Turning Stress into Success with Diana Stepner - Productized 24 TalkInTen

We’re excited to bring you more exclusive content from Productized 2024, our third conference of the year! This series continues our TalkInTen format, where we deliver concise, impactful conversations with industry leaders driving innovation in product and business agility. Each episode is packed with fresh insights, actionable strategies, and real-world examples to help teams and organizations succeed.

In this episode, we’re joined by Diana Stepner, a seasoned product coach, sharing her strategies for turning stress into success. Diana reveals how to manage micro-stresses, enhance team dynamics, and improve personal well-being. These practical tools will help you create a more balanced, stress-free work environment while building your confidence as a leader.

Diana on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianas/

Here is the synopsis of Diana's Talk:

In a world where 88% of product managers feel stressed, this talk offers three key strategies to turn stress into success. With Diana, you will learn how to manage 'micro stresses,' boost team dynamics, and improve personal well-being. Walk away with practical tools for a less stressful work environment and greater confidence in your abilities.

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Sheev - https://www.sheev.co.uk

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to a very special series of episodes of the Product Agility Podcast, broadcasting for two days, direct from Lisbon Portugal and product ties 2024. This year, we're bringing you more exclusive bite-sized wisdom with our Talks in 10 format, where we're going to be diving into actionable insights from some of the best and brightest minds in product leadership. And attendees this year are being spoiled with talks and workshops from the likes of Radakadat, creator of radical product thinking and rich Morinov, author of the art of product management, helping us all find some joy in what we do. But it would be a pretty shitty conference if it was just two people. There are so many more people here, and we're going to be getting as many of them as possible on here to share their talks in 10. Now before we begin, a huge thank you to our sponsor, Sheev Limited. Sheev is the company which has bankrupted this podcast pretty much since day one. I want to take an opportunity just to share with you and make you aware we do some awesome stuff. Whether it's training your product teams or coaching your product teams with clarity and alignment, or you know just a simple thing I've actually making OKRs work in organisations, these are all things that we are very good at. So do head over to www.sheev.co.uk, see what we do and get in contact with us. Also check out the show notes for a tasty little discount code over any of our courses. Grab a notebook because the next 10 minutes are going to be packed with action tips from the best in the business. And here begins a talking 10. I'm not ready. I'm ready. Now I'm ready. Hi. Hi, Diana. Hello. How are you? Oh, I'm just wonderful. How are you? Excellent. You look like someone who's been on a plane recently. I was. I flew in from San Francisco yesterday and so I'm not sure day, time, location, anything. But yeah, how long does that take? 11 hours and then 12 hours home. What? You get a lot done on the airplane. Yeah, like you do not sleep. I don't sleep well on planes. I met someone today who does, so I do want to learn that skill, but no, I don't sleep on planes. I thought you could be like, I just don't sleep. Yeah. I just wait. I don't know what it is. It's like something about the environment or the air, but whatever. Yeah. I don't sleep. I don't like planes, particularly. I like plane. I mean, I like to travel, but sleeping is just not on. Not on planes is good for me. Yeah. We just start the podcast episode, probably. I thought we did. Yeah, that we did. We did. Your workshop talk. I'm a talk tomorrow. You're a talk. I'm stressed to success is right right down here. That is me. I love that. Thank you. Could you tell me and my listeners a little bit more about stress to success? Well, it started because I was stressed and I didn't realize it. It was one of those things that just creeps up over time. I got to a point where I wasn't sleeping again. I was really stressed on Sunday night where I was getting just nervous about work the next day, and I just began to realize it's not healthy. I was getting burnt out. It was affecting my life, my thinking, my sleep, all of those things that are important. I started to do more of a deep dive into stress and how can we manage it? The thing that I realized is that a lot of times the stress that we feel is small. It's that micro stress and it just builds up and builds up and builds up until it's just too much and you can't manage it. Micro stress is tricky because it's small, so your body doesn't necessarily trigger as a stress. Unfortunately, it's often too late when the micro stress is built up that you really begin to be able to do something about it. That's what happened to me. Can we have picked this micro stress thing a little bit? Are we saying that there's one particular thing that's stressing you out or is it many things that then stress you out? Is it the same thing compounding? Can you give me something to make it a bit more concrete for me? A stress that is big is if your parent or sick or something like that, that's big and you should feel stress. Micro stress is when something is just part of your day, like you're stressed about going to a meeting. You're stressed about how someone may react to a statement you have. You're stressed that you won't be able to speak up in a call. Those are little things that do build up over time. Like you said, they may be compounded because it may be the same thing in multiple scenarios or they may be little tiny things that are different, but it's the accumulation that really gets to us and then weights us down. How does one know if those things are stressing us? Because it can creep up. Then they first hand it definitely can creep up. Maybe you can look back and say, oh, shit, those things are really stressing me out. But in the moment, how do you know that something's stressing you? Yeah, it takes time to be able to reflect. That's one of the things that I talk about is you want to give yourself a pep talk. You want to pause if you think or feel that you might be stressed, pause, and then just evaluate it. Is this something that is normal because I'm crossing a busy street and trying to navigate it against the light? Or is it something that I shouldn't be stressed about, which attending a meeting or speaking during a call, those things shouldn't be stressful, but they are. And so you need to evaluate what it is and then pivot, change how you're going to react to it. And so think about things that will help you navigate that situation the next time it happens. And so if you get stressed about a call, write up some notes ahead of time for the next meeting. If you're concerned about how someone may react to what you're saying, talk to them beforehand. So you have that preview. So when you have that meeting, you already have worked out what the pros and cons are and come together as a united front. So that pep talk to yourself really can enable you to better manage those microstresses. So it's almost like just being a bit more present in the moment and taking the opportunity to really understand what's going on. And try and put something in place to help you just think it through. Because when we're stressed, we are in some way under threat. And our brain is not wired to think when it's under threat. So if that time allows you to then engage the more modern functions of our brain. And I think that's very well said, because it's that flight or fight comes in. And depending on how you react to stress, you may actually just shut down, or you may actually just react in a negative way that's too harsh. And so neither of those behaviors are ones that we necessarily want to convey. And so if we can become more in tune to ourselves and those little triggers that cause the stress, and then start building up ways to navigate them, that makes us happier. And when we're happier, the people around us sense that too. And it creates a better environment for all. So in your talk, is it very practically focused and rather than being purely just like a theoretical story-based thing? Yeah. So I do have tips for people. I think from product perspective, folks like to have, you know, actions that they can take away and goals that they can work towards and frameworks. And so I do lean into things that you can practically do to help create those times to have a release from stress. And I look at it from two lenses. One, where you're an individual contributor, so you're a product manager. I also have it from a leader's perspective. Because a leader not only has to think about themselves, they have to think about the well-being of their team. So just on its own, that adds extra stress to the leaders. What is your favorite tip? My favorite tip is the pep talk. Yeah. Because I think it's just something that people are like, oh, that sounds fun. It sounds cool. It's something that's easy to remember. So I think that's my favorite tip from, you know, my talk as well is just something that I've been practicing too. Because I think the more in tune we become to ourselves, the way that we can start experimenting, like we do in product, you can experiment with the pivots that work for you. You find the thing that really helps you navigate those stressful moments. How does a pep talk manifest in your mind? In my mind, it's just centering. And so one of the things that you learn is just feel your feet on the ground or feel your hands on your knees. Just put your like feelings to that part of your body that you're touching. Again, my hands to my knees, my feet to the floor. So that's that pause that really helps me get grounded. And then just evaluating the situation sounds like it might take a lot of time, but we're pretty quick. And so in one or two seconds, you can figure out what it is that's causing that little tingle that I didn't necessarily get prepared for. And then you can pivot. You can determine, do you want to say something? Do you not want to? Do you want to wait? You can evaluate the situation and then be able to react. As a result of all of this, what's been your biggest success? My biggest success is I'm an introvert. And so I'm sitting here talking to you about a podcast I'm going to be on the stage. So that to me is my biggest success to so and help introverts realize that you can be a leader. You don't have to be the loudest person in the room. You can lead with confidence. You can lead with empathy. You can lead with those soft skills that really help your team gel. You don't have to be that loud person that you're not. Why do you think people feel that they need to be that loud person? What is it that is in industry, society, whatever is that makes people believe that that success is? I think all of the above, there's a common premonition that whoever speaks first and whoever speaks loudest has got to be the smartest. But I don't think that's the case. Some folks like to think and then react. Some folks are quieter. And so I think there needs to be more awareness that not everybody's the same. And to appreciate those differences and then invite them all into a conversation makes the conversation more well rounded and makes everything more I think more thoughtful because you're thinking of the different perspectives not only in the room but of the people that it's going to impact as well. So what is your day job? My day job, I'm a product coach. And so I was a product leader for over 20 years. And I realized the thing that really energized me was helping my team grow. Advance in their career. Do things that they never thought was possible and just help them get there. And that excited me more than even launching products. And so after 20 years, I decided to become a product coach. So you have lots of product people that listen to this. If they wanted to contact you, how would they go about doing that? I am Diana Steppner and you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Diana S. So that's just the part after the slash. But there are only three Diana Steppner. So I'm pretty easy to find. Sweet. Sweet. Well, thank you so much taking this time and sharing insights again. It's been really nice. You're extremely listenable. Awesome. So it was, yeah, it's been lovely. I've really enjoyed it. It's been quite a tonic for me, quite soothing. Perfect. Is there anything that you haven't said that you would like to share before we wrap up? I think productized to me is an amazing event because there's so many different cultures. And you get to experience the way that more parts of the world view things than to be honest, you do in San Francisco. San Francisco has a very San Francisco mindset. And so I love coming out to Europe, coming to productize to be able to broaden my view around how product works. Nice. I always think productize for me is almost like a festival almost. I think that's a great way to describe it. There's a sadness that I feel when productize ends, which is the closest analog to that has always been at the end of a festival. When you've finally made these new friends, you've had these different experiences and events all just over until next year. Exactly. And I think it's a really special conference. I think Andre and the team doing amazing. And yeah, Lisbon is just incredible. I was here for the World Cup many, many, many, many years ago. And it's just interesting to see how it's changed too. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for listening. If you've loved or just liked anything on this episode, please do share on social media, do tag down myself and the podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. So again, thank you for listening. Thank you so much for coming on. We'll be back again at some point very soon.