I’ve noticed a pattern during my coaching sessions: epiphanies strike. 🪄
Though I’ve worked tirelessly to explain what I do, I often find in session I’m able to articulate exactly how I coach with people as its happening. ✨
This season, I’ve taken on several new clients, many of whom are standing at a crossroads, figuring out what's next.
These clients typically fall into two categories: navigating a new life stage or feeling stagnant in their current role (more about them here).
As I reflected on these clients’ experiences, I realized my coaching process is both familiar and helpful, particularly for those product people on the brink of transition.
And I realized it’s because I’ve repurposed the familiar product principles to de risk some of my clients biggest moves.
It’s in our shared language, and experience, in product, where I’ve seen product people unlock their own next steps.
I’m the lucky one who gets to hold a mirror up for them while they do it.
My 4-Step Approach
Awareness
We focus first on what’s happening. Often, even the most senior of leaders, don’t really know what’s going on when they start working with me.
So we check in: Where do you feel stuck and where do you feel energized?
Like product discovery, we start by slowing down and noticing what’s working and what isn’t.
I help my clients zoom out, so they can see the bigger picture and pinpoint the areas of their personal and professional lives that need attention. I do this in a few ways:
I start engagements with deep discovery work so that we can diagnose the problem, together. Sometimes its obvious but usually there’s layers to unravel.
Often I’ll ask clients to retrospect on what’s worked and what hasn’t worked in certain pivotal moments in their career in the past.
If someone is really stuck, I have them keep a diary for a week and we’re really quickly able to see what’s happening. #customerdata
Hypotheses
Often, these clients are seeking a change and have some ideas of what it could look like:
bigger company!
smaller company!
fractional work!
sabbatical!
open a wine bar!1
Once we identify the key areas to focus on, we form hypotheses.
And together, we create a few potential paths forward, grounded in their values and goals. We can do this because of the time I spend getting to know them on a personal AND professional level when we start.
These hypotheses serve as a groundwork for future testing and experimentation.
Experimentation
Armed with hypotheses, the next step is to experiment.
I love a good experiment.
This is about testing small, manageable changes—whether it’s shifting how they allocate their time, changing how they communicate with their team, or taking on a project outside of their usual scope.
The key here is not to overhaul their life overnight but to gather data and feedback on what works and what doesn’t.
Most of my clients - and maybe humans for that matter - view most decisions as all or nothing.
So a big role I play is bringing my incremental product brain to these key decisions.
A key question I find myself asking is, how can you move 10% is that direction?
Like building good products, the key here is define a success metric.
So I urge clients to think about a metric that helps them assess if something is working or not. Maybe its an efficiency or happiness metric?
Whatever it is, the key to a successful experiment is determining how it will succeed or fail before you start.
Place a Bet
Finally, after experimenting, it’s time to place a bet.
With the insights gathered, clients are usually2 ready to commit to a path, knowing it’s based on a thoughtful, deliberate process. Often the path isn’t completely linear or singular. It’s a mix of thoughtful bets.
This is where the magic happens.
Especially because it’s often rarely what the client thought it was going to be.
This is often where I feel inspired because I get to support people through transitions they didn’t even know where possible before we started together.
So yep…I use the old discovery, hypothesis, experiment and test experience of product to coach Product Leaders.
It’s a proven process that both the client and I can rally around because we’re so familiar with the product process.
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. Here’s how to work with me ↩️
I work with Product Leaders and their teams to unlock their biggest career moments. If you’re looking for support - drop me a note, I’d love to connect. 🤝
I co-host Product Leadership Breakfast NYC, a monthly product breakfast series to bring together curated groups of PM leaders to connect and share learnings and insights over casual breakfast. If you live in NYC or find yourself passing through, join us! ☕
JK that’s me.
I’d be lying if I said it happened quickly. But often I see the path coming to fruition in 6-9mo time!
Share this post