The journey from VFX to product leadership
Ana: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Cieden Podcast. Today I have a great guest, Dane. And today we'll be discussing an interesting topic, which is not a buzzword, but a really great principle to build strong, successful products and strong teams about empathy. So Dane, welcome and nice to have you here today.
Dane: Thanks and I really appreciate you having me.
Ana: Let's maybe start discussing or exploring your journey because as I know that you started as a VFX producer and now you're director of product. So what's your journey? How did you land on the product role?
Dane: I actually had an IT support role at a VFX company and then saw some incredible people that were working and collaborating with artists and developers and making really special things on screen. And eventually an opportunity opened up. So I got out of the cave of the IT room and was able to start collaborating with people at a junior level and eventually became a Head of Product. Throughout that, I realized there was something a little bit further along than that, rather than a delivery, sort of, gunfire company that was working on a script that was sort of given to you. There was future strategy stuff that was incredibly important. And I started to become really interested in sort of the industry of product management.
Transferable skills from agency to product
Ana: What would you say are transferable skills and things that you can do as a person working in agency? Because I think that many people work in outsource or agency environment. They always look as a career growth opportunity to switch to product. And what would you say are skills that are kind of strong base that you can lay on, but there are any gaps that you need to develop to be a really good player on the product team.
Dane: I think one superpower I think of great product managers, in fact one of the best product managers that I know used to be, she was a firefighter in her previous role and she knew, she had a lot of experience with emotional regulation in extreme situations that were sometimes life and death. She understood cross functional teams bringing in both paramedics and police to a scene quickly, bringing clarity to situations that were quite intense. She understood the importance of triaging situations and not over responding to things that might not need a fire hose always. I think quite often, we can feel as though, as individuals in the workplace, I kind of call myself a Frankenstein because I feel like I'm bits and pieces of different industries and sort of hobbling across, but I've actually come to be really proud of that. I think it's something that if you can bring enough expertise across many different industries and you can tell that narrative strongly, there's a really strong link to product management there. I know certainly that's what I look for in individuals that have strong product management experience. It's how diverse their experience has been across working for different challenges and problems.
The director role evolution
Ana: Yeah, that's great insight. Also this stress test and ability to prioritize in very intense environments, which sometimes can happen. Yeah. Also, I've checked that you recently have been promoted to director of product. You've been like a lead. Do you feel any changes?
Dane: Yeah, it's definitely different in the sense that I've had an opportunity where I've sort of been in director level roles for quite a while. And even in my current role, I've had quite a few longer interim stints where I've stepped in for directors that have been on parental leave. So no massive surprises. But I think your view is cast a little bit wider in terms of the what next becomes a lot more, let's work this out now, rather than as a lead. You're still thinking about that. That's the expectation. But there's a lot of priority on the now and the sort of just, you know, what's next. There's a lot more strategic conversations around where we're heading and what's important and a lot more planning on alignment and cross-functional sort of effort as well. I think, you know, for a lead, I have been across quite a couple of things, and one of them was our design system. So creating a reusable and accessible design system that benefits both, you know, sort of engineers and designers was really critical. And that came with an incredible amount of lessons, building that successfully and then moving across to features and moving across to direct customer elements. Whereas from a director level, you're suddenly responsible for a suite of features and features that are generally large enough to need full product management attention. Mentoring and supporting PMs in that space as well as their trio becomes the priority as well.
Empathy as the foundation
Ana: So sometimes like you need to split between your strategical thinking and also operational work. Yeah, some time ago you have delivered a keynote like zombie themed about empathy. Can you please dive a little bit and like for those people who are not attended there, maybe you can bring up main points?
Dane: Irrespective of the industry, the problems are quite often the same. And so whether you're animating zombies running down a hill attacking each other, or you might be working alongside a zombie, you often, the problems are always the same. And, you know, whether it's, you know, an anecdotal example that I gave in the talk was that I worked sort of on a bunch of scenes and I worked with a lot of senior talented artists. And again, this is in the sort of visual effects days. And all of them were incredibly talented and at the at the industry lead of sort of what they did, but oftentimes they would object with one another. And it was kind of like building a house, they all had layers that all had to interconnect for the thing to be whole. And so there was an alignment. Oftentimes, the what it means is that it just wouldn't be completed at all. And so we weren't hitting our deadlines and things were quite sort of contentious. And we we kind of pulled the brakes and had an open conversation and I met with everyone individually and all of them. And one thing we found was that actually they didn't feel psychologically safe. They actually felt that the other artists work was much better than theirs. And it was impacting both their ability to share openly, but also feeling a sense of a lack of security in what they were doing. So they weren't being their true selves. They weren't feeling open to have conversations. And once we're able to call that out, once we're able to put that aside, and have meaningful conversations and really work on things to build that sense of psychological safety and trust. The work was delivered faster than ever before. And it's interesting because one of the quizzes that I ask or the questions that I asked during the call, I'm like, what's the most important thing for product work? Is it sort of speed of delivery? Is it clarity? Is it alignment? Is it empathy? And usually one person puts a hand up for empathy and everyone else puts a hand up for all the other stuff. And actually, Um, the point of the conversation is empathy is a foundation of all of it. Um, without, uh, a high degree of psychological safety, um, and trust where people feel understood, um, they perform better. Um, and, know, research backs it. Uh, and I think oftentimes we can be quite focused on, uh, one vertical, you know, of, of like, we need more information. We need, you know, uh, I better use this story. You need this, we need that. But, um, the problem is sometimes a little bit deeper than the symptom.
Building empathetic environments
Ana: Yeah, that's interesting because working in design and with designers really closely, empathy is one of principle building blocks of design system and logic. And we usually sometimes even need to defend it. Why do we need to conduct user research? We want to understand how users will be interacting, what are their main pain points and goals. And we always thought about end users in terms of designing interfaces for them. We sometimes leave out empathy to our coworkers, like for everyone to contribute and to work collaboratively and brainstorm great ideas to feel secure and productive. We also need to create this environment to strive and to contribute to our best. Can you share some daily or very practical advice as how do you build this empathetic environment in your company?
Dane: Yeah, think, sort of empathy for me is understanding, trade-offs. It's understanding edge cases, understanding what matters to the user individually, but, empathy for a team is, is, is understanding the, the day-to-day humanity, because we're all kind of tragic humans. We all have our own world behind the screen and no one over operates at 100 % of the time and that high performance consistently is unrealistic. And I think there's this trap of ruinous empathy where you could just be empathetic consistently, but balancing it with clear and honest direction, I think is the key. Oftentimes I start with just building a relationship and listening. And it sounds really silly to say that because obviously like, of course, like that's the baseline. But I think often we can get distracted with the things that we are trying to say or trying to do and the day to day. And we don't realize the impact of maybe some of the words that we choose or the active listening that we're not really participating in, in our day to day meetings. And that leaves an impression with people. So I think just being really considerate and mindful of people's time and the effort and also the structure that you build. So one of the things for me is pretty basic, but super important is having one-on-ones. Regular one-on-ones both with my key team members so that I can flag issues early and often, but also with my product managers and just ensuring that they're grounded in how they're feeling, they're at, where their wellbeing is and doing a bit of a pulse of those things. And there are days where they don't want to talk about it that's totally fine. But there might be a day where they do want to, and I want them to feel incredibly safe that I can capture that and do something meaningfully with it. An example that I guess is an important one that I often find is that people will say, what can I do for you if something happens? If someone's going through a moment of grief or struggling. But I think it's an incredible opportunity to actually proactively do something rather than even asking and within reason, know, you're not just going to like pop things around somebody that's going through something, you know, it could be something as simple as, you know, offering that person some time off all the way through to there's a situation where somebody that I worked with at the time it was pre-COVID we were working in the CBD and it was quite a dense environment it was really hard to find a spot and he was commuting quite a long way so we found him a car spot and we got a car spot for a few months and it was a silly thing right he didn't seem like a lot and and but he used it regularly and it took a bit of mental load out of his mind so when he did want to come to the office it was a much easier process for him things like that go a long way in terms of building trust follow up and actions as well as critical. You know, I think if often people feel like, wow, Dan's a great listener, but he just does nothing about it. You know, that sucks. I think, you know, prioritizing that in the moment without overburdening yourself is really important too.
Balancing empathy with accountability
Ana: Yeah, it also brought up like ruinous empathy. There is a concept from Kim Scott, in order to be, like she suggested to be radical candors and to build that and to escape from ruinous empathy, you need to be challenging people in a good way. Like you need to be personally caring about them, but also challenge them because you in this way will create a way for growth rather than just like be okay. I pay to you, that's fine, you can take day off or you're stressed out, relax. So I think that we are in business and we need to understand and be empathetic to people, but still not to create this environment and everything can be like really loose.
Dane: I think it's difficult because radical candor is great in certain contexts, but when it comes with folks that are incredibly introverted or neurodivergent, it becomes, it can be quite confrontational and not the best in people as well. So I think, you know, understanding what it means, understanding your individual's working styles, their motivations, their stress signals, all of which you kind of need to build psychological safety to help unlock and understand ironically, but those things become really important because how you engage that individual is equally as important. I, early in my career, if someone gave me tough love, I would not accept it in the best possible way. I would often blame myself. I would be kind of getting my head. I would, I could get all the positive feedback in the world, but the one little tiny negative thing I would latch onto and ruminate on, and that wasn't particularly healthy or helpful. And it was actually about how to break out and what to do with it and using a bit of a drive and motivated to be like, no, I'm going to, you that helped me. And I think sometimes coaching people through that in a way that can be softer, but to your point without feeling like you're just being nice all the time and, know, and, and, you know, everyone's got time off and things like that is, is, is a delicate balance.
Empathy in B2B product development
Ana: Yeah, because like I sometimes catch myself in a position that if a person misses the deadline and they can come up with excuses and you sometimes don't know if it's true, you tend to believe people are honest, but they sometimes can misuse the system, let's say, and they know that you will be nice to them all the time. And yeah, so that's the personal challenge that I struggle sometimes on one on one. Yeah, although I like to discuss the building empathy, especially in B2B. Why? Because there is a disconnect between who are we serving, like actual users of the platforms, people who make decisions, customers. And I tend to believe that in order to prove something that something is worth building, you need to create the value that will create business impact for end decision makers to make this decision to buy the product. So question. How do you build this empathetic loop for exploring B2B and creating empathy to end users, but also communicate that it impacts the actual decision makers? Although they probably will not be using the system every day, because even for your product, Culture AMP, probably decision makers could be CFO or ops like C-Ops people, but actually people who are using probably are HR or operations. So, and there is like a disconnect between actual decision makers. So how do you create a nurture, empathetic environment in places where there's a disconnect?
Dane: I think oftentimes it can be difficult to know which persona to go after and by persona I mean like the buyer, the user or the different stages of users as well. And I think it is really important to have a comprehensive view of all of them. Otherwise you suffer, you know, the sort of isolated feedback of the one individual or, you know, one group that might be giving you feedback. You know, it might be a passionate customer, it could be a large enterprise customer that you're very embedded in their organization, but you miss the opportunity of other segments that are equally as important. And so I think for me, it's about understanding both designing and both engineering from a scalability standpoint, but also accessibility and a user journey standpoint for both the buyer and the user. I feel like also understanding the different personas within that is really important. Like we talk a lot about you've got various types of managers at various stages in their journey. You might have one that's like, get out of my way, I know exactly what I need to do, make it easy for me, and others that need help and support throughout the process. And I think understanding those variances and understanding how you serve those customers in those moments is really critical. So I guess what I'm trying to say is having clarity on your personas and being connected with them often, because they change and their opinions change particularly as industry changes, with the rise of different technologies and so on. So that's probably one of the main things. I think the other one is I touched on it, but just sort of understanding what truly matters to the user, because sometimes it's not always the thing that they're saying. It could be a variety of other things that they haven't quite discovered or unlocked yet that you might be working on that could serve their needs from a broader standpoint. you know, people often say this in product, but it's abundantly true. And that is just being really curious and not falling into the trap of, you know, I think oftentimes you can feel like there's a lot of, you know, in any role that I've been in, a lot of customer interviews, particularly high stakes ones can feel like there are, there's quite a lot of critical feedback. And just being curious and being empathetic to their experience and the struggle that they're having and how it might add three or four hours of their day because of a bug that's sort of happened and just reminding yourself of that I think is important.
Staying connected to users
Ana: And how do you stay connected to different personas? Like, Teresa Torres suggests in her continuous discovery to have scheduled weekly meetings with different types of customers and have like regular check-ins. Like you probably don't have a prepared agenda or like you don't necessarily need to test specific thing, but you have like constant routine of thinking and like meeting with clients or users. Do you have any practical like way to stay connected with the case through analytics or actual meetings with people.
Dane: Yeah, I feel like having a weekly discovery session is a bit of a privilege. think oftentimes both organizing customers that are excited and willing, know, sometimes needing to tempt them with a gift voucher and so on, know, companies don't always have that luxury. So I think being a little bit frugal and a bit more scrappy with how you approach your customer is an important one. And I'm a big fan of building champions, building particularly early stage startups, customers that can be a really valuable source of truth and a relationship that you can build upon. I feel like it's important to be subjective as you build champions because you could, as you're building that relationship and as you're supporting that company and that individual you're also reducing their possibility of churn, is great because you're really listening and leaning into what they need. But you also run the risk of being disrupted because you're just leaning into a few key voices and personalities. And that's why, to add it to your point, analytics becomes really important. And it doesn't meet an incredibly detailed dashboard that tells you adoption or retention metrics every five seconds. There could be a sort of you know, so maybe testing that you can do proactively to help get those questions answered. And we're kind of going back to product basics, right? Which is that I have an idea and I have some hypotheses and I want them to be testable and I want them to actually be disproven because it clarifies my leads, you know, of where that I'm going. And I might approve or disprove that through testing through customers or interviewing through customers and so on. So I guess what I'm saying is that interviewing every week, I feel just for day to day as a concept is great, but practically so many people have seen it like, do it every week, let's go. And then after like a month, they're like, I know I'm looking at this now and I haven't spoken to customers in three months. And so I think doing what's realistic for you, just making sure that you're having conversations when, and as often as you can is really important. Listening to feedback, aggregating that feedback and making sure those sources where you're pulling in that feedback, whether it's tickets from support, whether it's you know, people actually just putting it in, you know, at the text bar is actually, you're reviewing it in a really holistic way.
Rapid round of questions
Ana: Yeah, in some podcasts, I've heard a notion about flow of information. So you need to organize this flow and be a gatekeeper of that. I'm mindful of time, so maybe we can jump to rapid round of questions. And if we have a few more questions, I'll have one more related to AI. But let's see if we have time. So quick questions, short answer. How would you explain to your mom what you're doing for a living?
Dane: I help teams build tech that doesn't make people want to throw their laptop out the window. if something just works and it feels obvious, that's usually on purpose and involved a lot of people, a lot of brilliant people to make happen.
Ana: Yeah, UX is seamless. What will influence your product or business vision?
Dane: Ooh, I think kind of my lessons along the way. think I, you know, I've learned through working in many different roles with many different leaders, what's important to me. I've learned to sometimes be the person maybe that I didn't have when I needed it most from a sort of management perspective and but also some incredible leaders that I've had that have really taught me how to lean in and how to sort of grow and mentor people in the space. I learned what was valuable to me through seeing the highs and the lows of diversity, equity and inclusion across organizations, where underrepresented people feel unheard and undervalued and how to make sure that that doesn't happen where and when I can. And I think those things drive me, those passions give me purpose in what I do.
Ana: What's the most valuable lesson that you've learned in your career?
Dane: I think clarity beats cleverness. So like you can have the smartest strategy in the world, but if you can't make it clear to others, you're doing your own idea of disservice.
Ana: If you could have a dinner party with influential figure from the world of design, past, present, who would it be?
Dane: I think this is like an Australian tech shout out, but this is probably Melanie Perkins from Canva. So she's, you know, she's built Canva into this like global juggernaut. And I think they've done a really good job of not losing sight for who it was for. I think they've also made design really accessible without watering it down. So yeah, I'd love to have a coffee or a glass of wine.
Ana: Nice. And last question, one thing about your drawing that keeps you excited each day.
Dane: I think when there's sort of real problems, I kind of get to have an opinion that really matters. I love being in the mess. I love really owning something end to end and knowing that it landed in a way that eventually helped somebody.
Leading with empathy in the AI era
Ana: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Dane, for this very insightful conversation. As the last moments to inspire people who will be listening to this podcast, what advice could you give to product leader trying to build a more empathetic team?
Dane: I sort of more topical in this environment, but AI is a really big conversation and it's making people feel all sorts of different things. And AI just doesn't change workflows drastically. I think it more importantly changes how people feel about their work. And I feel like it's really important to be curious about that aspect of it. Because ultimately, for some of it's exciting, but for others it triggers a lot of fear and I think you can lead through that hype with empathy. I think you can bring people into the process early. You can show how new tools can support the process, not necessarily threaten it. And, you know, I think it's critical now more than ever that people feel more aligned and more close and kind of more human throughout this process, particularly as leaders.
Ana: Yeah, replace will not replace us humans. Yeah, thank you for very insightful thoughts. And thank you for coming to this podcast and sharing your ideas. Thank you.
Dane: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
