Values: The Product Skills You Didn’t Know You Needed with Francesca Cortesi - 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 Francesca Cortesi, a product leader who delves into the often-overlooked but crucial role of personal values in product management. Francesca shares how understanding and applying your core values can transform your leadership style, strengthen decision-making, and even enhance your overall happiness at work. Learn how aligning your values can help you navigate conflicts, collaborate more effectively, and create meaningful impact in your role.

Francesca on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesca-cortesi/

Here is the synopsis of Francesca's Talk:

In the fast-paced world of product management, making the right decisions requires more than just technical skills. But what if your most powerful tools are your values—what truly matters to you, even if you haven’t realized it yet? In this personal talk, Francesca will help you identify and apply your core values in product management. Discover how to become a more effective leader, make a meaningful impact, and find joy in your work.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review and stay tuned for more great episodes from the Product Agility Podcast!

Use code PROD24 for 15% off training courses at Sheev.

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.

Stay up-to-date with us on our social media📱!

Ben Maynard

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/benmaynard-sheev/

🐦 https://x.com/BenWMaynard

💻 https://sheev.co.uk/

Product Agility Podcast

🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/company/productagilitypod/

💻 https://productagilitypod.co.uk/

🖇️ https://linktr.ee/productagility

Listen & Share On Spotify & iTunes

• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0lkwAYJzVSuk5zfJ1vIDZq?si=4c691fb12f124a56
• iTunes - https://apple.co/3YvTX8p

Want to come on the podcast?

Want to be a guest or have a guest request? Let us know here https://bit.ly/49osN80

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 can 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 Radakadot, creator of radical product thinking and Rich Morinov, author of the Art of Product Management. Having 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 they'll 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 a 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 just a simple thing of 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 talk in 10. I was so tempted to begin this episode by talking about murder. It's the same. I thought now that'd be really surprising way to start the productivity podcast by starting like a true crime podcast. So we'll save that one for another day. Maybe we do a longer episode for sure. We should have spoken a little while ago and probably because of my really awful diary management, we never got around to it. So Francesca Cortese. Hello, that's right. Yeah, they said it really well. Good. It's so nice to finally meet you. The same to you, Ben. How has productized been for you today? Oh, it's been great. I've been here doing some rehearsed rehearsals for my talk tomorrow. So I got a little bit of vibe from the workshops. A lot of cool people here. So really looking forward to be on stage tomorrow. Yeah, it's a big old stage. I know. Don't remind me. Otherwise, get the stage right. It's such a huge stage. So many eyes and the light in your face. Yeah. And you know, I find really old thing about productized, they're attendees, none of them blink. Right. They all just stare at you really intensely. That's like gonna, that's gonna be my night, my tonight. It's like, oh my god, no, it's gonna be fun. Yeah, stay well, be fine. The truth. Hopefully otherwise we go to the true crime. The truth of it is actually the productized attendees are normally a pretty awesome bunch. They are very welcoming. You're gonna smash it tomorrow. What is your talk about? My talk is about something so fluffy as personal values. And I mean, I have this saying that I think in product, the hard skills are the soft skills. And we talk so much about frameworks and you know, how you do Okey Orgs, how you do all these kinds of things. But I mean, you're not gonna go anywhere if you don't have collaboration and if you don't know how to, what is important to you. Yeah. That's what I'm gonna talk about. Excellent. There was a book called Accelerating Team Performance, which is a research studied under 3000 teams. Probably the biggest of its kind. There's a phrase from there, which is the soft stuff drives the hard stuff. Oh, yeah. You know, I've all the research I did, if I'm actually is a soft stuff, which is critical in complex work that we do. So how did you stumble across this talk? It's almost like the talk stumbled across me because it's like, this is like what I'm gonna be sharing is from my, I think I'm gonna be sharing something pretty universal, like those feelings of feeling frustrated or not heard or not being able to go forward. Like when you know when you have those meetings, you can out and you don't know where to bang your head. I was there and I was like pretty, not in a good place and I took things really personal until I realized that I mean it was not personal, it's just that I had a crushing values. And that's basically like the story of how I figure out what my values are and how I started to apply in them. And this old thing and that's why the talk came to me, it's like led me to live my job, which is a pretty, you know, yeah, that's a journey. And I mean, obviously I don't want to encourage anyone to quit their job unless they're really miserable. Maybe they should think about it in that case. But it's a way of thinking about what's important to you. And I mean, focusing the energy of bringing a little bit more of joy in what you do. So what did you think that was important for you? Oh, for me, it's like my values that are, I think are really important is like connecting with people. So having people that are on the same radio frequency, if you wish, you know, I'm all about collaboration. And if I have to work with someone that is all about my team, my team or my team or my way or my highway, it's not going to work for me. Or another thing that I believe is really important is learning and having high agency with high integrity. So I'm giving you my word, I'm going to drive it forward. Like, I hate when people like give them say something and do something else. So I realized that the best way for me of actually working with people, learning, driving things forward, making an impact is doing advisory. So that's where I quit my job. So you're kind of giving me a nice idea why values aren't so fluffy and nebulous. But how do you articulate to that to people during the talk that values aren't this fluffy thing that is just, I don't know, like a lovely statement on a wall somewhere. And it is actually something that can make a significant impact. I think, I mean, when I started my own value, I started to work with a coach. And the first question she asked me is like, what are your values? What do you believe in? You know, what went in through my head? Nothing? Zero? I have no values. I don't believe in nothing. I mean, you know, pure like nada, which was obviously was not the truth, right? But I think there is like, it feels a little bit daunting to start like looking into oneself and say, okay, what is actually important to me? And what I figured in my journey is that we can use some product skills to do that. So that is what I'm going to be trying to make more tangible finding your values. You know, you can start from data, like give you energy. Then I have this thing that if I may say myself, because it's something that I created, but I think it's pretty cool. Like I did my own journey mapping of my life to understand, you know, what happened in my life, like highs and lows, and what can I learn from it? I can recommend everyone doing it because you see all you have achieved and also the things that I mean, you got stuck. And it's something that I use many times when I want to overcome my imposter syndrome. You know, when I'm like starting a new company, and I'm like, okay, who's going to want to work with me? And I'm like, but wait, I like moved from a completely other country. I became CPO, one of the biggest product companies in the country. I mean, I've done it before. I was going to be able to do it now. So this is something I think you can, they are fluffy in a way, but I mean, you can make them really tangible. And when they are tangible, and you can articulate them, then you can use them to make choice. Yeah, I mean, it's a great, great thing, I think, that you're going over and it's just making me think of a few little things, which is you don't, it's hard to know what you're doing. Sometimes we just are going to go on autopilot and we're going to go through our lives of really paying attention to those little things that drive our behaviors and help us make our decisions. And so what you're saying is by using some product tools, we can become aware of some of those things, which are within us, we just can't label, we just can't use in the right way at the moment. I think it's like one of the, for me at least before I started this journey, which was pretty much to the day one year ago, so it was a while ago, it's like personal values of those things, like when you have a clashing value, it's not that you think, Oh, I have a clashing values, it's more like you get so frustrated, you get like unhappy, you think that it's really difficult to work with a specific person. And what happens is like, it becomes personal, I'm like, I cannot work with you Ben, it's your problem. Like, yeah, right? I mean, that's it. I mean, that's what it is. I mean, probably, I mean, you can relate to this. I mean, you have this really difficult person that stakeholders, you're like, ah, that person is impossible to work with. And then it becomes, okay, stop. I tell a story, you're impossible to work with. I tell you again. And that's it. And instead, you should think about maybe it's what we believe that is different. And if we do that, if we make that explicit, then we can talk about why, for example, for you is important to drive short-term goals. And for me, it's important to drive long-term goals. And then we can make a discussion about that instead of having it personal. Okay, we might as if approaches to conflict management, where you try and appreciate it as perspective, and then almost try and find the things you can agree on. So there is a there is some acceptance there. I think it's hard to listen when someone's pissed you off. Exactly. But then you're like, it's the person. I mean, sometimes it's the person. Let's be real. Sometimes there are some. Yeah. Some people like that over there. But I mean, over there, even like going into the room. Do you mean George, producer, and all that other hand, it's harsh. That's harsh. I like, I'm telling you, yeah, you're impossible to work with. George is like impossible to work with. You already are. You listening. You're impossible to work with. Yeah, you listen. Oh, God, you're so hard to work with. No, but I mean, obviously, I mean, it's like it becomes like, yeah, I think it's also the story in your head. I mean, it's, yeah, I can work with that person. But why? Yeah. So we're saying, is it potential if you're feeling frustrated or some level of unhappiness and working with someone, they're potential indicators that maybe there's a clash in values and taking the time out to talk about the things you value and then make them visible even if it's only through the spoken word, just so that you can begin to understand each person's different. Each side of the story is that we're in trying to find a way forward. Not discounting, but some people are just dicks and we don't want to work with them. Yeah, that does exist as well. Yes, you do. I just think I'm a I have a confession to make. I'm feeling really sad that we didn't make the time to talk before because I've really enjoyed this. Yeah, let's do it again. Oh, we should do anything. Let's do it tomorrow. No, no tomorrow going to speak. Yeah. Oh, I'll have a secret my cup and I'll just live stream you on the podcast. We'll be fine. No, we should absolutely get some time in to, I know, we'll hang out tonight. The speakers dinner. Yeah, for sure. Maybe I'll make a everyone now going to prioritise my time a little bit. But we're looking forward to seeing tonight. We have to get another episode in because I was some things I really want to get a bit more practical with it. And I want to kind of maybe we could go through and do something live, something live. I don't know, me or you or somebody, I don't know, but it could be really fun to try. If people want to find out more information or contact you, I take it linked in as a great place. Linked in. It's a great place or my own website, frantascacortezy.com. There you also going to see the slides from productized. Fantastic. I mean, some of those slides are like a fog and some trees when I'm going to tell the story when I was crying in the bathroom and when like, so they're not going to tell you a lot. But I mean, the slides are there. No, I'm the same sometimes. What can I get your slides? Yeah, totally. But it's literally a photo. Yeah, exactly. Of a frog on a bike. I don't know what you're going to get from that. Do whatever you want with it. Yeah, if you can remember what I said, because I call him what I said to him. That's why I say more power to you. Well, it sounds like there's a rave kicking off somewhere. I can hear some something baseline kicking up. So maybe it's time to end the episode. Time to dance. Oh, yeah. It's time to get us going to rave it up. I mean, there's some more snacks. So Francesca has been awesome to have you on. Thank you so much for coming along. George, thank you again for being such an excellent producer. It's been a long day. Almost done. Almost there. Two more episodes to go, I think. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you, everyone. We'll be back again soon.