Lenny's PodcastHow to be the best coach to product people | Petra Wille (Strong Product People)
CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 0:35
Why storytelling and public speaking can stall (or accelerate) a PM career
Petra opens with a blunt take: without solid storytelling and public speaking, promotions get harder because you can’t rally people behind goals. She also notes that teams can sometimes compensate for a weak storyteller, but only up to a point.
- •Storytelling is critical to aligning teams around shared goals
- •Public speaking is tightly linked to leadership progression
- •Teams can help craft narratives, but it’s not a complete substitute
- •Lack of these skills can become a “career stall”
- 0:35 – 3:48
Episode setup: Petra’s coaching focus + what this conversation will cover
Lenny introduces Petra Wille, her coaching background, and the three main themes of the episode: coaching PMs, storytelling, and community. Sponsor messages appear before the conversation begins in earnest.
- •Petra coaches product leaders and has broad exposure across teams/companies
- •Episode focus: coaching PMs, storytelling, and finding PM community
- •Context on Petra’s experience and impact
- •Sponsor segments before the interview begins
- 3:48 – 7:02
Petra’s background: coaching product leaders and the ripple-effect impact
Petra explains how her work evolved from discovery coaching, to coaching IC PMs, to primarily coaching PM leaders. She shares approximate numbers of people coached directly and the downstream impact via the teams those leaders manage.
- •Focus: people leading product people (CPOs, directors, team leads)
- •~130 one-on-one coaching clients plus group coaching cohorts
- •Leaders amplify coaching impact through their teams
- •Estimated broader impact when including teams and readers
- 7:02 – 9:32
What non-product leaders often miss when managing PMs
Petra highlights two recurring gaps when managers come from marketing, engineering, data, or business backgrounds. They often can’t curate learning resources for PMs and underestimate the complexity of the “many-legged” PM role.
- •Managers without PM experience struggle to guide PM craft development
- •Lack of awareness of existing best practices/books/talks slows PM growth
- •PMs need breadth beyond “T-shaped” skills—many capabilities at once
- •Understanding role complexity builds empathy and better coaching
- 9:32 – 11:20
Why Petra wrote *Strong Product People* (and who it’s for)
Petra describes her book as intentionally niche: it’s for managers of product people and focuses on people development rather than product strategy alone. The emphasis is on how to coach PM skills and behaviors in practical, everyday ways.
- •Target audience: product leads/managers responsible for PM growth
- •“Meta” focus: coaching PMs vs. doing the work yourself
- •Covers practical coaching across many PM competencies (28 chapters)
- •Book title and positioning: guide to developing great PMs
- 11:20 – 17:00
The five-ingredient method to become a great coach to PMs
Petra lays out her core coaching framework: define what “good” looks like, assess where a PM is now, set a vision and next challenge, build a development plan, and follow up consistently. Lenny reflects that it resembles a product strategy/roadmap cycle.
- •Ingredient 1: explicit definition of a “good PM” in your context
- •Ingredient 2: current-state pin + future vision + “next bigger challenge”
- •Ingredient 3: align vision with the PM through conversation and encouragement
- •Ingredient 4: create a development plan owned by the PM (with manager support)
- •Ingredient 5: follow-up nudges and reminders so growth doesn’t get deprioritized
- 17:00 – 21:16
Where to start in coaching: development plans + consistent check-ins
Petra recommends starting with a development plan even if you don’t yet have a full competency framework. Lenny shares a concrete cadence: monthly check-ins against agreed growth themes to prevent performance reviews from becoming disconnected surprises.
- •Start with what the PM already knows they want to improve
- •Follow-up is low-effort but high-leverage; consistency beats intensity
- •Avoid getting stuck waiting for company-wide leveling frameworks
- •Quarterly refreshes of development plans keep growth focused
- •Monthly review cadence ties daily work to longer-term development
- 21:16 – 28:05
Defining a competent PM: borrow existing frameworks + hire for key traits
They discuss how to define PM competence when your company lacks a clear ladder or rubric. Petra advises starting with existing assessments and customizing them, and separating harder-to-teach traits (curiosity/empathy) from trainable skills.
- •Use established assessments (e.g., PMDaisy, Marty Cagan’s, PM Wheel) as templates
- •Customize heavily for your org’s PM types (technical vs. discovery-heavy roles)
- •Differentiate personality traits vs. developable skills and capabilities
- •Traits to hire for: curiosity and empathy are hard to build from scratch
- •Competency definition becomes the coaching compass for growth conversations
- 28:05 – 35:03
The PM Wheel: eight buckets of PM skills + how Petra developed it
Petra explains her PM Wheel framework: eight competency buckets spanning problem/solution, planning/delivery, learning/iteration, team, personal growth, and Agile foundations. She created it to structure early coaching conversations—especially when coachees arrived unprepared.
- •Eight buckets: understand problems, find solutions, plan, deliver, listen/learn, team, personal growth, Agile basics
- •Each bucket includes framing questions to assess capability depth
- •Recommended approach: self-assessment + manager assessment + team input
- •Origin story: built as a coaching “compass” to start productive sessions
- •Useful for identifying coaching focus areas quickly and consistently
- 35:03 – 40:57
Storytelling fundamentals: invest real time and remove business jargon
Petra offers two practical storytelling levers: allocate meaningful time to craft narratives and speak in language that connects emotionally rather than hiding behind corporate buzzwords. She gives a concrete estimate for a medium-sized strategy story and emphasizes audience-aware framing.
- •Great storytelling takes deliberate effort; plan time for iteration
- •Rule of thumb: ~2 weeks of light daily work for a 3–4 month narrative
- •Avoid “banner-blindness” jargon; use natural language that lands
- •Emotional resonance matters—stories can trigger stronger attention and memory
- •Tailor wording to audience context (and adjust stale internal terminology)
- 40:57 – 53:33
Public speaking practice + why these skills matter for promotion
Petra shares how she improved: start with small, friendly audiences, then grow the stakes while collecting feedback from both peers and strangers. She offers simple pre-talk nerves strategies and argues that for product careers, storytelling + public speaking are often essential for advancement.
- •Start small: team talks, company all-hands updates, local meetups
- •Seek feedback: peers give sharper critique; strangers spot narrative gaps
- •Tactics for nerves: backstage power poses and calming/energizing routines
- •Promotion impact: inability to rally others makes growth to leadership harder
- •Role models/resources: Jason Goldberg, Hans Rosling, spoken-word poetry, Duarte materials
- 53:33 – 1:06:48
Communities of practice: scaling development, retention, and learning
Petra explains why communities of practice matter: they distribute learning beyond a manager and can be a cost-effective development engine. She shares observed benefits—retention, reduced burden on product leads, and higher shared clarity through peer exchange.
- •Motivation: scale development when managers/coaches aren’t available
- •Internal communities often exist, but many PMs miss external communities
- •Benefits: higher retention (growth/mastery), lower manager burden, cheaper than trainings
- •Give-back effect: teaching/sharing clarifies your own thinking
- •Healthy communities require shared responsibility, not a single “hero” leader
- 1:06:48 – 1:12:16
What makes a good community + improving Lenny’s Slack + lightning round
Petra outlines signals of a worthwhile community: meaningful networking, occasional high-value learning nuggets, trust, contribution opportunities, and sufficient activity. She then suggests community ops levers (purpose/values, rituals, incentives, roles, curation) before closing with quick-fire recommendations and wrap-up.
- •Good community signs: networking, learning nuggets, trust, enjoyable culture, active participation
- •Contribution pathways: moderation, organizing rituals, sharing learnings
- •Community management: revisit purpose/values/success metrics over time
- •Rituals and curation protect signal-to-noise; engagement alone may be a weak metric
- •Lightning round: books, podcasts, interview questions, tools, and where to find Petra
