Malind moved from feeling stuck as a product manager to principal PM after Lynne Levy's coaching program. She learned she had active choice in her career and gained tools for personal branding and communication. Group sessions with peers from different industries proved more valuable than one-on-one coaching alone.
Chapters
Well, Lynne, great to see you. How are you?
Great to see you, Lynne. I'm doing well.
So thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it. Let's start with— why don't you tell folks where you are now?
Right now, I'm a principal product manager at an amazing company. I'm working on products that I really relate to and passionate about, and I get to meet amazing people, work on exciting things, and make a direct impact on real people's lives.
Awesome. Let's go back to when you first— when we had that first phone call. So where were you when you first had to decide whether to join the program?
Yes. Before I started, decided to join the program, I was not fully reaching my potential as a product manager. I wasn't also fully sure of the skills and the level of coverage I need to reach my full potential. Also, sometimes in my old job, the lines between product and program management were getting blurred. So that's where I was before I joined the program.
And when you joined, what were the What were some of the, you know, the aha moments, the big learnings, the takeaways from the program?
The biggest aha moment for me was that we all have a choice, an active choice that we can make when deciding which particular career paths to pursue. How do we want to engage with the product management profession? And what would we like to do on a day-to-day basis? That was my, the choice that we all have was my biggest learning. My second biggest learning was the toolset, Lynne, that you provided in terms of managing our brand, managing our communication, our organizational skills, as well as how we plan our day, weeks, and months. That toolset was my biggest learning and biggest takeaway as well.
I love it. Do you feel like you carry yourself a little differently now?
Absolutely. How I interact with executives, my senior leaders, my peers. I'm more aware of the different information points I need to convey, how I'm being perceived, and how essentially I can be of more help to everyone else, bringing my experience and potential to the table every day.
I love it. The program, certainly it's got personalized one-on-one, but then it has all sorts of different group sessions, training, interview practice, Q&A. And I get the question a lot from people, Lynne, is there value to group? Why don't we just do one-on-one? So for you, what was the value and how would you describe the group sessions? Let's start with that. How do you, how do you describe the energy and the collaboration that happens?
The energy and collaboration is just amazing. It is so amazing that after every session I felt as if I have achieved so much in those quick sessions. And essentially I've learned so much from everyone in the group, their own unique experiences and the fact that everyone comes from different industries, shares their different perspective. I strongly feel that I learned so much from the group setting, especially because with product management, it's always key to get input from different people from various perspectives, which I felt that in a group setting I was able to get that from every session. Not to mention that everyone was provided their encouragement, their fun facts for the day, how they dealt with a challenge that they faced with a lot of times was something I found also dealing with. So I was able to bounce back ideas and get their ideas as well.
Absolutely. I find that product managers, we are at our best when we're bouncing ideas off of one another.
Absolutely.
What excites you about the future?
What excites me is that, again, going back to my key takeaways, the choice and the brand, what excites me that I'm making an active choice in my career, having a direct impact on real people with my product, that excites me a lot. Also, I get to practice key skills as a product manager, refine them. Also, most importantly, I get that sense of gratification that is really meaningful and deep.
I mean, loving your job is a big deal, right? When you love what you do every day, it impacts everything.
Absolutely, yes. Loving the job in a way that I can manage and that I can fulfill and that I can step up every day based on what I've learned in the past.
Oh, I'm so excited for you. Excellent, Malind. I'm excited to watch your journey. Good luck with everything and keep me posted and enjoy the rest of the month. Thank you, Malind. Thank you.
