talking about in the earlier stage. True, and also people probably with greater mileage, ostensibly — I don't know, actually less, I take that back, not mileage, there is mileage, but the role is a different role, if at first...

Noa Ganot: [22:41] ...broadly product is an arm of the founders, they have to find the product fit themselves, they have to be on strategy and chart the direction themselves, and as the company grows more hands are needed on this thing, and it's one of the things that are... ...hardest to understand, because in the end often CEOs talk a lot in terms of what to do. And there I'll say one more thing, there in that place of a company of a hundred employees that already has... ...what I called the company's mileage, so it's much easier to fall into this comfortable place as product, okay? Because again, if you're in a very small company they see what you do, and everything's also measurable, everyone's eyes are on it, so...

Eyal David: [23:26] ...as product it's easier for you to fall into this place, and then obviously it's the situation you described, basically that okay, we'll babysit them, maybe we need to give them a coloring page to draw the screens now, to think together, but I as a CEO — not a CEO, net just want to do this thing now, so the situation is totally clear, there's a catch here, because as a CEO I don't want to do this thing.

Noa Ganot: [23:48] But I have no other tool, exactly, and so I get pulled into doing this thing, and then... ...whoever is under me — and this is true by the way in product, in my opinion at higher intensity, but it's true also for other role-holders — it's very easy... ...to get into the head of, no, yes, the CEO knows what he wants so let him say it and we'll do it, but that's not the role, and here what's needed is... ...a lot of maturity, precisely from product. I don't put it on the CEOs, because I see, say, even me, who is very very very aware of this thing. It's much easier to tell my team what to do after I've already thought about it, than to explain to them the problem for a second and say let's think together what to do. Now this isn't good and I don't want it, there are downsides, so what I told my team is that I trust them to move forward, no matter what I say, I trust them to move forward if they don't understand a hundred percent. ...why I want this, what we're hoping to achieve with this thing, meaning I asked them to turn... ...this matter of understanding the depth and making it theirs, to make it the goal and not the execution.

Eyal David: [25:01] But most CEOs won't say this thing. You just surfaced a great story for me in the prep call about this, so maybe it's worth you sharing it too.

Noa Ganot: [25:09] I don't want to steal the story, but basically a guy who came to a management meeting and told... So this is really an example — there's a startup I accompanied quite a few years ago, I came in at the start of my journey, where I worked as VP product and did a kind of kickoff, okay, now we're starting to work together, let's talk about what your strategy is, what the goals are and so on and so forth, and then he said sure, sure, we'll do it, but before that, right now the company is developing a platform, and I need to release an MVP in four months, and I need us to define it. I said, okay, sure, that's what's urgent, that's what we'll do, come tell me why, what are you trying to achieve, why do you want to build a platform. And he kind of scratched his head, and in the end I extracted from him that basically what happened is that he was on vacation for two weeks, and when he came back, the CEO told him they're building a platform. I told him, okay, sure, but why, what does he want? Go talk to the CEO, try to understand why he wants a platform. And he went, and the CEO answered a bit, and at some point the CEO got annoyed, like why are you digging into me and so on, me personally, I was once told, stop writing documents and start working. There's something — wait, wait, we're just talking and not making progress, which is very threatening, and not just for a startup, also for big companies that move at a much slower pace — still, in the end, the developer needs to know what to do tomorrow morning, and the salaries, as we said, are being paid, and people yell about the resources, and taking the time for a second to think, that's something very very scary. And basically, when the VP product came back to me with this answer, I didn't let him off, and I told him, okay, sure, have you been at the company long enough? Do you know the CEO long enough? Why does he want a platform? Come, you produce, from your own head, what you think, which is the CEO's story, and it's an exercise I really recommend, to everyone listening to us who gets instructions on what to do, tell yourself the story of why they want you to do this, and it took a long time until we managed to arrive at a story that we read, and believe ourselves that it's a logical story. It requires deep thinking, not just strategy, it's one of the things people most avoid.

Eyal David: [27:28] It's really, really hard. How was it? Sorry, a question, go on, but basically he came back to you with something of a draft, you challenged it, you challenged each other, and he came back, and there was ping-pong, how was it? Yes, we work on the draft really sentence by sentence.

Noa Ganot: [27:40] Okay, wait, so you wrote this sentence, what will we understand from it? Did I understand you correctly, or is there something else hiding here? You really arrange the logic of the story, there are lectures I give about it, there's a kind of image of a very complicated maze, and someone stands and tries to find the way through the maze. That's basically what we're trying to show. Why these and those steps will bring us in the end to the point where we want to be, and it's really really not easy to give this answer. It's usually not something self-evident, and there are a million holes in the plot. So basically after this ping-pong, and after we managed to reach a state where we read the story and believe ourselves, the VP product went and presented it at the management meeting. The meeting ended, the CEO summed it up as, I didn't hear anything new here, and left the room. Now, the very fact that he said he didn't hear anything new, for me that's excellent because it means we hit what he really meant. So that's already good, but the VP product was very frustrated at this stage, like what, I worked so hard, and in the end he says there's nothing new here, but then after the CEO left, the rest of the management came up to him and said, listen, thank you very much. Finally, after months of this CEO talking about platform, platform, we understand what he's trying to do, and why we even need to go in this direction, and thank you for helping us understand. Now this understanding is very important, it's not by chance in my eyes that the VP product is the one who told the story, it's not just because he works with me, I think it's an essential part of the role of product, which is important to understand, because as a product leader, you're not responsible only for the product department, it's very easy to get into this place of managing the day-to-day. You're responsible for being the wedge that leads the company in the right direction, why the VP product specifically, and not someone else, for two reasons. One, because product is much more than what comes out at the end of the sprint. Product, in a product company, is the central business instrument with which the company decided to go out to the world, and achieve its goals. And as VP product you're responsible for this, true you don't manage the salespeople, and true you're not responsible for their incentives, but in the end, if you lead product, that doesn't know how to lead others, and doesn't know how to bring the company to results, then it's a bit like, you're playing in a room, and building pretty things. That's missing the goal entirely, by the way, there are companies I've seen where even the CFO does this, if there's a vacuum, then sometimes they'll also take it to product.

Eyal David: [30:30] Right. I want, for a second before we move on, on this, I'm very curious, first of all, so I as product, what do I need to understand about the state of mind of the CEO? I understand that his time is very precious. I understand that maybe he also doesn't have the patience for this fuss of now starting, to understand the why, or even in the story you told, to reflect it, he also didn't reflect it to his team, which is also very strange, but what do I need to understand about the state of mind, that CEOs are in? A few things. One,

Noa Ganot: [31:06] it's that they must have partners, and they must see that you're eye to eye with them on the goal they see. If you're eye to eye on a different goal, that's a problem, and if you're eye to eye in the gut, but what comes out in the eyes is something else, that's also a problem. Often, product gets very much pulled into a place of being, wait, we're entrusted with the orderly thinking, and then it turns out that the main communication outward is, wait, wait. No. Wait, let me explain to you why what you're asking for isn't possible. Try for a second to put yourselves in the place of the people you're paying money to succeed, to get to where you want to get, and they tell you why what you want isn't possible, and say you're not in the right direction.

Eyal David: [32:00] Great, so let's drop the money dimension for a second, you feel it with R&D for sure? We'll come back.

Noa Ganot: [32:06] No, but it's more than that, think, like, you brought this person, you entrust him with R&D, we didn't bring him.

Eyal David: [32:12] Yes, I said, let's set aside the money dimension that I'm paying, that's the feeling, but. Totally. And it also feels like monitoring, we said there's no time and no attention, so even more now, because of this babysitting, I...

Noa Ganot: [32:24] ...right. It's an expression that describes exactly this. That's the second thing, they babysit you, because they have no choice. And the only way to get out of this cycle, is that you grow, and prove to them that they can rely on you, and that you understand them all the way, meaning, not that they can rely on you in general, I've already done a lot of things in all sorts of places, and you let me work. No, think to yourselves, in order to let someone run independently, and not manage him like a babysitter, you need to check first of all, that he's in the same head as you. And therefore, my recommendation here is, every time, the CEO tells you something — a CEO, let's say, yes, a senior enough manager, a female CEO, whatever — assume there's justice in his words. Like, today in the startup worlds, or in general, in the product worlds, we're very afraid to rely on intuition, right? We don't, everyone wants to be data-driven, we're not on gut feeling, no way, for everything, we want to bring evidence. The thing is that intuition, contrary to what people think, is not something emotional, it's not something — sometimes it comes like this, right? Yesterday, in the morning there was a customer who yelled about something, and then today the CEO decided they're sending things in some direction. It feels very jumpy, and very un-... ...unstructured. The thing is, that intuition is something that's built over time. In all the worlds of deep learning, and all the AI we know, it basically comes to imitate human intuition, which is built from the fact that we collect tons of pieces of information that we... ...don't know what they are, and then at some point in time there's an image that connects — for sure, everyone knows this — of a complex problem, that they thought about day and night, and suddenly there was a breakthrough. This breakthrough didn't happen because something happened in the world at that moment, it happened because the neurons connected, and a lot of data was gathered, that we... ...didn't know how to say what data it is, but suddenly it fell into place. So if we want to explain to the CEO, that his idea is a bad idea, the best way, is first of all, to understand why he thinks it's a good idea, and to tell him, if I understand correctly, this is how you see things, and to get his nod, of yes,

Eyal David: [35:02] you understood me. There's also something here, I think, beyond the time of intuition, which I very much agree with, I've had all sorts of CEOs, but I very much believe also in intuition, and in thinking time on it, prolonged. He's also in, or she's also in circles, and in conversations, that you're not in, much more high-level, basically, their whole circle of acquaintances, which can be investors, and can be owners of similar companies, and heavyweights from the industry, so maybe there's actually a much deeper basis for this decision, that again was built by facts, opinions of this kind and others. It's even not just opinions,

Noa Ganot: [35:38] they sit in conversations with customers, totally. And they catch that half-a-... ...glance, at some point when they were talking, they lost the customer's full attention. Now, based on such a thing, such a face, they won't make a decision now, but when this thing happens again and again and again, and suddenly someone comes who's really already checked out, say, and announces that he wants to leave, or something like that, or isn't progressing, enough volume accumulates there, to indeed understand that a change is needed, which is a lot of things, that if you're not in the mindset of how do I close the deals, how do I bring this not just to nods of, yes, it's interesting, how nice, but really, really, in the end, a company that has business results, you look also at other signals, and you're much more sensitive to it. And rightly so, in my eyes. You mustn't ignore it. And also history that he wanted, right, it could be they already tried something, and he saw, or a competitor tried once, totally,

Eyal David: [36:34] another, another — let's close the circle for a second, so we basically talked about what not to do, wait, he comes with some idea, and for a second, not to stop it, or she comes, but this brings me back a bit to the story you told, basically, your personal story that we opened with, that you also didn't come and say, the place is good, this won't work, no, you didn't go backward, you did work with yourself, and came back, and also came back with a solution, a solution — you didn't come and say, hey, like, a solution that you can challenge, and you were open also to more feedback.

Noa Ganot: [37:04] Right, if I have to put right now, say, a formula, how to do — a formula, how to do pushback. Because you have to remember, that most of the time, you don't really want to do pushback. Another bad habit of... ...product people, is that when they don't agree with the CEO, or with whoever it is, on the trade-off, they say no to the whole thing. If you agree, that it's logical to do this. And now the question, whether to do it now and clear the whole roadmap for it, or to wait another month and finish something, and then there'll be a better time to do it — don't argue about the idea itself. But tons and tons of product people fall into this thing. Because a lot of people are under pressure, right? It moves the cheese, obviously. No, look, I once read some interview with a CEO, who explained why being a CEO, is such a lonely role. Mainly, because people hear every word you let out of your mouth, as a command to execute. And then, the thing of simply airing my thoughts, is not something I can do, I know a CEO who stopped coming to meetings, because he — and doing brainstorming — because he understood that no one sees it as brainstorming, they see it as decisions and directives, no matter how many disclaimers he gave. So, really, start looking at what the CEO says, a small part of it is really commands to execute, really a tiny part. Step one, understand why yes. Why, in the CEO's eyes, it's logical. Rest assured that it's not, because he's drunk and has no idea what he's doing. There's some logic there, look for it.

Eyal David: [38:46] Also one more thing, again, you said, the state of mind of the CEO — if for coffee, if you really insist on understanding, why it's worth it to him, because you'll go, and take it down, and that way it's much better.

Noa Ganot: [38:58] Right, but it has to be from a place of, I want to make sure I understand you a hundred percent. And not from, let's sit for coffee and I'll explain to you why you understand nothing. No, no, totally, and it's even better to get there after you've a bit... ...pondered the subject and you're ready for the conversation. Right. And in general, this thing of, come, let me make sure I understand you properly, it's a very powerful tool, also with customers, also with other stakeholders, also with the CEO, and to say in your words what you assume he thinks. It's a bit like — right, since AI, generative AI burst into our lives, no one starts from a blank page anymore. Nothing. Even if ChatGPT spits out complete nonsense, after it wrote me the complete nonsense, it's much easier for me... ...to put down the things I really want to say. And it really is some kind of barrier, so when you reflect to the CEO what you understand or think you understand, even if what you're saying isn't right, it'll be much easier for him to correct you and respond, yes. And then only then can you bring to the story the, wait, what else needs to be taken into account, that maybe wasn't taken into account. So if I go back to the previous example of there's some tenet, let's talk about why it's logical to do it, I understand what you're trying to achieve with this thing, I understand why you think it's logical, great. Now only the question of the trade-off remains. Do I really need now to stop everything and do it urgently — that is, another concern that wasn't in the conversation before, to bring it explicitly and of course to strive for a solution that answers everything that's important to everyone. Because truly, if the CEO doesn't want it urgently, there's probably some reason.

Eyal David: [40:43] So again, all the time look for where he's right. Great recipe, you could hang it on the fridge. Let's continue from here, I wanted to raise one more point and I really don't remember, so let's continue from here really, what happens when we — what's the size of the next company you deal with, 200 and up? Here we're going by employees. Yes, hundreds of people. Yes. How does it look there? Here we're talking about a GM, if we also said, all the steps are basically, everyone's stressed. No, I'm joking. But what's the state of mind there? Because there it could be a public company already even, right? On the face of it the situation should be more stressful, but not necessarily actually. Public companies are usually bigger. So let's go to spots here a bit lower,

Noa Ganot: [41:25] in order to. What happens there is that often there's some sense of disconnection. If at first it's the founders doing everything with their hands and then they're still forced to be involved in all the details because they have no alternative, at some point they can no longer be involved in all the details. And that in itself is very very scary. And basically I call it a state of Air Sandwich, of a sandwich full of air. There's usually a vision for the company or some, that's a kind of business strategy or company strategy, that's very very high-level, it looks at the market, it looks at the opportunities, at all sorts of very very cross-cutting things. And there's the bottom slice which is the backlog and what happens every day on the production floor. And usually no one has any real idea how to explain everything that happens on the production floor and how it serves the vision, the goals, the challenges there are today. And on the other hand it's very hard for companies to come and... ...to come and change this. To do strategy is very very very hard, it really is a mental effort that's very significant, and most companies just give up on it, and then people are busy with all sorts of sprints, but wait, how do I make a revolution in the market this way and that, which is why I founded the company and why I raised tens of millions of dollars if not more, and... and on the other hand I look at what happens day-to-day and I don't understand the connection, and unfortunately usually what happens is that people stay with this frustration, meaning the tools to make this change aren't simple, it's part of the help I really come to give organizations, to connect this whole thing, it's not, it's often not tools that are talked about on an ongoing basis. You also have to remember that most CEOs won't set up product organizations beforehand, so this also already enters here maybe into a very big company, into a culture maybe that's already much deeper, it's a type of company that I less less get to work with, and it seems to me also harder for me to operate within them. Let's talk about strategy.

Eyal David: [44:02] If you now had to recommend this episode in three months and tell the folks at your place who come to you at Infinity, did I remember right, to listen to this episode and say okay, there's a nugget you must hear, and it'll explain to you what strategy is or some recipe for strategy, how you do it, or any tip you want — what do you say? So first of all it's important to understand

Noa Ganot: [44:26] that strategy — the definition of strategy is a high-level plan that explains how we're going to get to our goals under conditions of uncertainty. Uncertainty is a built-in part of strategy, that's what makes it hard. And on the other hand strategy is not some general direction, we'll be the leaders this way and that. That's not strategy. Strategy is significant decisions that need to be made. Broadly broadly broadly there are three decisions at least in the first stage that need to be made. One is where we want to get to, what will success be, what will the win be, what's the goal. This goal, if you just define it, say, in an ARR number, it's really not enough, there's tons and tons of depth also in the goal itself. If you want to reach your ARR, there are tons of assumptions running in the background about what kind of ARR it is. One of the enemies of strategy is every time you think to yourself, but everyone knows this, it's obvious to everyone. Start from the assumption that nothing is obvious to everyone, and even if it's obvious to everyone it's worth saying it, and then at most everyone will say, ah, cool, and you also realize that it's clear to us, so we created a connection. But in most cases you'll say it and people argue with you, and that's good. Which axiom, right, am I going with in the world and you can challenge it? There's no such thing as everyone knows. We're talking about where we want to get to. The next thing is where we choose to play, basically what's the path we want to walk, and why this path will work, how we're really going to win. And only when you manage to explain all these things do you have some strategy you can go with. This process, as I said earlier, is a painful process, they'll do tons of challenge, but that's the process.

Eyal David: [46:26] And that's actually the last question, or the last thing you mentioned, it's the hardest part in my eyes, how do you approach it, because like you talked about it, I'll remind you, the path and how we're going to win, so suddenly finding my strength as a company, thinking how I beat my competitors and in general the market, and racing forward toward my goal,

Noa Ganot: [46:50] it's a hard conversation, right? First of all it's very hard, but it's not even the conversation about my strength as a company, it's why what I'm doing is going to work, why the gut, what to me seems obvious, obvious, everyone needs it, why this will succeed in bringing me to where I want — it requires also a lot of abstract thinking, also an outside look and not just an inside look, and not just thinking about what we want to do, but the interesting question is what, how the market will react to this thing. And also really hardcore logic, to be able — it's a bit like in a debate. In one of my programs I do a debate exercise with them, whether AI is going to replace us as product managers or not. We do it with an asterisk, half the group arbitrarily gets the position that yes and half the group arbitrarily gets the position that no, to prove the point. This type of thinking is not trivial, and really along the way a lot a lot a lot a lot of challenge comes up, and also a lot of, that we've already lost our own train of thought, and we don't understand why we think this, and then you take a step back for a second, start reading it again from scratch, look at some — that's what you also do in strategy,

Eyal David: [48:08] like, let's go a step back. I'll just say, the matter of the strength, usually when you go to such a place, at least from my experience, you go to okay what are our assets, where are we strong, and then there's some path where maybe we have a better chance of winning. The problem is that you might be disconnected from the market.

Noa Ganot: [48:26] You're right that there's, like, where our strengths are and where we need to go, but before that you need to see what the market really needs,

Eyal David: [48:32] otherwise you'll build something for nothing. I ask, what's the prep work you're going to do before making

Noa Ganot: [48:38] such a strategic move, what's the prep work they need to do? For that I usually do for them a lot of handholding, maybe send them some materials and clips of mine, but usually, and maybe a few small questions, but in the end the main work happens within the session with themselves. Because part — I don't know. I'm super perfectionist and I have a degree in mathematics and such and I'm very much a nag, and if a point doesn't connect for me I surface it, and I insist on it, and we crack it together. What yes? Again from the assumption that they know what they're talking about, sometimes what they say and what they really need, or what they really mean, is not the same thing, and I insist with them on phrasing it precisely. In practice, an example: I came to some company for a kickoff meeting, to do a roadmap workshop for them. The question of roadmap, like in Alice, what we need to do depends on where you want to get to, so of course it starts from where you want to get to. The CEO sat there and talked about some ARR goal, and I was a terrible nag and told him okay wait but you have tons more assumptions about this ARR. During the conversation it turned out that he actually assumes it's new ARR, and that the existing ARR won't have churn in it, and that the ARR is from big [customers] in the United States that have some further qualification, and then I challenged him and asked, wait, and what about the existing customers you have who aren't in this segment, or if someone arrives who isn't in this segment, then we tell him no? How do we operate within this thing, and there was a fascinating discussion there, and also there the group members came out of the session and said, cool, I now like understand much better next year and what you need to do within this thing. Things came up there that ostensibly everyone understands and everyone knows, but that's not the case. [unintelligible audio] [unintelligible audio]

Eyal David: [50:52] [unintelligible audio] ...and after that it's really

Noa Ganot: [50:58] really interesting, it's managing your own ego, and also managing his ego, or hers. Right, look, here I bring a lot of tools from the worlds of coaching, I don't remember if I said it, I have over 20 years of experience in coaching too. I also have a black belt, right? But in coaching, at least in the school I studied at, the assumption is that the person you're coaching knows what he needs, he knows, like, all the answers are with him. And you, as a coach, need to ask the right questions, and really reflect to him what you understand, and it helps him understand himself. Today I already do it maybe a bit more, I say, like, but wait, a second, your biggest challenge is this and that, and usually, because I've really worked with hundreds of companies already, so what I say resonates, and they tell me, totally, you phrased that really really well. But if they feel that's not where their challenge is, I'm totally open to hearing it. And most of the conversation is actually drawing it out of them. Where do you want to get to? Okay, what have you tried so far? What's the best way, in your view, to get there? And this whole thing we start to formalize, the answers are totally with him. By the way, one of the things they always ask me is how I can help a company where I'm not its domain expert. That's exactly it. They have the knowledge, I just help them organize it, and communicate it. Once we managed to connect some story, there's no number of times you can repeat this story that would be too much. There isn't. It should be the introduction to every meeting and every all-hands of the company, and it should be fed as background to your ChatGPT when you write a PRD, and it should be fed to the developers' Cursor as what the story is... because it's about what? Right, and you should repeat it all the time, people understand it at different levels after they've touched it a bit with their hands, compared to the first time, it's... and people, especially smart people, are very afraid to say trivial things, like. It's not trivial. Repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, you're not boring anyone except yourselves.

Eyal David: [53:10] So what you'd suggest basically — we didn't talk all the way about ego, and it's fine, it's a challenge, I agree with you, but what you're basically suggesting is to take the why of the company now, throw it on a Google Doc for that matter, and have everyone come in and add comments, whoever's brave, and start actually working on it together.

Noa Ganot: [53:26] No, I wouldn't attack it that way. The team that builds the story needs to be a small team, that does a lot of challenge to each other. Once the... ah, I mean, sorry, no, as preparation for such a meeting, of the attendees of the meeting, everyone can mark before the meeting basically what they wouldn't want to talk about, and then you have a much more to-the-point meeting around this thing. I don't work that way. Usually, I'll reveal here a closely-guarded secret. Often, when I accompany a company, they send me documents to review, decks and all sorts of plans and things like that. If the beginning isn't in the right direction, the rest of the document doesn't matter, it can be in the excellent format, but it doesn't matter, the details are already not in the right direction. And therefore I'm not in favor of writing scrolls first, but rather, come, let's answer a specific question.

Eyal David: [54:25] It brings us back right on point. It brings us back exactly to the start of the episode, why deal with it now — you talked about it in the context of AI and that, how to bring the value as fast and precise as possible, you talked about it with some CSV, I don't know, at least in my head it was with some report, right, to put a button, totally. So that's exactly it, because otherwise you lose all the essence, it's not there. Okay, I'll say, this was a longer episode than usual, but it was, in my opinion, very successful and interesting. Thank you very much. And I learned a lot about you, I learned, you have degrees in almost everything, I really learned a lot. I want to ask you actually from a different angle, okay? To conclude. What suggestion can you give — I'm framing you here a lot, what suggestion can you give to... we'll also direct this specifically to a certain level of product people, who really, like you said, feel stuck, who feel that the CEOs, or... it's above them basically, or she's above them, not really... take it to the right place, and how do you manage it? Basically, how now? Like, you talked about it, you can hold conversations, you can try to understand with yourself, but the question is whether in real life I can actually find this time and the ability to find... the person I don't get along with, to understand why he's actually going to this place. So how do you suggest approaching it?

Noa Ganot: [55:44] So the best tip in this context is to adopt an approach called Radical Listening. This, no? People often talk about active listening, which is to be present and respond, and that's fine, Radical Listening is one level above this. It means to assume, that no matter what the person tells you, to assume there's justice in his words. It doesn't mean that every word he said is correct. Once, in some program I participated in, they called it listening for the gold. Meaning, to find, and make it your mission to find, the logic in why he says what he says. Not that he's a troll and doesn't understand what he's saying, but to assume there's something here and to take responsibility on yourself to go and find this thing. Just this small tip will change all of how you listen, all of how you talk, the whole relationship, the trust, because you really have to understand that it's not that today in the shower in the morning some something suddenly arrived and it has no substance.

Eyal David: [56:54] The tip is excellent, and I'll say, I don't know, maybe we as consultants too — at least I come, I come with this honesty to the client because he understands it from me. So I totally accept it, I don't know, so maybe for us it's already, from the height of the eight years, maybe easier.

Noa Ganot: [57:09] It's much easier to do this as a consultant than as an employee. Because as an employee, in the end you have, like, much more on the table. He decides whether you'll stay or go and what bonus you'll get, and I can also say about myself, on my personal level, my nature is very much to give respect to authority. And then when someone comes from above, and comes and speaks with all authority and says something, I very much, it kind of very much straightens me out, my tendency is very much to fall in line and in a certain way to stop thinking. And it's a skill you have to develop, because it's exactly what they don't want. If I go back for a second to the start of the conversation, they don't want to think for you, they want your critical thinking. But they want it from a place of partnership

Eyal David: [58:03] and not from a place of constant challenge. Okay, and now a book recommendation, we won't leave here just like this,

Noa Ganot: [58:10] a book recommendation on strategy? A book recommendation on strategy. It sucks, because part of the work I do as a consultant is to read the sucky books and give you the gist so that you won't need, won't need to do it. A book that's easy to read, that in my eyes is first-rate strategic thinking, is The Hard Thing About Hard Things. It's an interesting book, it's story-based, and another book that could be relevant is Thinking in Bets, which is by Annie Duke, who's a poker champion who became a business consultant, and if we're talking about decision-making in worlds of uncertainty,

Eyal David: [58:52] there's a lot a lot to learn there. Wow, nice, I'll take it, great. Noa, so glad you came, we'd love for you to come back in another year too.

Noa Ganot: [58:59] Gladly, how glad I was to be here. How nice. If people want to get in touch with you? I have — and of course you can find me on LinkedIn, on Facebook, I have a new Instagram page, I have a WhatsApp group for product leaders that you can join, I'm very accessible.

Eyal David: [59:13] Wonderful, bye for now. Wonderful, thank you. Bye. Hi, friends, thank you for listening. If you found this podcast valuable, you can register, follow us, of course for more episodes, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other app, and 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 for you to follow us, so that 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, we have links in the description. Until next time, come on, be efficient and bye bye.