Leading Teams to Success – Christina Wodtke on The Product Experience

Teaching something is hard – to do it well, you need both an incredible command of the subject and great communication skills. Teaching in the form of a narrative story? That's another level of difficulty and in her new book, The Team That Managed Itself: A Story Of Leadership, Christina Wodtke does just that. Drawing on her own experiences, Christina tells the story of Allie, a product lead who has to step up and learn to manage a team effectively. It goes well beyond analytics, frameworks, and agile.

In this episode, sponsored by Amplitude, listen to learn about:

• How to manage a team well
• Using feedback effectively
• Different product frameworks

Quote of the Episode

If you think you know what you're doing, you're probably lying to yourself. I think it's a really healthy thing to stay in this space where you're constantly saying, "But what if it could be better?"

Related Links

• Follow Christina on Twitter and LinkedIn, and at her site, Elegant Hack
• Buy Christina's latest book, The Team That Managed Itself: A Story Of Leadership
• The Inner Game Of Tennis, by W. Timothy Gallwey
• The GROW Model

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Our Hosts

The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver.

Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She's currently Head of Innovation at Go Compare and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She's worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol (which now has 800+ members!) and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.

Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. A recovering music journalist and editor, he launched Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, and has worked across sectors including museums and arts groups, online education, media and entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. Randy's book, What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager's Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19 is out now, with all profits going to COVID-19 relief efforts.