Land your dream job in today’s market: negotiation tactics, job search councils, and more | Phyl Terry (Author, “Never Search Alone”)

When you're looking for a job, you need a spirit and not a neck. What happens when we're building a product? Same thing, right? We want this product to be for everyone. But we've learned with product market fit that doesn't work. We need a narrow, clear focus.

How did you realize this is a really powerful method versus the way people normally look for jokes?

While it's hard to figure out your candidate market fit, it's also a relief to know it's not about you. So what I ask people to do is I ask them to think about what they want and what they don't want. Now, you might not think that that's a radical step, Lenny, but most people don't do that when they get laid off.

They spray and pray this much like a product person thinks about new products.

There's no I in team. Well, there is an I in village, and the I in village is that when you start to interview and negotiate, you've got to be in charge. I want you to play to win, not not to lose.

Is there anything else that you think might be helpful to people looking for a job?

If someone did this, it would blow my mind. I would hire them on the spot.

Today my guest is Phil Terry. Phil is the author of Never Search Alone, which I've seen so many people reference as the most impactful thing they read for helping them find a job. Once you listen to this episode, you'll see why. Prior to this book, Phil was on the founding team of the first company that Amazon acquired back in the 90s, and then was CEO of the pioneering product and customer experience consulting firm Creative good for over 15 years, where Phil and the team had companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and hundreds of other companies as customers. Phil also co authored Customers Included, has written articles for the Harvard Business Review, and has delivered more than 500 keynotes to companies like Apple and Microsoft. This episode is for anyone struggling to find a job or unhappy in the job that they are in. I promise you the time you put into listening this episode will help you find a job that you love. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Phil Terry. Phil, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

Oh, what a pleasure. I'm such a fan of yours, Lenny. I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you.

I'm a huge fan of yours and I Think by the end of this, I'll be an even bigger fan of yours. What I'm hoping that we can do in our chat today is to help people who are struggling to find a job, and especially struggling to find a job they love, actually find that job with actual tips that they can use today in this week. How does that, how does that feel to you?

That's great. We have some practical, time tested stuff that I've developed over the last 25 years with leaders in Silicon Valley, especially in the product community. We've really brought a product lens to reinventing the job search.

Lenny, this is a perfect Venn diagram of topics, then. Yes, there's a lot of ways I can approach this. I want to start with a question about something that you run, something that you created, something that has had a lot of impact on a lot of people. Job search councils. What is a job search council?

It's a support group of six to eight job seekers. Right. So product people, and it's not just for product people, but the product community really owns this. It comes out of the product community and what they do is they commit to being with each other, to supporting each other, go through the process of looking for a job and figuring out some of the. And I lay out a methodology, how to figure out your candidate market fit, one of the big concepts in the book, as well as how to play to win, not not to lose. You know what I mean? People are scared in the job search. Here's the thing, Lenny, that people really have a hard time, really have a hard time believing everyone, I mean, everyone. And you know, I work with some of the most senior people in Silicon Valley. I'm talking about CEOs of public companies, I'm talking about chief product officers, VPs of product and great brands. Everyone, no matter who they are, Lenny, feels insecure and anxious in the job search. And if you do it alone, it magnifies that. So with job search councils, there's this great hack. I didn't invent this. It's baked into human psychology. If you put anxious people together and ask them to be open and vulnerable and to ask for help, and we'll come back to asking for help, it actually flips the anxiety and the fear into hope, into motivation, into accountability and confidence. It's like, what? It's fantastic. My mother taught me this. We can talk about her at some point, but it's, you know, it's really powerful.

That's amazing. And your whole book is called Never Search Alone. So the whole premise of how you recommend people look for jobs is to look for jobs with other people. You mentioned maybe it's your mom, maybe something else. How did you, how did you realize this is a really powerful method versus the way people normally look for jobs?

Yeah, so there's, you know, I've, I've worked, I, I set up my first council more than 40 years ago. I set up the first CEO council for Internet CEOs in the mid-90s. And then I've run product and CEO council since. But it goes all the way back to my mom. 1960, Lenny. 1960. Right. So we're talking, you know, what is that? 64 years ago in the San Fernando Valley, my mom was a newly minted elementary school teacher and she put together a council of teachers. That group met for 50 years, 5o until the year she died. And they worked together to ask for help and support each other in their careers. And you know, Lenny, people say to me like, does this, does this never search alone method work in a tough job market? And I'll tell you, it's, it comes out of tough job markets. Absolutely, yes. Starting with my mom. So in 1974, my dad, in 1976, he left and it was just me and my mom and my sister. He had insisted that she stopped teaching. So she lost her tenure and everything. Her candidate market fit was terrible, but she had her counsel and, and it was the mid-70s. And Lenny, you probably can't imagine how hard it was for a single middle aged woman with kids looking for a job in Los angeles in the mid-70s. It was terrible. But she had her support group and they held her hand as the job she could get. Guess what? She had to be an entry level teacher again after having been a senior teacher coaching and advising. It was really tough. So that, that had a big impact on me. And then when the dot com bubble burst, I was running Creative Good and suddenly there was a depression and suddenly I'm helping hundreds of people try to figure out their job search. So it's, it's, it's, it's been going for a number of years, you know, but it goes back to my mom. I dedicate the book to her and the community we've built.

That's beautiful. Let me tell you about a product called Sidebar. The most successful people that I know surround themselves with incredible peers. When you have a trusted group of peers, you can discuss challenges you're having, get career advice and just gut check how you're thinking about your work, your career and your life. This gives you more than a leg up. It gives you a leap forward. Having a group of trusted and amazing peers was key to my career growth and this is the sidebar ethos. But it's hard to build this trusted group of peers on your own. Sidebar is a platform for senior tech professionals, director to C level to advance in their career. Members are matched into peer groups to lean on for unbiased opinions, diverse perspectives and raw feedback. Guided by world class programming and facilitation, all running on Sidebar's technology, Sidebar enables you to get focused, tactical feedback at every step of your career journey. If you're a listener to this podcast, you're already committed to growth. Sidebar is the missing piece to catalyze your career. 93% of members say Sidebar helped them achieve a significant positive change in their career. Check them out@ Sidebar.com Lenny this episode is brought to you by Sprig. What if product teams knew exactly what to build to reach their goals? From increasing conversion to boosting engagement. These challenges require a deep understanding of your users, something that you can't get from product analytics alone. Meet Sprig, a product Experience experience platform that generates AI powered opportunities to continuously improve your product at scale. First, Sprig captures your product experience in real time through heat maps, replays, surveys and feedback studies. Then Sprig's industry leading AI instantly analyzes all of your product experience data to generate real time insights. Sprig AI goes even further with actionable product recommendations to drive revenue retention and user satisfaction. Join product teams at Figma and at notion by uncovering AI powered product opportunities at scale. Visit sprig.comlenny to book a demo and get a $75 gift card. That's sprig.comlenny There's a lot of elements that you mentioned that we're going to dig into. So product job candidate fit, plan to win. You touched on a little bit idea of settling. Figure out what to settle for. Your mom kind of took a job that's below what she was doing before. So I want to chat about all these things. Yeah, a little bit more on these councils. What's the scale of these? So I think it's going to blow people's minds just how many of these are happening.

And we have launched more than 2,000 of these. Lenny. 2,000. And they're completely free. Completely 100% free. It's volunteer driven. We have hundreds of pages of tools. We've got a slack community, we have a free matching program. You can sign up and we'll Match you, put you in a council, then we'll give you training, live training with. It's just there's so many volunteers. We have 20,000 hours of volunteer work that's already been put into this, Lenny.

And you said that it's free. I know these things aren't free to run. Yeah, I saw somewhere that you mentioned that basically all your book sales and also just money, your own money, you've spent on running these councils. Talk about that for a little bit.

Yeah, all of the books, actually two times the book sales are going into running this. Right. So we have 20,000 hours of volunteer time, but you also have to pay for technology and you have to pay for certain kinds of support. You know, later, you know, we'll talk about this. And we're always looking for more volunteers. And you know, I have a process for people to apply if they're interested in being a part of the team. But yeah, I've, I have, I have dedicated this to my mom and I'm giving everything to it.

What's the general structure? If someone's trying to think about how these things work, if they want to join these as we go through it, how did they work?

Okay, so you apply@phil.org p h y l fill with Y and it's again, it's free. And we match you behind the scenes. Now when you apply, we ask, first of all, are you in a job and looking or are you out of work? Because we separate those two because they have different cadences. If you're in a job and looking, we call you a slow seeker because you have a full time job and you can't work as quickly. If you're out of work and looking, we call you a fast seeker and we put you in different groups. Okay, fast seeker or slow seeker. We also ask though, are you willing to be a moderator? Every council needs a moderator and every moderator is a job seeker who volunteers to do that. And if you, and if you volunteer to moderate, first of all, you get matched faster and secondly, you get more training and support. It's not, it's a little bit more work for a lot more benefit. And we've, you know, we've gotten 2,000 moderators. It's amazing. And we feel like we're just beginning. Okay, so that's you. So you apply, you get matched, and then you go through an orientation program that we run live where we answer, we tell you how this works and what to expect in your first meeting. And then there's a whole set of agendas and Materials and everything in the book as well as we have a. Everyone gets a free workbook, hundred page workbook. After they join the community with all of the templates and guides and questions. And then you have your first. The moderator pulls you together. You work on Zoom or whatever technology. It's. It's remote, typically. And you do a first meeting. We call it Meeting zero, where you, where you. Where you're open and vulnerable. People share stories about their lives and who they are. Builds trust and get a sense of who people are. And then you move into the process. You meet twice a week, typically if you're in a fast seeker council, and every two weeks if you're in a slow seeker. So that. That's the start of the answer. Does that.

Yeah.

Help you think?

Yeah, really helpful. And then you basically are in this council until you find a job, I imagine.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Is there anything you can share around the impact you've seen? Like, the reason I reached out to you to come on this podcast is I just started seeing people mentioning that they found a job and one of the. And maybe the thing that helped them most was your book and being on one of these councils. And I imagine there's a lot of stories you hear and a lot of numbers you see of just people succeeding going through. So what can you share about just the impact you've seen?

Well, I, I posted on LinkedIn today that I was going to be on your podcast and I asked people if they wanted, you know, to share stories with me. And I got over email and LinkedIn. I've been flooded with stories from people who are in the process or people who did it. And I can, if you like, I can pull up and share a few of those. Is that with council?

Yeah, there's a few you have there that'd be. That'd be really sweet.

Okay, so Justin Meats is a chief Product officer who's gone through the process and he posted on LinkedIn today, he said, as a product leader, I love how it has. You apply the product process to your career. Right. So that this comes out of the product world. It's a product lens on the job search and it's for everyone, but it really makes sense for product people. And he says, not only does your JSC help bounce ideas and help your job search, they also help you keep going and accountable when you're low on emotional energy. And I, I talk about this in the book, Lenny. I say, look, most people think like, what's the most important thing to manage during your job? Search. They think, well, maybe it's their resume or LinkedIn profile or their ability to network, you know, or candidate market fit, a concept I introduced, I think is really important. All those things are really important. But the most important thing to manage is your emotional balance. I talk about your emotional balance sheet. And for many job seekers, they have more liabilities than assets on their own balance sheets. They have more fear and anxiety. They feel demoralized. They have a hard time going. That's why these things are so important. He also says, hey, it's a journey, and the more you embrace it, the more you learn about yourself. And he says, and this is important, Lenny. And this is not, you know, I don't have a magic wand that, especially in a down market today that magically gets a job. It's hard, the job search. And, and he talks. It can be hard and humiliating at times. I know. This is why I want to create this community, why we're doing this. We want to give you a place where you can, you know, really get the support when it's hard and humiliating. But the process will ultimately set you up for success if you follow it. You know, this one woman who just started, she's a senior product leader at a major financial institution. And she said, you know, it just from she couldn't believe the level of support and openness and vulnerability. And, you know, we really emphasize people being open and vulnerable. And I've learned a lot about how to create that environment. And it ties back to asking for help, which I know we'll talk about more at some point. But, you know, when you create that, it's amazing what people can do together, Lenny. Amazing.

Just to reinforce this point, people listening may be like, I don't, like, I'm just gonna keep looking for a job. I'll use all this advice. I don't need a group. What's your best pitch again? To help people see the value of doing this in a group and joining a council or starting a council.

I, I acknowledge that that's a reaction that some people have. You know, that's totally valid. And this is unusual what we're doing here. You know, this is not how people look for a job. We're trying to disrupt the job search process. We had this great. Lenny, this is my quick story. We had a great interview with a couple. Two of them were product leaders. Both they had met at Amazon, and then he got on to have great careers. They both got laid off. The woman joined a job search council right away. She loved it. She raved about it. Her husband, who was also an engineer, you know, he was a little more introverted. She's like, ah, you know, this isn't for me. And she said, no, listen, you, I, you, you, you won't. And finally he read the book. He said, I, he's like, you know, because the book is, it's kind of, it's, it, it works for the product, mine and for the engineering mind, you know, it makes sense. He said, I'll join a council, but it's not going to, I'm not going to feel connected to people. I illegit, but I'll do this because you asked me to. Many sad. In the interview we have it up on the site, he was like, oh my God, I couldn't believe it. You know, the level of trust we created right off the bat, I've never experienced in my life. And it's really, truly accountability, the motivation, the ability to, to hang in there. And so I say to people, look, try it. And you know, we have all these videos on our website with all these people talking. Go look at it. You know, if you want to read the book first and see if you think this makes sense, but try it. You, it, it, you will be shocked in a positive way if you will discover how delightful it is and how, how we, you know, we live in a world where there's increasing loneliness. Lenny, there's so much research about this. You know, the Surgeon General's book, everybody talking, and it's more detrimental to our health than smoking cigarettes. You know, bullying alone famously came out 25 years ago. We live in a world where people have, have not experienced community in, in a, in, in in a powerful way. I don't mean message boards, I mean real community. And I think you have a sense of this because you, you, you do real community. And that's, and that's what we're talking about here. It's, it's real community, but with some practical tools and techniques which we'll talk about. What do you think? Is that a good, is that a good response?

I don't, I don't need a job, but I, I want to join one. You also just had a really beautiful way of describing these programs as a, as a safety net for people.

Yeah.

Does that ring a bell?

If we kind of go up to the 30,000 foot level? Like, what are we doing here? What's our mission? We're building a private safety net for all those who've been laid off or let go. Look, the government, we're not going to do what the government does with, you know, unemployment insurance, we're never going to be able to do something like that. But the government's never going to be able to innovate around how to actually look for a job. That's where we come in. Right? We are trying to build this. And you know, we talked about this earlier, Lenny. Creative destruction is this economic concept that sits at the heart of capitalism. It's creative destruction basically says under capitalism it's dynamic. New products and services displace or disrupt old products and services, companies and methods. This, this is, it's why our economy has grown sixfold over the last hundred years. It's remarkable. It's why we have this amazing multi trillion dollar economy. But it comes with some negative unintended consequences, which is that people both in jobs and out of jobs, they're anxious and fearful and they, there's no program that addresses that. That's what we're going after here. We're trying to be the solve for the unintended consequences of the thing that is so positive in many ways and that we as product people love because we get to build new products and displace old products. And I'll just say one more thing. The reason, you know, this creative destruction works so well is if you compare our economy to the late Soviet Union's economy, they were a planned economy with no creative destruction. So there was no innovation. And it eventually, it just failed. It just collapsed. It's remarkable. This is a huge country with a massive military and nuclear weapons, but they couldn't make their economy work. Why? Because they didn't have this element. So it's something to celebrate. But as we celebrate it, we need, we need to have something that addresses the negative unintended consequences. And I think it's our, all of those, all of us who benefited from this. I think it's our duty to do something about it.

That is beautiful. You're very good at this. Let's shift to talking about tactics. Let's talk about some of the things that you've shared. So you've mentioned things like candidate market fit, playing to win. Go wherever you want to go. Let's pick a few and then dive in.

Candidate market fit is probably the most important job search tactic in the book, aside from the job search council. And it may be the thing I'm known for, you know, when I die, they coined candidate market fit, you know, so here's the thing, and this is why this is so important in a down market, you know, when you're looking for A job, you're in a marketplace with supply and demand, you know, characteristics. So if there's a lot of supply, which there is right now in the tech world, because there's been a lot of layoffs, you know, the, the overall economy. There's been net job additions, Lenny, but those have been primarily in healthcare and government. There have been net job losses in tech. And we could talk about why that is, but that's the world that we're in. So if, let's say you're a director of product two years ago when the economy was great in tech and the job market was great in tech, you could probably get a VP of product role. Okay, what about today? Well, today your candidate market fit's been pushed down because there's a bunch of VPs of product who are going to take a director role. Guess what? That means you might not be able to get the director role. You might need to get a senior manager role or whatever. Now the important thing about this is it's not a personal statement about you, it's the marketplace. And that's what so many people today, in their notes to me said that it was like such a relief for them. While it's hard to figure out your candidate market fit, it's also a relief to know it's not about you. So what I ask people to do is I ask them to first and I, the first radical step I asked them to take is to think about what they want and what they don't want. Now, you might not think that that's a radical step, Lenny, but most people don't do that when they get laid off. They spray and pray. That's the typical. Let me just, you know, wait a minute, just take a moment. They're like, oh, don't slow me down. I'm like, I'm gonna slow you down to go fast. In fact, what our data shows is that the average job search in a job search council, you know, from beginning to end is three months. If you look at the national data for job search, it's three to six months. So we are at the very low end of the national average. So, you know, this is not a slow down, you know, take two years, whatever. No, no, most people need to put food on the plate, right? So it's a slowdown at first. And we as product people should understand this. You want to think about your strategy. You want to understand the marketplace of the customer, the product market fit. You're not going to just go, you know, you're going to iterate first Step. What do you want? What don't you want? That's the Manookin 2 pager, named after Allison Manookin who was a member of one of our product councils. So we run product councils and general management CEO councils for people in jobs. That's a paid program that companies pay for. It's out of that program helping those people that I developed this methodology that we're now as a community giving to the world. Right? So Allison, she was a GM at Intuit and then she spun out a division and ran it as CEO and she's now a professor at the Harvard Business school. And about 15 years ago she was in transition and we talked and she created and we created this, this thing we called now the Manukan 2 pager. I told her, alison, I'm going to make your day famous. That's my job. I love wonderful. And it's just a simple thing. What do you like? What don't you like? And you share it, you create it and then you share it in your counsel. And here's something cool, Lenny, like let's say you and I are at a job search council. You share yours and I share mine. Now you say a few things about what you don't like. I'm like, hot damn, I also don't like those. I forgot I got to add that. Or you say a thing about what you like. Oh wow, no, that's really important to me. And I left that out, you know, so that's part of the shared learning environment. I'm asking you to do these but with others who are. You're walking it through. Now once you have done that. Manukan 2 pager, and it's a draft, you don't have to get it final, just an initial. And not everyone knows exactly what they want, by the way. This is important, especially younger people, but sometimes mid career people too. They're like. So I don't, I'm not asking you to make a final decision. No, no, this, we're going to iterate, okay? We're product people. We're going to iterate. So we're going to take this Manukan 2 pager, this draft that was shared with our council and we're going to go out and do a listening tour because guess what? In the job search, we're the product. We're our skills and experience. That's the product that we're bringing to market. So we have to go see what the market wants. We don't now we have a sense of what we want. But what does the market want? And what does some of our trusted friends? What do they think about what I want and what I'm a fit for? And what do they think I'm a fit for? Now, given the market conditions that we have right now, I will tell you, people are terrified to do the. Listen to it. They're like, I don't know, what am I going to hear from people? Because I asked them to ask the golden question, you know what? If you were in my shoes, how would you approach this? I call that the golden question. It's such a creative question. It really opens the conversation. But they think, oh, no, people are going to tell me all this stuff. No, mostly people tell you this once in a while you get a helpful piece of critique. Oh, you're, you, you make everything a priority, in which case nothing is, you know, and, and you could work on that. Super helpful to know we all have stuff to work on. But I will tell you, once people do the listening to, they're blown away the lot. I mean, the people who are in jobs, they love, they love helping others if it's done well, because guess what, they're also anxious themselves and they want to give back. They want to feel like, you know, they're supporting people and that you actually end up. And we're going to talk about this, but when you ask someone for help, well, you've done your homework, you're thoughtful, they want to help you even more. They become invested in you. So the secret about the listening tour is that not only are you getting sort of market research, customer feedback on your fit, you're also creating a whole group of listening posts, people who are invested in your success.

Just to clarify on that specific point. So this listening tour, you write this Manukan Manuken 2 pager, which basically describes what you want, what you don't want, goals you have, what you hate. And the listening tour is find colleagues, friends, people that are other, say product managers, and get their feedback on what you want, what you don't want, what.

You hate, what you're going, yeah, and what, and what they're seeing in the market, what they think you're a fit.

Ah, I see. Got it. So it's like, oh, this is unrealistic. You're not getting this. That's right, like looking for that.

And we see both things, Lenny. So some people underestimate, you know, their fit, others overestimate it or don't recognize that changed market condition. Right. The, the other thing I'll say is that in the book, I Have three different kinds of structured listening tour conversations. One, I call reverse exit interviews. This is with people you used to work with before, right? Go ask them, hey, what. What did I do? Well, what do you think my strengths are? What do you think I'm a fit for? Here's what I'm thinking. Do you think I accurately am projecting myself? The second is your broader network. You know, and that's where I ask you to do the golden question. If you were in my shoes. And then third is recruiters. Now, here, here, this is. This is an important hack. Recruiters don't like being barraged with get me a job. They do like someone saying, him, what do you think I'm a fit for asking their advice? And this is especially true if you've pre built a relationship with a recruiter. So anyone listening to your podcast right now, if you're in a job, I have a really important message for you. When that recruiter calls, pick up the phone. Even if you don't want the job, help them, network with them, tell, you know, introduce them to other people and build that relationship. Because whether you're. You lose a job or whether you decide to start looking when you're in work, you want that relationship. Now, Lenny, there's a problem many people haven't done. Okay, so part of what we're doing with the NeverSearch alone community is we're building a recruiter network. We're finding recruiters who are willing to, in a protected way, do a couple of conversations a month, helping people think about their candidate market fit. And if anyone listening to the show's recruiter, please come join us and volunteer. We need more recruiters. I know many of you want to give back, and you don't know how. You tell me this. Here's a way to give it.

Love that. Okay? And so the. The intent of this is that you're trying to figure out, one, what does the market want and how do I be honest about what it wants? Because it may not be what you want, may not exist right now. And then two, help you refine your pitch and how you're approaching and who you're talking to. Is there anything else that comes out of doing this exercise? Because I think people might be hearing this, like, nah, so much work. I have enough work to do all these interviews. Gotta reach out to people. I got kids and family. Like, I have to write this two pager now. And listening to her. What other benefits do you get out of this?

Doing this exercise, you build those relationships. So you. You now you turn people on as listening posts. So you light up your network in a way that you, you know, if you just put, if you just, if you just send an email saying, I want a job, or if you just go, hey, do you have a job for me? People know what to say. But if you say, hey, if you're in my shoes, how would you approach this? And what do you think? You know, if you were me, you know, I should be looking for and what are you seeing in the market? They love that. And now they're really thinking about it.

And if they see a job that might be a fit, they tell you about it.

They tell you about it.

Yeah.

And that, and that gets to candidate Mark, because at the end of this, we're going to, we're going to create a very simple, narrow focus candidate market fit statement at the end of the listening tour. So once you've now done this listening tour, now you need to create a focus candidate market fit. And this is tough, and this is, look again. This is why you need a job search counsel. You need them to be there with you during the listening tour. Not every listening tour conversation will be a home run. Once in a while, it'll be a dud. I talk about this in the book, like, warning, there are some curves ahead. Like, you could have a conversation. You know, I, a number of women that I have worked with over the years have gone and done conversations and they've gotten like, frankly, sexist feedback that was not helpful. You know, you're too poised or you're not poised enough. You know, it's just like this strange set of stuff. So you need your, your counsel to sort of help you parse out and interpret what people are telling you. And at the end of this listening tour and you never, it never really ends, but once you've done 10 or 15 and you're ready to say, okay, I'm going to take a stab at my candidate market fit. Now you need your job search counsel because you're, you're going to want. Every bone in your body is going to want that to be expansive, to want it to be broad. Remember, we're product people, at least those of us in the Lenny's podcast community. What happens when we're building a product? Same thing, right? We want, we can, we want this product to be for everyone. But we've learned with product market fit that doesn't work. Right. We need a narrow, clear focus. Same thing with candidate market fit. So I say to people, and we have this whole grid that we give Them, you know, I am a, I'm looking for a director of product role in a health care series B startup in San Francisco, you know, like bing, bing, bing. And people say, oh, if it's so narrow, I'm going to lose up. And here's the thing, right? When you're looking for a job, you need a spear and not a net. With a net, everything slips through. Now, part two to this, people are expansive but not reductive. What are you talking about, Phil? Here's what I mean. If you give them a specific. I say to you, Lenny, I'm looking for a director of product role at a healthcare startup that's a series B in San Francisco. Well, if you see another like financial fintech startup that's in a heavily regulated industry looking for a director of product, that's a series B, you're going to be like, you know what Phil is looking for. But I bet Phil could do that. You can be expansive, but if I told you, hey, Lenny, I'll take any product job I can, you are never going to think of me, you're never going to remember me. You're not going to be reductive from a broad statement, but you will be expansive from a narrow. And I'll tell you, Lenny, this is so hard for people, you know, and this is why again, you need that counsel and you need that broader community. And every week we, every two weeks we do a LinkedIn Live where we address, you know, we, we go over these questions again and again because it goes, if I were in the job search, I'd feel the same way. Even with all the darn research I've done. It's really hard.

You've been using this metaphor, approaching this like a product person, and this is very much like a product person thinks about new products. Is there should be a very narrow audience to start with. Kind of a wedge or an icp. When someone's building this, what is a sign? They've narrowed it enough. Are there like a certain number of attributes? What tells you that? Like, cool, this is small.

No, so it's, it's, it's typically three to four attributes now, you know, and we give people a whole grid in a set of examples. So we had a woman who was a designer, she was a product designer, right? And what her product market fit was she was looking for companies that either did not have a design team or needed to reboot one. And so she wasn't talking about stage of business or even industry. But that really plants an image in your mind. You Know exactly. If you hear about a company looking for that doesn't have design or looking to reboot design, you're going to think of her immediately. Because after you've done your listening tour and you've created your candidate market fit and your council signs off on it. Lenny, this is important. Right? Then you go back out to your listening tour and you tell all those people, here's now based, thank you for your help. Here's the candidate market fit I've come up with. Right. And you also posted on LinkedIn, you like tell the whole world right now, will that candidate market fit change over time yet? We're iterative, right? So if you go and go and the market is changing, like what was true 3 months ago May not be true now that they're getting like two weeks ago the mark, the stock market was convinced we're going into a recession and everything crashed two weeks later, like, oh no, we're not going into a recession. You know, and that, that affects the psychology of hiring managers and companies. Not just psychology, their willingness to open up Rex and everything else. So things are changing. So you need to be flexible and adaptive to that, which is also why you need this counsel and why you need to have a good network around you that you've asked for help from and they're invested in you and can be there for you. As you try to keep navigating this.

Just to follow us thread a little bit more, when someone is, someone's thinking right now, like, okay, what is my. What are my attributes? What are the, what's on that grid? Roughly? There's stage of company, I imagine there's.

Like stage of company, industry, level of role and function. Of course. And culture, is there like a set.

Of options you have of type of culture?

Basically everyone wants a good culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so, so culture.

I mean it, you know, sometimes, sometimes it can be very specific. Like I need a company that has a particular kind of policy for kids or you know, whatever, you know, remote or hybrid or whatever, you know, that kind of element. Right. But I tell people, you know, make it three, make it simple. This should not be paragraphs and paragraphs. It should be a one sentence statement. You can do a longer thing that you can then share with people when you're getting in a conversation. But you want something simple that people. Oh, Lenny. Yeah. Looking for a cheap product officer. Oh, you know, yeah.

It's exactly like you want your product to feel too.

Exactly.

I need a SOC 2 compliance. I'm going to think of that's how much client. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so I'm thinking through this list here. So I think level and role. I imagine people kind of get a pretty good sense of where they want to be. Stage. Any advice for someone to decide what stage is right for them?

I mean, if I were coaching someone, which as you know, I do, we would, we would talk a lot about this. But when I'm in the book and in the community, I say to figure out stage again, I want you to rely on your job search counsel and your network and your own experience, right? And it becomes pretty. People usually have a pretty good sense. Like who was I talking to recently? Like, you know, I just, I need, I need a big company, you know, whereas maybe like I don't want that. I want a startup. Okay. And what I will tell you is that one thing to keep in mind right now is that there are more jobs in the startup world than there are in the established company. Okay. In the tech world for product people, that's where new job creation has been happening. It's slower than it was before, but it's the big companies, they've just been shedding people, they've just been, you know, throwing them off. Right. Whereas the smaller companies, there's more opportunity there. Now that doesn't mean that if, that you can't, if you can't stand working at a startup, you should, I'm not telling you you should go there necessarily. But I will say this. And again, if you need to put food on the table, right, like we were talking to someone recently. They were, they, they had moved to a new city and then were laid off the next day. They moved for the company and then they were laid off the next day. Okay. And they're like, okay, I need to get a job. I said, okay, yeah, sure. You know, just know that it, you know, if, if you're going to get a, any job just to have, while you still look for a long. The job you really want, there's just know that that's a hard, That's a hard. I understand it and I support it. It makes sense. And it's hard. It's harder than you realize. And you absolutely have to keep your job search counsel, you know, because otherwise you're going to, you're going to get lost. Can I share one story about candidate market fit that might be helpful to people? I was coaching. He was an EVP at a traditional media company, but on the digital side running their streaming business. But it was very much an old, you know, you know, economy old media company. It was not, you know, this was not a, a player in the streaming space. And they smartly recognized that if they stayed there, they were going to end up in a pretty bad cul de sac. And, and by the way, that company's had layoffs and like they would have. So they decided they wanted to go work for a company like Netflix or Apple tv. Right? But. And there's someone who ran hundreds of people, corner office, limo, first class, you know what I mean, in the airplane. What was their Canon market fit? They went out and did this. Their Canon market fit, if they were going to join a top streamer, was as an individual contributor, Lenny. That was because those guys, like, they didn't respect much of what they brought from traditional media. And if he had done this search alone, he would not have done that. But to his credit, he decided to take that and it transformed his career. Because now someone who had a lot of management experience but also tied now with one of the top streamers, he's just, he's just done incredibly well. But that is really hard to do.

So in this example, when you talk about Canon market fit, it's a big part of it is what the market wants from you. Yeah, it's not like he's like, I'm gonna go. I see. He just realized as he was going through the process, that's right where I'm actually gonna succeed.

As he talked to people and I helped him network with people in Silicon Valley, they were just honest with him, you know, and that's what Justin was talking about. This can be hard to humiliating at times to figure out. You know, we had, we had another person who was a chief product officer in a startup and she was a great, she helped me with the book. She was an early reader. She's a member of your community, Lenny. And she realized that she wasn't getting the right product training. She was the only product person and she didn't really know what she was doing. Well, what was her candidate market fit? It was an ic. It was an IC role, individual contributor role at a larger, you know, tech company. And to her credit, she realized that was the right path for her learning. You know, and she did this before the shoot really hit the fan in the tech world. Fortunately, this is not swear. So this is, you know, I talk about this in the book. Like sometimes you need a two step strategy. Like let's say you want to be a VP of product at a, at a top streaming company or at whatever it is, you know, but you are not a Fit for that today. So the question is, how do you step there? I tell a story in the book about guy who'd been a VP of product. He wanted a COO role. He was not a fit. He was not a fit, Lenny. And it was very clear. The market was telling him, he did the listening tour, but he came back to me and said, I don't care, I want a coo roll. So he interviewed 50 companies, right? 50, can you imagine? It took him a year and a half. The 50th company hired him 10 days later. They're a public company, massive fraud, and they went bankrupt. I said, okay, like you are. The market is clear. The only CFO role you're a fit for is a company that's bent to go bankrupt. Like, and you're like, okay. And he went back to the VP of product role. I said, if you want to become a COO from that role where you are today, one of the great paths is to do it from that job inside a company. Okay? And that's what he ended up doing. It was a two step strategy. He couldn't go straight there. I'm not talking about people's innate worth, Lenny. I believe every human is worthwhile person. And I deeply believe in belonging and giving people support, you know, and spreading love and creating community. But I also believe in being practical and realistic. And like, I, I didn't create this situation. I'm just trying to report to you what the situation is and how you can manage it so that you don't get stuck. I can't. How many people have you seen, Lenny, who get stuck? They, you know, they get stuck in a bad job, they're not learning and then they can't go from there. They get into their 40s and 50s and it is tough. A number of people in the job search community who are in their 50s, 60s, whatever, they're dealing with ageism, they're dealing with, they're not close enough to the technology frontier. You know, you gotta get closer to the technology frontier, even if that means you're gonna go from the EVP to an IC role. That's how creative destruction works. The closer you are to the technology frontier, the more new jobs and opportunities there are. The further you are from the technology frontier, the worse you're gonna be over the long run. You might be able to get a better sounding job in the short term, but you're gonna, you're gonna find yourself stuck.

I love your Venn diagram of just like warmth and support and belonging and also just like Straight, real talk. Here's the reality. Yeah, what a. What a combo. This is such powerful advice. And I think people might be feeling like, yeah, I get it. But, man, I don't wanna be a IC again. I've been a director, I've been a vp. That sounds really not great. Is there anything else you can share to help people get past that? Of like, okay, maybe I really should be looking for an IC role again.

Again, if you're, if you're in a job search council and also you're in our slack community, what you're going to find is that you're not alone. So that's a big thing. It's not just. It's not you. There's not something wrong with you. This is the market that we're in. And by the way, the more relationships you build, the more, the better you do your listening tour. One of the things I tell. One of the tactics, Lenny, I tell people is you got to send out an update note every month to all of your network that you've talked to. And it might be I don't have a job yet or I don't even have any news, but I just want to let you know I'm still going and I appreciate everything you've done for me. And I'm still looking for X. That could be it, you know. And Justin, in his note, I referenced him earlier as Chief Product Officer. His note on LinkedIn today said, you know, Phil told me to keep people updated and I didn't do it enough. And don't make that mistake. You gotta do that, Lenny. I met with a group of about 50 job seekers recently who've been in the Neversearchalum community for more than a year. Okay. They're struggling, you know, again, I don't have a magic wand. But as I talked to them what was happening, they stopped networking, they left their job search council. You know, they weren't updating their candidate market fit, the changing market condition. I'm like, you have to do everything. You can't get passive. One of the concepts Lenny and I talk about is you've got to be the I in village. Villa, there's no I in team. Well, there is an iron village, okay? And the I in village is that when I'm saying you've got to ask for help, you got to be a part of job search council committee. You have to be independent and accountable and responsible. I'm not saying you're, you're not going to become passive independent. I know this is how you become More independent. This is how you stand up and be more accountable and responsible. This is how you can do the best search possible in the market conditions that we have.

So the advice here is if you're struggling finding a job, this is a solution. Join a council, bring people on board with you, update people on your progress. Like, these are the things that'll break you out of that bunk that you're probably in.

And it will still be hard. It will still be hard. I, I, I wish that weren't true, Lenny. Now this will, now I will tell you that. Look, what's the difference between now and the dot com depression of 2000, 2001 and 2? The difference is that we were a much smaller industry then and people had been in web jobs only for a couple years, where now we've got people who are in jobs for 10, 15 or more years in tech who have never seen a downturn, have never seen a market like this. We've never seen a tech market like this. It will improve at some point, but right now it's tough and I can't change that. But I can provide tools, I can provide community, I can provide heart and smarts so that you can get the best job you can get right now.

Speaking of advice, is there anything else along the lines of Canada market fit before we move on to more tactics?

Just that it, you know, you again that you're gonna, you're gonna resist the narrowness of it. Every bone in your body, just know that that's what everyone is feeling. But go watch. I have this great video online of he was a VP of product. He, he was initially masked but VP of product at Nike. I met him through Marty and Chris at Silicon Valley Product Group. He joined one of our product councils and then he decided to leave. And he was like, phil, I love you but this candidate market fit stuff, no, you're wrong. It needs to be pride. And so he went out and he actually spoke to a bunch of VCs and like we don't have any idea what to do with you. You have to tell us something really specific. You're like, oh man. So he went, he's like Philly. So he redid it. Bam, bam, bam. I tell another story in the book about Dedi. She was a chief data officer she of a large company. She want in tech, wanted to become a cto. She had a technology and engineering background as well as data. She spent a year spinning her wheels alone. I said, join a job search counsel. She figured out her candidate market fit. Well, it turns out she was a great fit for a mid sized regional bank cto. Right. And within three weeks she had three offers a year. Nothing within three weeks, three offers. So I can't, I can't guarantee that you're going to get three offers within three weeks. Right. I'm not saying that some of you, it might take you six months or year. And the more senior you are, Lenny, the longer it is. If you're a CEO, it's going to take you a long time. Unless you happen to be the CEO of Chipotle who just became the CEO of Starbucks.

Yeah, I know. You're creating a page that we're going to link people to which is I think. Is it phil.org Lenny?

Yes.

Okay, cool. And is it going to have this template to help you work out your kind of market fit?

There'll be a link to where you can download not only that template but all the templates. You don't, you don't even have to join a job search council to get all this stuff. I, you know, I hope you do. You know, again, it's free and people like, I, I will say early on, people are like, what, what's the trick here? You know, this is free and you're going to charge me? No, no, this is free. I feel very, I've dedicated. Why am I making it free? Because one, I can. Which is cool. Second, this is in honor of my mom. And third, I want to create a private safety net for, for the ravages of creative destruction. It's great, a lot of positive consequences, but there's negative ones. And I just don't love the idea of charging people for this. I charge people for other things, but not for this.

And we'll link, will link people to the things you charge for so they can support you and benefit you in other ways or benefit themselves in other ways.

Benefit them and me. That'd be awesome.

Let's talk about some other tactics. You mentioned this idea of playing to win and I think within that there's this kind of okr and mission tactic.

Let's talk about that 50% Lenny of the people who read my book, join a job search council and follow everything I've described. Like the people don't do what I'm about to tell you. Okay. It is the biggest mistake and miss and I'm really sorry about this. And I'm on the, you know, I'm on a campaign. Right. So here's the thing. When you start to interview and negotiate, you've got to be in charge People think when I'm. I talk. This is collaborative coaching. I want you to play to win, not. Not to lose. Now, when people hear me say that, they translate it in their brains into, oh, Phil is saying that I've got to be a ruthless negotiator. If anyone who knows me know that I'm like, ruthless is just not how I am, you know, at least in this sense. And no, no, I'm like, what I want you to do. And this is, it's, it's great. It's a great tactic that we stumbled upon, and it's one of the best tactics in the book. And I really hope we can get the other half of the people who are in the community to. To do this. And, and your listeners who aren't involved, who decide to join also do this. When you start interviewing, I want you to create your own version of the job description. I want you to do it privately, Lenny. And I want you to create what I call a job mission with okrs. Now, most job descriptions, they suck, Lenny. The company doesn't know what the f they're doing. They don't know exactly what they're looking for. And so. But I'm not telling you to say that to them, just to be clear. I'm telling you I want you to create your own job mission with OKRs. This is key. It needs to be with OKRs. Now, your audience knows what an OKR is, objectives and key results. I assume I don't need to explain that. It needs to be something where you are saying, here's what I think I'm going to be accountable for. Here's what I'm going to actually, the outcomes I'm going to deliver right at.

The company that you join.

At the company you join. Now, you keep it private at first because drafting it, this thing has multiple benefits. The first is drafting it will help you understand and develop great interview questions to ask them to clarify what is this job? And they'll be impressed by that. Okay. The second thing is once you've had a couple of interviews and it's a draft now, it's not a full final thing. This is so important. I want you to pull the hiring manager aside and say, hey, Lenny, you're the hiring manager. I've thought about what the role is. I want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. Can I share something with you? I don't want you to email it. I want you to do phone calls, zoom or coffee or whatever. And Lenny, can you imagine how hiring managers feel when they get this job mission with okrs. I was talking to a senior guy at Amazon who's hired more than 2,000 product leaders and others. He said, phil, no one in. And this was. He's part of our product. He said, no one in my life has ever done this. If someone did this, it would blow my mind. I would hire them on the spot. And that. That's the message I want these folks to understand. We talk about silver medals, Lenny, in the job search, the silver medal sucks at the Olympics. Hey, it's pretty good. You get to be on the podium. But guess what silver medal is. It's almost worse than and because you were almost there. And we have a number of videos and other things where we talk about the difference in many cases between getting the silver and gold. Has been doing the job mission with OKRs. Companies say, this is what distinguished you. This is what we were like, who. Who is this person? They're already, you know, thinking about what they're accountable and the outcomes. And naturally, they're thinking about it better than I am, which is fantastic, right? So it raises the odds, but it also does something. If you present it again, Lenny, you're the hiring manager. I show you my job okrs, and you're like, oh, this is fantastic. But you also say, oh, you know, this thing you have here, this okr, this isn't part of the role. Like, well, that's helpful to understand. But this thing that you don't have listed is, oh, really, Lenny, how many times we're going to. I'm going to ask people in the audience to raise their hands. How many times have you taken a job A that turned out to be job B? Everybody just raised their hands, Lenny, you know, so this helps to address that, right? You've had so. And then if you get the offer, and again, this raises the odds of getting the offer, it then sets you up to negotiate what I call the four legs of the negotiations tool. This is not hard negotiation. This is something the company loves. I actually say, you know, you get an offer and it's like, whatever, $250,000 base with a 30% bonus. You know, this is maybe a director or whatever, or senior manager if, you know, Maybe it's an 800 base if, you know, if you're more senior, whatever it might be. I want you to go and talk to the hiring manager, if possible, not the. Hopefully not the recruiter that we'll talk about that. And I want you to say, this is great. I want to talk about money. But before we do I want to think about some of the things that will set me up to succeed in this role. Like, you know, I've thought about, like, I think there's like $10 million of tech debt here. Does that sound right to you? And are we on board that we're going to like, that'll be priority one to eliminate the first day I start the job. We had two CPOs both interviewing at private equity firms as about private equity owned companies about the same size, SaaS companies. One had tech debt of 20 million, one had tech debt of 10. I told them both, you got to get that. You know, talk about that in the. So one talked about it in the negotiation and the company was like, oh, that's great. They wrote a check on day one. Six months later, the tech debt was relieved. They, you know, updated the systems. They were able to get into innovation. A year later they got promoted to a GM role in addition to their CPO role. And then a year after that, they were being interviewed for the CEO role. The other person where there was 10 million of tech debt was kind of shy about asking, sort of mentioned it. They were like, oh, we'll talk about it when you get here. But they, they didn't really commit and they never addressed it. One month, six months, 12 months, 18 months later, he's looking for a job. This is the opportunity cost of not being set up for success. Now, again, don't hear this as antagonistic. We're not antagonistic here. We're trying to say whoop's going to help me succeed. So one CPO recently was negotiating, like, I'm not just talking about budget and for tech debt or whatever. Like, if you're a senior person, like, do you think that team needs more training? Do you need to send them over to Marty's workshops, over to my product councils, right? Get them into Lenny's community. Like, he. The company's like, you're negotiating the training budget of the team that you don't even run yet. Well, we're talking about your salary. We love you, we're going to pay you even more that be you any. Like, companies love this. And even if you're a junior person, you're not going to negotiate budget, but you can talk about like mentorship, professional development, what kinds of, you know, will you be able to attend conferences or training again? And this is like, and we're not hard, we're not hard negotiating this. We're saying, here's what I think I'm going to need to accomplish. The LPRs that we've already agreed upon.

This is really cool advice. I want to make sure people super understand it. So in the example of tech debt. So this person asked, I need $10 million budget in order to address this tech debt. Yeah, I see. So it's not like I believe we will save $10 million if we spend on time. It's like, here's how much this team will need. And I will need to.

I'm gonna need a check for $10 million on day one.

I can see why someone would be shy asking for that. Or that was. That was 20 million. Actually, that was the one that asked for.

That was the 20 million. That was. Right. And again, it was not. Yes. People feel really shy about this. They're like. But the company was like, loved that they understood what it was going to take. Because I will tell you what, if the company doesn't like this, it's a huge red flag. Huge red flag. It means they're not serious. Right? But if, if you're talking to them, hey, I think we're going to need. I'm going to need to, you know, train the team. I'm going to need. I'm going to need to hire three more ICs, or, you know, the, the design function is weak or, you know, whatever it might be. You know, do you. And you're like, do you agree? Do you see it this way? You know, and. And they're like, yeah, that's right. Good. You know, wow, you're already like, bang, bang, bang. We haven't even finished negotiating your salary. And this is so counterintuitive, Lenny. Yeah, I'm sort of. I'm sort of the queen of counterintuitive stuff. Candidate market fit is counterintuitive. Right. But this is as well, people think. People think they're going to lose the opportunity when it actually wins them. Now, of course, if they marched in and said, damn it, I. You have to do X and Y, right? That's not what I'm talking about. Like, hey, here's how I see it. This is the okrs. I think we're going to need this. Does that make sense to you? You know, and you're having a collaborative conversation about how you need to be set up for success. And by the way, if they say. If they say no, I hear you, I believe you. But no, then you make a judgment decision. Like, I'm not always saying you turn that away. You're like, well, especially if you need a job. Right? But you're now going in, eyes wide open. Okay? You're not going to be able to relieve that tech debt initially. You're going to have to work within that constraint.

So I love that we're getting some negotiation advice, by the way, because I was hoping we'd get there. So the advice here is identify something that you'll need to be successful. And your finding is that when you ask for, and it seems like a financial investment as a part of you joining, ends up leading to a better comp for you.

Yes. And I will say that there's less negotiating room today than there was two years ago because of the market that we're in and the data all bears that out and we see that. But, but, but here's, here's the other piece of data. So I want you to ask for things that tie back to the OKRs that you've already agreed on with the hiring manager. This is, this, this is, this is how this thing connects together, right? It's like Legos. And then, and then we come to the money and you've had this lovely conversation. You've shown them how much you're invested in succeeding. That's what you see. Lenny, the problem that every hiring manager has is distinguishing between someone who is a good talker and someone who can actually make things happen. You know this, right? And this is true every, from, you know, individual contributor to CEO. By doing the job mission with the OKRs and by showing them that draft, you are showing them, not telling them, showing them that you take initiative, that you're accountable, that you can make things happen. And then in the job, in the salary negotiation, by talking to them about what you need to succeed, you're showing them that you really want to succeed. And guess who that benefits? That benefits the company, obviously. So I want you to do that first and then, okay, so then let's talk money. Now, 87% of the time, Lenny, when you ask for more money, you get it. Now that's a, that's a long longitudinal statistic, meaning over many years it's going to be lower in a moment like this. But you can still ask and people are afraid to ask. Again, don't ask in some shark way like some of my friends in business might do. Some, you know, M and A negotiators, whatever. No, ask like, you know, are you open? Unless it's a deal breaker. You know, if it's a deal breaker, just be open about that. But if it's not, like, let's say they offered you, whatever it is, 400 base with, you know, up to a hundred percent whatever. And some RS user options, blah, blah. And you really wanted 450, Lenny, you can say, hey, are you open to 450? That I would. That was really what I was hoping for. When I think, you know, I'm worth. Are you open to that? Is that something we can talk about? And most of the time they say yes. And they may not even get you. They may not get you to 450. They were like, you know what? Yes. Thank you. We could. Let me get back to you, you know, or no, we could go to 420. Does that work? You know, great.

You make it sound very easy.

Here's the thing.

I hate negotiating.

Yeah, I do, too. And I talk about this in the book and Jason Freed, who, you know, so, you know, Jason Freed's got this great thing where they have all very clear bands, 37 signals. Well, at basecamp, he's like, because no one's trained in negotiation, how can we expect people to negotiate? And this is another thing Marty says about my book. He says, you know, what he loves is that companies have all of these resources. They've got lawyers and HR people, and you're there alone who you know. That's why you need your job search counsel. This is when you really need to ask for help, because every bone in your body is going to say, I'm not going to negotiate. That's going to. That's going to make it worse. And it almost never does. And again, you could be a jerk about it. That won't be good. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about collaborative conversation. I'm talking about what you need to succeed. Showing them that you're thinking about resources, support, budget that will help you deliver on the things that you signed up for. And then asking, you know, are you open to if. You know, if. If they didn't quite hit your range.

Yeah. Like the way you phrase it, make it. Make it very, very low risk task.

Yeah.

Do you have any specific advice on doing this over email, over a phone call, or in person? Is there something you're like, definitely do it in this way.

Strongly, strongly want you to do it either in person or over the phone, live with the hiring manager. Now, some companies won't let you do that. You have to talk to the HR person or whatever. But as much as you can work with the hiring manager, even if it's to. To. To. To say, hey, I just want to run by you some of the things I think I need to succeed in the role you know, before we talk money, you know, with the hiring manager or whatever, with the recruiter, I mean, and they'll go to bad for you behind the scenes if you do that. Not guaranteed, but more likely, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's totally true. Because oftentimes you don't really have like a specific budget as a hiring manager.

Right.

So to you it's like, sure, 450, let's, let's make it happen.

That's right. Now some companies like know this and they're like, you have to talk to the, the person we designate, the internal recruiter. But you can also get back to that hiring manager, you know, and even informally again, if you've built a good relationship. And everything is about building good relationships. Lenny, you know, I want you to be a good interviewer. I want you to ask good questions, I want you to listen. I want you to present that job mission okrs that shows how innovative and how much you take initiative and how much you're thinking about this and how much you want this right every step of the way.

This episode is brought to you by Dovetail, the customer Insights hub for product teams. Understanding customers is a critical part of good product development. But it's so much harder than it should be. Whether it's finding insights in large volumes of customer calls, crawling through feedback, or finding out what you already know, getting the full picture of your customers is slow and full of friction. This is where Dovetail comes in. Dovetail is the AI first customer Insights hub that automates end to end qualitative data analysis in insight discovery. Their latest AI features automatically break down your calls into key moments, themes and digestible summaries so that you can get to the heart of customer problems fast. And when you need quick clarity on a decision, you can use Dovetail's AI powered semantic search to retrieve supporting data from across your organization, summarize it, and create video highlight reels that you can share with your team. Get access to all of Delta Dovetail's latest AI features on their professional plan. And the best news is that listeners of this podcast can get an exclusive 30 day Dovetail Pro trial today. Just go to dovetail.comlenny that's dovetail.comlenny While we're on this topic of negotiation and comp, is there anything else there that you might want to share that might be helpful to people?

In the book, before you do the listening tour, I ask people to do what I call the Gratitude House exercise, which is to think about who are all the people in your life who have helped you get to where you are today. I mean, you could talk about your third grade teacher. You know what I mean? Like I'm just talking on. I just want you to do that. And I want you to do that because everyone has this idea that they're alone. We have all received enormous help to do what we're doing what, whoever we are, you know, even, even the Kermit in the desert was born to a mother. Okay. You know, and they did not make it themselves for the first several years of their lives. Right? We all are born of mothers. We all are born of families and communities, some better or worse. I had a pretty tough childhood, but, you know, there was love. And, and I want you to do that Gratitude House exercise. And then it can sometimes surface people that you'll go talk to in the listening tour. You might not talk to your third grade teacher, but you'll go talk to someone. Now, when you're going into interview, I, I, I ask people to take a moment and re. Reflect, reread the gratitude House exercise, remind themselves of everyone they're carrying with them to imagine that they're on your shoulders. All of those people, including your job search counsel, of course, and everyone you've talked to and you're listening to her. You're walking in with 50 people, Lenny, okay? Even people who tell me, I don't know anyone. Now that is not true. You know, you might not know as many people as I do, okay? That's understandable. My job is to know people, okay? But everyone knows some people, and you bring them with you, even metaphorically, so that you feel not alone when you're going in to that interview. The other thing I say with the interview and the negotiations is you've got to go do a debrief right afterwards, Lenny, because we all have these cockamamie ideas about what happened. We think we did terribly when we did well, we think, you know, and we need to talk it through with someone else who can help us, like parse exactly what happened and really where we're at. You know, I had a woman who, the director of product. She was interviewing for a VP of Product Roles. She texted me after the interview, oh, I screwed it up. This and that, this and that. But they really liked me. And we're going to go to the next round. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Something is not true here. Like, this is just your own imposter syndrome and inner critic. That's another exercise we ask people to do, by the way, is what we call The Inner Critic Exercise. Name the critic. You know, mine is Tub Tour. I was, I was overweight when I was a kid. My dad called me Tub Tour.

I learned that tactic from Julie Cameron from the Artist's Way. She recommends that.

Yes, she's great. Love that book, by the way. It's on my bookshelf back there.

Oh yeah, I love that. I think I called mine gym. Yeah, we had a really good episode. I don't know if you saw with Joe Hudson. And he has a whole series of advice on, on your inner critic. And his point, I'll point to it is your inner critic is always lying to you.

Yeah. And I did see that episode. I love it. We, and we all have it. Like people think. Oh yeah, like everyone. And that's what I love about this moment we're into. Lenny, you know, I started in therapy in the 1980s. In the 1980s you did not share that you were in therapy. Okay. Today we have 10 of stars talking about their emotional well being and their therapy and how they're doing. Like we have, you know, it's beginning to normalize in some really important ways that, you know, emotions are, are, they're not bad and they're actually really important to the decision making system. But they can also, they can go off in certain ways that, that can, that can really hurt us.

And it feels like these counselors are like a light therapy for people.

Yes. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't ever want to say the word therapy because of course that implies certification and training, but there's a therapeutic aspect to it. I feel comfortable saying that. Yeah.

Okay. So on this gratitude house, just coming back there real quick.

Yeah.

The reason that is powerful is that gives you confidence to ask for stuff, to believe in yourself, gives you confidence.

To walk in there as who you are, Lenny. Not your, not as your inner critic, but as the whole good person that you are, you know, and that's, and when you show up, this is one of the reasons job search councils are so important. Because if your anxiety and fear starts to run away and erode at your confidence, it will hurt your interviewing. You will not show up well, you know, so you're not going to even, even in a down market, you'll, you're going to get even, you know, you won't even get the jobs that, you know, your candidate market fit suggests you're good for. In that down market, you're going to get, slide down a few more notches, you know, or you just won't get offers and then you're going to get paralyzed and feel like you're really worthless. And if anyone watching this has been out of work for a while and feels that, let me just tell you, you are not worthless. You are not worthless. And I, and I want you to invest in yourself to prove that to yourself that you're not worthless. You are worth the investment of this time and energy. I'm not asking you to do this for me. I'm asking you to do this for you.

You got tingles when you said that. That is a really powerful message. I'm glad you said that.

Thank you, Lenny.

So, yeah, so we're on this topic of playing to win. And what you just said is kind of along the same lines is just remember you're playing to win. You're not trying to lose. You're not trying to not lose.

Just be really. I just, I just can't say anything. I. I just can't rock the boat. I'm not asking you to rock the boat. I'm asking you to take charge and demonstrate the power of who you are. You're. These companies will love it.

So when I asked a lot of people what to ask you, what you are amazing at, one of those common themes is really good at just asking for help and teaching people how to ask for help. Which was actually a topic for a recent newsletter post by one of my newsletter fellows, Natalie. So let's talk about it. Talk about why this is so important, why, why you spend so much thought and time on this topic.

First, I want to shout out my mom again. So my mom's name, her nickname was Chic C H I C Her friends and Family. And I dedicate the book to Chick. And she started that first council in 1960 and she asked for help. Of course, she taught me to ask for help and to start counsels. And of course, when I was very young, I didn't want to do what my mother said. Right. You're not right. But I ended up in a. I ended up in a bad situation. And she's like, you've got to ask for help. And I asked my high school teachers for help. I was, I was an alcoholic at the age of 12, Lenny. And things, things were really spir. Spiraling downwards and I was no longer living with my mom. There's a whole long story about that. And I was in a pretty unsupportive position. And she's like, you gotta ask for help. And so I did. And omg, Lenny. I mean, it just, you know, I, I was carried by these Teachers. And I also have to give a shout out and I'm gonna cry now to my girlfriend in high school, Karen Kavanaugh, whose family had very few resources. They were struggling, but they, they made a home for me and I couldn't have done it without them and some of my other friends and my teachers, like, you know, I was, I, I was, you know, I worked a full time job by the age of 16 and I was going to high school and I was in a tough situation and it was, I mean, it was transformative, Lenny. It was transformative. And did I feel like asking for help was a weakness? I did, you know, did I think people were going to think less of me? Absolutely. I thought all the things that people think and it is not what happens now. There, there is a warning here. If you ask for help poorly, and I'm going to define that it does end up leading to bad consequences. What do I mean by asking for help? I mean, if you don't do your homework, if you're asking for someone to do it for you rather than advise and support and give you perspective, we all know that, right? Like, I get, I get these emails, ladies. So when I started the Product councils, Marissa Meyer was a founding member, right? Marissa Meyer, Google and Miriam Mohi did Amazon. And as Marissa's reputation grew, suddenly everybody wanted to talk to Marissa. So I got all these random emails from people I've never met. Oh, I've got software. Would you please introduce me to Marissa? I think she'd want to, you know, license it or, you know, buy a. At Google. You know, I'm like, who are you? What? That is the dumbest. Of course I'm never going to answer that, right? If they had reached out to me and said, I know you don't know me, I have this small software company, I'm not well connected, but I, I would love your advice on how to grow this business and what you would do if you were in my shoes, which I have never received, Lenny, even though I've written about it and sent about, I would have done that phone call, you know, and then if they have said, well, can I talk to Marissa? I'm like, you have not earned that yet. I, that, that's not, that's not a statement about your worth. It's just you're not ready for that conversation. So you can do it poorly, but if you do it well, if you've done your homework, you know, and you're open, oh my gosh. There's four counterintuitive rules here. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of confidence. It both requires confidence and strengthens it, Lenny. That's number one. Two, it's not a taking activity, it's a giving activity. If you do it well, you're actually being giving to the people you ask. This is really counterintuitive, Lenny. This is what I teach in my product councils, right? I'm like, you have to ask for out the language I like. If you ask for help and you're open and vulnerable, you're a smart person. So at one point, Marissa came in and said, listen, I'm developing a new product, I want to present it to the board, but I'd like your feedback on it first. And think, you know, what do you guys think? Am I approaching this in the right way? People are like, what? You know, Google's already a public company at this point. Like, wow, that they were, like, they were just blown away. They were so happy to help, right? So if you. If you've done your homework and you ask someone who has some expertise in the area that you have and you do it in this way, I'd love your perspective and thoughts. And how would you approach it? People feel given to. They feel given to. And here's the thought experiment that'll prove it. Imagine that somebody that you respect comes to you for help on an area that you have expertise and they ask you in this way, how are you going to feel anything?

How do you feel like they value. Like they value my. My opinion.

And, yeah, you feel honored and you feel excited and you love giving. Everyone loves giving. This is. It's a part of human activity. And you learn more when you give, of course, because it helps you see something new. So asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it's not a taking activity. It means you're becoming more independent, not independent. And it doesn't hurt your reputation, it improves it. Something I did not understand when my mom was trying to tell me to do this, Lenny. And it took the experience to drill into my head. And then I will tell you, like I will. I won't name names, but one person that you asked, who's a prominent product person who's worked at great companies, right? He said, tell. Ask him about asking for help. I think he would agree with this. He's been a member of the product councils for a long time. I think it. I think it took years before he really embraced it. I've seen many people like, they're like, Bill, I know you keep talking about this asking for help thing. And I, I, I know there's something to it, but it is transformative, Lenny. It is transformative if you learn to astra well. And you know, I can tell you about Brad Smith at Intuit, who you set toppled the stock price there. But he, he was a gm. He became a CEO. He was a gm. He, he ran a project, and he didn't do it well. He lost $300 million for the company. He thought, okay, that's over. But they came to him and said, you know, what's your lesson here? He said, I didn't ask. I didn't ask for help. You know, I was pigheaded. I didn't listen to my g. Like, that's a great lesson. And if you really internalize that, then it's worth it because you're great in other ways. And he ended up getting to the CEO role. And what did he do? He joined a council, right? And he asked for help. Boom, boom, boom. Stock price goes up 7x in his tenure. Okay, Ken Chanel in American Express joins. In the 1980s, one, you know, one, one of the few African Americans in professional roles there ends up as a CEO and chairman of the board. Okay, first African American chairman of a Fortune 50 company, right? You ask Ken Schnault, as I did, how'd you get there? He asked for help. And by the way, what did he do once he became CEO? He got on a CEO council, you know. And by the way, who, who, who asked for help? Well, this is going to blow your mind if you Warren Buffett people think Warren Buffett only listens to himself. And Charlie Munger, who passed away last year, that guy asked for help. Well, he doesn't ask anybody for help. He asked people he respects and so on. But that guy asked for help. Every single leader I've ever worked with that has done well asks for help. And I have data in the book. 85% of the people get to a senior role credit asking for help to get help. Get them there. 85% of the people in a junior role say they're afraid to ask for help because they think it's a sign of weakness.

Perfect.

It's literally the same number, if you can believe that. I couldn't believe it when I did the data. I was like, what? But it's really, it's. And guess what? If you don't learn to ask for help and you're a junior person, you're going to remain a junior person, most likely.

When you say ask for help, what are some Examples and common times and uses of asking for help, you know, because it could be like, hey, can you just look at this email for me? Or is it like, I'm struggling with this project? Like, what are some things that you've seen when people think, ask for help, do this?

One of the things that Ken Chenal talks about is what he calls defining reality. So it's the CEO at American Express. He was constantly just going around and asking different people in the company and outside the company, how do you see things? What are you seeing? What are you thinking? Help me understand your perspective. Right, so that's a form of asking for help for sure. Okay. Reviewing my email. Absolutely is a great form of asking for help. If you're, if you're sending a good email, an important email, let's say. And let's say you have a history of maybe sending emails that don't get well received. You better ask for help, you know, and by the way, I have a whole workshop where I teach people how to use ChatGPT with some communication models to help you with that email. So there's ways to do that with ChatGPT. Okay. But I still, if it's a really important email, I want you to have eyes on. Right. There's a woman who became the president of a digital retailer in the United States about five years ago. And Lenny, she realized that she had significant technical debt and the project that they were, they, they were trying to build a new platform and it was stuck. They were. So we convened what we call a peer coaching call. And I also talk about this in the book. We got three other presidents of retailers, online retailers, who had re platformed and spent an hour, just one hour with her asking them for help. What would you do if you were in my position? I mean, bing, bang, boom. So when people get a new job, by the way, I tell them, do a first 90 days peer coaching call. I want you to talk to people who are in that role today. You know, not at that company necessarily, but you know, they're a director of product, they're a VP of product, whatever it might be. And I want you to say, hey, I'm starting this job. You know, here's my job mission with okrs. What would you do if you were in my shoes? What mistakes have you seen others or yourself make that I need to avoid? What should I focus on? Here's what I'm thinking. For my 30, 60, 90, whatever it might be, I want you to do a first, first 90 days call now. Let's say You're a director of product in a job is going well and you want to get to a VP of product role. Well, then I want you to do a career evolution call where you're talking to VPs of product. Okay, I'm a director, I want to become a vp. How do I get from A to B? Will you tell me? And that's another peer coaching call. Right. So these are the things we do in the paid community, in the product councils and stuff. But you can do these on your own. Right. And I tell people how to do them on their own in the job search councils. Right. So perfect. Is. Is, are these helpful answers?

Absolutely, absolutely. I think all these examples you're sharing is exactly, I think what people are wondering just like, okay, I see.

Yeah, can I share one more? That's, that's so great. So Bradley Horowitz joined Google in 2008 as director of product. Right. So he had come from Yahoo, but there's, you know, he was, he was initially intimidating. He had a weekly meeting with Jonathan Rosenberg, who was the SVP of product with Susan Wojcicki. Susan, you know, just passed away tragically. Absolutely fabulous person, by the way. If people don't know her, go, go learn about her. Marissa Meyer. And also another director of product named Da da, da da da. Sundar Pichai. Right. Who is now the CEO of Google. And, you know, Bradley was like, you know, he was nervous. He didn't know how to be in that meeting. Right. And one of the things I tell people when you ask for help, use your emotional intelligence. Use your product counsel if you're in a job or your job search counsel if you're looking to get feedback on, like, am I thinking about this? Well, because I don't want you to ask the wrong people for help. Right? Someone who's going to take advantage of that. Right. You have to be thoughtful about this. He was picking up vibes from Sundar that he was very approachable, that he lacked guile. He, you know, Bradley told me Sundar just made it easy for him to say, hey, after one of these meetings, could I ask him a couple questions? And, you know, he says to the first question he has is, is this meeting, is it just me or is this meeting intense? You know, I was like, oh, no, no, this is intense. I feel the same way you do. And I've been here for a couple of years, right? So they start to build a bond, you know, and that, that's a form of asking for help. It's like you're checking like, is your experience the same as mine, or am I, you know, am I missing something? And then, you know, Horowitz, who felt relieved at this point, felt more trust with Sundar, decided to ask him another question and this question. And by the way, now Bradley, he's kind of embarrassed that he asked this question, although I'm really happy that he did. I told him this, and he asked this question. He basically said, you know, I haven't been here very long. But you, you know, Sundar, you strike me as a really thoughtful person and great leader. Why is your remit just working on a toolbar for Melissa, for Marissa, Right? And like, whoa, you know, that's heard the wrong way. That could sound like an insult or something rather than an honest attempt to understand the culture of Google and how it operates. But again, he had trust with Sundar at this point, and he had established, you know, and so he decided, and it was an open and vulnerable question, and it was great. Pichai basically said, listen, I don't worry about title or scope or any of that. I really been focused on just doing good work and letting the right things happen. That's a culture of good Google. I will tell you that. That was more true of the culture of Google in a way. That's not. So I. I think I can't. You know, you. You have to be a little more politically aware Google today. Okay? But the point is not so much the exact question he asked, but then he was open and vulnerable. He was thoughtful about who he asked, and it really made a difference in terms of his entry into Google and eventually led him to the VP of product role. Of course, Sundar came into the CEO role down the road, but that's. That's what I'm talking about. Right. But you need. You know, he was part of the product councils, Bradley, like you. You. You need to have that sounding board so you can be thoughtful about. And, you know, I. I teach people how to map and figure out who their allies are and their blockers and play what I call positive politics. That's all in my next book, by the way. Never Lead Alone, just to give a little.

Yeah.

We're at least a year away. When I write a book, I do. I. I did 400 drafts of never Search. Well, I had a couple of thousand people help me with it, and 200 people read it and use it. I had two 2500 comments and 400 drafts. I like to really dog food this stuff. Okay. And I'm going to end doing the same with Never Lead Alone. That's, that's how I know it works. By the way, I, I'm a credit person, Lenny. I mean, that's what we do.

That's obliterating. That's amazing. Let me ask one last question around the art of asking for help.

Yeah.

So we've talked about when to ask for help a little bit. What are just like a couple tips for how to do it? Well, like, you know, if people come to me and like, hey, can you look at this email? I'd be like, no, I'm really, I'm pretty busy. I don't know if I have time to look at an email.

I have to think about the relationship. Right? Like, again, again, showing that this random small software company wanted to talk to Marissa Meyer. I didn't know them, they didn't know me, and they didn't know where recently. That's not going to happen, right? Lenny, if your mom, you know, or, you know, your close friend or your colleague who you work closely with says, I want you to look at this email, you're going to respond in one way. If, if some person, you know, let's say in your podcast community, which is great, want you to do it. I mean, you know, you have thousands of people there. You can't do that. And people come to me for job search advice in the job search committee. I said, I can't, I can't do that. I can't scale that. That's what the job search council and the Slack community is there for. You know, I appreciate you asking, but you know that, that's, that's what the deal is there. You got to think about the relationship. You, you've got to understand, listen to your emotions. This is where, again, emotions are really important for decision making. If your emotions are telling you, I don't know if I trust this person. Don't, don't get all open and vulnerable with them. You know, I want you to learn to ask for help in a council format where it's really safe. You can flail around. You know, you can ask in facade ways. You know, there's, there's ways to ask for help where it's like, where have you experienced this, Lenny? Where I want you to do me a favor. Okay, but I'm, but I'm actually acting like I'm doing you a favor. Lenny, I have this person to talk to. I know is really going to be great for you to talk to when really I'm trying to, you know, do get you to give me, whereas I should, said, Lenny, I have A favorite ask. Would you be willing to do this? You can say yes or no. You know, there's the other. I really want you to be honest with people about what you're asking. I never want you to hide the ask.

That is really good advice. Yeah. A lot of times it's just. Yeah, okay. If this is just a favor for you. Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, if people would say to me, you know, I have a favor to ask, you know, would you be like, yeah, most of the time I'm going to say yes to that, you know, but have you. Do you get called introductions, Lenny, where.

People introduce me to someone else without asking? Yeah, it's like, it's not a super common, but it does happen for sure.

It almost never is someone you want to talk to.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

It's not like, hey, let, let, let me introduce you to Sergey Brent. You know, I'm not. No, it's like they're trying to help somebody and you're doing them a favor, but they're not being honest.

Yeah. Okay. That's amazing advice, Phil. We could talk for hours about so many things you're involved in, so many other things I want to hear about. But maybe one last question before we start to close out our chat. Just a broad question. Is there anything else that you think would be valuable for people to know or leave with as kind of a final note around either job hunting, asking for help, anything else? And then I'm going to ask you to share all the things that you do for people that maybe could benefit from one of these other programs.

When, when my book came out, we did a. We did a book party in New York and the host of it, very senior product person, got up and said the most important thing about this book that I learned. And they run a job search council was. And I said this earlier, but I want to come back to it. Everyone feels anxious and insecure in the job search, Lenny. Everyone. It's built into the fabric of how capitalism operates. It's not something problematic in your head. It's. It's, it's the instability of the system, which gives it its dynamism, but which also creates trends, insecurity and fear. Everyone feels that, Lenny. You are not alone and just discovering. And, but, but my saying that is not enough. What I say in the book is that this is, it's. This book is like a cookbook. You don't get the calories from reading it. You know, you gotta actually make the dishes. Right. So to experience what I'm Saying you need a job search counsel and you need to go like, oh, my gosh, it's really drawn out. Even Lenny. Lenny feels this. Holy. I respect Lenny, you know, wow, look at everything Lenny has done and created and he feels this way. Maybe, maybe I'm not crazy, you know, So I, you know, there's so much else to this. But. But that is such a core point.

That's such an important point to leave with and just to build on exactly what you just said about me. This strange life that I've created for myself. I originally called it Project Avoid Getting a Real Job because I was worried about that. Like, I forced myself to try something else.

And that's amazing. That's amazing. That's great. Well, thank you. Because you have created something that's really meaningful to a lot of people.

Thanks, Phil. So have you. I'm so thankful that you made time to share so much advice. I think this is going to be one of the most popular episodes I've done. I think it's going to help a ton of people, but we're not done yet. Tell us about some of the other stuff that you've got going on. You've mentioned product councils, you've got. You do coaching just so people know what else might benefit them.

21 years ago, I started these product councils, right? And. And by the way, I like to share this kind of Marty Kagan and I go back, you know, to the late 90s early. He was actually a client of mine when he was at ebay.

Okay, wow.

And I'll tell you what happened. We were about to sign a project and he decided. He called me up. I literally were signing that day. He called me up until I got bad news.

I mean, what are you talking about now?

I'm leaving. Come on, I'm leaving and I'm starting something. And he started the Silicon Valley product group. But why am I saying that? Because that was around the time that I started the councils and I started with Marissa. I basically, I went out and did a listening tour, Lenny. And I said, listen, I think for those of us left in the digital world after this depression, I think we need a place to come together that's not a conference with sponsors and people that are all trying to sell each other. And we need a private, safe, secure environment to really talk. Does that resonate with you? Do you want that? And they were like, yes. Right. So I started this thing and Marty has been involved from day one, you know, over the. He. He has sent me something like 30% of all the members we've had over the years, we've had a couple thousand members. And he just, he just sends people over, which has been amazing. And so we have product councils for VPs and CPOs. We also have an associate council program for ICs and new managers. We started that a couple of years ago. It focuses on women and people of color and lgbtq, but not exclusively. Right. So you can be, you know, a white guy who's straight, whatever, and you're a product manager. What we care most about is if you're willing to ask for help and you're really committed to being there for each other and being a part of this community and activity. Right. And so that, that's what I've been doing, you know, for, for years. And I have a great team and amazing. Teresa Torres was one of the moderators of our private councils, by the way, and, you know, great friend and it's been on the podcast here, as you know, obviously, great friend of yours. She asked me to really emphasize asking for help and share some of the stories that I did. She, she's, she's just been such a, such an important part of my life. I can't say enough about her. And so that's what we've got those on. And, and we have CEO groups and we have ux. That's my, that's my day job. That's sort of what, what, what pays the bills and I've been doing for 20 plus years now. But then I also have a series of other learning communities, right. So I'm just, I'm, you know, I'm one of these people I like, I read. I'm. If you ask me, like, what, what, what, what if you had one job title, what would it be? Reader. I am, I read lenny. Books are machines to think with. Books are machines to think with. And I'm on a campaign to get more people reading more and product leaders need to read more. And I have a whole bunch of book recommendations on my LENNY page, by the way, that are for product leaders and we can talk about a few of those. But I also run something called the Reading Odyssey, which is a partnership between scholars and readers at Harvard Cambridge for lifelong learning and curiosity. I run the World Business Reading Group for high school students. It's a high school business literacy, not financial literacy, business literacy program based on the philosophy of, of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and taught by really senior executives, like partners at venture capital firms, hedge funds. And I'm an investor. Like, we have this amazing faculty. It's pro bono. We're all volunteer. We have a small charge for middle class families and it's free for anyone who can't afford it. And it's a summer program and it's going gangbusters. Um, what else? Oh, Slow heart day. So one of the things I teach people is that you need to develop mentors. Most people do not have mentors, Lenny. 95% of the people in my community of senior product leaders do not have mentors. Okay? I. And mentorship programs is like, it's like the typewriter. Our parents or grandparents had them, but we don't have them. The companies don't offer them. One of the ways that you, everyone listening to this podcast today can get a mentor. You can get what I call a dead or distant mentor. Like Warren Buffett is my mentor. He just doesn't know it, okay? Which is great. I don't have to listen to everything he says, all right? And he doesn't have to take my calls. Steve Jobs is my mentor. And when I talk about mentor, I don't mean just, hey, I'm a fan or I like the products or I read the biography. I mean really study, right? So if you really study Jobs, you have to come to 1997. He's interim CEO. So, you know, he was fired from Apple in 84, 85, actually. After the Mac came out, he wandered the wilderness for 10 years. He created a company called Next, which wasn't Next. And then in 95, 96, Apple buys the operating system from Next and make Steve. And the company is, is, is in really bad shape and makes Steve the interim CEO. Interim? It wouldn't give him the full title. They were like, you're, you're, ah, the business is so terrible you're going to destroy it anyway with whatever. You'll be interim. And he does a bunch of stuff, but he gives a talk. In 1997, he's got tattered whole jeans. There's 300 people at the, at the, you know, developers conference. They all are pissed off. And he gets up there and he says, you have to start with the customer, not with the technology. And that's what we're doing at Apple. And you can't, you know, people like talk about that customer. Like, if you really study Jobs, that's what he did. And what does that mean? Because I can tell you there's a lot of product people, Lenny, who talk about customer and don't really focus, you know, and if you really study that moment and study what Jobs did, it, it can inform your decisions and actions. So one of the things that Jobs also talked about was the power of art and that everyone needs to go to art museums and that you need to be inspired and it will help you think about design if you create great products. So I started something called Slow Art Day, right. Which has now been in 1500 museums around the world. It teaches people how to slow down and look. And especially for Lenny's podcast, I am making pre both the teacher materials, the leader materials, and the participant materials so that all of your podcast listeners who are running product teams can go to a local museum and do an off site and develop more visual literacy, empathy, connection with each other and an understanding of art that will help them be better product.

That is amazing. I'm going to try to do that myself.

It will blow your mind.

So you mentioned Marty Kagan and Christian a couple times, and Marty Kagan described Chris as the most interesting person in the world. I feel like you deserve that title. There's just so. You're doing so much and so much good and so much variety of things. It's really impressive and the amount of impact you're having is wild.

Thank you. It really means a lot.

I'm just saying it how it is. I'm really thankful you shared so much wisdom on this podcast with everyone. I think this is going to help so many people.

Yeah.

We're also not done yet. We reached our very exciting Lightning round. Phil, are you ready?

I am ready for Lightning round.

Here we go. And you've talked about books. I imagine you're going to have an answer for this.

Yes.

What are two or three books that you recommended most to other people?

Of course, I've recommended hundreds. But right now what I recommend is Creative Destruction. And I'm going to give your listeners the link to the right book is by a group of French economists. It's. It's a little bit academic, but it's so important. It's so important for product people to understand. It is so important. It makes more jobs get created because of creative destruction. Not there's not net job loss, there's more jobs created. AI is going to create more jobs, not destroy. Everybody got that wrong. Almost everybody except the people who understood creative destruction. But you have to be close to the frontier. That's where the job creation happens. And product people, you gotta be close to the frontier. You gotta do whatever you can. If you're at a company that's not close to the frontier, do stuff at. You know, I was working at Moody's Investor Service. I Built one of the first 2,000 websites back in the early 90s, Lenny. I was doing all this stuff outside of work that was bringing me closer to the technical frontier and was changing my candidate market fit. So I recommend that book. I also, of course, I recommend Marty's books. Now I wanna just say again, I don't want you to just read Marty's books, you know, listen to his podcast, the great interview you guys did here at Lenny's. I want you to read and reread those books as if he's your mentor. Okay? And I want you. And rereading is important, Lenny. And people say, oh, I listen two or three times speed on the audiobook. I mean, you are not going to have that deeply inform your decision making. Now what I'll do is I'll read a book and then I'll listen to it as a reinforcement or I'll read it and listen to it at the same time. But you gotta, you know, the, for the important books, you gotta read them more. And Marty's books are important. The last book I'll recommend is the Manual. It's a short introduction to stoicism. People misunderstand stoicism. They think stoicism means repressing your feelings. That is not what stoicism means. It means understanding and accepting your feelings, but not necessarily always being driven by them, incorporating them. Your feelings are an important part of your decision making system, but they shouldn't rule you. And it's a really important book I recommend. I have, I have driven a lot of sales with that book because I, I really hammer it home in my book. So if you go on to Amazon, you'll see the book that's most vibe along with my book is that book. Right. I have other books I recommend that are on my website, but those are, those are two or three.

Amazing on the. Listening to things at fast speed. I sometimes meet folks that listen to the podcast and they're like, oh, this is what you sound like at regular speed. Because I just listen to every podcast fast. Second question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show you've really enjoyed?

So there's a great new TV show on Apple TV that is not getting the audience that it deserves. It's called Las Azules. Las Azules, the Blues. It's about the first women recruited onto the police force of Mexico City in 1971. One or two. And it's, it's, you know, it, of course, it speaks to me because 1970s, these are women in the, you know, my mom and how close I was to her and what I, I saw the world through my mother's eyes, Lenny, and it really shaped me. But it's, it's, it's a great, it's a great TV show. I love that. Of course, I love the show that, you know, I, I've always recommended and everyone's now seen it, I hope. If they haven't, it's been out for a while. But it's. Oh, the name just escaped me. The American football coach who goes to England and becomes a soccer coach.

Oh, yeah.

How come I forget this? I've recommended it so many times.

That's the guy's name, right? The character. Ted Lasso.

Ted Lasso. Ted Lasso. Thank you. So the kindness in there. And by the way, a great message around asking for help in that. The last thing I'll say, of course, is the inside out movies. The second one came out this summer. Just the way it's normalizing emotions again and helping us start to talk about emotions. Really love that. Okay, what else in the lightning round?

So there's this next question that I cut, I stopped. I moved to other questions, but I wanted to bring it back with you. It's about your favorite interview question. You help a lot of people interview and interview better. I'm curious if there's like a question that you've heard that you really like.

If you are interviewee, right, for a job and it's a senior level job. I want you to ask, tell me about a time that you, the company brought in a senior level person and it failed and why? Because they often fail bringing senior level people into companies. So ask them what happened and why and figure out how can we avoid that outcome. Okay. And hopefully they're going to have a good answer. I have a whole bunch of questions in my book, but I love that one. I also love if you are on the other side, if you're hiring and you want to get, and you want to check references. I have the most amazing question. The most amazing question. This, by the way, this is the best thing I learned in my two years at the Harvard Business School. I learned this in my running and growing a small business class. It's like the best thing I've learned. It is if you're, if you're, if you want to get references, what you do is you want to leave a voicemail or you could send an email, whatever, but you don't want. And you want to say, I'm about to hire Lenny. Okay. If it would be a huge mistake if I didn't bring him on. If you think he's amazing, they call me back. Otherwise, don't bother. And that gets around all the legal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's, it's just, it cuts through. I love that question. I don't know if that resonates with you as much.

Yeah. So is the idea, if you don't hear back from them, um, they're not necessarily amazing.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. So it's, you know, you're leaving that, that space there. And, and by the way, I love doing that for Back Channel. So I want you, when you start a job or when you are accepting an offer or interviewing, I want you to back channel that boss a little talk to people who've worked with them. If you can use your network and ask them, you know, would you work with this person or, and, and even say, hey, if I, if I called you and told me I was interviewing with this guy and you should only call me back, if, if you thought I should take the job, would you have called me back? No. And so you can do a form of it.

That way you have a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love, whether it's like a digital app.

I'm going to give you a very different kind of answer than I would normally give, but I'm hoping you and your community will appreciate this. So I did recently discover it, but it's, I'm going to talk about a book, Lenny. So 25 years ago, Guy named Robert Strassler, who was a business guy, he started teaching at a special high school for kids who were dropping out. And he was teaching them some of the classics like Herodotus and Thucydides expert excerpt and they couldn't get it. And the books were terrible because there was no context. So he spent 10 years and he reinvented the, the, the format of a history book. There are 120 maps, each of them he drew specifically and they're only relevant to the previous one or two pages. Okay. There's a margin summary in plain English for each paragraph describing what that paragraph just said. He got the top scholars in the world to write two page appendices on their expert topic things. They've written hundreds of books about, you know, hundreds of pages about. You have to do it in two pages, this thing completely. And, and by the way, the publishing world wouldn't back it. He, you know, he funded it himself. He hand drew the maps. He spent two years creating a concept index, you know, not just a keyword index and The. And it's just blown apart. The whole industry completely disrupted. He sold hundreds of thousands of copies of these books. They are a masterpiece line. They have landmark series. Landmark. Either they have new ones coming out. Every product person, in my opinion, should go look at this and look at the product design of this book. It is masterful and it teaches you a lot about usability and the reader experience. And, and, and I want product people, Lenny, to get out. Who are doing digital work, to get out of the digital world and look at products outside the digital world for inspiration and thinking that, you know, because I don't want you all looking at the same stuff because you're going to just create the same stuff. So I love, you know, I love tools like Calendly, which I just didn't, you know, I've been using for years, but no one could get it right until they got it right. Those are great. But, but that's my. How's that for an answer?

That's incredible. So what is it called again? And where do you find it?

And it's going to be on the, on the Lenny page. But it's. You can get on. I am. If you do Landmark Herodotus or Landmark Thucydides. Either one. You'll get. You'll get there. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Sounds incredible. Great. Great choice. Do you have a favorite life motto that you often like to think back to and share with friends or family?

Of course. We talked about asking for help and I say that a lot. But I also love, and I said this earlier, books are machines to think with. And as product people, Marty and I talk about this all the time. We have to be thinking and if we. And people say, and I coach people all the time, how can I think more? You've got to read more. Because books are machines to think with. Good books. There's a lot of bad books in the business world, but good books, you know, good books, thoughtful books, books that'll help and shift your perspective, whether it's history or science. Like I read, I read widely, and I want you to do the same. You know, books are machines to think with. That's, that's, that's probably one of my greatest life.

Final question. Usually I try to make this fun, but I wanted to come back to something practical for people. So to leave people with something they could do this week to help them find a job or help them improve the chances of finding their job. What's something you'd recommend?

I have one very simple thing. Go to phil.org and sign up for a job search council.

There we go.

It's free and it will transform your search. Is it a good answer? Are we looking for something different?

Lenny, that's an incredible, beautiful answer. It also is exactly what I would have asked you next, which is just where do people go find.

Yeah.

The stuff you're up to and learn more about things that we've been talking about.

Yeah.

So there's phil.org and then there's phil.org Lenny, which has a lot of the templates and things that you referenced. Yeah, amazing. Final actual question. How can listeners be useful to you?

That's such a lovely question. So on the Lenny page@phil.org I outlined some ways. So we're going to. We're raising a hundred thousand dollars right now to build a platform for job seekers. It will remain free for job seekers. Part of what I'm doing is I'm doing a speaking tour on AI and I'm taking all my speaking fees and putting it to this. But people can also make a donation just to that. They can also volunteer. And we, and we're looking for. If anyone's a Salesforce admin, I'd love to have you volunteer with us. If any of you have really good PHP experience, let me know. If any of you are really good at Type form, uh, or Form Site, which is a tool I don't like much by the way. If anyone from Form Site is listening, your tool sucks. You need to really improve the product. There, um, there's a lot of different ways that you can help, but those are some of those, some of the things. But you can also, but most importantly, tell someone who, who you know in your life who's looking for a job, that there's a community here for you that's free, that has all these smart tools and resources and people who are genuinely here to help you and who will help transform your search. In this very hard moment, people ask me like, is this good in the hard moment? This is born out of hard moments. This. In a great job market, it's easier to say, oh, I'll just take, you know, I can just grab a job. You need to be more thoughtful in the down market now. I think you should be in the up market too. But this is what this, this is, this is our, this is our moment to be there for people. This is why, and I would love so many people still don't know about this. Lenny. We want millions of people. We want to help millions of people. We have this Great. We have 20,000 hours of volunteer time already. We want to have millions of hours of volunteer time. We are changing something about the way capitalism works with this community. We are changing this negative consequence of creative destruction that people just been left to fend with on their own.

Well, I'm excited to be helping spread the word. Phil, you are wonderful. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you Lenny.

Bye everyone.

Bye. Thank you everybody.

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