如何打造一支"扛得住打击"的团队 | Hilary Gridley(Whoop 核心产品负责人)
How to build a team that can “take a punch” | Hilary Gridley (Head of Core Product, Whoop)
The Podcast Opening
Hilary Gridley: Product leadership is the type of role where if you are not in control of the voices in your head, they will eat you alive.
Introducing the Guest
Lenny Rachitsky: You spend a lot of time thinking about how to help your team learn to take a punch.
Hilary Gridley: If they come to me and they’re upset, I try to focus them less around how you litigate another person’s impression of you and more on what is the action that you can take to counter program the narrative that you are afraid that this other person has of you. What are you going to do next to demonstrate that you are the person that you know yourself to be?
Learning to Take a Punch
Lenny Rachitsky: You have specific tactics that you teach your team to deal with hardship.
On Fear and Challenges
Hilary Gridley: I would really love it if more people were like, “Screw it. I’m going to do something that’s probably going to fail. It’s important and it’s worth doing and I’m going to do it well.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Is there something you’ve learned about when your leader tells you to do something you disagree with?
What Taking a Punch Means
Hilary Gridley: People think that the game is all about influencing the CEO, influencing the people around them. You come up thinking like you’re the protagonist. But in the story of work, you are probably not the protagonist. You’re not special.
Lenny Rachitsky: Today my guest is Hilary Gridley. Hilary is head of core product at Whoop. Previously, she was a senior director of product at Big Health and a senior product marketing manager at Dropbox. Even more importantly, she wrote what is now the sixth most popular post of all time in my newsletter, How to Become a Super Manager with AI. She’s also the first ever cross over guest between this podcast and our sister podcast, How I AI with Claire Vo.
And not just that, her episode with Claire is on track to be the most popular episode of the podcast. So all that to say, Hilary is incredible and I’m so excited to continue learning from her. This conversation is packed with advice that will make you a better product leader, builder and also just a better human. If you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to miss this episode. A big thank you to Sam Propis, Danielle Reynold, and Kelvin Wong for sharing suggestions for this conversation.
If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. Also, if you become an annual subscriber of my newsletter, you get a year free of a bunch of incredible products, including Superhuman, Notion, Linear, Perplexity, and Granola. Check it out at lennysnewsletter.com and click bundle. With that, I bring you Hilary Gridley.
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Counter-Narratives Over Arguments
Hilary Gridley: Thank you, Lenny. I’m so excited to be here.
Lenny Rachitsky: I talked to a bunch of people that I work with you about what we should talk about and what you’re amazing at. First of all, every one of them loves working with you so much. One of them is like, “I joined Whoop just to work with Hilary and to report to her.”
And of that, there’s this theme that emerged that I think is a good overarching theme for our conversation, and it’s something that you spend a lot of time thinking about, and it’s how to help your team and how to help people within your company learn to take a punch. Essentially, how to help them deal with hard stuff and do hard stuff and build hard things. So I guess just broadly, does that ring a bell? Does that resonate?
Teaching Your Team This Method
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, absolutely. It’s something I care a lot about. I’ve been, I think, pretty lucky in my career. I’ve been very drawn to working on hard product problems, regulated areas, really hard business models, things with pretty high emotional stakes for the users of the products. You’re really likely to run into a lot of setbacks along the way. And I think this is really relevant today because I look out and I talk to a lot of people and I hear fear and I hear uncertainty, and I think it comes from a few places.
I think obviously I’m really excited about AI and how it’s transforming the way we work, and I think a lot of people are, but I think a lot of people are scared too. And they’re embracing these tools, they’re learning these tools, but a lot of them have a question in the back of their mind, what does this mean for the future of my job? And in many cases, what does this mean for my identity?
I think it makes people question even just how we provide value as humans in society. And I also think people, especially young people, today haven’t even necessarily been in a career environment where there wasn’t always a thread of layoffs or things like that. And I think that’s taken a real psychic toll on a lot of people. And so I think all managers now really need to be able to lead their teams through uncertainty, through fear, through hard things.
And I love the concept of taking a punch. I’ve got a couple other tools that I like to use, but I think it can teach people how to thrive in these environments. And it’s really important to me because I would love if more people took on hard things. I think there’s so many really hard challenging problems out there to solve.
And the more people are fearful about the future of their careers or the future of work, I think the more they gravitate toward things that they feel like they’re likely to succeed at. And I think that’s wonderful. We need that too, but I would really love it if more people were like, “Screw it. I’m going to do something that’s probably going to fail and it’s important and it’s worth doing and I’m going to do it well.”
From Dismissed to Proving Yourself
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s so many Venn diagrams of why this skill is so important, especially today. One is it feels like the easy stuff is done. The stuff left to build is hard. It feels like hardware, deep tech is where things are heading. Also, just machine learning, AI skills, just stuff that’s really hard. And then the other is just AI is just changing so much. It’s just such a stressful time and hard time for a lot of people.
Let’s actually walk through some of the things that you have learned about how to help people get good at these things, about how to help people learn to take a punch, AKA do hard things, deal with struggle. The first is you actually actively teach them. You have specific tactics that you teach your team to deal with hardship and to take a punch. So what are some of those things? What are some of the things that you teach your team and help them develop a skill?
Hilary Gridley: So at its core, when I say take a punch, what I mean is you’re going to run into situations where something has gone wrong. Maybe you have misstepped. Maybe you are just hearing someone speak critically about your work. Whatever it might be, you’re going to feel like you have taken a punch.
It’s a very physical feeling. And I think as managers, you spend a lot of time teaching your team how to be successful. You want to prepare them to maximize the chances of good outcome. But if you don’t also prepare them for what happens when that outcome isn’t as good, you’re going to run into some problems.
And so when I think about how to take a punch, what I say to my team is if they come to me and they’re upset because something has happened, maybe they said something in a meeting that wasn’t received well, or again, they’re hearing somebody else talk about them in some way, whatever it is, I try to focus them less around whatever happened and how you litigate another person’s impression of you based on something that has already happened, and more on what is the action that you can take next to counter program the narrative that you are afraid that this other person has of you.
And I think the counter program piece is really important. Because whenever we feel our egos injured, I think it’s very natural for all of us to say like, “Well, that’s not fair. I want to correct the record.” When you do that, I think more than often, more often than not, you come off as just looking defensive and you start obsessing over things that you don’t actually have control over, which is what another person thinks of you. You don’t even necessarily have that information.
And so I always ask myself in these moments, what is one thing that I can do, small, that will demonstrate the opposite of what I’m afraid this person thinks of me? And so I’ll give you an example of this. I was in a meeting a while ago, and we were talking about different things that we wanted to start tracking in the Whoop Journal. And our chief technology officer suggested ketamine tracking.
And I thought she was making a joke and I laughed, and she looked at me very seriously and was like, “This isn’t funny, Hilary. This is a serious issue for a lot of people, and it’s an emerging problem in some cases. And I think we should take it seriously. I think there’s a lot of value we could provide here.” And I was completely humiliated. Humiliated because I actually take this stuff really seriously. I take addiction really seriously. I have a ton of empathy for people who struggle with it.
And I also think of myself as somebody who embraces new ideas and wants to be on the forefront and would never laugh off something that seems like a fringe issue that’s I think becoming actually more and more a big part of what’s happening today. And so I realized that in that moment I was having that reaction because of the feeling that it gave me about who I am as a person, and I became so worried that this other person had the wrong impression of me.
And I wanted to follow up with her after and say, “Let me explain myself. Let me explain why I didn’t mean that,” or whatever it is. But as I said, I think usually you’re fighting a losing battle when you’re trying to do that, and it draws attention to the thing that you did poorly. And you don’t really want to draw more attention to it. You want to move on, take action, move forward. And so I thought about, well, what am I afraid that she thinks of me?
I’m afraid that she thinks that maybe I don’t take some of these health issues seriously. I’m afraid she thinks that maybe I’m somebody who laughs off emerging trends. And so I thought about what’s something that I could do to demonstrate the opposite of that?
And I did some research very, very quickly on what are some emerging public health concerns that people really aren’t talking about that would be interesting to track? And I found some interesting research about sports betting, and especially young people in sports betting, and it’s becoming this thing that a lot of public health experts are very worried about.
And so I very quickly just sent her a note that said, “Wanted to build on this idea you had today. I really liked that idea, by the way. I saw this article, I saw this research about this other emerging thing, sports betting, and I think it’d be really interesting for us to start tracking that because we could maybe draw some correlations between people stress. We have a stress monitor in Whoop. We can track their stress. We could draw interesting correlations between betting behaviors and stress levels.”
And so that’s all I did. It took me five, 10 minutes total. But I think it’s a great example of showing this idea of counter-program that narrative, don’t fight about the narrative. And so when I teach this to my team, I’m always doing the same thing. They come to me. They seem agitated about something and I say to them, “It seems like this is really bothering you. What’s going on in your head? What are you afraid of? What are you worried about?” And often it will emerge, “I’m worried that this other person thinks I’m bad at my job. I’m worried that this person thinks I’m an idiot,” whatever it is. And I challenge that. I think this is really important for managers too to challenge this negative thinking when you see it happen and not just validate it and allow them to go down these negative spirals.
I challenge it and I say, “First of all, I don’t think there’s evidence for that. Is there evidence for that? And even if there is, it doesn’t really matter. What’s something that you could do to show them that it’s not true because you know it’s not true?”
And I think giving people that power to focus on the next step they can take and the action that they can take that helps them feel more secure in their identity in who they are because their action demonstrates that, it just gets them out of that negative thinking and it gets them through that trough of despair that comes after you feel like you took a punch.
Behavioral Activation in Management
Lenny Rachitsky: So the idea here is when you’re afraid somebody that matters in your career thinks ill of you, of something that you did, of you’re not good at something or you think something that they’re not happy about, this is a version of getting punched basically is you just feeling like someone thinks you’re not doing a great job. And so the tactic here is how to change their mind almost about you and give you something tangible to do.
Hilary Gridley: Exactly.
The Real Impact of Taking Punches
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. And so the question to ask, and I wrote this down as you were talking, is, and this is what you ask of your reports, what is the one thing that you can do that demonstrates the opposite of what you think this person thinks about you?
The Product Manager’s Easy Mode
Hilary Gridley: Exactly. This comes up all the time. There will be narratives that emerge, some are good, some are bad, about you and your career. And I think especially when people get to a place where they’re putting themselves out there more, they’re talking in more presentations, they’re talking in more meetings, it’s very natural for them to become concerned with the perception themselves.
And it is scary because it feels like something, as I said, you don’t have control over. And so exactly. If instead of focusing people around what do these people think of me, you focus them around, well, what are you going to do next to demonstrate that you are the person that you know yourself to be, I think that can just be incredibly effective at giving people more of a sense of agency.
Building Organizational Transparency
Lenny Rachitsky: I guess talk about the balance of I’m just going to prove everyone wrong against what they think versus here’s who I am and I know this is me and this person is mistaken. And instead of debating them, I’m going to show them who I am. Just not overstressing about everyone thinking things about you in different ways.
Building the CEO’s Mental Model
Hilary Gridley: There is some value I think in having a little bit of a chip on your shoulder. You see that people who are really successful, they do have a little bit of like, “I’m going to prove them wrong.” And so I don’t want to say that you shouldn’t think about it at all or you shouldn’t care. Of course, it’s natural to care, and of course, it’s fine to care, but I do want to just help my team build this habit of doing the things that you know to be right and having conviction in that.
Being open to learning along the way and calibrating as you go, but not becoming overly concerned with your fears of what other people are going to think of you. Because I think especially for otherwise really thoughtful, really the people who are hard on themselves, I think that that just holds them back from being the person that they can be.
Nick’s Vision of the Future
Lenny Rachitsky: So a key part of this is, this is going to help you stop just spiraling on thinking about what they think about you and gives you something to do that will change that. And then the other key point here is don’t try to convince them otherwise. You’re not going to go to your manager like, “Oh, I really think ketamine therapy and addiction is really important, and I didn’t mean to say it this way,” and that kind of thing.
Understanding Others’ Perspectives
Hilary Gridley: I’m not interested in litigating the things that happened already when we can move forward. And I’m certainly not interested in litigating what another person thinks about a thing that happened. I feel like I’ve spent so much time talking to people in meetings, whatever it is, where it’s just this ruminating on something that has already happened. It’s very anxious thinking pattern, I think, and people can just get stuck in it. And so let them do it.
It’s like when you get bad feedback or critical feedback and you naturally have this reaction of, “Oh, well, that’s not fair because they don’t understand. I actually have numbers I have to deliver on, or I only had 10 minutes to do this, so of course, it wasn’t perfect.” You naturally come up with these reasons why you are actually not wrong, and that’s fine. I don’t want to say you should feel bad for doing that.
Let yourself have the pity party, let yourself feel those things, but then you got to move on as quickly as possible because those feelings, they actually do tend to spiral and get worse if you’re not actively working against them.
When You Disagree with Leadership
Lenny Rachitsky: Oftentimes these sorts of lessons come from the person experiencing this themselves. Is this something that you dealt with when you’re starting your career or even now?
Hilary Gridley: Oh, absolutely, 100%. And I think it is more than just my career, but just my general mental health and my life. A lot of where this comes from is a concept in cognitive behavioral therapy called behavioral activation. And in my former job, I was working for a company called Big Health and we make digital therapeutics. So those are mobile apps that have been clinically validated to treat behavioral conditions like insomnia, depression, anxiety.
And I was working on a new depression therapeutic, and so went very deep on this and was working with a really wonderful clinical team full of clinical psychologists who helped me understand the techniques that therapists use when they are working with people who have depression. And so much of depression is characterized by these negative thinking patterns and this feeling that I feel bad and I just need to wait until I feel better, and then I’ll start doing the things that are good for me.
I don’t feel like responding to this text, so I’m just not going to do it, but I’ll respond when I feel better. I don’t feel like working out, so I’m not going to do it, but I’ll do it when I feel better. And the truth is that doesn’t go away on its own, especially if you have depression. Again, the idea of behavioral activation is you have to identify these actions that you can take that will reverse that negative spiral and will improve your mood.
And so the misconception is I’ll feel better and then I’ll act. And the thing that therapists try to teach people, they’re working with them in therapy is I will act and then I will feel better. But acting is hard if you are in the furrows of depression. And so easier said than done. And a lot of the work is in how you help people identify specific actions that they can take that will reliably lift their mood.
I mean, I have a list of myself. I’ve got a list on my phone of my behavioral activations, and it’s things that I know I can do if I start feeling like the walls are closing around me, if I feel myself getting sucked into very low mood or negative thinking, or whatever it is. You can see how effective that is at just getting you out of there versus the instinct to just go and lay in bed and feel bad for yourself, which I understand very well.
And so understanding that concept, which is at its core a therapeutic concept used in cognitive behavioral therapy, but it changed how I see the entire world and how I see, especially as a manager, the ways that people on my team think and behave and how easy it is to get stuck in some of these downward spirals that you really need to actively push back on. And as a manager, I want to help them do that.
I want to help them, A, see that, see the ways they are in some ways sabotaging themselves, getting in their own ways with whatever is going on in their head. And then I want to help them counter-program it in themselves. And also, as I said, counter-program the things that you are worried about out there as well.
The Magic Question Tool
Lenny Rachitsky: So interesting. So the core of this technique is what’s an action, and you said this, it could be very small.
Hilary Gridley: Very small.
Finding Worldviews in Absurd Demands
Lenny Rachitsky: That you can take that in this case shows someone else you’re not who they think you are. You’re worried they think about you in a certain way and you want to take an action that helps them see you’re not that.
The True Role of a CPO
Hilary Gridley: So yes, that’s the taking the punch concept. The behavioral activation could be anything. It can be picking up a piece of laundry off of the chair and putting it away, and that’s just enough to get you out of the downward thing you’re in. So behavioral activation just conceptually is, how are you taking action to reverse the downward feeling or the negative feeling that you’re feeling? And then the take a punch concept is that applied in the context of I’m in a working environment.
I am very conscious of how I’m being perceived by other people. That’s causing me a great deal of stress. I think especially for product people who are… So much of their self identity is wrapped up in having the answers, being competent, getting things done. And so many of them have been people who have been really good at that for most of their careers, which is how they got into these jobs in the first place.
I think that can be an extremely stressful thing for them. That in many cases can be the driver of burnout and the driver of I can’t really handle the stress of this job anymore. And so I think the take a punch concept is more just applied to that specific problem of I’m struggling at work and I’m struggling largely because of my perceptions of other people and I want to feel more agency in that situation.
Lenny Rachitsky: This is so cool. On the idea of the specific take a punch concept, what kind of impact have you seen this have on people’s mood and careers? How big a deal is this specific tactic?
You Are Not Special
Hilary Gridley: Well, I think it’s a big deal on two levels. One, it’s a big deal because it can help you in a crisis or a minor crisis. But I actually think it’s a bigger deal because I see so many people who don’t put themselves out there because they’re afraid of how it’s going to go. And so I think of the classic example of I’m often trying to encourage people to speak up in meetings more, to practice the skill of how you move a conversation forward in a way that can contribute value, both because doing so I think is important because nobody wants to be in bad meetings, but also because it will help with your career.
This is how you get on people’s radar as somebody who’s like, “Oh, that person’s got great ideas, thinks about things the right way,” whatever it is. I think it’s one of these things that I talk to people about it and they are interested in coming to the meeting and hearing about these big decisions are getting made, but they just want to sit there and observe. And I’m like, first of all, every additional person in a meeting has a cost, because every additional person in a meeting makes the people in that meeting less candid than they would have been if there were fewer people in that meeting.
And so one key piece of a meeting is you usually have a problem you’re trying to solve collectively as a group. And it’s really hard to do that if people are being overly cautious about what they’re saying because there’s too many people in there. So when I tell people this, I’m like, “It’s really important that you earn your place in this meeting and let’s work on how to do that.”
And the core piece of that is you’ve got to say stuff that’s valuable. And people always come up with all these excuses for why they can’t do it. And one thing I’ve learned is that I think people are really good at coming up with very rational sounding reasons to not do things that just make them uncomfortable. But in their head they’re like, “Oh no, I’m too junior.
Nobody wants to hear what I have to say. Or everyone was already thinking it. Or I like to process things internally. And by the time I say them, the conversation moved on,” whatever it is. So much of that skill, it’s like a communication skill at its core, it’s just how to express yourself verbally, but so much of the blocker of that is I think fear. Fear of saying the wrong thing.
Fear of looking stupid. Fear of just the discomfort of everyone in a room turning and looking at you as you’re trying to formulate a half-baked thought. And so if you can help people be less afraid of that, that’s 90% of the challenge of actually improving some of these skills. And so I think when you give people the skills of taking a punch, you are helping them feel less afraid of getting the punch in the first place. And that’s why I think it’s so important.
Finding Fulfillment in Execution
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s profound, the second order effect of the skill. There’s something you mentioned when we were chatting earlier that stuck with me with this idea that too many PMs and too many people are playing on easy mode and not trying hard things.
Hilary Gridley: Uh-oh. Maybe we’ll get ourselves in trouble here.
The Real Rules of Business
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, let’s do it. Say more.
On Vision and Execution
Hilary Gridley: Oh, I think this is my hot take. You hear people talking about craft and taste and product management, and it’s all very wonderful. And I’m totally on board. I love it. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, but I’m like, well, if you are really in it just for pure love of the game, you just love product management, why are you building products for people exactly like you who have all your exact same at a company that sells to other companies that doesn’t worry about pricing?
There’s no real… I mean, I don’t want to act like I think this is easy, to be clear. But in the grand scheme of things, I wish that the people who have this pure love of product management and have this pure love of building things that you would see more of that applied to building for low income people, building for social services, things like that, that really, really need that kind of work.
And I think there’s a level of prestige obviously associated with working in certain companies, and you get less of that in other industries. And so people would naturally gravitate toward that. I totally get it. I totally get it. You get paid better. No real judgment from me. I wish I saw more, but I wish that you would see more people. And I’ll say this, I know there’s a lot of you out there.
I know there’s a ton of people out there doing really, really important work in really, really hard spaces, and I see you and I appreciate it and shout out to you.
Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome. Okay, I’m glad you shared that. Thank you. I think this will resonate with a lot of people. I want to move on to another trait/habits/skill that you are good at and help people learn, which is being very transparent in what’s happening within the organization, within your thinking. You almost help people think the way you think and see the way you think so that they can operate at a higher level. Just talk about that, what that looks like and why that’s important.
On Upward Feedback and Persuasion
Hilary Gridley: It’s interesting, I think another thing I hear a lot of people complain about in organizations is the why do 10 people have to sign off on this email before I send it kind of problem. And I think the answer to that is because those 10 people all have different information, different context, and in many cases, completely different working models for how the CEO of the company and other strategic leaders in the company think.
And it makes things super inefficient. I think people will often say like, “Oh, it’s a process problem.” It’s not a process problem. It’s not approval problem. I think it’s a transparency and it’s communication problem, like downward communication, outward communication. And what I mean by that is when I think about artifact-based communication, so reading a strategy document for…
Hilary Gridley: About artifact-based communication. So reading a strategy document, for example. Everyone at the company reads the strategy document. Great. Everyone is working from the same idea of what the strategy is. But then things change, right? Especially if you’re working in a really dynamic space, new competitive threats emerge, new opportunities emerge all the time. This is especially true now with AI. Obviously everyone is lighting their strategies on fire and trying to figure out the best way to sort of transform their organization. And so if the way that you understand what’s going on at the company is from reading a document that was written six months ago, you’re going to be working from outdated information and you’re not going to be able to think and respond to new things that happen.
And so what is much more helpful than understanding what your CEO thinks is, I think understanding how your CEO thinks. And that goes for all sorts of levels of the company. I want to understand how all the strategic leaders at my company think, and I want my team to understand how I think. And when I feel confident that people on my team understand how I think, I don’t need to read their emails, I don’t need to approve things. The times where I feel like I need to do that is because I’m working with people where I’m like, I don’t have confidence that these people understand how I think, or I don’t have confidence that they understand how this email or whatever it is, is going to be received by this important person.
And so I try to teach that to my team. And the way that I do that is a few ways. First, I’m in meetings with people, important people at the company. So I’m constantly hearing the things that they’re saying and paying attention to sort of the note behind the note. Why do I think they’re saying this? What insight do they have that they’re bringing to this conversation that might not be obvious? And I try to make an effort every week. I don’t always do it, but I try to send my team just a quick rundown in Slack of, “Here are the most important conversations or the most interesting conversations I had this week. Here’s what that person said verbatim.”
Again, I write a lot of notes so I’ve got it. If you’ve got a transcriber, maybe that’ll help you. “And here’s what I interpret that as. Here’s why I think they say that. Here’s where I think that’s coming from and here’s what I’m going to do differently as a result.” And these aren’t long. And sometimes if I don’t have time, I’ll just, in a team meeting, I’ll literally just go through my notes from the week and sort of voiceover stuff and editorialize it as I go. And over time, I think my team has a pretty good sense of what people are saying and how to think about the thinking behind it and how this person thinks, how this person thinks and how I think. And I think when you get an entire organization working that way where everyone’s working from the same models of what the CEO thinks matters, what level of risk tolerance the company has, things like that, then you can actually start to move much, much faster and communication becomes much, much, much less painful.
On Habit Formation and Change
Lenny Rachitsky: So the tactic here is to help your teams kind of build a mental model of everyone in the company that matters so that it’s… The way you put it almost is when they’re emailing them or asking for something, they already know how they’re going to respond. Is they’re an example you could share of something like this, of just something a person at Whoop of how they think? I don’t know, maybe you could keep it anonymous just to make this a little reel of the kind of mental model you might want to build around someone.
Designing Reward Loops
Hilary Gridley: So our CEO, Will, is somebody who obsesses over pixels in a way that is challenging to get things through design review, but I think results in a product that is a thousand times better than it would be if he were accepting of small excuses here and there for, “Oh, well this, we had to cut scope here. We couldn’t quite do what they wanted here.” He sets a high bar and he holds it and he doesn’t compromise. And I think this can sometimes get misconstrued, and I think a lot of people might think that he just wants maximal scope on everything. And I think that is a misunderstanding of what he cares about.
We often get feedback from him that’s like, “This doesn’t feel like the future and everything that we’re building needs to feel like the future.” A lot of people hear that and they’re kind of like, “Oh gosh, we’re never going to get this thing done on time. We can’t make any sort of sacrifices to scope or anything like that.” But when I hear that, what I hear is more that we have this AI coach in the product, we have all this amazing data in the product. We’re tracking every single one of your heartbeats and we’re pulling at all this other data and we have every screen is a moment to show that to people in a way that feels like something that has never existed before.
And there are small ways to do that, right? It’s like how you pull in. If you’re explaining a concept like VO2 Max, which is a measure of your cardiovascular health, you can explain that to people with static content or you can explain that to people by bringing their data into the method of explanation that you’re using. You can make it really conversational because you’re using this AI coach. You can make it feel more like you’re talking to a person and a person who by the way has all the data about you, which doesn’t exist today.
Your doctor doesn’t have that, your coach doesn’t have that. And that’s not like, “Oh gosh, we’ve got to blow up the scope on this thing and make it a hundred X as big.” But it’s finding these little touches to say, “Wow, that was really magical, that was really thoughtful and this feels like the future. This feels like I’m very conscious of the fact that this product knows so much about me and is able to sort out the signal from the noise on that in these really small and elegant ways.” And so for something like that, I would get that feedback in design review or I’d hear that in a design review and maybe one of my PMs would be in that design review.
And so I bring that to the team. And I hear of things like that in a few different design reviews. So I bring those back to the team and I’m like, “I’ve noticed that recently we are consistently getting this type of feedback. Here’s why I think it’s really important to Will, because I think he’s really focused on building the health company of the future. And I don’t want you all to think that this just means we have to just throw AI at everything and we have to just throw maximum scope at everything.
I think the key is understanding on the matrix of cost and effort for impact, what are those high impact but low cost ways that we can just find and sprinkle through the experience and really try to make that magical?” So I’m connecting the dots for my team. Right? I’m saying, “You weren’t in all these meetings, but I saw it. Here’s what I heard. Here’s my interpretation of what I heard, and here’s how I’m thinking about how this other person thinks about it. And so as a result, here are some things that I think we can do across our product going forward.”
Lenny Rachitsky: Essentially these are principles, values, or tenets per person of what matters to them.
Designing WHOOP’s Reward Loop
Hilary Gridley: Exactly.
Lenny Rachitsky: So for Nick it’s, “This needs to feel like we’re living in the future.” It can’t just be like another heartbeat dragging out.
Healthspan and Long-Term Reward Loops
Hilary Gridley: Yeah. Yeah.
Habit Strategies for Meaningful Work
Lenny Rachitsky: This is so cool. And there’s so many trickle-down benefit to this. One is people feel like they’re aware of what’s happening. That’s one of the most common, I think, piece of feedback people have with big companies. Like, “I don’t know what’s happening.” So there’s so much visibility to all the secretive stuff happening in the meetings. “I don’t know what people are deciding my fates and all these discussions.” So I think just even knowing that you’re sharing all this is so powerful.
Reward the Behaviors You Want
Hilary Gridley: Well, and on that note, when I approach these conversations, I always try to think of them as, even if I don’t agree with the feedback, if I don’t agree with the decision, what is the insight that I’m missing? How am I wrong about this? In ways like, what would be true for this other person to be right? And I’ll go through that thought exercise and I might not get to the other side and agree with it. I might still think I’m right or whatever. But oftentimes it forcing myself to think that way forces me to think about how this other person thinks it. And if I do that enough, I will be like, “Oh, this makes sense. I think this makes sense if. I think this makes sense if, and oh, maybe this other thing is true.”
And I think when I hear the people, the people who are like, “I don’t know what’s going on with this company,” I think they do the opposite. I think they look for reasons to disagree and they look for holes to poke in, “Well, this decision doesn’t make any sense because I came up with something that might be wrong about it.” And I think that’s another thing, by the way, in terms of just sort of helping your team have the emotional maturity to exist and thrive in an organization is helping them think that way, helping them understand you have a point of view.
Your point of view is important, but on some level, you do kind of have to have respect for these other points of view and have the humility to think that maybe they’re onto something that you’re not onto. And it’s amazing how much you can learn into it without having to have all the facts just by doing that. If you’re like, “Well, this person’s behavior makes sense in a situation where X, Y, and Z is happening,” oftentimes you’ll find that X, Y and Z is happening.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m glad you went there. I wanted to actually follow this thread, which is kind of a different direction, but I think a lot of people are always struggling with this as a leader. When your leader disagree, it does say something that you completely disagree with, but you still need to represent that as, “Here’s the thing we’re doing.” But you don’t want to be like, “Oh, just because Nick said so.” Because you lose power as a leader. Is there something you’ve learned about how to do that well when your leader tells you to do something you disagree with and you still need to get your team to do it.
Making Space for Deep Work
Hilary Gridley: First, I do try to go through the what if I’m wrong exercise. I think a lot of people just sort of expect that if you ask somebody a open-ended question like, “Why are we doing this?” You’re going to get a straightforward answer. And oftentimes the answer is not straightforward for various reasons. Maybe there’s confidentiality reasons, maybe there’s just somebody is acting on a hunch, but that hunch is informed by years or decades of reps of developing judgment, and they’re probably really onto something. And it’s not just this kind of arbitrary gut feeling. But whatever it is, I really try to get to the bottom of, let me really make sure that I have done my best to understand this person’s point of view.
And I have some sort of tools for doing that, which I can also talk about. But if I’ve done that, and I still disagree, I’m relatively candid about that, but candid in a way where it’s still respectful. I think what you want to avoid is a situation where as a manager you’re like, “Ah, I have no control. This sucks. This decision is so stupid, but that’s a job, so we have to do it.” Obviously that’s not going to set your team up for success or make anybody happy about it, but you do hear that, you do see that happening. And so I think what I try to do in those situations is separate out my opinion from it, from the, ” Well, what is the insight that makes it make sense to this person” and explain their rationale.
Even if I’m comfortable saying, “I don’t necessarily think this isn’t how I would do it,” or “I don’t even really agree with how they’re thinking about it, but from their point of view, from their perspective, their professional experience, whatever it is, I could see how this makes sense. And they might be right. I don’t think they’re right, but they might be. Let’s find out. We’re not going to find out if we are all squabbling about whether this is a good idea the whole time. The only way we’re going to find out is if we give it the best shot that we have and try to do it. And if we’re wrong, that happens sometimes and we try again.”
Lenny Rachitsky: I like that this comes back to your mental model orientation of, “Here’s their mental model, here’s what their experience has been like, here’s how they see the world, the trends, and then this is why they think the way they think.” And so instead of encouraging your team or yourself even to be like, “No, no, you’re wrong here.” It’s more, “Okay, here’s their data set, let’s try this, and this will inform that data set and maybe change their mind.”
Building Permission Structures
Hilary Gridley: Yeah. Because I think in product, I like to joke, there’s no right answers. Right? There’s only wrong answers, and you’re just trying to execute well on the least wrong answer that’s available to you. And so I think it is the sort of reasonable people can disagree about this stuff at all of this is what I think, and this is how I would approach it. I think this is what they think and I think this is why they would approach it this way.
And again, the only chance we have of succeeding is not being torn apart on that. And so at the end of the day, if it’s not a obviously terrible answer, and sometimes even if it isn’t obviously terrible answer, you’re still more likely to succeed if you just sort of reorient yourself around a world where it’s not a terrible answer and then just try to will that into existence.
AI and Learning
Lenny Rachitsky: You said that you have some tools to help you understand someone’s point of view. I can’t help but ask more about that.
AI Accelerates Skill Learning
Hilary Gridley: I talk about what I like to call the magic questions, but the thing about magic questions is they’re not actually questions, they’re statements and they end with, “Do you agree?” Or “Is that right?” And so I have found this, the most helpful way for kind of trying to understand a person’s mental model is to just put facts in front of them and see what they say no to and what they say yes to. And then if you can get them to explain, great. And if they’re good communicators, they often can, but if they’re not, you don’t have to let that stop you view. And so I mean, I’ll do this even just as an example in a non-leadership context with if I’m working with legal teams or compliance teams or things like that, they’re often working from a literal set of rules. Right?
There are laws, there are regulations, and you are trying to understand if we were to take this path, would that be okay? Would that not be okay? And sometimes that’s not straightforward. Sometimes there’s regulatory areas that are up to interpretation. And so when I first started working in a regulated space, I would find this kind of frustrating and confusing because I would say, “Can you just give me the rule so I can understand what’s right and what’s left of it?” And they’d be like, “Oh, well, it depends. It depends, it depends.” And so I learned that if I kind of flip that and approached that, “Well, what if we did X, Y, and Z?
What if this is what it looked like? What if this is what the copy said? Would that be okay?” No, yes. If no, why? If yes, why? And so I’m sort of teasing out the mental model rather than asking them to explain it to me. And this is what I tell my team all the time to do this to me. When they come to me and they say, “Well, what do you think I should do?” Or “What could I have done differently?” I’ll say, “Rephrase that as ‘Tell me what you think you could have done differently.’ And then ask me if I agree.” And when I do this, I think it has a few benefits. One, it helps them kind of calibrate their judgment over time.
So they’re actually forcing themselves to make this assertion. And then they’re kind of calibrating how close that was to how I would think about it, which will get you much faster, much further than just asking open-ended questions and getting the answer. And then the second part of it is they don’t become reliant on me for answering these questions. I think that’s kind of a trap that a lot of managers fall into is people come to you with questions, you want to help them, you answer the question, and then you find that they come to you with all their questions and you’re kind of like, “Yeah, you got to solve some of these on your own.” So again, I think the magic questions to me, is that right? Do you agree? And anytime you find yourself tempted to ask an open-ended question to somebody whose brain you’re trying to understand, stop yourself and say, “Let me just say that. Let me say as a statement what I think,” and then try to calibrate based on their reaction. And I think that’s the fastest way to understand how another person thinks.
Lenny Rachitsky: It makes me think about a lot of people, it could come across as it’s a weird manipulative way of asking someone stuff, but it turns out that we’re not good at really knowing what we think or know a lot of times. And you need someone almost to interview you in a really effective way to get out all this knowledge. And this is just a really simple way of getting that idea.
Training GPT on Engineering Estimates
Hilary Gridley: It’s funny because when I talk about this, I get that reaction a lot where people are like, “Well, doesn’t it feel coercive?” And I’m like, “Well, you got to go in pure of heart.” You’ve got to go in open to being wrong and even expected to be wrong. And you have to make that clear to them. Right? If you’re coming in and you’re like, “Here’s what I think. You agree? You agree?” Of course you’re not getting the answer you want. Or you might get the answer you want, I might get a yes. If your goal is to get to yes, that’s not what I’m talking about.
If your goal is to understand and you are coming from a, “Help me understand how I’m wrong, help me understand what I’m getting wrong here” and approach it with that sort of curiosity and humility and make sure that you’re caring yourself and presenting yourself to this person in a way that shows that, that you’re not coming in hostile or forceful or something. Yeah. Because there are absolutely circumstances where you’re doing that and you’re going to get bad intel because you’re making the person uncomfortable, so they’re going to lie to you. But that’s I think, a whole set of interpersonal skill that we probably don’t have time to talk about today.
Lenny Rachitsky: I wanted to come back to, you said this interesting insight about your CO that he wanted to build something that felt like the future. I just wanted to share, there’s a story that has always stuck with me at Airbnb. There was a big launch coming up and there was a designer sitting late in the office trying to update the website to include this new product. It was a launch of Airbnb Neighborhoods, I don’t know, 10 years ago. And she was just like, “Hey, Joe.” And this is Joe Gebbia was walking around the office. And she’s like, “Hey Joe, what do you want the website to be?
What do you want it to look like? What should we try to…” And it was going to launch in two days. He’s like, “Build something the internet has never seen before.” And now this makes… It’s interesting because when I always think about that story and tell that story, it’s like, this is a crazy ask. And now as you share an approach for how to handle something like that, it really changes my perspective to like, “Okay, what’s Joe’s worldview? Why is that the way he saw the world and why we needed to build a site like that,?” Which I could start thinking about, but that’s a really interesting way to just handle things that sound absurd and out of nowhere.
The Corner: Career Turning Points
Hilary Gridley: I agree so much. I proud former English major, and so I’m a huge proponent of reading fiction and reading in general. And I feel like that’s where so much of this comes from for me. It is just a curiosity for in what world does this make sense for this person? And it’s so easy to look at another person’s behaviors, another person’s actions and what they say and just be like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” And I find that, I don’t know, your relationships become so much richer, even just in a work context, when you approach it with that, “What is the world of this person where the thing that they’re saying makes sense?”
And I feel like in my life, honestly, a lot of my frustration has come from being frustrated with other people. And so this is something that I’ve had to learn over time. Because when I come home from work and I’m just like, “Oh, this person said this and it didn’t make any sense, and this person’s totally out to lunch and leadership doesn’t know what’s going on.” All I was doing was making myself miserable.
And actually worse than that, I was making myself miserable and I was making myself pretty useless to the company. And so I would get frustrated because I was like, ” No, nobody appreciates my perfect, unique, beautiful insight and all these other people have no unique, beautiful, perfect, concise, just wrong opinions.” And so I feel like that’s been a big area of growth for me, honestly, is learning to approach people that way. It’s not just like, “Oh, this is a nice thing to do,” but I think it genuinely makes me a happier person. And yeah, I think a lot of it comes from reading fiction.
Building Mental Models with AI
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that we’re just unpacking the onion of the power of this very specific habit of just helping you learn the mental model of the people around you. And-
Hilary Gridley: I feel like this is just making me sound like a crazy force.
The Failure Corner
Lenny Rachitsky: No, there’s so much power to this. As you talk, I’m like, “Wow, there’s so much value here.” Because not only is it, you talk about how this is the source of a lot of burnout for a lot of people where they’re just so frustrated, the CEO or the chief product officer, designers just like, “I hate this.” Why are they just asking all these ridiculous things, keeping the bar way too high? It’s just nothing’s ever good enough.”
But not only does it help you feel better about their asks, because you can understand where they’re coming from, it also helps you be more effective and helping them change their mind potentially and see a different perspective because now you see the data that informs their perspective and you could help adjust that or kind of poke at it like, “Hey, are you sure this is true? Are you sure I don’t know, they’re a competitor and this is how they see it. Maybe it’s not. Let’s look into that a little deeper.”
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, it’s really interesting. At my last company when I started reporting to the CEO, they found various coaches for me to work with, and one of them was the former chief product officer at Coinbase who’s gone to found Bridge, which is just that apart by Stripe for a ton of money. One thing that he said to me that really stuck with me is when you’re reporting to the CEO and as a chief product officer, the big mistake that people make is they think that the game is all about getting what is inside their head and influencing the CEO, influencing the people around them to make it so, and if you go into the role trying to do that, you’re going to fail because actually what your job is to do is to understand what the CEO’s vision is and what they care about, again, sort of how they think about things and figure out how to operationalize that in a way that results in the best possible manifestation of it in the form of product.
And that was just such a radically different way from what I ever thought my job was. Again, to go back to sort of the fiction example, you kind of come up thinking you’re the protagonist. And you can be the protagonist in your life. You can be the protagonist in the story of your family, but in the story of your work of a company, you are probably not the protagonist. And as much as it can feel kind of weird to say that I genuinely think some of the best advice I’ve got in my life in terms of things that have just not only transformed how I see the world and how I act in it, but just my own sense of happiness is you’re not special. And I used to spend so much time and energy just being like, “Oh, people don’t see it my way and I have to convince them.
And when you’re in an organization, it’s an ecosystem. Right? It’s an organization full of people who are all trying to work together to get a thing done. And if every single one of those people is operating from their own protagonist viewpoint of “This is how I actually see the world, this is what I think we’re here to do and I need to convince everyone around me at all times,” it becomes extremely inefficient. It becomes extremely painful, because everyone’s just fighting all the time. And so in some ways it feels like you’re kind of, it sounds almost defeatist.
I’m always worried about the sounding. I’m just like, “Yeah, just do whatever the boss says.” And that’s not how I feel at all. I think it’s incredibly important to bring your skills and your talents and your perspective to the job you have and really your taste and your craft and all of these things. But I do think this idea of understanding how to build a shared mental model of everyone together that definitionally cannot be defined by your own narrow perspective, actually just makes work a lot better for everybody.
The New WHOOP 5.0 Experience
Lenny Rachitsky: So then a lot of people, like you said, I love that you went there, is just like if you’re, because it could sound like, okay, your job is just to execute what the CO tells you. There’s no value to your insights and perspectives, and you’re just get out of the way. You’re just get everyone to do the thing the CO wants. Where do you… I guess, in your experience or just advice on where’s the fulfillment for you then as a CPO or example or a director of product where it’s not that fun just to be there executing a CO’s vision and not have any input?
Hilary Gridley: Well, and I think there’s so many decisions all the way down and there’s so many micro places where you can zig where others would’ve zagged. And I think I personally, a lot of where my fulfillment comes from is from feeling like if somebody else were in this job, it would be done differently. And something about the product is different because I was the one who worked on it because I was in the job. And that comes from my unique perspective, my unique point of view, the experiences I’ve had in the past, my various influences. And I think it’s trying to figure out the right level for it so that you’re not pushing against an immovable force.
It’s almost like if you’re playing Jenga and you’re sort of trying to feel around to find, okay, well, where are the pieces that can move? And when you know how somebody else thinks A, you can find that there are immovable forces. Those are not the battles worth fighting. But there are also areas where maybe they don’t know as much, and there’s also areas where maybe they’re actually kind of scared because they don’t know as much. And maybe that’s an area where you have an interesting point of view. And so you can step into that role and be tremendously valuable and being tremendously influential.
But you can only do that if you have a good frame for kind of what the model is and where are the things where it’s like, okay, we are operating on a person’s insight here that is itself extremely unique and extremely valuable, and it is the reason this company even exists in the first place. But that, I mean, there’s millions of decisions have to get made, you know what I mean? And there’s millions of different places that you can put yourself. And so I think it’s just kind of constantly feeling out for where are the places that I’m really spiky? Where are the things that I think I do really well? Where are the gaps? And again, you can only find those if you’re engaging really good faith and engaging earnestly and really understanding how other people think.
The Lightning Round
Lenny Rachitsky: There’s two really interesting thoughts that I have as you’re talking that I think will even further crystallize what you’re saying. One is that you’re just saying, this is the way the world works. It makes me think about Jeffrey Pfeffer, he was a guest on this podcast. He teaches this class at Stanford Business School about how to gain power in the world. It’s like the rules of power. And he talks about, and it’s all these ways to influence and win and achieve and gain status and all these things.
And he’s like, this part doesn’t sound fun and great, but I talk about here’s the way the world works and is not the way you wish it would be. And what you’re describing is the way a company works is the CO in charge and your job is to, they’re the boss. And the sooner you understand their vision trumps your vision, the easier everything gets. You’re not there to tell the CO, “Here’s what we should be building.” Right? Their job is to own the vision of the business and the company.
Duality in Fiction
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I think that’s true. And if you disagree with it, you probably shouldn’t be working at that company.
The Novel Anna Karenina
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. The other piece is, it’s just the vision. Here’s the vision of the future of where we’re heading. If we win, here’s what will be true and the world will look like. But there’s so much more that you need to figure out that is to achieve that vision. And that’s basically the role of the CPO and director of products, all those sorts of folks-
Recent TV and Film Recommendations
Hilary Gridley: And of everyone at that level.
Favorite New Products
Lenny Rachitsky: Everyone at the company.
Personal Life Motto
Hilary Gridley: And I think how you said it there is so right on, because it is like, the vision is in many ways, I mean, in some ways it’s execution base, but in many ways it’s a vision of what the world is going to look like in five years, in 10 years. And so in some ways, I would say your job is, if you can understand that and you can understand here’s what this person thinks the world is going to look like, assuming all that is true, what are the things that I can do to maximize the chances of that and becoming the actual future?
And then also, what does that mean for a product? What does that mean for if it has to be true? That take Whoop, for example, if there’s a vision of the future where you have all of your health data in one place and we’re able to detect health issues before you even know you have them and we’re able to do really hyper-personalized coaching to help you understand how your behaviors today are impacting how healthy you’re going to be in decades, what does that mean for what Whoop needs to be today and what does that mean for how it needs to evolve in the next couple of years in order to both make that a reality but also win in that world. And I do think that’s exactly where the people in the right.
And I do think that’s exactly where the people in the rank and file can be tremendously influential. It’s that level of, “I’m going to fight with you about how the world’s going to work in five years,” where I think you’re just fighting a losing battle.
Lenny Rachitsky: And if you don’t like the vision, you could leave, right? It’s like, or try to change it. Those are two options.
The Most Influential Poem on Product Thinking
Hilary Gridley: And I think, to your point about pushing back, because you asked about this. Again, I never want it to sound like I’m just defeatist, “just accept it.” I’m a very opinionated person.
I go to the mat for things that I think are true, and so, I teach my team, “You have to be really good at forming arguments, and that can show up in different ways.”
Some people are really good at doing that with data. Some people are really good at doing that with the qual and the quant, and moving it together. But you have to be able to advocate for what you think is true in the most compelling way possible. And you have an obligation to do it.
And if you have done it, and you’ve done it well, and it didn’t work, that’s when it’s time to say, “Well, maybe there’s something here that I wasn’t seeing previously.” And that’s where I think it’s time to have some humility around it.
But it’s a journey. You don’t start from, “Well, I got nothing to say here.” So I think knowing where you are on that journey is important, too.
Lenny Rachitsky: This reminds me, there’s a PM leader at Airbnb, who ended up leading a new initiative, and they ended up doing a bunch of stupid stuff. And he’s like, “I’m realizing that it’s me that needs to be pushing back on stuff, now that I’m in charge of this product team. I’m the person that needs to convince the CEO this is a bad idea.” And I am just realizing, that after doing a bunch of stuff, that it was stupid.
Hilary Gridley: You will see that idea is that you do have an obligation to try to convince them that it’s a bad idea. And you’re going to be right sometimes, and you’re not going to be right every time.
I think that that’s why it’s so hard to talk about these things in absolutes, because sometimes you’re right, and sometimes you’re not right. And it is important to get really good at knowing the difference, and knowing where you go from there.
Lenny Rachitsky:
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I want to move on to another skill you really get at, but first of all, something I noted, that I wanted to touch on real quick. You mentioned that WHOOP now does VO2 Max, and this is not a promotion for WHOOP, but that’s so cool.
That’s a huge thing to track, that this is the thing that Peter Thiel and all these guys are always saying, “This is the thing you want to track, to understand your health and progress as your VO2 Max. It’s like your blood oxygen level.” I don’t know exactly what it’s, but that’s cool. The new WHOOP lets you do that.
Hilary Gridley: There’s so much cool stuff we’re doing right now. I’m like, I don’t know if I want to get into it all right now, but I can.
Lenny Rachitsky: We’ll get back to it. We’ll get back to it.
Hilary Gridley: All right. Let’s get back to it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay, cool. Yeah. Okay. So another habit/skill that you are really good at, that I’ve heard from folks is, and you’ve mentioned this a couple times, is just building habits, helping your team build good habits.
And coming back to the CBT stuff, just like behavior loops and things like that. Talk about just what that is, why that’s important, what you help your team learn there.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I’m obsessed with habit formation, and reward loops and behavior change, and all of these things. And when I think about trying to change behavior on your team, or just trying to encourage your team to do more of the behaviors that you believe are associated with success, I think a lot of people think about it more of an education model, where it’s like, you teach the thing, you assess the thing, and then there’s some accountability around the thing.
And I think, if you think about it more in the context of behavioral psychology, it actually works a lot better. So I’ll give you an example. Many leaders have been trying to think about how to drive AI adoption, AI upscaling on my team, and what that can look like.
And when I talk to people about this outside of the company, I’m always surprised like, “Well, how do you measure it, and how do you enforce it?” And I don’t really think about any of that stuff. I’m thinking about, “How am I creating habits around using this?”
And for me, there’s a couple of things there. So it’s consistency. How are you getting someone doing something every single day? And to do that, it has to start small. It has to start super easy. You have to give them things that take no more than a minute or two to do.
And actually, I have a 30 days of GPT, I call it, of a list of 30 things to do, one every single day, that I don’t know anyone who has gone through this, and not come out the other side, feeling a hundred times more confident in their skills, and actually using it every day as a habit, because it’s built as a habit formation tool, and not an education tool.
Lenny Rachitsky: And this is using a specific GPT build, or building their own GPT, or what’s the habit there?
Hilary Gridley: The habit is using ChatGPT, or Claude, or any of these tools-
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, okay. Okay, got it. I got it.
Hilary Gridley: … [inaudible 01:03:50] tools, to get their work done, in just a generic and get work done way. And so, I have this little tool, if you sign up for my newsletter, I’ll send it to you.
Lenny Rachitsky: What’s the URL of the newsletter, as you mention that?
Hilary Gridley: Thanks for asking. It is hils.substack.com, H-I-L-S, substack.com.
Lenny Rachitsky: Sweet.
Hilary Gridley: But basically, it’s one little thing you can do every single day. And the key with this is, again, consistency. So you need to get people doing this thing every day, reducing friction. I think a mistake a lot of people make when they start thinking about how to drive adoption is, they’re like, “Oh, we have to show people how to do their work with these tools.”
But I’m like, “Well, work is hard.” And if you are on a deadline for something, you’ve got to get something done, the last thing that you ever want is more friction associated with getting it done. It is so annoying when you’re trying to get a thing done, and your tools are being changed on you, and you don’t know how the thing works, and the hot keys are all different, or whatever.
So I actually think, using it in situations that have nothing to do with your work are way easier, because you’re removing all of that friction of, “Oh wait, I got to go think about, ‘All right, what’s a project that I’m working on? Oh, I put this into ChatGPT, and I didn’t really get a good answer.’”
Or, “Now I’m frustrated, because this thing’s taking longer than I need it to take, or whatever.” I start with things that are just fun, simple use cases. It might be coming up with times to take a vacation, or places to go on vacation.
Or it might be uploading your calendar into ChatGPT, and asking it for ideas, for talking points for the meetings, or things where the person doesn’t have to think, because it’s all just spelled out.
And things where there’s no external work pressure, that you have to apply this to, that’s going to make it an unpleasant experience. So consistency, reduce friction. And then, most importantly, designing reward loops.
And this is something, that when I’m talking to people about designing for behavior change, the number one thing I always tell them is, “You are not thinking enough about the reward loop.” The reward loop needs to be powerful, it needs to be immediate, and it needs to be emotional, so that when this person does the thing that you want them to do, they feel like a million bucks.
When I think about any kind of habit I’m trying to build on my team, that’s something that I’m always thinking about, is how can I make sure that when a person does this, they feel really great?
And part of why I like Custom GPTs as a tool for helping people learn to use LLMs, and I talk about this on the podcast I did with Claire, on how I AI, is because if you put in the prompt, you as the person building the custom GPT, you write the prompt, you put it in, you design it such that somebody can upload a specific document. And then, they can get a specific output, like feedback on that document, or maybe something more fun than feedback, an improved written version of that document.
They get the joy of like, “Oh, this helps me. This was cool,” without any of the despair of, “Oh, I’m not very good at prompting, and this didn’t really work, and I’m frustrated.” And so, I just always think about that in general. If I’m trying to build any kind of habit on my team, it’s less about the accountability of how I’m enforcing this, and more about how I make it so rewarding for people to do it, that they do it naturally.
Lenny Rachitsky: I wrote down notes as you were talking, so kind of, the four parts of habits, and I’m going to ask you for an example, to help people see how this actually works in real life. But basically, to help people build an actual habit, the three steps are the three things you want to focus on, consistency, friction, and reward loop. And within reward loop, you want it to be powerful, immediate, and emotional. What is an example of this?
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I can give some, actually, examples of how we do this in product, if that would be interesting.
Lenny Rachitsky: Absolutely.
Hilary Gridley: Because I think there’s something WHOOP is really good at. So I think one of the most interesting kind of anti-reward loops on WHOOP is around alcohol. WHOOP has this recovery system. You get a recovery score every morning. It’s red, yellow, green, and it’s basically how recovered you are, and how ready you are to take on the day.
And if you drink, and you’re on WHOOP, you will very quickly learn that any time you drink, you get a red recovery. It’s so interesting, because it’s not like people who were drinking weren’t getting hangovers before, or they knew that it was disrupting their sleep. None of this is news for people, but there’s something about seeing that red score that just feels like, it just feels bad. It has this really profound emotional impact on people.
And when you see the green score, it feels great. It’s like, “Ooh, I’m doing something well, I’m taking care of myself. I’m a healthy person.” And I hear this when I talk to members all the time, and I hear people say, “I’ve had problems with my drinking for years. And it wasn’t until I got on WHOOP, that I was really able to get a handle on my drinking.”
I’m always, again, amazed by this, because I’m like, “You had all the information you needed before,” but there’s something about the, you wake up, and you get that red score, that’s just, it manages to override whatever was driving people to do it in the first place.
And then, I think, continuing to have that data, where you can look back at your data and see, “Oh, that was the red day, that was the day that I did this thing.” And it’s something that we’ve actually been trying to find ways to do this in a longer term way.
Because when you have these short reward loops, it’s easier, where it’s like, “I did a thing.” And then, I immediately either got a reward, Green Recovery, or got an anti-reward, Red Recovery, and that is changing my behavior as a result.
And we have this new feature, Healthspan, that we just launched with our new hardware. And basically, what it’s trying to do is help you have this reward loop, between your behaviors and activities that you’re doing today, and what means for how healthy you’re going to be in 20, 30, 40 years.
And so, we have something similar where we have this, we call it the Amoeba. It has your WHOOP age in it. It has colors, and moves around, and that changes, based on how your behaviors and your activities change, every single day.
And the colors change when you’re doing better, and when you’re doing worse. And you can kind of see it all broken down, how you sleep, your VO2 Max, the consistency of your sleep, how much time you’re spending in different heart rate zones, how much time you’re spending in strength training, things like that.
And we found that, again, it’s just this incredibly powerful reward loop, because we’re taking something that historically has been really, really hard, which is, “When I make healthy changes today, not only do I not see the results of those for decades, but the short term reward loop of those often feels pretty bad, because change is hard, and it feels bad before it feels good.”
And trying to build that reward loop that is more rewarding for people to see those numbers change, and to see those colors change, so that they’re actually able to make those changes, and see that progress, and feel really good about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love that you’re using all these habit building tactics that folks have been using historically, to get you to check your Instagram likes, and your Facebook posts for actual good, for helping people live longer and happier. That makes me very happy.
Is there an example of doing this sort of thing with your team, of helping them build, and you talk about AI learning to use Claude, ChatGPT?
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I think with AI, I think a lot of it’s just shouting people out, right? When somebody is using AI to solve a problem that they wouldn’t have used AI before, give them a shout-out in the team meeting, let them demo that.
Again, make them feel like a million bucks for doing the thing. And people respond to that, people will see, I mean, maybe it’s because I work at WHOOP, and we’re all obsessed with reward loops, so we’re all choosing them.
Lenny Rachitsky: Or reward looping each other. “Here’s your reward.”
Hilary Gridley: No, exactly. But no, people see that, and people respond to it. I think another example is something that I think about a lot, and is relevant to our conversation about, just how you build teams that can do hard things, is how you encourage people to take care of themselves outside of work. And it’s something that I’m always trying to model for my team, and make it really visible the ways that I’m doing this, and sort of having my hobbies, and my other various things.
And as a result, I also try to reward, have these reward loops, when I see people on my team doing the same thing. Because I think people, bosses often inadvertently create reward loops for, “Oh, this person, they had to stay up till two o’clock to get it done, but they got it done.” When you create those reward loops, that’s the behavior that people start mimicking.
And so, I try to do the opposite. I try to find ways that I really am impressed with my team, and the ways that they take care of themselves outside of work, because I think that makes them better at their jobs, frankly, and just happier humans. So there’s a PM on my team, Emily, who teaches at Handlebar. She’s a fitness instructor in her spare time.
And so, whenever we have a long meeting, I’ll be like, “Oh, Emily, why don’t you lead stretches, to get the energy level in the room up? Just nothing serious, just for a minute, before we start the meeting.” And it’s kind of fun. Everyone has a laugh about it, “Emily’s doing her thing,” and I’ll be like, “Everyone, come check out Emily at Handlebar in Charlestown this Saturday, 10 a.m.”
And by the way, you all out there in the podcast world should do that if you’re in the Boston area, she’s great. Shout-out to Emily. But it’s things like that. It’s just finding these small ways to, because people are already laughing, people are already smiling, we’re doing this silly thing, everyone’s in a good mood, and I’m like, “Boom, perfect time to give someone a shout-out, and make them feel like a million bucks for doing something, that in many cases, they might think, ‘Oh, am I allowed to have this other job outside work? Is this okay?’” And so yeah, you got to proactively build those reward loops.
Lenny Rachitsky: I love the reward loop of Emily getting this shout-out right now. This is so meta.
Hilary Gridley: Ultimate reward.
Lenny Rachitsky: You have a full class coming up in Boston. Is there anything else along those lines? Because that was really interesting? And also, people, I know managers already kind of do this, just promoting.
But so, I think the core lesson here is, focus on things you want to encourage more. Less so, “Hey, they worked the weekend, they got it done, so awesome. Thank you for doing that.”
You’re saying that’s almost an anti-pattern, because you don’t necessarily want that as a habit. So it’s more like, shift your reward announcements to things you actually, intentionally want to create, in a new team.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, and just be really, really thoughtful about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, okay. So let’s come back to the taking care of yourself, because that’s something else that came up, almost everyone mentioned this. So you’re doing a good job with this, of finding time to take care of yourself, and modeling that for other people.
Specifically, a lot of people commented on how you create space for creativity. And I think, to a lot of people, a lot of PMs, especially, is just, “I have no time for anything. I just have meetings, back to back, all day. I barely have time to go to the bathroom or eat.”
And I’m curious to hear just how you do this. How do you create space in your day for creative work, and deep work, and thinking outside of the meeting?
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, it’s funny. I’m glad to hear people think I’m good at this, because I’m terrible at organizing events. My team’s always, “Oh, we should do a fun event.” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s a great idea.”
And then I don’t organize it. So I like to think, I do this in other ways. And I do think one of them is just in modeling, how to carve out space for things, and a couple of things. I think there’s the creativity, which for me is probably more outside of work. For me, it’s creativity.
But again, it’s a big part of me as a manager, what I think I can help people with is, back to the point of behavioral activation, understanding what the things are that a person needs to be happy, to be their best self, to be a high functioning person. That depends on their values, it depends on a lot of things about them. So for Emily, it’s fitness, it’s teaching, it’s these things. For me, it’s having my crafts that I do, my illustration, my writing, my reading, all of these sorts of things.
I think that that’s the first step is just, as a leader, understanding what those are for people on your team. And then, as I said, modeling it.
I try to always tell people, “Here’s how I’m doing these things.” I talk about them, so it’s really normalized, because I think a lot of PMs are like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so busy. I have no time. I’m in meetings all day.” But that’s a little bit self-inflicted, I think.
At some point, you have to be the one responsible for getting yourself out of the weeds, and it’s hard to do, but it is doable. So I think, just showing people that it’s possible, showing people that you can do these things. And I talk about them, I bring them to lessons.
I have a book club that I sometimes require at work, and then I say, “Maybe I don’t need to require this anymore,” but ways to just make it really visible, make sure people know that I’m doing it, and then ask them about it.
If I, in my one on one lens, and I’m checking in with people, I’m asking them, “What do you do for joy? Are you doing something every single day that’s bringing you joy in your life?” And if they say no, I’m like, “That’s a problem. What are we going to do about that? And do you even know what those things are?”
Because I think a lot of people don’t, and a lot of people, it’s great. They’re like, “Oh, I need to be getting X number of hours of exercise, X hours of sleep. I know I need to eat lunch right at 12:00, or else I turn into a pumpkin.”
If it’s somebody who knows what all those things are, and you’re just there to kind of help them carve out time, that’s one thing. But I think, and a lot of times, people don’t even know. Then you kind of behavioral activation them, where you’re like, “All right, well, why don’t you try some things, and get back to me, and let me know what seemed to work, what seemed to make a difference?”
But I do think so much of it is like a permission structure, because people feel the pressure to be like, “Oh, I’m so busy, I’m so busy, I’m in meetings all day.
I can’t decline these meetings. I can’t not do these things.” So in many ways, I think just modeling, it gives them the permission structure to start to take back their life.
Lenny Rachitsky: I could see why people love working for you. Being asked in your one on one, “Have you done anything today that brings you joy? And if you haven’t, that’s a problem.” Wow.
Hilary Gridley: It’s important. It’s what life’s all out. Why are we here, if it’s just to toil, and be miserable?
Lenny Rachitsky: And also, they will be better people at work, and they’ll do better work. I think that’s, tell me, correct me if I’m wrong, but it feels like that’s an element of this.
Hilary Gridley: Well, and it is so funny, because so much of this stuff, it’s obvious when you apply it to an athletic context. And obviously, I talked about the recovery score. This concept of athletes need to recover is very obvious. No one, I think, would argue with that.
If you’re just pushing yourself at 100% of your physical capacity all the time, not only are you going to burn out, but you’re literally going to suffer performance decline. And in the same way, I think in the athletic world, there’s so much more, just acceptance of, I don’t even want to say limits, but just like, you have to take the time to do the things you need to be your best. And that’s not just running into the wall all day.
And I think we forget that at work, but I think the analog is 100% there. I also think about this with, in terms of being able to have creative breakthroughs of any kind, it’s just so important to have active rest. It’s so important to have heads downtime. This stuff is all very well documented. We know it all, but we just come up with excuses to not give it to ourselves. I think it’s kind of self-sabotage, at a certain point.
Lenny Rachitsky: I definitely come up with excuses not to do that, and work all the time. So I could use this advice myself.
Hilary Gridley: And that’s why, here’s the thing, here’s the thing. The Reason I’m so regimented about this is because, if I’m not, I will fall apart. There’s this quote, I can’t remember where I saw this, but I love it. It’s like, “I have exercised the demons from my head, but they are outside and they are doing pushups.”
The threat of the demons coming back is always there. And so, I take this stuff really seriously, because I know, if I let myself start to slide into, I’m not doing the things I need to do to take care of myself, I’m going to have a bad time. The walls are going to start closing in around me.
And I’m not shy about that. To me, there’s no point in torturing myself, and just working so hard, and having no room for joy, and having no room for creativity. Even just from a practical standpoint, I’m just not going to succeed.
Lenny Rachitsky: This comes back to your point about, I think it was called behavioral activation, doing the thing. Instead of waiting for you to feel a certain feeling, do the thing that will make you feel that way.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. As maybe a final area, but I have a few more questions after this, so maybe not. The final area is AI. I am happy that we waited this long to get deep into AI. We’re not going to spend a lot of time here. You wrote a whole guest post about this. You did How I AI to talk through some of this stuff.
But when we were talking earlier, you said that you think people still are completely undervaluing the power AI could have on their ability to learn, and improve themselves. And I know you spent a lot of time on this, with all these GPTs you’ve built.
Just talk about the sense of how much you think people still under-appreciate how much power there is in AI, and helping them become better.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah. I think we are not being nearly creative enough, when it comes to how to think about learning with AI. And I think, you hear people worry about entry level jobs, and when you think about an entry level job, it is sort of inefficient by design, because you have taken analyst, sort of a classic entry level role.
They’re doing grunt work, they’re doing really tedious work, but they’re getting a lot of reps in, because that’s exactly how you learn the judgment to do higher level jobs well. And I hear this in creative fields too. I hear this from every, I certainly feel this way.
The work that I did in the beginning of my career, it didn’t feel like it was all that important, in terms of the impact it was having, but it did feel like it was transformative, in terms of my own judgment and my own taste, and how I think about just making very quick judgment calls.
Now, I just wouldn’t have been able to do that, if I didn’t spend years learning. I used to do social media, the skill of having to condense something that I want to say into 120 characters, or whatever it used to be on old Twitter, 240, I can’t remember.
Lenny Rachitsky: I forget, actually, isn’t that crazy? I forget what the original was. I think it was 140. Okay, 140 characters, yeah.
Hilary Gridley: 140, I think. It was short. And if you had to get a link in there, good luck to you.
But oh my gosh, my ability to just look at something written today, and just cut it, that text in half, third, whatever it needs to fill the space, I can do that in my sleep, because I got all these reps very early in my career.
I think people see the way that there’s a threat of companies not wanting to hire as much entry-level talent, because it’s like, “Oh, this is the kind of work that AI can do.”
The fear that I hear, at least, is if you’re not getting those reps early in your career, maybe it’s not contributing so much value to the company at that moment, but it’s how you learn to be great later on.
And so, there’s a fear that in five, 10 years, we’re just not going to have that class of people, who have learned to do the jobs well, and who have built judgment in that way.
But what I think that misses is, it assumes that you go and you do this analyst job for two years, and at the end of it you have a person who knows how to make models really well, knows how to do a few things really well. But why does that have to take two years? Why does that model of you grind over this thing?
You wait for feedback. Eventually, you get that feedback. Maybe that feedback’s good, maybe it’s not. You go back, you try again. It actually is really inefficient, when you think about it.
And the sort of learning applicAttions around AI that I get really excited about are, how do you shrink that loop? So in my podcast with Claire, I showed her how I build these GPTs, that kind of think like me. And the purpose of that is so that my team can get feedback that is at least 80% close to the feedback that I would be giving them.
But instead of having to wait until I get to their message, or until our one on one, they can get that on demand as many times as they want forever. And I think there’s a lot of things like this, of ways that things that require other people, just naturally slow things down, require getting feedback from other people, just naturally slow things down.
We can build AI tools that, in my view, there’s no reason why the amount of reps that you get at whatever task you’re doing, you can be a film editor, just sitting there, poring over the film, deciding what to edit, what to cut, what to put into the trailer, or whatever it’s making. That’s an incredibly tedious job that takes forever.
And I think there’s no reason we can’t make that way more efficient with AI, that make the learning more fun. And so, I think that that’s sort of my hot take is yes, there is this threat of, a lot of these jobs that are things that seem like you can just automate them away, that might happen.
But we absolutely still need to be investing in people’s skills. I just don’t think we need to be investing in them historically in the way that we always have. And I think in the future, we’ll find that those ways actually seem quite inefficient, compared to what’s possible today.
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s such a powerful point. And we’re already seeing this. I imagine you’ve seen these studies, I think it’s in Nigeria, where they give students AI tutors, and they just zoom to the next, they accelerate so quickly in their progression of just reading and math.
I think we’re already seeing it. And it’s harder to measure in PM and product, and all these things, but in school, it’s a lot easier to measure, and we’re already seeing results there.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, 100%.
Lenny Rachitsky: And to make this very real for people, you have this specific GPT, I think it’s called Socrates, or what is called?
Hilary Gridley: Oh, Aristotle, yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Aristotle? Okay. No, we’re going to edit that out. Aristotle, where it gives you scenarios in a product scenario.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Give an example, just to give people a sense of what this can do.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, so this came from, I was talking earlier about learning how to make a really strong, logical argument, or just a strong argument for your point of view, in general. And the sort of fundamental skill for that, in my view, is logical thinking, logical reasoning. And when I think about the best way, we have to test that today, at least …
Think about the best way we have to test that today, at least the best is maybe not the right word, but the standard way we have to test that, the LSAT, the test that you take to get into law school, that is what that tests. And it sort of gives you these different scenarios and we’ll try to say if a is true, then which of the following is true, is not true? Sort of testing some of these different logical relationships.
And so what I did was I made a GPT that I basically told it, “Create LSAT style questions to test logical reasoning, but put them in the scenarios of things that a PM would encounter.” And I have a version of this that’s very specific to WHOOP and working in consumer health, but you could do it for anything or you can just do generic, however you want to do it.
And actually it’s kind of fun because it gives you the scenario and it’s like, “The sales team is telling you that we need to invest in feature A and the, I don’t know, the engineering team is telling you that we only have time to do feature B and the metrics are telling you that people who get this feature retain better.” It just sort of gives you these little things and it’s like, follow that logic, which is the logically best path from this? And it gives you a little multiple choice answer, you select one and it explains why you’re right or wrong.
And so I think that’s just another example of, you can’t create those hyper personalized learnings, where I can make one that is literally so specific to you and your life, but is testing and training you on this broader skill set. And I think you can make things more fun that way, even in just the school context, in terms of doing that in a way that’s just relevant to a person’s interest, relevant to the things they care about. I think there’s a ton of really interesting potential there too.
Lenny Rachitsky: So we’re going to link to this GPT that you’re talking about that people can try it out. And once you see it you’re like, “Holy shit, I should just be doing this all the time,” because you just get so many reps as a product builder.
Hilary Gridley: And we were talking about a similar one with understanding engineering benchmarks. I don’t have an engineering background, so this was really hard for me when I was moving into product, is just getting an instinct for what types of things tend to be easier or harder for engineering teams. And so we can have one similar that’s saying, ” Here’s the scope that’s being proposed. If you had to t-shirt size this, which one would you choose and why?” And you can say, “Oh, this sounds, small or whatever.” And it’ll say, “Oh actually these types of integrations tend to be complex for these reasons. So it’s probably going to end up being more like a large.”
And it doesn’t have enough context to really inform you in the way that your tech stack at your company is. Although I guess could build it and give it that information and then it would, that would be cool. You should do that. But again, it’s like you do that as a PM, you might get a chance to do that, I don’t know, a couple times a week, maybe, maybe less often than that. And when you have this little tool, you can do it infinity times. You can spend an afternoon doing it. And so again, both the speed of those loops and the number of those loops that you’re able to get is just radically different with AI compared to just when they come up in the course of your job.
Lenny Rachitsky: I think this is extremely cool. We’re going to link to it. People should definitely play with this. Okay, I’m going to take us to two corners, recurring segments, of the podcast and then I want to talk about WHOOP before we get to a very exciting lightning round. So this is a new segment I’m trying out, I’m going to call it Pivotal Corner. And here’s the question, what’s the most pivotal moment in your career?
Hilary Gridley: I mean I think it was at my former company, at Big Health, when my former boss left the company and I started reporting to the CEO. And again, I think it was my first time working with a CEO so closely, and it just, definitely trial by fire. But it made me understand so many things that seemed like they didn’t make sense to me before, when I was just in the rank and file of a big tech company earlier in my career. You get in the room and you talk to these people and you’re like, “Oh, this actually makes sense. I understand why this person has come to these conclusions.”
And some of it’s understanding the pressure they’re under. Some of it’s understanding, again, the way they view the world. But I think that was, to get to our earlier point around the humility of understanding that maybe this person is right about something that I don’t see and maybe I can start by… If I start by giving them the benefit of the doubt, it is not only a nice thing to do, but it is also, it will help me understand why they’re doing the things that they are. And I think I would’ve been so much less frustrated earlier in my career if I understood that instead of just being like, “Oh, this doesn’t make any sense from where I’m sitting, so therefore it must not make any sense.”
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s so cool that this connects back to your habit of doing this, having seen it, and being like, “Oh, I see, this is why…”
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I guess I hadn’t realized.
Lenny Rachitsky: Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I could be wrong.
Hilary Gridley: Well, I mean that’s what it is. I feel like I’ve had so many of those times where I don’t know, when I was growing up, I felt so confident in how I felt about everything. And then you get out there and you’re just like, “Oh, I was missing some things.” And after a while you’re kind of like, “Okay, maybe I should approach these situations a little differently with the possibility that maybe I’m missing something.”
Lenny Rachitsky: So I actually asked your boss Kelvin, which is an awesome name by the way, Kelvin, about this moment. When I asked him what to ask you, and he brought this up actually, and here’s the way, described it, “She may describe it as being thrown into the deep end or baptism by fire, but the reality is that she had the core skills and this was simply an opportunity for her to let those shine even more. She was an incredible first principles thinker, quick to tune the framing of problems as she learned more context. It’s a great example of luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
Hilary Gridley: Thanks Kelvin. That’s really nice.
Lenny Rachitsky: He also said, “I wonder if she remembers how terrified she was now, because she absolutely knocked it out of the park and it felt like it was an inflection point that grew her confidence significantly.”
Hilary Gridley: Oh, I was terrified. Yeah. Big time terrified. And then, I mean this is also what I was saying about why it’s so important to be regimented about having these things outside of work that allow you to continue to thrive, even in the face of just utter feelings of failure, of, “I am not doing a good job, this is not going well. I don’t know what I’m doing.” A lot of it was that time. Kelvin actually gave me some great advice that, this is maybe kind of scary advice, but when I asked him what his advice for me with the time was, and he said, “Product leadership is the type of role where if you are not in control of the voices in your head, they will eat you alive.”
And I think it’s right. As I said, it is so often this feeling like there is not a clear right answer and not even necessarily a good answer. And everyone is looking to you for clarity and everyone is looking to you to make the right decisions and everyone sees the errors, or at least everyone can spot the flaws in whatever decision you make or whatever recommendation you make. And as I said, every path forward has flaws that can be poked in it. And so understanding that the existence of potential ways to be criticized about something does not warrant criticism in a way that can, I think often result in a lot of negative self-talk for people. So yeah, I mean it had a tremendous impact on me.
Lenny Rachitsky: It’s interesting you have so much of these habits and skills you’ve built seem to, it’s clear where they come from, from all these experiences that you had.
Hilary Gridley: Well, and to the point of when you start talking to people and you start trying to build this mental model of how they think, that’s exactly what you learn, is well, I can see how this person worked at this company at this time and I can see how this person had this kind of relationship with this other person. And all of these things shape the way that we approach problems and the way that we try to just move through the world. And it is understanding those types of things that allow you to understand how a person thinks.
Lenny Rachitsky: I wonder if you could ask ChatGPT to build, or Claude to build, these mental models. Like, “Here’s their LinkedIn, here’s their bio, here’s a few things, how do they see the world?”
Hilary Gridley: I will admit that I have tried this. And I think it’s a great idea. I think it does help. I have not gotten to a point where I’m comfortable sharing it with other people, nor have I told anyone that I have tried to do this for them, but I’ve certainly done it for myself. And I think it would be helpful. Because you could say things, you could upload a doc or whatever and be like, “What are the three questions that this person’s going to ask me about it?” And then you could be prepared for the questions that person’s going to ask you and that’s great.
Lenny Rachitsky: In this hypothetical example, what context do you share with this model to help it be good?
Hilary Gridley: Great question. Hypothetically, I told you that I take all these notes on, here’s what this person said and here’s how I interpret it, and LLMs are really good at pattern matching and sort of spotting the… You could feed all of those in and just say, “Come up with the 10 criteria that this person is most likely to use to assess a possible recommendation or path forward,” or, “Give me the top 10 ways that this person is likely to pick apart an argument or object to something,” and you’re going to get a good answer.
Lenny Rachitsky: More reason to build this habit of taking notes and sharing with your team. On the other hand, this might also be a good use case for Granola or something like that where you have all these meeting notes and you could just feed it, “Here’s all the things Hilary said,” and, “Oh, what is she probably going to say about this?”
Hilary Gridley: Totally.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, so cool. Okay, next corner, I’m going to take us to Fail Corner. And in Fail Corner, the idea here is people come on this podcast, they share all these wins and success, everything’s up and to the right and amazing, but in reality things don’t always go that smoothly. So the question is, is there a story you could share of failure in your career where things didn’t go the way you hoped and what you learned from that experience?
Hilary Gridley: I mean I think the one that probably looms largest in my mind is, I mentioned this depression therapeutic that I spent about a year working on, and ultimately the company ended up acquiring a different depression therapeutic. And we kind of ended up merging the two of them. And a lot of the stuff that we had initially built that I had really loved about this product we were working on didn’t really ever end up seeing the light of day beyond the kind of testing that we had done around it. And it was heartbreaking because I wish this product existed. I look at it and I’m like, “This was a great product and we put so much heart and soul into it.”
And I think the lesson that I learned from that is, I think there’s always a shot clock. When you’re working, especially on a zero to one product, I think it can be very easy to feel like you have the luxury of time, of just like, we got to take the time to figure this out and get it right and that’s what’s most important. But the sort of build versus buy question is always live and it’s always fair. And whether you want to admit it, if you’re the one working on it, and you probably don’t, I didn’t want to admit this, there is a point at which it makes more sense for the company. If it is taking too long to develop something and there is a solution out there that works, it is the right decision to acquire that.
I mean I worked at Dropbox where I saw this happen all the time where we would acquire products that other teams internally had been working on and it’s just like, it’s heartbreaking when it happens. But I think there’s an urgency that that has instilled in me that I think is actually really good and healthy, especially again working in this era where there is kind of this AI arms race and everyone’s trying to move really quickly of, yeah, there’s always a shot clock. And you might not be aware of it, but it’s there, and you got to build your heart out and you got to ship and you got to get things out because at any time, that clock might run out.
Lenny Rachitsky: Speaking of shot clock, not necessarily, but I want to spend a little time on WHOOP, you guys just launched something that feels like a really big deal. I’m excited. That’s the reason I got it. There’s all these really cool new features. I think you call it WHOOP 5.0. What should people know? What’s the newest, coolest thing that’s happening with WHOOP?
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, I’m really excited you got it. I know you tried it before and…
Lenny Rachitsky: That’s right. That’s right.
Hilary Gridley: People who have tried WHOOP in the past maybe felt like it was very focused on elite athletes and that is…
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that’s exactly what I felt.
Hilary Gridley: Sort of the lifeblood of the company. And I think what we’ve done with our new experience is we’ve really built something that can help everyone be healthier and live better. I would say we’re no longer just for elite athletes. We’re really now a health and performance companion for anybody who wants to feel their best.
For the first time in our company’s history, we’ve updated our mission, so we’re now saying that WHOOP exists to unlock human performance and health span. And health span I think is, and I mentioned earlier this feature I’m really excited about, because I do think it is kind of the most powerful version of a longevity-type feature I have seen because it is so focused on your behaviors and your habits today.
And we built it to be super, super actionable. So rather than just giving you a score that you’re kind of like, “Okay, that’s nice,” if you start sleeping even 20 minutes more, 30 minutes more tonight, you’re going to see how that changes your case of aging. You’re going to see how that changes your WHOOP age. And I think that, as I mentioned earlier, I think is really rewarding.
We also have a lot of personalized coaching through our AI in terms of actions that you can take to improve your WHOOP age, to improve your sleep, to feel better, and it’s all part of our broader aim to make health more actionable and accessible. I think one thing I’m really excited about is we have a bunch of new women’s health features, so we have hormonal insights with improved menstrual cycle tracking. I’m actually pregnant and I-
Lenny Rachitsky: What? I didn’t know that. That’s a big announcement. Wow. Congratulations Hilary. That’s so exciting.
Hilary Gridley: But actually part of how I found out I was pregnant was in seeing my WHOOP data.
Lenny Rachitsky: What? What? That’s insane.
Hilary Gridley: In my WHOOP data, which is pretty remarkable.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow.
Hilary Gridley: And the way that we have this cycle tracking now, you can see the way that your different, your HRV, your resting heart rate, things like that, that’s your heart rate variability and your resting heart rate, fluctuates throughout different times of your cycle. And even in the time leading up to that, I had a not straightforward pregnancy journey, and having these tools to really understand what was going on in my body was tremendously helpful and tremendously empowering for me and honestly really has changed my life. So I’m really excited about that.
We have a lot of great new heart health features. We have a heart health screener with blood pressure insights and ECG. That’s really cool. We got a lot of great stuff cooking. So even if you tried WHOOP in the past and thought it wasn’t for you, I think the new experience is a real upgrade and it’s something that I’m deeply proud of having worked on and really excited to have out in the world.
Lenny Rachitsky: I am genuinely very excited about this. You could do, you said blood pressure and VO2 max?
Hilary Gridley: Mm-hmm.
Lenny Rachitsky: And I know the battery is even longer too. There’s just so much stuff.
Hilary Gridley: Oh, we have a 14 day battery life. I didn’t even say. We have these beautiful new leather bands which I love.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh wow.
Hilary Gridley: Okay. 14 day battery’s life is insane. I’m going on vacation tomorrow and I don’t even need to bring a charger. This is fantastic.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh man. This sounds like a WHOOP ad, but I’m very excited about this.
Hilary Gridley: I’ll say one more thing, which is we’ve opened a wait list for Advanced Labs and so pretty soon you’re going to be able to have comprehensive lab work in the app, and I think we talk about the future of health, of having control of all of your health data in one place, and then being able to not just sort of find the signal in it and understand how your sleep is impacting your metabolic health or things like that. But again, get really actionable coaching on actions that you can take to feel better and be your healthiest and just pushing the limits of all the data that we’re pulling into the WHOOP ecosystem. So really excited about that too.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m hoping the WHOOP can actually take my blood and labs. Is that where this is going? Because that’d be so convenient.
Hilary Gridley: No comment.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. It’d be weird but also awesome. I don’t have to go anywhere to do that. Hilary, we covered so much ground. Before we get to a very exciting lightning round, is there anything else that you wanted to touch on? Anything else that we haven’t covered that you think, or last nugget you wanted to leave listeners with?
Hilary Gridley: I don’t think so. I feel like we covered everything
Lenny Rachitsky: We did. We covered so much. In the best way possible. With that, we’ve reached our very exciting lightning round. Are you ready?
Hilary Gridley: I’m ready.
Lenny Rachitsky: What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people?
Hilary Gridley: Buddy, you can’t call something a lightning round and then ask me about books. We could go for a whole other podcast where I’m like…
Lenny Rachitsky: Let’s recreate a time box for it.
Hilary Gridley: Yeah, exactly.
Lenny Rachitsky: Lightning round.
Hilary Gridley: Okay, I’m going to, hearing what I’m going to say, I’m going to go full fiction on this. I’m going to say if you’re going to read a book, don’t bother reading a business book. Even the business books I love the most that shaped how I think I’m like, “I kind of got the gist of them part way through,” but fiction, I’m like, everybody should read East of Eden by John Steinbeck and everybody should read The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, which is my comfort book.
I think what I love about fiction is it teaches you how to sit inside tension. I think so much of working in product is, as I said, you’re in this fog and you just have to provide clarity and you have to be really good at providing structure to ambiguous things and finding the way forward and to succeed at the job, you have to be able to do that. But I also think to succeed as a human in the job, you have to be able to sit in the mess and sit in the ambiguity. John Keats, the poet, talks about this concept of negative capability, which is the ability to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. And I love that.
Lenny Rachitsky: That sounds like a perfect quote for all PMs to…
Hilary Gridley: Exactly. And you got to be both, right. Again, fiction, I love dualities. There’s a lot of dualities in fiction, a lot of warring forces within people that can be so driving for people but can also be the source of so much anguish. I think it is important to live in both. In the, “I’m going to break down this problem, I’m going to structure it, I’m going to get out, but also I’m going to sit here and I’m going to accept that there is no right answer and there is no perfect answer.” And that’s life. You don’t learn that from… To the extent that you learn that from a book at all, which maybe you don’t, but I think you can learn it in fiction.
Lenny Rachitsky: I don’t know how you feel about this book. I think you’ll be proud of me. I’m reading Anna Karenina right now.
Hilary Gridley: Oh, literally that’s the book that I’m bringing on vacation with me tomorrow.
Lenny Rachitsky: Wow. You’ve never read it?
Hilary Gridley: I’ve never read it.
Lenny Rachitsky: Cool. Me neither. Okay, we’ll exchange some notes. It’s very long I’m realizing. Because I’m reading on the Kindle, and only 12%. Okay.
Hilary Gridley: Now I really have to read it. I was kind of wavering. I was like, “Is this really what I’m going to want to read when I’m sitting by the pool?” But no, I’ve committed.
Lenny Rachitsky: You got to do it. Another guest recommended it and I saw it on some lists recently and then like, “Oh, I should read that.” So yeah. Okay, great. Next question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you’ve really enjoyed?
Hilary Gridley: I’ve been watching The Rehearsal with Nathan Fielder. Have you seen this show?
Lenny Rachitsky: I saw the first season. I’ve been a huge fan of Nathan Fielder for so long. I don’t know if you saw his previous thing that he did, I forget what it’s called.
Hilary Gridley: Oh yeah.
Lenny Rachitsky: Okay. He’s so hilarious and such a genius.
Hilary Gridley: Nathan for You.
Lenny Rachitsky: Nathan for You? Oh my God. I haven’t seen the new season, no.
Hilary Gridley: The man is a freaking genius. Just when I thought that I had a good sense of all the human emotions that exist out there, I watch the show and I feel things that I’m like, I feel like 10 different things.
Lenny Rachitsky: Duality.
Hilary Gridley: And I’m like, “I have no words for any of the things that I’m feeling right now.” It’s weird. It’s weird stuff, but I’m enjoying it.
Lenny Rachitsky: I got to watch it. Do you have a favorite product you’ve recently discovered that you really enjoyed? Other than the WHOOP.
Hilary Gridley: I love my Zwift. It’s like a program that you can hook up a smart trainer to for an indoor cycling situation. And you kind of bike around like you’re in Mario Kart and you’re sort of in these virtual worlds biking with other people. It’s I think for very serious cyclists, I’m not a very serious cyclist. For me, it’s been amazing as somebody who actually really struggles to find time to exercise.
They have, speak of reward loops, they have one of the most amazing reward loops, which is you’re biking along and you get into this track and a ghost of your previous self breaks out from you and starts racing alongside you at your personal best for that track. And you have to beat your personal self, or you have to beat this ghost version of yourself. And nothing has ever motivated me more in my life than past Hilary being like, “I’m coming for you.” And I’m like… I don’t get that competitive with other people, but past Hilary comes for me and I’m like, “This, I can’t let happen.” So I think it’s a great product.
Lenny Rachitsky: I’m thinking about how to use that, I don’t know, mode for other use cases, like the ghost version of something to motivate you essentially. Interesting.
Hilary Gridley: I’ve been in so many product meetings where I’m like, “Can we make a ghost version of yourself?” [inaudible 01:49:21]
Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah. They’re like, “Shut up about the ghost.” Okay, amazing. Okay, two more questions. Do you have a life motto that you often come back to, find useful in work or in life?
Hilary Gridley: I’ll say one that’s been top of mind for me recently, because I was talking about the high brow fiction. I also have to go low brow. I saw this clip of Beavis and Butthead online recently where they were watching a music video for Creep by Radiohead. And it starts off really slow and one of them, I think maybe Butthead, is like, “Oh, this sucks.” And then the chorus comes and it starts getting all hyped and they’re like, “Oh, this rocks, this rocks.” And then, I’m not going to do my Beavis and Butthead impression. So then it gets back to the slow part and they’re like, “Oh wait, this sucks again.” And then Butthead is like, “Why don’t they just play the cool part the entire time?” And Beavis is like, “Because if they didn’t have the part of the song that sucked, the cool part wouldn’t be as cool.”
And I was like, “That is so profound.” That is what life is all about, is just if it didn’t have the parts that sucked, the cool parts wouldn’t be as cool. And we’re always chasing the cool parts. We want it all to be the cool parts, but it can’t. So thank you Beavis and Butthead.
Lenny Rachitsky: Thank you Beavis and Butthead. Okay, final question. I love that you’re talking about fiction books. This is where my question was going to go. What’s a fiction book that most impacted your product building approach or career or the way you think about product?
Hilary Gridley: Can I give a poem?
Lenny Rachitsky: Absolutely. Even better. Poem, extra credit.
Hilary Gridley: There’s a poem by Derek Walcott about, it’s called Sea Grapes, and it’s about Odysseus, and he talks about Odysseus being driven by the ancient war between obsession and responsibility. And I read that line when I was 18 years old and it has always stuck with me. And I sort of mentioned earlier, I think about these dualities that drive us. And I think as a product person, I always feel like I’m living between these two, the obsession and the responsibility. I want to go so deep on this and I want to spend as much time as I possibly can just sorting every little piece out.
But we live in a society, we exist in a business. I am trying to create value for shareholders and trying to bring these two things together, I feel like a, has been the kind of defining struggle of my career, I think of many people’s careers, is how you have something that you feel like you can really obsess over and have that flow over, or have that flow when you’re working on. But then it’s got to kind of work in this broader system as well. And I think that’s sort of been the thing that I think of as the guiding post for what I want to do with my career and with my life. So I think it’s got to be Derek Walcott.
Lenny Rachitsky: What a beautiful way to end it. Hilary, two final questions. Where can folks find you online if they want to reach out, maybe follow up on stuff that you talked about? And how can listeners be useful to you?
Hilary Gridley: Great, thank you. So as I mentioned, I have a newsletter, it’s hils.substack.com. That’s hils.substack.com. I’m also teaching a Maven class on being a super manager with AI. So if you were listening to all this and you were like, “Oh Hilary, that sounds so great, but I don’t have time for any of that. How do you have time for all that?” Honestly, hyper-leveraging myself with AI has been a big part of how I find time to do any of this stuff. And so I share a bunch about how I do that, how I use AI as a manager, building on a lot of the stuff that I shared on Claire’s podcast as well, How I AI. So you can find me on Maven there. We’ve got a couple of cohorts coming up.
And then, yeah, I encourage everyone to try out WHOOP, you can get a free month on me at join.whoop.com/hilary, that’s Hilary with one L. And you can post at me or tweet at me on X and let me know what you think of it. And I would love everyone’s feedback because we’re really excited about it.
Lenny Rachitsky: As you were talking, I looked up your course just for make sure people can find it. So you go to maven.com, you just search for Hilary Gridley and you’ll find it.
Hilary Gridley: Yep. And you can also, I realize that if you Google super manager, you will find me.
Lenny Rachitsky: Whoa.
Hilary Gridley: So that is my new claim to fame.
Lenny Rachitsky: Oh my God, that’s so great. 4.9 stars. Holy moly. There we go. Okay, Hilary, thank you so much. This was incredible. Covered everything I was hoping to, this was everything I wanted it to be. Thank you so much for being here.
Hilary Gridley: Thank you. Thank you for having me. This was so fun.
Lenny Rachitsky: So fun. Bye everyone.
Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lennyspodcast.com. See you in the next episode.
Glossary
| English | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Advanced Labs | Advanced Labs(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能名称) |
| Amoeba | Amoeba(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能中的可视化组件名称) |
| anti-pattern | 反模式 |
| Aristotle | Aristotle(Hilary 创建的用于逻辑推理练习的 GPT 名称,保留原文) |
| artifact-based communication | 基于工件的沟通 |
| Beavis and Butthead | Beavis and Butthead(动画角色,保留原文) |
| behavioral activation | 行为激活 |
| Big Health | Big Health(保留原文,数字健康公司名) |
| build versus buy | 自建还是购买 |
| Charlestown | Charlestown(保留原文,波士顿地区地名) |
| Claire Vo | Claire Vo(保留原文,播客主持人名) |
| cognitive behavioral therapy | 认知行为疗法 |
| Custom GPT | Custom GPT(保留原文,ChatGPT 的自定义 GPT 功能) |
| Derek Walcott | Derek Walcott(诗人,保留原文) |
| design review | 设计评审 |
| digital therapeutics | 数字疗法 |
| Dropbox | Dropbox(保留原文,知名科技公司) |
| ECG | ECG(心电图,保留原文缩写) |
| Fail Corner | 失败角(播客固定环节名称) |
| first principles thinker | 第一性原理思考者 |
| Granola | Granola(保留原文,AI 会议记录工具) |
| Handlebar | Handlebar(保留原文,波士顿地区的健身品牌/工作室) |
| Healthspan | Healthspan(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能名称) |
| Hilary Gridley | Hilary Gridley(播客嘉宾) |
| HRV | HRV(心率变异性,保留原文缩写) |
| Kelvin | Kelvin(保留原文,Hilary 的上级人名) |
| Lenny Rachitsky | Lenny Rachitsky(播客主持人,产品领域知名博主/播客主) |
| lightning round | 闪电问答 |
| LSAT | LSAT(Law School Admission Test,法学院入学考试,保留原文) |
| Maven | Maven(在线课程平台,保留原文) |
| mental model | 心智模型 |
| meta | meta(自我指涉的,保留原文) |
| Nathan Fielder | Nathan Fielder(喜剧演员/节目制作人,保留原文) |
| Nathan for You | Nathan for You(Nathan Fielder 的电视节目,保留原文) |
| negative capability | 消极能力 |
| newsletter | newsletter(保留原文) |
| operationalize | 运营化 |
| Pivotal Corner | 转折角(播客固定环节名称) |
| PM | PM(保留原文,Product Manager 缩写) |
| recovery score | 恢复分数 |
| Sea Grapes | Sea Grapes(Derek Walcott 的诗作,保留原文) |
| shot clock | 计时器(原为篮球术语,此处比喻产品开发的时间窗口) |
| shout-out | shout-out(公开表扬/点名表扬,保留原文用法) |
| T-shirt size | T-shirt 尺码估算(软件开发中用 S/M/L/XL 衡量工作量的方式) |
| The Rehearsal | The Rehearsal(Nathan Fielder 的电视节目,保留原文) |
| VO2 Max | 最大摄氧量(VO2 Max) |
| Whoop | Whoop(保留原文,知名可穿戴科技品牌) |
| WHOOP age | WHOOP 年龄 |
| zero to one | 零到一 |
| Zwift | Zwift(室内骑行训练平台,保留原文) |
Reformatted by reformat_english.py
如何打造一支”扛得住打击”的团队 | Hilary Gridley(Whoop 核心产品负责人)
文字记录
开场
Hilary Gridley: 产品领导力这种角色,如果你控制不住脑子里的那些声音,它们会把你吞噬。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你花了很多时间思考如何帮助团队学会”挨一拳”。
Hilary Gridley: 如果他们来找我,情绪低落,我会引导他们少去纠结如何争辩别人对你的看法,而更多去想你能采取什么行动来反击你担心那个人对你的叙事。你接下来要做什么来证明你就是你认知中的自己?
Lenny Rachitsky: 你有具体的策略教团队应对困境。
Hilary Gridley: 我真的希望更多人能这样想:“管它呢,我要做一件大概率会失败的事。但它很重要,值得做,而且我要把它做好。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 当你的领导让你做你不同意的事情时,你有什么心得?
Hilary Gridley: 人们以为这场游戏全在于影响 CEO、影响身边的人。你入行时觉得自己是主角。但在职场的故事里,你大概率不是主角。你不是特别的。
嘉宾介绍
Lenny Rachitsky: 今天的嘉宾是 Hilary Gridley。Hilary 是 Whoop 的核心产品负责人。此前,她曾任 Big Health 的高级产品总监以及 Dropbox 的高级产品营销经理。更重要的是,她写了那篇如今在我通讯史上排名第六的热门文章——《如何用 AI 成为超级管理者》。她也是本播客与姊妹播客《How I AI》(Claire Vo 主持)的首位跨界嘉宾。不仅如此,她和 Claire 的那期节目有望成为该播客最受欢迎的一期。总而言之,Hilary 非常出色,我很激动能继续向她学习。这次对话充满了建议,能让你成为更好的产品领导者、更好的创造者,也成为更好的人。如果你知道什么对自己好,别错过这期节目。感谢 Sam Propis、Danielle Reynold 和 Kelvin Wong 为本次对话提供的建议。
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学会”挨一拳”
Lenny Rachitsky: Hilary,非常感谢你的到来,欢迎来到播客。
Hilary Gridley: 谢谢你,Lenny,我很高兴来这里。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我和几位与你共事过的人聊过,问他们我们应该聊什么、你最擅长什么。首先,他们每一个人都非常喜欢和你共事。其中一位说:“我加入 Whoop 就是为了和 Hilary 一起工作、向她汇报。“在这些对话中,浮现出了一个主题,我觉得很适合作为我们这次对话的总纲——也是你花了很多时间思考的东西——就是如何帮助你的团队、如何帮助公司里的人学会”挨一拳”。本质上就是如何帮助他们应对困难的事、做困难的事、打造困难的东西。所以笼统地说,这个说法对你有共鸣吗?
Hilary Gridley: 当然,非常有共鸣。这是我非常在意的事情。我想我在职业生涯中一直挺幸运的。我一直被困难的产品问题所吸引——受监管的领域、非常棘手的商业模式、对产品用户来说情感风险很高的事情。在这些事情上,你很可能会在路上遇到很多挫折。我觉得这在今天特别相关,因为我环顾四周,和很多人交谈,我听到的是恐惧和不确定,我认为这来源于几个方面。
显然,我对 AI 以及它如何改变我们的工作方式感到非常兴奋,很多人也是,但也有很多人对此感到害怕。他们在拥抱这些工具,在学习这些工具,但他们中的很多人心里都有一个疑问:这对我的工作未来意味着什么?在很多情况下,这对我的身份意味着什么?我觉得这甚至让人质疑我们作为人类在社会中如何提供价值。我还认为,尤其是今天的年轻人,他们甚至不一定经历过没有裁员阴影的职业环境。我觉得这在很多人身上造成了真正的心理创伤。所以我认为现在所有管理者都需要能够带领团队穿越不确定、穿越恐惧、穿越困难的事情。我喜欢”挨一拳”这个概念。我还有几个别的工具也喜欢用,但我觉得它可以教会人们如何在这些环境中茁壮成长。这对我来说真的很重要,因为我希望更多人去承担困难的事。我觉得有太多真正困难、有挑战性的问题等着被解决。
关于恐惧与挑战
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得人们对职业未来或工作未来越是恐惧,就越倾向于去做那些他们觉得自己很可能成功的事。我觉得这很好,我们也需要这些,但我真的很希望更多人会说:“管他呢,我要去做一件很可能会失败的事,但这件事很重要,值得去做,而且我要把它做好。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 为什么这项技能如此重要,尤其是今天,可以从很多角度来说。一个是,容易做的事情好像已经被做完了。剩下要构建的东西都是难的。感觉硬件、深科技才是未来的方向。还有机器学习、AI 技能,这些东西本身就很难。另一个是,AI 变化太快了。对很多人来说,这是一个压力很大的时期,也是一段很艰难的时期。
“挨一拳”的具体含义
让我们具体聊聊你学到的那些东西——关于如何帮助人们学会这些能力,如何帮助人们学会挨一拳,也就是做困难的事、应对挣扎。首先,你会主动教他们。你有具体的方法论教你的团队应对困境、挨一拳。那么这些方法都有哪些?你教团队什么、帮助他们培养什么能力?
Hilary Gridley: 说到底,当我说”挨一拳”的时候,我的意思是你会遇到出了问题的状况。也许是你做错了什么,也许是你只是听到有人对你的工作提出了批评。不管是什么情况,你会有一种挨了一拳的感觉。
这是一种很身体化的感受。我觉得作为管理者,你会花很多时间教团队如何成功,你想帮他们做好准备,最大化好结果的机会。但如果你不同时帮他们做好准备,当那个结果没那么好的时候会发生什么,你就会遇到问题。
所以当我想”如何挨一拳”的时候,我对团队说的是,如果他们来找我,因为发生了什么事而很难受——也许他们在会上说了什么话,对方的反应不好;或者又是听到别人在以某种方式谈论自己,不管是什么——我尽量引导他们少关注已经发生的事,少关注你怎么去纠正另一个人基于已经发生的事对你的印象,而更多关注你接下来能采取什么行动,去反向扭转你担心那个人对你持有的看法。
“反向叙事”而非争辩
我觉得”反向扭转”这个部分非常重要。因为每当我们感到自尊受到伤害,我觉得我们所有人都会很自然地想说:“这不公平,我要把事实澄清。“当你这样做的时候,我觉得往往——大多数情况下——你看起来只是在自我辩护,然后你开始纠结那些你其实无法控制的事情,也就是另一个人怎么看你。你甚至都不一定真的了解对方的想法。
所以在这些时刻,我总是问自己:我能做哪一件小事,来展现与我所担心的那个人对我的看法相反的东西?我给你举个例子。前阵子我参加了一个会议,我们在讨论 Whoop Journal 里想要开始追踪的各种东西。我们的首席技术官提议追踪氯胺酮(ketamine)的使用情况。
我当时以为她在开玩笑,就笑了。她非常严肃地看着我说:“这不好笑,Hilary。这对很多人来说是一个严肃的问题,在某些情况下它是一个正在浮现的问题。我觉得我们应该认真对待。我觉得我们能在这里创造很大的价值。“我当时彻底羞愧了。羞愧是因为我其实对这些事情非常认真。我对成瘾问题非常认真。我对那些在与成瘾作斗争的人充满同理心。
而且我也认为自己是一个拥抱新想法的人,想站在前沿,绝不会对一个看似边缘、但我认为实际上正在成为当今越来越重要的现象一笑置之。所以我意识到在那一刻,我的反应源自那种感受给我带来的关于”我是谁”的冲击,我开始极度担心这个人对我的印象是错的。
我想在会后跟进她说:“让我解释一下,让我解释为什么我不是那个意思,“之类的。但正如我所说,我觉得通常你这样做是在打一场注定输的仗,而且会把更多注意力引到你没有做好的那件事上。你其实不想给它更多注意力。你想翻篇,采取行动,向前走。所以我想了想,我担心她怎么看我?
我担心她觉得我可能不把某些健康问题当回事。我担心她觉得我可能是一个对新兴趋势嗤之以鼻的人。所以我就想,我能做点什么来展现与之相反的一面?
我非常快地做了一些研究,看看有哪些人们还不太谈论的、正在浮现的公共健康问题,是值得追踪的?我找到了一些关于体育博彩的有趣研究,特别是年轻人参与体育博彩的情况,它正在成为很多公共健康专家非常担忧的一件事。
于是我很快给她发了一条消息说:“想接着你今天那个想法继续聊。对了,我非常喜欢那个想法。我看到了这篇文章,我看到了关于另一个新兴现象——体育博彩——的研究,我觉得我们开始追踪它会很有意思,因为我们也许可以找出人们压力之间的关联。Whoop 有压力监测功能,我们可以追踪用户的压力。我们可以在投注行为和压力水平之间找到有意思的关联。”
所以我做的就这些。总共花了我五到十分钟。但我认为这是一个很好的例子,展现了这个”反向叙事”的理念——不要去争论那个叙事,而是用行动去扭转它。
如何教团队实践这个方法
所以当我把这个方法教给团队的时候,我一直在做同样的事。他们来找我,看起来因为某件事很焦虑,我就对他们说:“看起来这件事真的很困扰你。你脑子里在想什么?你在害怕什么?你在担心什么?“通常他们会说出:“我担心另一个人觉得我做不好我的工作。我担心这个人觉得我是个白痴,“诸如此类。然后我挑战这个想法。我觉得这对管理者来说也非常重要——当你看到负面思维出现时要挑战它,而不是仅仅认可它,让他们陷入那些负面漩涡。
我挑战它,我说:“首先,我觉得没有证据支持这个想法。有证据吗?即使有,也不重要。你能做点什么来向他们证明这不是事实,因为你自己知道这不是事实?”
我觉得给了人们这种力量——让他们专注于可以采取的下一步行动,专注于能让自己在身份认同、在”自己是谁”这件事上感到更踏实的行动,因为他们的行动本身就证明了这一点——这能让他们走出那种负面思维,穿越在挨了一拳之后涌上来的那阵绝望低谷。
从”被看不起”到”用行动证明”
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以这里的意思是,当你担心某个对你职业很重要的人对你有负面看法——觉得你做的某件事不好,觉得你某方面能力不行,或者觉得你对某件事处理得让他们不满意——这本质上就是挨了一拳,就是那种”别人觉得你做得不好”的感受。那么这里的策略就是,几乎是在改变他们对你的看法,同时给你一件切实可做的事情。
Hilary Gridley: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好。那么关键的问题就是——你刚才说的时候我把它记下来了,这也是你问下属的问题——你能做的一件什么事,可以证明与你认为此人对你的看法相反的东西?
Hilary Gridley: 完全正确。这种情况非常常见。在你的职业生涯中,会有各种关于你的叙事浮现出来,有些是正面的,有些是负面的。我觉得尤其是当人们开始更多地把自己推到台前——在更多演示中发言,在更多会议中讲话——他们很自然地会开始关注别人对自己的看法。这确实令人害怕,因为就像我说的,感觉是某种你无法掌控的东西。所以没错,如果你不去让人们聚焦于”这些人怎么看我”,而是引导他们聚焦于”你下一步打算做什么来证明你就是你心里知道的那个自己”,我觉得这在赋予人们更强的主动感方面可以非常有效。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想谈谈这里的平衡——一方面是”我要证明所有人都错了”,另一方面是”我知道自己是什么样的人,这个人搞错了,我不跟他争辩,我直接用行动展示给他看”,而不是过度纠结于每个人对你的各种看法。
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得心里稍微带点”不服气”其实是有价值的。你会发现那些真正成功的人,确实有那么一点”我要证明给他们看”的劲头。所以我并不是说你完全不应该去想这件事,或者不应该在意。在意是很自然的,在意也没问题。但我确实希望能帮助我的团队养成这样一个习惯:去做你知道正确的事,并对此保持信念。在过程中保持开放的学习态度,随时校准自己,但不要过度担忧别人会怎么看你。因为我觉得,尤其是那些本来就很周到、对自己要求很高的人,这种担忧反而会阻碍他们成为他们本可以成为的那个人。
行为激活:从治疗理念到管理工具
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以这个方法的关键在于——它能帮你停止无休止地在脑中盘旋”他们怎么看我”,而是给你一件可以去做的事来改变局面。另一个要点是,不要试图去说服对方改变看法。你不会去找你的经理说:“哦,我真的觉得氯胺酮治疗和成瘾问题很重要,我当时不是那个意思”之类的。
Hilary Gridley: 当我们可以向前走的时候,我不想去翻旧账、争论已经发生的事。我更不想去争论另一个人对某件已发生之事的看法。我觉得我花了太多时间在各种会议上跟人谈话,不管是什么场合,就是反复咀嚼已经发生过的事情。我认为这是一种非常焦虑的思维模式,人们很容易陷进去。所以就让他们消化一下。就像当你收到不好的反馈或批评性反馈时,你本能的反应是:“哦,这不公平,因为他们不了解情况。我实际上有数据指标要完成,或者我只有十分钟来做这件事,当然不可能完美。“你自然而然地会找出这些理由来证明自己其实没有错,这没问题。我不想说你应该为此感到内疚。让自己开一场”自怜派对”,让自己感受那些情绪,但然后你必须尽快走出来,因为那些情绪如果你不主动对抗的话,确实会不断盘旋恶化。
Lenny Rachitsky: 通常这类教训来自当事人自身的经历。这是你职业生涯早期甚至现在也在应对的问题吗?
Hilary Gridley: 哦,绝对是,百分之百。而且我觉得这不仅仅是职业上的事,也关乎我整体的心理健康和生活。这个方法的很大一部分来源,是认知行为疗法中的一个概念,叫做”行为激活”(behavioral activation)。在我之前的工作中,我在一家叫 Big Health 的公司工作,我们做数字疗法——也就是经过临床验证的移动应用,用于治疗失眠、抑郁、焦虑等行为类疾病。当时我在做一个新的抑郁症治疗产品,所以在这个领域钻研得很深,和一支非常优秀的临床团队——全都是临床心理学家——一起工作,他们帮助我理解了治疗师在面对抑郁症患者时使用的技术。抑郁症的很大一部分特征就是这些负面思维模式,以及一种”我感觉很差,我只需要等到感觉好起来,然后再去做那些对我有益的事”的想法。“我不想回这条消息,所以就不回了,等感觉好些再回。我不想锻炼,所以就不去了,等感觉好些再说。“但事实是,这不会自行消退,尤其是当你患有抑郁症的时候。“行为激活”的理念就是:你必须找出那些你可以采取的行动,这些行动能逆转那个负面螺旋,改善你的情绪。所以常见的误区是”我会先感觉好起来,然后再行动”。而治疗师在治疗中努力教给患者的是”我先行动,然后我会感觉好起来”。但如果你深陷抑郁症的泥沼中,行动是很困难的。说起来容易做起来难。大量的工作在于如何帮助人们找到具体的、他们可以采取的行动,这些行动能可靠地提升他们的情绪。我自己就有这样一份清单。我手机上存着我的”行为激活”清单,上面列着我知道自己在开始感觉”墙壁向我合拢”时可以做的事——当我感觉自己被拉入非常低落的情绪或负面思维中时,诸如此类。你会发现这比你的本能反应——去躺在床上自怨自艾,这一点我非常理解——有效得多,它能把你从那个状态中拉出来。理解了这个概念——它本质上是认知行为疗法中的一个治疗概念——但它改变了我看待整个世界的方式,尤其是作为管理者,它改变了我看待团队成员的思维和行为方式的方式,以及人们多么容易陷入这些下行螺旋中,而你必须主动反击。作为管理者,我想帮助他们做到这一点。我想帮助他们,第一,看到这一点——看到他们在某种程度上是如何自我破坏的,如何因为脑子里的那些念头阻碍了自己。然后我想帮助他们对自己进行”反向编程”。同时,正如我所说,也帮你对抗你对外界那些担忧的”反向编程”。
Lenny Rachitsky: 太有意思了。所以这个技术的核心就是——找到一项行动是什么,而且你刚才也说了,它可以非常小。
Hilary Gridley: 非常小。
Lenny Rachitsky: 就是你能够采取的一项行动,在这种情况下,向别人展示你不是他们以为的那个样子。你担心他们以某种方式看待你,而你想采取一个行动,帮助他们看到你不是那样的。
Hilary Gridley: 所以对,这就是”挨一拳”(taking the punch)的概念。“行为激活”可以是任何事。可以是把椅子上的一件衣服捡起来放好,仅仅这样可能就足以让你从当前的下行状态中走出来。所以”行为激活”在概念上就是:你如何通过采取行动来逆转你正在经历的下行感或负面情绪?而”挨一拳”的概念则是把它应用在”我在一个工作环境中”这个情境下。
我非常在意别人如何看待我。这给我带来了很大的压力。我觉得尤其是对产品人来说——他们的自我认同很大程度上与”知道答案、有能力、把事情搞定”捆绑在一起。而且他们中的大多数人,在职业生涯的大部分时间里都非常擅长这些,这正是他们当初能进入这些岗位的原因。
我觉得这对他们来说可能是一种极大的压力。在很多情况下,这可能是职业倦怠的根源,是他们觉得”我再也承受不了这份工作的压力了”的根源。所以我觉得”挨一拳”的概念更多是针对那个特定问题的——我在工作中遇到了困难,很大程度上是因为我对别人看法的担忧,而我想在这种情境中感受到更多的掌控感。
“挨一拳”的实际影响
Lenny Rachitsky: 太妙了。关于”挨一拳”这个具体概念,你看到它对人们的情绪和职业有什么样的影响?这个具体策略有多重要?
Hilary Gridley: 嗯,我觉得它在两个层面很重要。一是它能在危机或小危机中帮到你。但我实际上觉得它更重要的一面是——我看到太多人因为害怕结果会怎样而不敢把自己推出去。所以我想到一个经典的例子——我经常鼓励人们在会议上多发言,练习如何推动对话向前发展、贡献价值,一方面因为这样做很重要——没人想参加糟糕的会议——但另一方面,这对你的职业发展也有帮助。
这就是你如何让人们注意到你——“哦,那个人有好想法,思考问题的方式很对”,诸如此类。我跟人们聊这件事的时候,他们有兴趣来参加会议,想了解这些重大决策是如何做出的,但他们只想坐在那里旁观。我就说,首先,会议里每多一个人都有成本,因为每多一个人,会议中的人就会比人少时更不坦率。
所以会议的一个关键点是,你们通常有一个需要集体解决的问题。如果人们因为有太多人在场而对自己的言辞过于谨慎,那就很难做到这一点。所以当我告诉人们这些时,我会说:“在这场会议中赢得你的位置真的很重要,我们来练练怎么做。”
核心就是——你必须说出有价值的话。而人们总是能找到各种借口解释为什么做不到。我学到的一点是,我觉得人们非常擅长编造听起来很理性的理由,来回避那些只是让他们不舒服的事情。但他们脑子里想的是,“哦不,我太 junior 了。没人想听我说什么。或者大家已经都想到这一点了。或者我喜欢先在脑子里消化,等我想说的时候,话题已经过去了”——诸如此类。这项技能的很大一部分,本质上是一种沟通技能——就是如何用语言表达自己——但最大的障碍,我觉得是恐惧。害怕说错话。害怕显得愚蠢。害怕那种——当你试图组织一个半成品的想法时,房间里所有人都转头看着你的那种不适感。所以,如果你能帮助人们减少这种恐惧,那就解决了提升这些技能的 90% 的挑战。所以我觉得,当你教给人们”挨一拳”的技能时,你是在帮助他们减少对”挨那一拳”的恐惧。这就是为什么我觉得它如此重要。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很深刻——这项技能的二阶效应。你之前跟我聊天时提到过一点,一直留在我脑海里——就是太多 PM,太多人在玩”简单模式”,不愿尝试困难的事。
Hilary Gridley: 哎哟。这话可能会惹麻烦。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好,来吧,展开说说。
产品人的”简单模式”
Hilary Gridley: 哦,我觉得这是我的一个犀利观点。你会听到人们谈论产品管理中的匠心和品味,这些都很好。我完全认同。我喜欢这些东西,我吃这一套。但我就想——如果你真的只是纯粹热爱这件事,你纯粹热爱产品管理,那你为什么在为和你一模一样的人做产品,在一家把东西卖给其他公司的公司,连定价都不用操心?
没有真正的……我是说,我不想把它说得很简单,说清楚。但从大局来看,我希望那些纯粹热爱产品管理、纯粹热爱创造的人们,能把更多这种热情用在为低收入人群做产品、为社会服务做产品等等这些真正、真正需要这类工作的事情上。
我觉得显然在某些公司工作有一种声望,而其他行业在这方面获得的声望较少。所以人们自然会倾向于那些公司。我完全理解。完全理解。薪酬也更好。我没什么资格评判。我希望看到更多,但我希望看到更多人这样做。而且我要说——我知道你们中有很多人在那里。
我知道有很多人正在非常非常困难的领域做着非常非常重要的工作,我看到了你们,我感激你们,向你们致敬。
组织透明度
Lenny Rachitsky: 太棒了。好,很高兴你分享了这个。谢谢你。我觉得这会引起很多人的共鸣。我想接着聊另一个特质/习惯/技能——你很擅长并且帮助别人学习的那就是:在组织内部、在你的思考过程中保持高度的透明。你几乎是帮助人们以你的方式思考,看到你的思维方式,从而让他们能在更高的层次上运作。聊聊这个吧——它具体是什么样的,为什么重要。
Hilary Gridley: 有意思,我觉得在组织中我听到很多人抱怨的另一个问题是——“为什么我发一封邮件要有 10 个人签字同意”这类问题。我觉得答案是因为那 10 个人都有不同的信息、不同的背景,而且在很多情况下,他们对公司 CEO 和其他战略领导层的思维模式有着完全不同的工作模型。
这让事情变得极其低效。我觉得人们经常说,“哦,这是个流程问题。“这不是流程问题,也不是审批问题。我认为这是一个透明度问题,是一个沟通问题——向下沟通、对外沟通的问题。我的意思是,当我思考基于工件的沟通(artifact-based communication)时,比如阅读一份战略文档……
Hilary Gridley: 继续说基于工件的沟通。比如阅读一份战略文档。公司里每个人都读了这份战略文档,很好,每个人对战略的理解是统一的。但情况会变化,对吧?尤其是在一个动态变化的领域,新的竞争威胁不断出现,新的机会随时涌现。在 AI 时代尤其如此。显然大家都在推翻原有战略,试图找到变革组织的最佳方式。所以,如果你了解公司动态的方式仅仅是阅读一份六个月前写的文档,那你就是在用过时的信息工作,你无法思考和应对新发生的事情。
所以,比了解你的 CEO 想什么更有帮助的,我认为是了解你的 CEO 是怎么想的。这一点适用于公司的各个层级。我希望了解公司所有战略领导者的思维方式,我也希望我的团队了解我是怎么想的。当我有信心让团队中的人理解我的思维方式时,我就不需要审阅他们的邮件,不需要审批各种事情。我需要这样做的时候,往往是因为我和那些我不太确定他们是否理解我思维方式的人合作,或者我不确定他们是否理解这封邮件或其他什么东西会被某位重要人物如何解读。
所以我试着把这个教给我的团队。我的做法有几种。首先,我会和公司里重要的人一起开会,所以我不断听到他们说的话,并注意弦外之音——他们为什么要这么说?他们在这场对话中带来了哪些可能不明显的洞察?我尽量每周都做一件事。虽然不是每次都能做到,但我尽量在 Slack 上给团队发一个简短的回顾:“这是我本周最重要或最有趣的几次对话。这是那个人原话怎么说的。“同样,我会记很多笔记,所以手上有素材。如果你有转录工具,也许也能帮上忙。“这是我的解读。我认为他们这么说的原因是什么。我认为这个反馈的来源是什么,以及因此我会做出什么不同的调整。“这些总结不会很长。有时候如果我没时间,就在团队会议上直接翻看本周的笔记,边过边加口头点评和自己的分析。久而久之,我觉得我的团队对大家在说什么、如何理解这些话背后的思考逻辑、这个人的思维方式是怎样的、那个人的思维方式是怎样的、以及我是怎么想的,都有了相当好的把握。我认为当一个组织整体以这种方式运作——每个人都基于相同的模型来理解 CEO 认为什么重要、公司的风险承受能力如何等等——你就能真正开始大幅提升速度,沟通也会变得远远不那么痛苦。
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以这里的策略就是帮助你的团队为公司里每个关键人物建立心智模型,这样——用你刚才的说法几乎就是——当他们给对方发邮件或提出请求时,他们已经知道对方会怎么回应。你能不能举一个例子,比如 Whoop 某个人是如何思考的?我不知道,也许你可以保持匿名,让这个例子更具体一点,就是关于你可能想要围绕某个人建立的那种心智模型。
建立 CEO 心智模型的实践
Hilary Gridley: 我们的 CEO Will 是一个对像素极其执着的人,这种执着让通过设计评审变得很有挑战性,但我认为正是这样才产出了比他如果对各种小借口妥协——“哦,这个嘛,我们不得不在这里缩减范围,我们没法完全做到他们想要的”——要好一千倍的产品。他设定了很高的标准并且坚守不移,不做妥协。我觉得这一点有时会被误解,很多人可能以为他就是想在所有事情上都追求最大范围。我认为这是对他真正关心的事情的误解。
我们经常收到他的反馈,比如,“这感觉不像未来,而我们做的所有东西都需要让人感觉像未来。“很多人听到这个会有点慌,“天哪,我们永远不可能按时完成这件事了,我们不能再做任何范围上的取舍了。“但我听到这句话时,我理解的是另一层意思——我们的产品里有 AI 教练,有所有这些令人惊叹的数据。我们在追踪你的每一次心跳,采集所有这些其他数据,而每一个屏幕都是一个契机,可以用一种前所未有的方式把这些信息展示给用户。
要做到这一点有很多小的切入点,对吧?比如你的呈现方式。如果你在解释最大摄氧量(VO2 Max)这个衡量心血管健康的指标,你可以用静态内容来向用户解释,也可以把用户自己的数据融入你的解释方式中。因为有 AI 教练,你可以让它更有对话感,让它更像是你在跟一个人说话——而且这个人恰好拥有关于你的所有数据,这在当今世界上是不存在的。
你的医生没有这些数据,你的教练也没有。这并不意味着”天哪,我们得把这个项目的范围炸开,做到一百倍那么大”,而是去找到这些小细节,让人觉得”哇,这真的很神奇,这真的很用心,这感觉像未来。我感觉很清楚地意识到这个产品对我的了解如此之深,并且能用这些非常小巧而优雅的方式从噪音中提取出信号。“所以在类似这样的情况下,我会在设计评审中收到那种反馈,或者在设计评审中听到那种反馈,也许我的某位 PM 也在那场评审中。
所以我把这些带回团队。我在好几场设计评审中都听到了类似的东西,于是我把这些汇总起来告诉团队:“我注意到最近我们持续收到这类反馈。这是我认为它对 Will 如此重要的原因,因为我觉得他真正专注于打造面向未来的健康公司。我不希望你们认为这就意味着我们要把所有东西都堆上 AI,就意味着我们要把所有功能都做到最大范围。
我认为关键在于,在成本和投入与影响力的矩阵上,找到那些高影响力但低成本的方式,穿插在整个体验中,真正做出那种神奇感。“所以我在帮团队串联信息点。我在说,“你们没有参加所有这些会议,但我参加了。这是我听到的,这是我对所听内容的解读,以及我对那个人思维方式的理解。因此,以下是我认为我们在产品中可以采取的一些做法。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 本质上,这些就是每个人所看重的原则、价值观或信条。
Hilary Gridley: 没错。
Nick 的愿景:“未来感”
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以对于 Nick 来说,原则就是”这必须让人感觉我们生活在未来”,而不能只是又一项拖拖拉拉的常规工作。
Hilary Gridley: 对,没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这太棒了,而且这样做有非常多的连锁收益。其中之一是大家会觉得了解正在发生的事情。我觉得这是人们对大公司最常见的反馈之一,就是”我不知道发生了什么”。所以,所有那些在会议中秘密进行的事情一下子都变得透明了——“我不知道别人在决定我的命运,不知道他们在讨论什么”。所以我觉得,仅仅是你愿意分享这些信息本身,就已经非常有力了。
理解他人的立场
Hilary Gridley: 说到这里,当我去进行这些对话的时候,我总是会试着这样想:即使我不认同那个反馈,即使我不认同那个决定,我遗漏了什么洞察?我哪里可能错了?具体来说,在什么条件下,另一个人会是对的?我会做这个思维练习,我可能不会走到另一端去认同它,我可能仍然觉得自己是对的之类的。但通常来说,强迫自己这样思考,就会迫使我去理解另一个人是怎么想的。如果我做得足够多,我就会意识到:“哦,这说得通。我觉得这说得通,如果……是成立的。我觉得这说得通,如果……是成立的,哦,也许这件事也是成立的。”
而我觉得当我听到那些说”我不知道公司怎么回事”的人时,我认为他们做的是恰恰相反的事。他们在寻找不同意的理由,寻找可以挑刺的地方——“好吧,这个决定说不通,因为我想到了一个它可能有问题的地方。“顺便说一句,在帮助你的团队具备在组织中生存和蓬勃发展的情绪成熟度方面,这也是另一件重要的事情——帮助他们这样思考,帮助他们理解你有自己的观点。你的观点很重要,但在某种程度上,你确实需要对其他观点保持尊重,并且有谦逊之心,承认也许他们看到了你没看到的东西。而且令人惊叹的是,仅仅通过这样做,你不需要掌握所有事实就能学到很多东西。如果你说”这个人的行为在 X、Y、Z 成立的情况下是说得通的”,往往你会发现 X、Y、Z 确实在发生。
当领导做了你不认同的决定
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很高兴你聊到了这个方向。我其实想顺着这条线继续探讨,这算是另一个方向,但我觉得很多领导者一直在这个问题上挣扎:当你的上级做了一个你完全不认同的决定,但你仍然需要把它传达为”这就是我们要做的事”。你不想说”哦,因为 Nick 这么说了”,因为那样你作为领导者就失去了影响力。当你的领导让你做一件你不认同的事,但你还得让团队去执行——关于怎么做才能做好这件事,你有什么心得吗?
Hilary Gridley: 首先,我确实会尝试做”如果我是错的呢”这个练习。我觉得很多人只是期望,如果你问别人一个开放性的问题,比如”我们为什么要做这件事?“你会得到一个直接的答案。但很多时候答案并不直接,原因各种各样。也许是保密原因,也许只是某个人在凭直觉行事,但那个直觉是建立在多年乃至数十年不断磨练判断力的基础之上的,他们很可能真的看到了什么。这不只是一种随意的直觉。但无论是什么原因,我真的会尽力去弄清楚——让我确实尽最大努力去理解这个人的观点。
我有一些工具可以做到这一点,后面我也可以聊聊。但如果我已经尽力了,仍然不认同,我会相当坦率地表达这种不认同,但以一种仍然保持尊重的方式。我觉得你要避免的情况是,作为管理者你说:“啊,我完全无法掌控,这太糟了,这个决定太蠢了,但这就是工作,所以我们必须做。“显然,这不会让你的团队取得成功,也不会让任何人对这件事感到好受。但你确实会听到有人这样做,你确实会看到这种事发生。所以我觉得在这些情况下,我试图做的就是把我的个人观点从中剥离出来,去想”那让这个决定在对方看来合理的洞察是什么”,然后解释他们的逻辑。即使我可以坦然地说”我不一定会这样做”或”我并不真正认同他们的思路,但从他们的角度、从他们的视角、从他们的专业经验来看,我能理解为什么这说得通。而且他们可能是对的。我不觉得他们是对的,但他们可能是。我们来验证一下。如果我们一直在争论这是不是一个好主意,我们是不会知道答案的。唯一能知道答案的方法是尽我们最大的努力去执行它。如果我们错了,这种事时有发生,那就再来一次。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 我喜欢这又回到了你的心智模型取向——“这是他们的心智模型,这是他们的经历,这是他们看待世界和趋势的方式,所以这就是他们这么想的原因。“所以不是鼓励你的团队或你自己去说”不不不,你错了”,而是”好吧,这是他们的数据集,我们来试一下,这会丰富那个数据集,也许还能改变他们的想法。”
Hilary Gridley: 对。因为在产品领域,我喜欢开玩笑说,没有正确答案,只有错误答案,你只是试图在所有可用的选项中,选择一个最不错误的答案然后把它执行好。所以我觉得,理性的人确实可以在所有这些事情上产生分歧——这是我的想法,这是我的做法;我觉得那是他们的想法,我觉得这是他们那样做的原因。
而且再说一次,我们成功的唯一机会不是在这种分歧上撕裂。所以归根结底,如果这不是一个明显糟糕的答案——有时候即使它是一个明显糟糕的答案——你成功的概率仍然更高,如果你只是把自己重新定位到一个”它不是一个糟糕答案”的世界里,然后全力以赴把它变成现实。
“魔法问题”工具
Lenny Rachitsky: 你说你有一些工具帮助你理解别人的观点。我忍不住想多了解一下。
Hilary Gridley: 我会聊一聊我所说的”魔法问题”,但关于魔法问题有趣的地方在于,它们其实不是问题,它们是陈述句,以”你同意吗?“或”是这样吗?“结尾。我发现这是理解一个人的心智模型最有帮助的方式——就是把事实摆在他们面前,看他们对什么说不、对什么说是。然后如果你能让他们解释,那很好。如果他们是好的沟通者,通常可以做到;但如果不是,你也不必因此而停下来。举个例子,即使在非领导力的场景下,比如我与法务团队或合规团队合作时——他们通常是在根据一套字面规则来工作,对吧?
法律和法规是客观存在的,而你要做的事情是判断:如果我们走这条路,这样可以吗?那样不行吗?有时候这并不那么直截了当。有些监管领域存在解读空间。所以当我刚开始在受监管的行业工作时,我觉得这种情况很令人沮丧和困惑,因为我总是问:“你能不能直接告诉我规则是什么,让我搞清楚它的边界在哪里?“而他们的回答是:“嗯,这要看情况。看情况,看情况。“后来我学会了换一种方式——反过来主动提出方案:“如果我们这样做呢?
如果产品是这样的呢?如果文案这么写呢?这样可以吗?“不行,可以。如果不行,为什么?如果可以,又是为什么?通过这种方式,我实际上是在逐步推断对方的心智模型,而不是让他们直接向我解释。我也一直让团队用这种方式来对我提问。当他们来找我时说:“你觉得我该怎么做?“或者”我有什么可以做得不一样的?“我会说:“换一种说法——先告诉我你自己觉得有什么可以做得不一样的,然后再问我同不同意。“我觉得这样做有几个好处。第一,它能帮助他们逐步校准自己的判断力。
他们实际上是在强迫自己先做出一个判断,然后和我思考问题的方式进行比较校准,这比单纯问开放式问题然后得到答案要快得多、有效得多。第二个好处是,他们不会在回答这些问题时变得依赖我。我觉得这是很多管理者容易掉进去的一个陷阱——人们带着问题来找你,你想帮他们,于是你回答了问题,然后你发现他们把所有问题都拿来找你,你不得不想说:“你得自己解决其中一部分啊。“所以再一次强调,我认为魔法问题的核心就是——“是这样吗?""你同意吗?“每当你忍不住想向某个人问开放式问题,而你真正的目的是想理解他头脑中的想法时,停下来,对自己说:“让我直接说出来。让我把我认为的想法作为一个陈述句说出来。“然后根据对方的反应来校准。我认为这是理解另一个人思维方式最快的方法。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这让我想到,很多人可能会觉得这种方式看起来有点奇怪,像是在操控别人,但事实是我们很多时候并不真正清楚自己知道什么、在想什么。你需要有人以一种真正有效的方式来采访你,才能把这些知识挖掘出来。而这恰恰就是一种非常简洁的方式来实现这个目的。
Hilary Gridley: 有意思的是,每次我谈到这个话题时,经常得到那种反应——人们会说:“这不是一种强迫的方式吗?“我的回答是:“你得带着纯粹的心去做这件事。“你得抱着开放的态度,甚至预期自己可能是错的。而且你要让对方也清楚这一点。如果你走进来说:“我是这么想的。你同意吗?你同意吗?“那当然得不到你想要的真实答案。或者你可能得到一个”同意”——如果你的目标就是得到”同意”,那不是我说的这种做法。
如果你的目标是理解,并且你的出发点是”帮我理解我哪里想错了,帮我理解我在哪里搞错了”,带着那种好奇心和谦逊去做,并且确保你的状态和你在对方面前呈现出来的方式也体现了这一点——你不是带着敌意或强硬的姿态进入对话的。是的,因为如果你在那种情况下却让对方感到不舒服,他们会对你说谎,你得到的就是错误的信息。但我觉得这是一整套人际交往的技能,我们今天可能没有时间展开讨论了。
从”荒谬”要求中理解世界观
Lenny Rachitsky: 我想回到你之前提到的一个很有意思的洞察——你说你的 CEO 想打造一种让人感觉像未来的东西。我想分享一个一直让我印象深刻的故事,是关于 Airbnb 的。当时有一个大型发布即将到来,一位设计师在办公室加班到很晚,试图更新网站以包含这个新产品。那是 Airbnb Neighborhoods 的发布,大概是十年前的事了。她看到 Joe Gebbia 在办公室里走动,就叫住他:“嘿 Joe,你希望这个网站是什么样子?
你希望它看起来怎样?我们应该怎么做……”而发布就在两天后了。他说的是:“打造一个互联网上从未出现过的东西。“现在这让我想到——这件事很有意思,因为我每次想到或讲起这个故事,都觉得这是一个疯狂的要求。而现在听了你分享的方法来处理类似的情况,这确实改变了我看待这件事的视角——“好的,Joe 的世界观是什么?为什么他是那样看待世界的?为什么我们需要做一个那样的网站?“这些我可以开始思考了。这真的是一种很有意思的方式来应对那些听起来荒谬、毫无来由的要求。
Hilary Gridley: 我非常认同。我是英语文学专业出身,为此感到很自豪,所以我非常推崇阅读小说和广泛阅读。我觉得我很多这方面的思维方式正是从阅读中来的——就是一种好奇心:在什么样的世界里,这件事对这个人来说是说得通的?面对另一个人的行为、举动和言辞,很容易直接判断”这完全说不通”。但我发现,当你带着”这个人的世界是什么样的,以至于他说的那件事在那个世界里是合理的?“这种态度去面对时——我不知道怎么说——你的人际关系会变得更加丰富,即使是在工作场景中也是这样。
说实话,在我的生活中,很多沮丧感都来源于对他人的不满。所以我必须慢慢学会这种思维方式。因为当我下班回到家时,我脑子里想的都是:“这个人说了这样的话,完全说不通;那个人简直不知所云;领导层根本不知道在发生什么。“而我所做的这一切只是在让自己痛苦。
比痛苦更糟的是,我在让自己痛苦的同时,还让自己对公司变得毫无用处。我会感到沮丧,觉得:“不,没有人欣赏我那些完美的、独到的、精彩的见解,而其他所有人都只有那些毫不独特、毫不精彩、完全不正确、啰里啰嗦的错误观点。“所以我觉得这确实是我个人成长的一个重要方面——学会用那种方式去理解别人。这不仅仅是”这是一种好的做法”而已,我认为它确实让我成了一个更快乐的人。而且,我觉得很多都源于阅读小说。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢我们正在一层一层剥开这个非常具体的习惯的力量——帮助你学习身边人的心智模型。而且——
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得这只是在让我听起来像一个疯狂的力量。
Lenny Rachitsky: 不,这里面有太多力量了。你越说我越觉得:“哇,这里面的价值太大了。“因为不仅仅是——你谈到很多人职业倦怠的根源就是这种沮丧——CEO 或者首席产品官、设计师们就是觉得:“我受够了。“为什么他们总是提出那些荒谬的要求,把标准定得那么高?就是永远没有够好的时候。
Lenny Rachitsky: 但这不仅仅能让你对他们的要求感觉好一些——因为你理解了他们的出发点——它还能让你更高效地工作,甚至有可能帮助他们改变想法,让他们看到不同的视角,因为现在你能看到塑造他们观点的那些数据了,你可以帮助调整,或者说去质疑它——“嘿,你确定这是真的吗?你确定——我不知道——他们是竞争对手,他们就是这么看的。也许不是呢。让我们更深入地研究一下。“
首席产品官的真正角色
Hilary Gridley: 是的,这真的很有意思。在我上一家公司,当我开始向 CEO 汇报时,他们为我找了各种教练来合作。其中一位是 Coinbase 的前首席产品官,后来创办了 Bridge——就是那个被 Stripe 以高价收购的公司。他对我说了一句让我一直铭记的话:当你作为首席产品官向 CEO 汇报时,人们犯的最大错误就是认为这场博弈的核心在于把自己脑子里的东西输出出来,去影响 CEO、影响周围的人,使之落地。但如果你带着这种心态进入这个角色,你一定会失败——因为你真正要做的是理解 CEO 的愿景是什么、他们关心什么,同样也是他们思考问题的方式,然后想办法将其运营化,以最佳的产品形态呈现出来。
这和我以往对自身工作的认知截然不同。说回前面小说的那个比喻——你从小到大都觉得自己是主角。在你的生活中,你确实可以是主角。在你家庭的故事中,你也可以是主角。但在一家公司的工作故事里,你大概率不是主角。尽管说出来感觉有点奇怪,但我真心认为这是我人生中得到的最好的建议之一——它不仅改变了我看待世界和在世间行事的方式,还改变了我的幸福感——那就是:你并不特别。我以前花大量的时间和精力在想:“唉,别人不认同我的看法,我得说服他们。“
你并不特别
在一个组织中,它是一个生态系统。一个由一群人组成的组织,大家都在共同努力完成一件事情。如果每个人都从自己的主角视角出发——“这就是我看到的世界,这就是我认为我们存在的意义,我需要时刻说服身边每一个人”——那会变得极其低效,也会极其痛苦,因为所有人都在不停地争斗。所以在某种程度上,这听起来几乎像是失败主义。
我一直很担心给人的印象。我会想:“这听起来不就是’老板说什么就做什么’吗?“但我的意思完全不是这样。我认为把你的技能、才华、视角——以及你的品味、你的手艺,所有这些东西——带入你的工作中,是极其重要的。但我确实认为,建立一种所有人共享的心智模型——这种模型定义上不可能由你个人的狭隘视角来定义——这个理念实际上会让每个人的工作体验好得多。
在执行中寻找成就感
Lenny Rachitsky: 很多人——就像你说的,我很高兴你走到这一步——因为这话听起来可能像是:好吧,你的工作就是执行 CEO 的指令,你的洞察和观点毫无价值,你只需要让开,让所有人去做 CEO 想做的事就好。那么根据你的经验或者建议,作为首席产品官——或者举个例子,产品总监——如果只是待在那里执行 CEO 的愿景而没有任何自己的输入,那并不好玩,成就感从哪里来?
Hilary Gridley: 嗯,我觉得在这个层面以下有无数的决定要做,有无数微小的环节你可以选择和别人不同的方向。就我个人而言,我很大一部分成就感来自于这样一种感觉:如果换一个人来做这份工作,做出来的东西会不一样。产品中的某些东西之所以不同,是因为是我——是我在这份工作上、是我做了这件事。这来源于我独特的视角、独特的观点、过去的经历、各种影响因素。我认为关键在于找到合适的力度,不去和不可撼动的力量较劲。
这几乎就像在玩 Jenga(叠叠乐)——你在摸索着寻找:好吧,哪些积木块是可以动的?当你了解了别人怎么思考之后,你就能找到哪些是不可撼动的力量,那些仗不值得打。但也有些领域,也许他们了解得不够多;还有些领域,也许他们其实是有些害怕的,因为他们不了解那么多。也许那正好是你有独到见解的地方。于是你可以挺身而出,发挥巨大的价值,产生巨大的影响力。
但你要做到这一点,前提是你对整个模型有一个清晰的框架——知道哪些地方是:好的,我们在这里是在靠某个人极其独特、极其有价值的洞察在运作,这也是这家公司之所以存在的根本原因。但除此之外,还有无数的决定要做,你懂我的意思吗?有无数不同的位置可以安放自己。所以我觉得这就是一种持续的摸索:哪些地方是我真正突出的?哪些事情我认为自己做得特别好?哪些地方有缺口?同样,你只有以真正的善意参与、真诚地投入、真正理解他人怎么思考,才能找到这些答案。
公司运作的现实法则
Lenny Rachitsky: 你说的话让我想到两个很有意思的观点,我觉得可以进一步阐明你说的意思。第一是你说”这就是世界运转的方式”——这让我想起 Jeffrey Pfeffer,他曾经是这个播客的嘉宾。他在斯坦福商学院教一门关于如何在世界上获取权力的课,讲的是权力的法则。他讲各种影响他人、赢得胜利、取得成就、获取地位的方法。
他说,这部分听起来不怎么有趣也不怎么美好,但我在这里讲的是世界实际运作的方式,而不是你希望它运作的方式。而你描述的正是公司实际运作的方式——CEO 是掌舵人,你的工作——他们是老板。你越早理解他们的愿景优先于你的愿景,一切就越顺畅。你不是来告诉 CEO”我们应该做什么”的。他们的职责是掌控业务和公司的愿景。
Hilary Gridley: 对,我觉得确实如此。如果你不认同这一点,你可能不该在那家公司工作。
Lenny Rachitsky: 没错。另一点是,CEO 掌握的只是愿景——这是未来的愿景:我们要走向何方。如果我们赢了,世界会变成什么样。但实现那个愿景有太多太多需要你去解决的问题,而这基本上就是首席产品官、产品总监以及所有这些人——
Hilary Gridley: 也是那个层面所有人的角色。
Lenny Rachitsky: 公司里所有人的角色。
关于愿景与执行
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得你刚才说的非常到位,因为在很多方面,愿景——我的意思是,某种程度上它是基于执行的,但在很多方面,它是对五年后、十年后世界会是什么样子的一种构想。所以在某种程度上,我想说你的工作就是——如果你能理解这一点,能理解”这个人认为世界未来会是什么样子”,假设这一切都是真的,那么我能做些什么来最大化这一切成为现实的概率?
然后,这对产品意味着什么?如果它必须成真,那意味着什么?以 Whoop 为例,如果有一个关于未来的愿景:你所有的健康数据集中在一个地方,我们能在你自己意识到之前就检测到健康问题,我们能提供真正高度个性化的辅导,帮你理解今天的行为将如何影响你未来几十年的健康状况——那么这对 Whoop 今天需要成为什么意味着什么?这对它在未来几年需要如何演化意味着什么?既为了让这个愿景成为现实,也为了在那个世界中胜出。
Hilary Gridley: 我确实认为,这正是普通员工可以发挥巨大影响力的地方。但是如果你要说”我要跟你争论五年后世界会怎样运作”,我认为你打的是一场注定失败的仗。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而且如果你不喜欢这个愿景,你可以离开,对吧?要么离开,要么尝试改变它。就这两个选项。
关于向上反馈与说服
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得,关于你提到的反驳这一点——因为你问过这个问题——我再说一次,我绝对不想听起来像是在说”就这么认了”那种失败主义态度。我是一个非常有主见的人。我会为我认为正确的事情据理力争。所以我教我的团队,“你们必须非常擅长构建论点,这可以有不同的表现形式。”
有些人非常擅长用数据说话,有些人非常擅长把定性洞察和定量数据结合起来运用。但你必须能够以最有说服力的方式,为你认为正确的事情进行辩护。而且你有义务这样做。而如果你已经这样做了,而且做得很好,但结果还是没起作用——那就是时候说,“好吧,也许这里有我之前没看到的东西。“我认为这时候就需要保持一些谦逊。
但这是一个过程。你不会一开始就处于”好吧,我没什么可说的”的状态。所以我认为,了解自己在这个过程中的哪个阶段也很重要。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这让我想起 Airbnb 的一位产品经理负责人,他后来负责了一个新项目,结果做了一堆蠢事。他说,“我意识到,既然我现在负责这个产品团队了,需要去反驳的就是我自己。我才是那个需要说服 CEO 这是一个坏主意的人。“而在做了一堆事情之后,他才意识到那些确实很蠢。
Hilary Gridley: 你看到的那个观点就是——你确实有义务去尝试说服他们这是个坏主意。你有时候会是对的,但不会每次都对。我觉得这就是为什么很难用绝对化的方式来谈论这些事情,因为有时候你是对的,有时候你不对。真正重要的是要非常善于区分这两者,并知道接下来该怎么做。
关于习惯养成与行为改变
Lenny Rachitsky: 我注意到你刚才提到 Whoop 现在能测最大摄氧量(VO2 Max)了,这不是在给 Whoop 打广告,但这真的很酷。这是一个非常值得追踪的指标——Peter Thiel 和那些人一直在说,“这是你最想追踪的东西,用来了解你的健康状况和进步,就是最大摄氧量(VO2 Max)。“大概跟血氧水平有关。我不完全确定具体是什么,但确实很酷。新的 Whoop 可以做到这个。
Hilary Gridley: 我们现在在做很多很酷的东西。我在想,不知道现在是不是该全都聊一遍,但我可以。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们回头再聊。回头再聊。
Hilary Gridley: 好,我们回头再聊。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好。那我们再来聊聊另一个你非常擅长的事情——我从别人那里也听说了——你之前也提过几次——就是建立习惯,帮助你的团队养成好的习惯。回到之前提到的认知行为疗法那套东西,比如行为循环之类的。聊聊这是什么、为什么重要、你帮团队学了什么。
Hilary Gridley: 是的,我对习惯养成、奖赏循环和行为改变这些事情非常着迷。当我思考如何在团队中推动行为改变,或者只是鼓励团队多做那些你认为与成功相关的行为时,我觉得很多人更多是在用一种教育模型来想这件事——就是你教一个东西,然后评估这个东西,然后对这个东西做一些问责。
但我觉得,如果你更多从行为心理学的角度来想,效果会好得多。我给你举个例子。很多领导者一直在思考如何推动 AI 的采纳、如何推动团队中 AI 技能的提升,以及那会是什么样子。
当我在公司外跟人聊这个的时候,我总是很惊讶——“你怎么衡量它?你怎么强制执行?“我其实不太想那些东西。我想的是,“我怎么围绕使用这个东西来创造习惯?”
对我来说,有几个关键点。第一是一致性。你怎么让一个人每天都做某件事?要做到这一点,必须从小处开始,必须从非常简单的事情开始。你必须给他们每次不超过一两分钟就能完成的事情。
实际上,我有一个叫”30 天 GPT”的东西——一个包含 30 件事的清单,每天做一件。我不知道有谁做完了这个之后,没有在另一端出来时感到自己的技能信心提升了一百倍,而且真正把它变成了每天使用的习惯——因为它是作为习惯养成工具来设计的,而不是教育工具。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这是用某个特定的 GPT 构建,还是自己搭建 GPT,还是说习惯具体是什么?
Hilary Gridley: 习惯就是使用 ChatGPT,或者 Claude,或者这些工具中的任何一个——
Lenny Rachitsky: 哦,好的,好的,我明白了。
Hilary Gridley: ……工具来完成任务,就是用一种通用的方式把事情做完。所以我做了个小工具,如果你订阅我的 newsletter,我就发给你。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你提到 newsletter,它的网址是什么?
Hilary Gridley: 谢谢你问这个。是 hils.substack.com,H-I-L-S,substack.com。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的。
Hilary Gridley: 基本上,就是每天可以做的一件小事。而这里的关键,还是一致性。所以你需要让人们每天都做这件事,降低摩擦。我觉得很多人在思考如何推动采纳时犯的一个错误是,他们会说,“哦,我们得向人们展示如何用这些工具来做他们的工作。”
但我会说,“工作本身就不容易。“如果你正在赶一个截止日期,有事情要完成,你最不想要的就是完成这件事的过程中又多出更多摩擦。当你正在努力完成一件事,工具却被换了,你不知道这东西怎么用,快捷键全都不一样了,诸如此类,这真的很烦人。
所以我实际上认为,在与工作无关的场景中使用这些工具要容易得多,因为你去掉了所有那些摩擦——“哦等等,我得去想,‘好吧,我手上有什么项目?哦,我把这个放到 ChatGPT 里,但没得到一个好答案。’”
或者,“现在我很沮丧,因为这东西花的时间比我需要的还长,或者怎样。“我会从那些纯粹有趣、简单的用例开始。比如想出度假的时间,或者去哪里度假。
或者把你的日历上传到 ChatGPT,让它给你出主意,为会议提供谈话要点,或者那些人们不需要动脑子的事情,因为一切都已经列好了。而且这些事情没有外部的工作压力,不需要你把某个结果应用到工作中去,所以不会变成不愉快的体验。所以,一致性,降低摩擦。然后,最重要的,设计奖励循环。
设计奖励循环
这是我在跟人们谈论行为改变设计时,最常强调的一点——“你对奖励循环的思考远远不够。“奖励循环需要有力、即时,且能触动情绪,这样当这个人做了你希望他做的事情时,他会感觉自己棒极了。
当我在团队中尝试培养任何类型的习惯时,我一直在想的就是:我怎样才能确保当一个人做了这件事时,他感觉真的很好?
我之所以喜欢用 Custom GPT 作为帮助人们学习使用大语言模型的工具——我在和 Claire 做的那期播客上也谈过这个,关于我的 AI 使用方式——是因为,如果你把提示词写好放进去,你作为构建 Custom GPT 的人来写提示词,把它放进去,你设计好让人们可以上传一个特定的文档。然后他们可以得到一个特定的输出,比如对那份文档的反馈,或者比反馈更有趣的东西——一份改进后的文档版本。
他们能体会到那种喜悦——“哦,这帮到我了,这很酷”,而不会有那种挫败感——“哦,我不擅长写提示词,这东西不太管用,我很沮丧。“所以我总的来说一直是这样想的。如果我想在团队中培养任何类型的习惯,重点不在于我怎么执行问责,而在于我如何让这件事变得如此有回报,以至于人们自然而然地去做。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你说话的时候我记了笔记,所以,关于习惯的四个要素——其实你说了三个步骤,我来问你要一个例子,帮助大家看看这在现实中是怎么运作的。基本上,要帮助人们建立真正的习惯,需要聚焦三个方面:一致性、降低摩擦、奖励循环。而在奖励循环中,你希望它有力、即时、能触动情绪。能举个例子吗?
Hilary Gridley: 好的,我可以举一些我们产品中实际这样做的例子,如果大家感兴趣的话。
Lenny Rachitsky: 当然。
WHOOP 的奖励循环设计
Hilary Gridley: 因为我觉得 WHOOP 在这方面做得非常好。我觉得 WHOOP 上最有趣的一种反奖励循环,是围绕酒精的。WHOOP 有一个恢复系统。你每天早上会得到一个恢复分数——红色、黄色、绿色,基本上反映你的恢复程度,以及你准备好迎接这一天的程度。
如果你喝酒,并且你在用 WHOOP,你会很快发现,每次你喝酒,恢复分数都是红色。这很有意思,因为并不是说喝酒的人以前没有宿醉过,或者他们不知道酒精在干扰睡眠。这些对人们来说都不是新闻,但看到那个红色分数就是有一种——感觉不好。它对人们有一种非常深刻的情绪冲击。
而当你看到绿色分数时,感觉很好。就像,“哦,我做得不错,我在照顾好自己,我是一个健康的人。“我跟会员们交流时经常听到这样的话,有人说,“我喝酒的问题已经好多年了,直到我开始用 WHOOP,才真正控制住了自己的饮酒。”
我还是会对此感到惊讶,因为我会想,“你之前已经有所有你需要的信息了,“但有一种东西是——你醒来,看到那个红色分数,它就是能够覆盖掉最初驱使你去做那件事的任何冲动。
然后我觉得,持续拥有这些数据,让你可以回看自己的数据,看到”哦,那天是红色的,那天是我做了这件事的。“这其实是我们在尝试用一种更长期的方式来实现的。
因为当你有这些短奖励循环的时候,事情比较简单——“我做了一件事”,然后立刻得到一个奖励,绿色恢复,或者一个反奖励,红色恢复,于是改变了我的行为。
Healthspan 功能与长期奖励循环
我们有一个新功能叫 Healthspan,刚刚随我们的新硬件一起发布。基本上,它试图帮你建立一个奖励循环,把你今天的行为和活动,与二三十、四十年后你的健康状况联系起来。
我们有一个类似的东西,我们叫它 Amoeba。里面有你的 WHOOP 年龄,有颜色,会动来动去,会根据你每天的行为和活动变化而变化。当你做得更好的时候颜色会变,做得更差的时候也会变。你可以把一切都拆开来看——你怎么睡的、你的最大摄氧量(VO2 Max)、你睡眠的一致性、你在不同心率区间花了多少时间、你在力量训练上花了多少时间,等等。
我们发现,这同样是一个极其强大的奖励循环,因为我们处理的是历史上一直非常非常困难的一件事——“当我今天做出健康的改变时,我不仅在几十年内看不到这些改变的结果,而且这些改变的短期奖励循环往往感觉相当糟糕,因为改变是困难的,在感觉好之前先感觉不好。”
而我们试图构建这样一个奖励循环——让人们看到那些数字变化、看到那些颜色变化时感到更有回报,从而能够真正做出那些改变,看到进步,并对此感觉很好。
用习惯养成的策略做有意义的事
Lenny Rachitsky: 我很喜欢你们在利用所有这些习惯养成的策略——过去人们用这些策略让你去刷 Instagram 点赞、刷 Facebook 帖子——现在却用在了真正有意义的事情上,帮助人们活得更长久、更幸福。这让我非常高兴。
你有没有在团队中做类似事情的例子?帮助团队成员养成习惯,你之前也谈到过学习使用 Claude、ChatGPT 之类的 AI。
Hilary Gridley: 有的。我觉得在 AI 方面,很多时候就是公开表扬,对吧?当有人用 AI 解决了一个他们以前不会想到用 AI 来解决的问题时,在团队会议上给他们一个 shout-out,让他们做演示。
说到底,就是让他们因为做了这件事而觉得自己棒极了。人们是会有响应的。大家会注意到——也许是因为我在 WHOOP 工作,我们都痴迷于奖励循环,所以我们都在主动选择这种方式。
Lenny Rachitsky: 或者说互相给对方造奖励循环。“给你一个奖励。”
Hilary Gridley: 没错,就是这个意思。大家会看到,也会响应。我觉得另一个例子是我经常思考的一件事,也跟我们关于如何打造能做难事的团队的讨论相关——那就是如何鼓励人们在下班后照顾好自己。这是我一直在团队中以身作则去做的事情,让团队成员清楚地看到我是怎么做的,看到我的兴趣爱好和各种其他活动。
因此,当我看到团队成员也在做同样的事情时,我也会尝试去奖励他们,建立这些奖励循环。因为我觉得,管理者经常在不经意间制造了这样的奖励循环——“哦,这个人为了完成工作熬到凌晨两点,但他确实做完了。“当你创造出这样的奖励循环时,人们就会开始模仿这种行为。
奖励你想要看到的行为
所以,我试着反其道而行之。我试着去发现那些让我真心欣赏团队成员的方式——他们如何在下班后照顾好自己——因为坦率地说,我认为这让他们在工作中表现更好,也让他们成为更幸福的人。我团队里有一位 PM,叫 Emily,她在 Handlebar 教课。她业余时间是一名健身教练。
所以,每次我们有很长的会议时,我会说:“Emily,你来带大家拉伸一下吧,把大家的精力提起来?不用太正式,就一分钟,在我们开始开会之前。“这挺有趣的。大家都会笑,“Emily 又在做她的拿手好戏了。“然后我会说:“大家,这周六上午十点,来 Charlestown 的 Handlebar 看 Emily 的课啊。”
顺便说一句,播客听众里如果你在波士顿地区,也应该去看看,她真的很棒。Shout-out to Emily。但就是这类事情。就是找到这些小小的机会——因为大家已经在笑了,已经在微笑了,我们正在做一件有趣的事,每个人都心情很好,然后我就说:“好,完美时机,给某人一个 shout-out,让他们因为做了一件事而觉得自己棒极了——而在很多情况下,他们可能会想,‘哦,我被允许在工作之外有这份其他工作吗?这样合适吗?‘“所以,是的,你必须主动去构建这些奖励循环。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我太喜欢 Emily 在这里得到 shout-out 这个奖励循环了。这也太 meta 了。
Hilary Gridley: 终极奖励。
Lenny Rachitsky: 你在波士顿的课马上要满员了。这方面还有其他例子吗?因为刚才那个真的很精彩。而且我知道管理者们其实已经在做类似的事情了,就是在做推广。
但我觉得这里的核心经验是:把注意力集中在你想要鼓励更多的事情上。而不是”嘿,他们周末加班了,搞定了,太棒了。谢谢你们做了这件事。”
你的意思是这几乎算是一种反模式,因为你未必希望这成为一种习惯。所以更像是——把你的奖励性表态转向你真正有意识地想要在新团队中培养的东西。
Hilary Gridley: 对,而且要非常、非常用心地去思考这件事。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好的。那我们回到照顾好自己这个话题,因为这也是另一个被反复提到的点——几乎每个人都提到了这个。你在这方面做得很好,能找到时间照顾自己,并且为其他人做表率。
具体来说,很多人提到你如何为创造力腾出空间。我觉得对很多人来说,尤其是很多 PM 来说,就是——“我根本没有时间做任何事。我一整天就是一个会议接一个会议,连上厕所或吃饭的时间都没有。”
我很好奇你是怎么做到的。你如何在一天中为创造性工作、深度工作和会议之外的思考腾出空间?
为创造力和深度工作腾出空间
Hilary Gridley: 说来有趣。听到大家觉得我擅长这件事我很高兴,因为我在组织活动方面其实很糟糕。我的团队总是说,“我们应该搞一个有趣的活动。“我说,“好主意。”
然后我就不组织了。不过我愿意相信我在其他方面做到了这一点。我确实认为其中一个方面就是以身作则,展示如何为各种事情腾出空间。有几件事。我觉得创造力这一面,对我来说可能更多是在工作之外的。对我来说,那就是创造力所在。
但话说回来,作为管理者,我认为自己能帮助大家的一个重要方面——回到行为激活那个话题——就是理解一个人需要什么才能快乐、才能成为最好的自己、才能高效运转。这取决于他们的价值观,取决于他们自身的很多因素。对 Emily 来说,是健身、是教学、是这些事情。对我来说,是我的手工艺,我的插画、写作、阅读,诸如此类。
我认为第一步就是,作为领导者,了解你团队中的每个人各自需要什么。然后,正如我所说,以身作则。
我总是告诉大家,“我是这样做的。“我会谈论这些事情,让这一切变得很正常化,因为我觉得很多 PM 会说,“天哪,我太忙了。我没有时间。我一整天都在开会。“但这在一定程度上是自己造成的,我觉得。
到了某个节点,你必须自己承担起把自己从琐碎事务中抽离出来的责任。这很难做到,但并非不可能。所以我认为,就是向人们展示这是可能的,向人们展示你可以做到这些事情。我会谈论这些,我会把它们带到学习讨论中。
我有一个读书会,有时候我会在工作中要求大家参加,然后我说,“也许我不需要再强制要求了”——但通过各种方式让这些事情变得可见,确保大家知道我在做这些事,然后去问他们的情况。
如果我在一对一面谈中,在跟大家沟通时,我会问他们:“你做什么事会感到快乐?你每天都在做一件给自己带来快乐的事情吗?“如果他们说没有,我就会说:“这有问题。我们打算怎么解决?你知道那些事情是什么吗?”
因为我觉得很多人并不知道。也有很多人,很好,他们会说,“哦,我需要保证 X 小时的运动、X 小时的睡眠。我知道我必须在十二点准时吃午饭,不然我就会变成南瓜。”
如果是那种已经清楚知道所有这些事情的人,你只需要帮他们腾出时间,那是一回事。但我觉得,很多时候人们甚至都不清楚。那你就得对他们做行为激活——“好吧,那你试试一些事情,下次告诉我,哪些似乎有效,哪些似乎起了作用。“
许可结构
Hilary Gridley: 但我确实认为,这很大程度上是一种许可结构,因为人们感受到压力,觉得”哦,我太忙了,我太忙了,我一整天都在开会。我没法拒绝这些会议,我没法不做这些事情。“所以在很多方面,我觉得仅仅是以身作则,就给了他们一种许可结构,开始重新掌控自己的生活。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我能理解为什么人们喜欢为你工作。在一对一面谈中被问到”你今天有没有做一件让自己感到快乐的事情?如果没有,那就有问题。“哇。
Hilary Gridley: 这很重要。这就是生活的全部意义。如果我们在这里只是为了劳作、为了痛苦,那我们为什么还在?
Lenny Rachitsky: 而且,他们在工作中也会成为更好的人,做出更好的工作。我觉得——告诉我,纠正我如果我错了——但这感觉像是这其中的一部分。
Hilary Gridley: 嗯,而且这真的很有趣,因为这些东西,当你把它放到运动情境中去理解,就非常显而易见了。显然,我之前谈到过恢复分数。运动员需要恢复,这个概念非常明显。我想没有人会反驳这一点。
如果你一直以百分之百的身体能力在压榨自己,你不仅会崩溃,而且你的表现会切实下降。同样地,我觉得在体育界,大家更普遍地接受——我甚至不想说是接受极限——而是接受你必须花时间去做那些让你达到最佳状态的事情。而这不只是整天对着墙猛冲。
我觉得我们在工作中忘了这一点,但我认为这个类比百分之百成立。我也从另一个角度想这件事——想要有任何形式的创造性突破,主动休息极其重要。大脑的停机时间极其重要。这些东西都有非常充分的文献记录。我们全都清楚,但我们就是不断找借口不给自己这些东西。我觉得到了某个程度,这就是自我破坏。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我确实会找借口不做这些,然后一直工作。所以我自己也需要这些建议。
Hilary Gridley: 这就是为什么——听好了,听好了。我之所以对这件事如此严格自律,是因为如果我不这么做,我就会崩掉。有一句引言,我不记得在哪里看到的,但我很喜欢。大意是:“我已经把我脑子里的恶魔赶走了,但它们在外面,在做俯卧撑。”
恶魔卷土重来的威胁始终存在。所以,我对这些事情非常认真,因为我知道,如果我让自己开始滑向——不再做自己需要做的事情来照顾自己,我就要遭殃了。墙壁会开始向我合拢。
我对此毫不避讳。对我来说,折磨自己、拼命工作、没有快乐的空间、没有创造力的空间,毫无意义。哪怕仅仅从实际角度出发,我也不会成功。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这又回到了你之前说的那个观点——我想它叫行为激活——去做那件事。与其等待自己产生某种感觉,不如去做那件会带给你那种感觉的事。
Hilary Gridley: 对。
AI 与学习
Lenny Rachitsky: 好。作为可能是最后一个话题——但我之后还有几个问题,所以也许不是最后一个。最后一个领域是 AI。我很高兴我们等了这么久才深入聊 AI。我们不会在这里花太多时间。你写了一整篇客座文章来谈这个。你也做了 “How I AI” 来讨论其中一些内容。
但之前我们聊天时,你说你觉得人们仍然在严重低估 AI 对他们学习和提升自身能力的潜力。我知道你在这上面花了很多时间,建了各种各样的 GPT。
就谈谈你的感觉——你觉得人们仍然在多大程度上低估了 AI 在帮助他们变得更好方面的力量。
Hilary Gridley: 对。我觉得在如何用 AI 来思考学习这件事上,我们的想象力远远不够。我听到人们担心入门级岗位的问题。当你想一个入门级岗位时,它某种程度上就是故意低效的,因为你拿分析师来说,这是一个典型的入门级角色。
他们在做苦力活,做非常枯燥的工作,但他们在这个过程中获得了大量的重复练习,因为那恰恰是你学习判断力、从而做好更高级别工作的方式。我在创意领域也听到这种说法。我从业内每个人那里都听到这种说法,我自己当然也有同感。
我职业生涯早期做的工作,就其产生的影响力而言,并没有感觉多么重要,但在培养我自己的判断力和品味、以及我如何做出快速判断这方面,确实感觉是变革性的。
如果我当年没有花那么多年去学习,我现在就不可能做到这些。我以前做社交媒体,把我想说的话压缩到 120 个字符里——或者旧版 Twitter 上是多少来着,240?我不记得了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我也忘了,是不是很疯狂?我忘了最初是多少。我想是 140。对,140 个字符。
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得是 140。反正很短。如果你还得在里面塞一个链接,那就祝你好运了。
但是天哪,我今天看着一段文字,直接把它砍掉一半、三分之一——不管需要砍到多少来适应空间——我可以闭着眼睛做到,就是因为我在职业生涯早期做了大量的这种重复练习。
我看到人们担心的一种威胁是,公司可能不愿意再雇佣那么多入门级人才了,因为”哦,这种工作是 AI 能做的。”
我听到的那种恐惧,至少是——如果你在职业生涯早期没有获得那些重复练习的机会,也许在那个当下你对公司的贡献不算太大,但那是你日后变得优秀的学习途径。
所以有一种担忧是,五年、十年之后,我们根本就不会有那样一群人了——一群通过那种方式学到了如何把工作做好、建立起了判断力的人。
但我认为这种观点遗漏了一点:它假设你去做这份分析师工作两年,两年结束时你得到了一个会做模型做得很好、会把几件事做得很出色的人。但为什么非得花两年?为什么你必须是那种模式——在这件事上苦熬,等反馈,终于等到反馈,也许反馈还不错,也许不好,回去再试一次。你仔细想想,这其实非常低效。
而让我真正兴奋的那些围绕 AI 的学习应用,是关于如何缩短这个循环。在我和 Claire 的播客中,我向她展示了如何构建这些像我一样思考的 GPT。这样做的目的是让我的团队可以获得至少百分之八十接近我会给出的反馈。
但他们不必等到我看到他们的消息,或者等到我们的一对一面谈,而是可以随时随地获取,想要多少次就有多少次,永远如此。我觉得有很多类似这样的东西——那些本来需要依赖他人的事情,天然就会拖慢节奏;需要从他人那里获得反馈的事情,天然就会拖慢节奏。
AI 加速技能学习
Hilary Gridley: 我们可以构建 AI 工具,在我看来,无论你做什么工作——你获得的练习次数,没有理由不能被大幅增加。你可以是电影剪辑师,坐在那里,反复审看影片,决定怎么剪、剪掉什么、放进预告片里什么,无论是什么内容。那是一份极其繁琐、耗时漫长的工作。
我觉得我们完全有理由用 AI 让这件事变得高效得多,让学习过程更有趣。所以,我想这大概就是我的一个热点观点:是的,确实存在这种威胁——很多看起来可以直接被自动化替代的工作,可能真的会被替代。
但我们绝对仍然需要持续投资于人的技能发展。我只是认为,我们不需要一直沿用历史上那种方式来投资。我认为在未来回头看,我们会发现那些方式其实相当低效,与今天可能做到的相比。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这个观点非常有力量。而且我们已经看到了这一点。我想你应该看过那些研究,好像是在尼日利亚,他们给学生配备 AI 导师,学生的进步速度直接飙升,在阅读和数学方面的进展加速得非常快。
我觉得我们已经在目睹这一切了。在 PM 和产品这些领域更难衡量,但在学校里就容易衡量得多,而我们已经看到了那里的成果。
Hilary Gridley: 是的,完全同意。
Lenny Rachitsky: 为了让大家的感受更具体,你有一个专门的 GPT,我记得叫 Socrates,还是叫什么来着?
Hilary Gridley: 哦,Aristotle,对。
Lenny Rachitsky: Aristotle?好的。不,我们后期会把那段剪掉。Aristotle,就是给你产品场景练习的那个。
Hilary Gridley: 对。
Lenny Rachitsky: 举个例子,让大家感受一下它能做什么。
Hilary Gridley: 好的,这个的起源是这样的——我之前谈到过学习如何构建一个非常有说服力的、合乎逻辑的论证,或者总的来说为你的观点构建一个强有力的论证。而在我看来,这方面的基本功就是逻辑思维、逻辑推理。当我们想到目前测试这方面能力的最佳方式——至少……
想想目前我们测试这方面能力的标准方式——也许”最佳”这个词不太准确,但标准方式是 LSAT,就是你考法学院之前要参加的那个考试,它测的就是这个。它会给你各种不同的场景,比如说如果 A 为真,那么以下哪项为真、哪项不为真?考察的就是这些不同的逻辑关系。
所以我做了一个 GPT,基本就是告诉它:“创建 LSAT 风格的逻辑推理题目,但把场景换成 PM 会遇到的情况。“我有一个版本非常针对 WHOOP 和消费健康领域,但你可以为任何事情做这个,也可以做通用的,随你怎么做。
而且其实挺有趣的,因为它会给你一个场景,比如:“销售团队告诉你需要在功能 A 上投入,工程团队说只有时间做功能 B,而数据指标显示获得这个功能的用户留存更好。“就是这种小场景,然后让你跟着逻辑走,判断哪条路径在逻辑上是最优的?它给你一个多选题,你选一个,然后它会解释你为什么对或为什么错。
所以我觉得这只是另一个例子——你可以创建那种高度个性化的学习体验,我可以做一个完全针对你和你生活的场景,但训练和考察的是更广泛的技能。我觉得你可以用这种方式让学习变得更有趣,即便在学校场景中也是如此,用一种与个人兴趣相关、与他们关心的事情相关的方式来做。我认为这里面有非常多有意思的潜力。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我们会把你说的这个 GPT 的链接放出来,大家可以试用。一旦你看到它就会觉得,“天哪,我应该一直在用这个”,因为作为产品人你可以获得大量的练习。
工程估时训练 GPT
Hilary Gridley: 我们之前还聊过一个类似的,关于理解工程估时的。我没有工程背景,所以当我转向产品方向时,这方面对我来说非常困难——就是对哪些事情对工程团队来说通常更简单、哪些更难,要建立起直觉。所以我们也可以做一个类似的,比如:“这是提出的需求范围。如果要你用 T-shirt 尺码来估算,你会选哪个,为什么?“你可以说,“哦,这个听起来应该是 small 之类的。“然后它会告诉你,“实际上这类集成往往比较复杂,原因是这些,所以可能最终更接近 large。”
它没有足够的上下文能像你公司的技术栈那样真正准确地告诉你。不过我想你可以构建它并把那些信息给它,然后它就可以了,那会很酷。你应该试试。但话说回来,你作为 PM,这种事你可能一周能碰到几次,也许更少。而有了这个小工具,你可以无限次地练习。你可以花一整个下午来做这件事。所以,再一次,无论是这些循环的速度,还是你能获得的循环次数,在 AI 的帮助下与仅仅依靠工作中自然出现的机会相比,是完全不同层级的。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我觉得这太酷了。我们会放出链接。大家一定要试试。好的,接下来我要带大家进入播客的两个固定环节,然后我想聊聊 WHOOP,之后进入一个非常令人兴奋的闪电问答。这是一个我正在尝试的新环节,我称之为”转折角”。问题是:你职业生涯中最关键的转折时刻是什么?
转折角:职业生涯的关键时刻
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得应该是在我之前的公司 Big Health,当时我的前任老板离开了公司,我开始直接向 CEO 汇报。这也是我第一次如此近距离地和 CEO 合作,绝对是真刀真枪的历练。但它让我理解了很多之前看起来不合理的事情——当我在职业生涯早期还只是大科技公司普通一员的时候,觉得那些事完全不make sense。当你进了那个房间,和那些人交谈,你会想,“哦,这其实是合理的。我理解这个人为什么会得出这些结论。”
其中一部分是理解他们所承受的压力。另一部分是理解他们看待世界的方式。但我认为这就回到了我们之前谈到的那一点——那种谦逊,去理解也许这个人在某些我看不见的事情上是对的,也许我可以先从……如果我先假定他们是有道理的,这不仅是一件友善的事,而且也会帮助我理解他们为什么在做那些事。我觉得如果我职业生涯早期就理解了这一点,我会少很多挫败感,而不是仅仅觉得,“哦,从我坐的位置看这说不通,所以它一定说不通。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 太有意思了,这和你养成的那个习惯联系了起来——亲眼看到了之后会说,“哦,我明白了,原来是因为……”
Hilary Gridley: 对,我好像之前都没意识到这个联系。
Lenny Rachitsky: 也许我是错的,也许我可能是错的。
Hilary Gridley: 嗯,我觉得确实如此。我觉得自己经历过很多次这样的情况——不知道怎么说,我小时候对自己的每一个感受都特别笃定。然后你出去面对现实,就会想,“哦,原来我漏掉了一些东西。“久而久之你就会想,“好吧,也许我以后面对这些情况时应该换个方式,带着一种’也许我漏掉了什么’的心态。”
Lenny Rachitsky: 所以我就这个问题问了你的老板 Kelvin——顺便说一句,这名字太酷了,Kelvin。当我问他应该问你什么问题的时候,他自己提起了这件事,他是这样描述的:“她可能会把那段经历描述为被扔进深水区,或者说是烈火中的洗礼,但实际情况是她本身具备核心能力,这次机会只是让她的才能更加充分地展现出来。她是一个极其出色的一第一性原理思考者,随着对背景信息的深入了解,能迅速调整问题的框架。这就是一个很好的例子——所谓运气,就是准备遇上机会。”
Hilary Gridley: 谢谢 Kelvin。太暖心了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 他还说:“我不知道她现在还记不记得当时有多害怕,因为她表现得无比出色,那似乎是一个转折点,极大提升了她的自信心。”
Hilary Gridley: 哦,我当时确实很害怕。非常非常害怕。然后——这也是我之前说的,为什么在工作之外保持那些能让自己持续成长的事情如此重要、如此有纪律性地去做——即使面对那种彻底的失败感,“我做得不好,事情进展不顺,我不知道自己在干什么”的感觉。那段时间很大程度上就是这种感觉。Kelvin 其实给了我一些很好的建议,这个建议可能有点吓人——我问他对我这段时间有什么建议,他说:“产品领导力这种角色,如果你不能掌控你脑子里的声音,它们会把你吞噬。”
我觉得他说得对。正如我所说,很多时候就是这种感觉——没有明确正确的答案,甚至不一定有一个好的答案。而所有人都在等你给出清晰的判断,所有人都在等你做出正确的决定,所有人都能看到错误,或者说至少所有人都能在你做出的任何决定或建议中挑出毛病。而且正如我说的,每一条前进的路都有可以被挑剔的缺陷。所以,理解这一点很重要——某件事存在被批评的可能性,并不等于它就理应被批评,但我觉得这一点往往会导致人们产生大量的负面自我对话。所以没错,这对我的影响非常大。
Lenny Rachitsky: 很有意思,你养成的这么多习惯和技能,现在很清楚它们的来源了——都来自你经历过的这些事情。
Hilary Gridley: 对,而且说到你开始和别人交流、开始试图构建他们如何思考的心智模型——你学到的恰恰就是这个,就是你能看到这个人在这段时间在这家公司工作,你能看到这个人和另一个人之间有怎样的关系,所有这些因素塑造了我们解决问题的方式,也塑造了我们在这个世界中前行的方式。而正是理解了这些,你才能理解一个人的思维方式。
用 AI 构建心智模型
Lenny Rachitsky: 我在想,你能不能让 ChatGPT,或者让 Claude 来构建这种心智模型?比如,“这是他们的 LinkedIn,这是他们的简介,这里有几条信息,他们怎么看世界?”
Hilary Gridley: 我承认我试过。我觉得这是个很好的想法,确实有帮助。不过我还没到能跟别人分享的程度,也没告诉任何人我为他们做过这件事,但我确实为自己做过。我觉得这会很有用。因为你可以上传一份文档之类的,然后说,“这个人对这份文档会问我哪三个问题?“然后你就能为对方可能提出的问题做好准备,这很棒。
Lenny Rachitsky: 在这个假想的例子中,你会给模型提供什么背景信息来让它表现得好?
Hilary Gridley: 好问题。假设我告诉过你,我会记录所有这些笔记——这个人说了什么,我是如何理解的——而 LLM 非常擅长模式匹配,善于发现……你可以把所有这些笔记输入进去,然后说,“总结出这个人最可能用来评估一项建议或前进方向的十条标准,“或者,“列出这个人最可能用来反驳一个论点或反对某件事的十种方式,“你会得到一个很好的答案。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这又是养成记笔记并与团队分享习惯的一个理由。另一方面,这也可能是 Granola 之类工具的一个很好的应用场景——你有所有这些会议记录,可以直接输入,“这是 Hilary 说过的话,“然后问,“她对这件事大概会怎么说?”
Hilary Gridley: 完全同意。
失败角
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇,太酷了。好,下一个角,我们进入失败角。失败角的想法是这样的——人们上这个播客,分享的都是成功和胜利,一切都蒸蒸日上、精彩无比,但现实中事情并不总是那么顺利。所以问题是,你能否分享一个你职业生涯中失败的故事,事情没有如你所愿,以及你从中学到了什么?
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得在我脑海中占据最大分量的那个——我之前提到过那个我花了大约一年时间开发的抑郁症疗法,最终公司收购了另一个抑郁症疗法。然后我们基本上把两者合并了。而我们最初构建的很多东西——我非常喜欢的那个产品的很多东西——除了我们围绕它做的测试之外,基本上再也没能见天日。这让人心碎,因为我希望这个产品能真正存在。我看着它会想,“这是一个很好的产品,我们倾注了那么多心血。”
我觉得我从中学到的教训是——我认为始终存在一个计时器。尤其是做零到一的产品时,很容易觉得自己有充裕的时间,就像,我们需要花时间把事情弄清楚、做对,这才是最重要的。但自建还是购买的问题始终存在,始终是合理的。不管你愿不愿意承认——如果你是那个在做这件事的人,你大概率不愿意承认,我当时也不愿意——确实存在一个时间点,对公司来说,如果开发某个东西花了太长时间,而市面上有一个可行的方案,收购那个方案就是正确的决定。
我在 Dropbox 工作时就经常看到这种情况——我们会收购其他内部团队一直在做的产品,就是……发生的时候真的很心碎。但我觉得这也给我注入了一种紧迫感,我认为这其实是非常好且健康的,尤其是在当下这个 AI 军备竞赛的时代,每个人都在努力快速推进——没错,始终存在一个计时器。你可能意识不到它,但它就在那里,你必须全力以赴地构建,必须发布,必须把东西推出去,因为计时器随时可能归零。
WHOOP 5.0 新体验
Lenny Rachitsky: 说到计时器——倒也不完全相关,但我想花点时间聊聊 WHOOP。你们刚发布了一个感觉非常重要的产品,我很兴奋,这也是我入手它的原因。有好多很酷的新功能,你们好像叫它 WHOOP 5.0,大家应该了解什么?最新、最酷的东西是什么?
Hilary Gridley: 我很高兴你入手了。我知道你之前试过……
Lenny Rachitsky: 没错,没错。
Hilary Gridley: 之前试过 WHOOP 的人可能会觉得它非常聚焦于精英运动员,而那确实是……
Lenny Rachitsky: 对,我当时就是这种感觉。
Hilary Gridley: 可以说是公司的命脉。但我觉得我们新体验做的事情是,真正打造了一个能帮助每个人变得更健康、生活得更好的产品。我想说,我们不再只服务于精英运动员了。我们现在真正成为了一个面向所有想要保持最佳状态的人的健康与表现伴侣。
这是我们公司历史上第一次更新了使命宣言,现在我们说 WHOOP 的存在是为了解锁人类表现和 Healthspan。而 Healthspan,我之前提到过这个功能,我非常兴奋,因为我确实认为这是我见过的最强大的长寿类功能,因为它如此聚焦于你今天的行为和习惯。
我们把它做得非常、非常可操作。所以不是仅仅给你一个分数让你觉得”好吧,还不错”——如果你今晚哪怕多睡 20 分钟、30 分钟,你就会看到那如何改变你的衰老轨迹,会看到那如何改变你的 WHOOP 年龄。我觉得这一点,正如我之前提到的,是非常有正向反馈的。
我们还有大量通过 AI 提供的个性化指导,告诉你可以采取哪些行动来改善 WHOOP 年龄、改善睡眠、让自己感觉更好,这些都是我们让健康变得更可操作、更可及的更广泛目标的一部分。还有一件让我特别兴奋的事——我们推出了一系列新的女性健康功能,包括激素洞察和改进后的月经周期追踪。其实我现在怀孕了,我——
Lenny Rachitsky: 什么?我不知道这件事。这可是个大消息。哇,恭喜你 Hilary,太令人激动了。
Hilary Gridley: 其实我发现怀孕的部分原因就是看了我的 WHOOP 数据。
Lenny Rachitsky: 什么?什么?这也太不可思议了。
Hilary Gridley: 就在我的 WHOOP 数据里,真的非常不可思议。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇。
Hilary Gridley: 我们现在的周期追踪功能,可以看到你的各项指标——HRV、静息心率之类的,也就是你的心率变异性和静息心率——在整个周期不同时间段的波动情况。甚至在那之前,我的怀孕之路并不顺利,拥有这些工具来真正了解自己身体里发生了什么,对我来说帮助极大,也给了我很大的力量感,说实话真的改变了我的生活。所以我对此非常兴奋。
我们还有很多很棒的心脏健康新功能,包括带有血压洞察和 ECG 的心脏健康筛查。真的很酷。我们还有很多很棒的东西在做。所以即使你之前试过 WHOOP 觉得不适合自己,我认为新体验是一次真正的升级,这是我深度参与并深感自豪的工作,也非常高兴它能面世。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我真的非常期待。你说可以测血压和最大摄氧量(VO2 Max)?
Hilary Gridley: 嗯。
Lenny Rachitsky: 而且我知道电池续航也更长了,好多新东西。
Hilary Gridley: 哦,我们有 14 天的电池续航,我都忘了说。还有这些漂亮的新皮质表带,我很喜欢。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇哦。
Hilary Gridley: 14 天电池续航简直不可思议。我明天去度假,都不用带充电器。太棒了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 天哪。这听起来像个 WHOOP 广告,但我确实非常兴奋。
Hilary Gridley: 我再说一件事,我们已经开放了 Advanced Labs 的等候名单,很快你就能够在 app 里看到全面的化验报告。我觉得我们谈论健康的未来时,说的就是把所有健康数据集中在一个地方掌控,然后不仅仅是找到其中的信号——比如你的睡眠如何影响你的代谢健康之类的——而且还能获得真正可操作的指导,告诉你可以采取哪些行动来感觉更好、变得更健康,不断拓展我们拉入 WHOOP 生态系统的所有数据的边界。所以对那个我也非常期待。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我希望 WHOOP 能真的帮我抽血和做化验。这是未来的方向吗?因为那可太方便了。
Hilary Gridley: 无可奉告。
Lenny Rachitsky: 好吧。虽然有点奇怪但也太棒了。我就不用去任何地方做了。Hilary,我们聊了好多话题。在进入非常令人兴奋的闪电问答之前,还有什么想聊的吗?还有什么我们没涉及到的,或者最后想留给听众的一点想法?
Hilary Gridley: 我觉得没有了,感觉我们都聊到了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 确实,我们聊了特别多,而且都是好的那种。那么,我们已经到了非常令人兴奋的闪电问答环节。准备好了吗?
Hilary Gridley: 准备好了。
闪电问答
Lenny Rachitsky: 有哪两三本书是你最常推荐给别人的?
Hilary Gridley: 伙计,你不能管这叫闪电问答然后问我书的问题。我们可以再录一整期播客来聊这个……
Lenny Rachitsky: 那我们就给它设个时间盒。
Hilary Gridley: 没错。
Lenny Rachitsky: 闪电问答。
Hilary Gridley: 好,听我接下来的回答——我这次要全力推小说。我想说,如果你要读一本书,别费劲读商业书。即便是那些我最喜欢、塑造了我思维方式的书,我也会觉得”读了一半就已经抓到要领了”。但小说就不一样——每个人都应该读 John Steinbeck 的《East of Eden》,每个人都应该读 Ernest Hemingway 的《The Sun Also Rises》,那是我的”安慰书”。
我觉得小说之所以让我着迷,是它教会你如何在张力中安坐。做产品工作中,如我所说,你身处迷雾之中,必须提供清晰度,必须善于为模糊的事物提供结构、找到前进的方向——要做好这份工作,你必须具备这些能力。但我也觉得,要作为一个人在这份工作中存活下来,你必须能够安坐于混乱之中,安坐于模糊之中。诗人 John Keats 谈到一个概念叫”消极能力”,即在不因对事实和理性的急躁追求而焦躁的情况下,保持停留在不确定、神秘和怀疑之中的能力。我很喜欢这个概念。
Lenny Rachitsky: 这句引言听起来简直是对所有 PM 的完美箴言……
小说中的二元性
Hilary Gridley: 没错。你必须同时兼具两者,对吧。再说一次,虚构作品——我喜欢二元性。虚构作品中充满了二元性,人内心有那么多相互对抗的力量,它们可以是驱动人前行的动力,但也可以成为巨大痛苦的根源。我认为同时活在两种状态中很重要。一方面是”我要拆解这个问题,我要给它结构,我要找到出路”,另一方面是”我就坐在这里,接受没有正确答案,也没有完美答案”。这就是生活。你不会从……即便你能从书中学到这一点——也许你学不到——但我认为你可以从虚构作品中学到它。
《Anna Karenina》
Lenny Rachitsky: 不知道你怎么看这本书。我觉得你会为我骄傲——我正在读《Anna Karenina》。
Hilary Gridley: 天哪,那正好是我明天度假要带上的书。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇,你从没读过?
Hilary Gridley: 从没读过。
Lenny Rachitsky: 酷,我也是。好,到时候交换一下读后感。我发现这本书非常长,因为我在 Kindle 上读的,才 12%。好吧。
Hilary Gridley: 这下我真的非读不可了。我之前还有点犹豫,心想”坐在泳池边的时候我真的会想读这个吗?“但不管了,已经决定的事。
Lenny Rachitsky: 必须读。另一位嘉宾也推荐了它,最近又看到它出现在一些书单上,我就想”哦,我应该读一读。“好,下一个问题。你最近有没有特别喜欢的电影或电视剧?
近期影视推荐
Hilary Gridley: 我最近在看 Nathan Fielder 的《The Rehearsal》。你看过吗?
Lenny Rachitsky: 我看了第一季。我一直都是 Nathan Fielder 的超级粉丝。不知道你有没有看过他之前做的那个节目,我忘了叫什么。
Hilary Gridley: 哦,看过。
Lenny Rachitsky: 他太搞笑了,简直是个天才。
Hilary Gridley: 《Nathan for You》。
Lenny Rachitsky: 《Nathan for You》?天哪。我没看过新一季,没有。
Hilary Gridley: 这个人简直是个绝世天才。就在我以为自己对人类所有情绪都了如指掌的时候,我看了这个节目,感受到了一些让我觉得——我同时感受到十种不同的东西。
Lenny Rachitsky: 二元性。
Hilary Gridley: 我心想,“我完全无法用语言描述此刻感受到的任何东西。“很奇怪,是很奇怪的东西,但我很享受。
最喜欢的新产品
Lenny Rachitsky: 我得看看。你最近有没有发现什么特别喜欢的产品?除了 WHOOP 以外。
Hilary Gridley: 我很喜欢我的 Zwift。它是一个程序,你可以把智能训练台接上去做室内骑行。你就像在 Mario Kart 里一样骑着车,在这些虚拟世界里和其他人一起骑行。它其实是为非常严肃的骑行者设计的——我不是那种严肃的骑行者。但对我来说,作为一个真的很难找到时间锻炼的人,它太棒了。
说到奖励循环,他们有一个最精彩的奖励循环机制——你骑着骑着进入一个赛道,然后你之前自己的一个”幽灵”从你身体里冲出来,开始以你在这个赛道的个人最佳成绩和你并排竞速。你必须打败你过去的自己,打败这个幽灵版本的自己。从来没有什么东西比”过去的 Hilary 来追我了”更能激励我的——而我的反应是……我对其他人不会那么好胜,但过去的 Hilary 来追我,我就想”这绝对不行。“所以我觉得这是一个很棒的产品。
Lenny Rachitsky: 我在想怎么把这个模式应用到其他场景——用某个东西的幽灵版本来激励你。很有意思。
Hilary Gridley: 我在那么多次产品会议上都说,“我们能不能做一个你自己的幽灵版本?”
Lenny Rachitsky: 他们的反应大概是,“别再提幽灵了。“好,很棒。还有两个问题。你有没有一个经常回想的、在工作和生活中觉得有用的人生格言?
人生格言
Hilary Gridley: 我说一个最近浮现在脑海中的吧。刚才我一直在谈论高深的虚构文学,那我也得来点通俗的。我最近在网上看到一个 Beavis and Butthead 的片段,他们在看 Radiohead 的《Creep》的音乐视频。歌一开始很慢,其中一个——好像是 Butthead——说”哦,这烂透了。“然后副歌来了,节奏嗨起来了,他们说”哦,这太摇滚了,太摇滚了。“然后——我不会模仿 Beavis and Butthead——然后又回到慢的部分,他们说”哦等等,又烂了。“然后 Butthead 说,“他们为什么不一直演酷的部分?“Beavis 说,“因为如果这首歌没有烂的部分,酷的部分就不会那么酷了。”
我心想,“这太深刻了。“这就是生活的真谛——如果没有那些烂的部分,酷的部分就不会那么酷。我们总是在追逐酷的部分,希望一切都酷,但不可能。所以感谢 Beavis and Butthead。
Lenny Rachitsky: 感谢 Beavis and Butthead。好,最后一个问题。我很高兴你在聊虚构作品,这正是我问题要去的方向。哪本虚构作品对你的产品构建方法、职业生涯或你思考产品的方式影响最大?
对产品思维影响最大的诗
Hilary Gridley: 我可以给一首诗吗?
Lenny Rachitsky: 当然可以。更好。诗歌,加分项。
Hilary Gridley: 有一首 Derek Walcott 的诗叫《Sea Grapes》,写的是奥德修斯,他谈到奥德修斯被一种古老的战争所驱动——执着与责任之间的战争。我 18 岁时读到那句话,它一直留在我的记忆中。我前面也提到过,我一直在思考那些驱动我们的二元性。我觉得作为一个做产品的人,我总是活在这两者之间——执着与责任。我想在这个方向上钻研到极致,想把每一件小事都理清楚。
但我们生活在社会中,存在于一个商业体系里。我在努力为股东创造价值,努力把这两者结合在一起。我觉得这是定义了我整个职业生涯的挣扎,我想也是很多人职业生涯中的挣扎——如何拥有一件你能真正痴迷的事物,在工作时能进入那种心流,但同时它又必须在这个更大的体系里运转得通。我觉得这就是指引我职业生涯和人生方向的路标。所以答案必须是 Derek Walcott。
Lenny Rachitsky: 多美的结尾方式。Hilary,最后两个问题。大家如果想联系你、跟进你聊到的内容,可以在网上哪里找到你?听众怎样能帮到你?
Hilary Gridley: 好的,谢谢。正如我之前提到的,我有一个 newsletter,地址是 hils.substack.com。我也在 Maven 上教一门课,主题是如何借助 AI 成为超级管理者。如果你听了这些内容之后心想,“Hilary,这听起来很棒,但我根本没时间做这些。你怎么有时间做所有这些事情的?“说实话,用 AI 极大地杠杆化自己是我能找到时间做这些事情的重要原因。所以我分享了很多我具体是怎么做的——作为管理者如何使用 AI,其中很多内容也延续了我在 Claire 的播客 How I AI 上分享的东西。你可以在 Maven 上找到我,接下来还有几期课程即将开班。
另外,我也鼓励大家试试 WHOOP,你可以在 join.whoop.com/hilary 获得免费一个月——Hilary 只有一个 L。你可以在 X 上 @我或给我发推文,告诉我你的使用感受。我很期待大家的反馈,因为我们对产品非常兴奋。
Lenny Rachitsky: 刚才你说话的时候我查了一下你的课程,确认大家能找到。你只要去 maven.com,搜索 Hilary Gridley 就能找到。
Hilary Gridley: 对,而且我发现如果你 Google 搜索 super manager,也能找到我。
Lenny Rachitsky: 哇。
Hilary Gridley: 这算是我的新名气来源了。
Lenny Rachitsky: 天哪,太厉害了。4.9 星,了不起。好,Hilary,非常感谢你。这期节目太棒了,涵盖了我希望聊到的所有内容,完全达到了我期望的样子。非常感谢你来。
Hilary Gridley: 谢谢你,谢谢你的邀请,这真的很有趣。
Lenny Rachitsky: 确实很有趣。大家再见。
非常感谢收听。如果你觉得这期节目有价值,可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或你最喜欢的播客应用上订阅。也请考虑给我们评分或留下评论,这对其他听众发现这个播客真的很有帮助。你可以在 lennyspodcast.com 找到所有往期节目或了解更多关于这个节目的信息。下期见。
术语表
| 原文 | 中文 |
|---|---|
| Advanced Labs | Advanced Labs(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能名称) |
| Amoeba | Amoeba(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能中的可视化组件名称) |
| anti-pattern | 反模式 |
| Aristotle | Aristotle(Hilary 创建的用于逻辑推理练习的 GPT 名称,保留原文) |
| artifact-based communication | 基于工件的沟通 |
| Beavis and Butthead | Beavis and Butthead(动画角色,保留原文) |
| behavioral activation | 行为激活 |
| Big Health | Big Health(保留原文,数字健康公司名) |
| build versus buy | 自建还是购买 |
| Charlestown | Charlestown(保留原文,波士顿地区地名) |
| Claire Vo | Claire Vo(保留原文,播客主持人名) |
| cognitive behavioral therapy | 认知行为疗法 |
| Custom GPT | Custom GPT(保留原文,ChatGPT 的自定义 GPT 功能) |
| Derek Walcott | Derek Walcott(诗人,保留原文) |
| design review | 设计评审 |
| digital therapeutics | 数字疗法 |
| Dropbox | Dropbox(保留原文,知名科技公司) |
| ECG | ECG(心电图,保留原文缩写) |
| Fail Corner | 失败角(播客固定环节名称) |
| first principles thinker | 第一性原理思考者 |
| Granola | Granola(保留原文,AI 会议记录工具) |
| Handlebar | Handlebar(保留原文,波士顿地区的健身品牌/工作室) |
| Healthspan | Healthspan(保留原文,WHOOP 产品功能名称) |
| Hilary Gridley | Hilary Gridley(播客嘉宾) |
| HRV | HRV(心率变异性,保留原文缩写) |
| Kelvin | Kelvin(保留原文,Hilary 的上级人名) |
| Lenny Rachitsky | Lenny Rachitsky(播客主持人,产品领域知名博主/播客主) |
| lightning round | 闪电问答 |
| LSAT | LSAT(Law School Admission Test,法学院入学考试,保留原文) |
| Maven | Maven(在线课程平台,保留原文) |
| mental model | 心智模型 |
| meta | meta(自我指涉的,保留原文) |
| Nathan Fielder | Nathan Fielder(喜剧演员/节目制作人,保留原文) |
| Nathan for You | Nathan for You(Nathan Fielder 的电视节目,保留原文) |
| negative capability | 消极能力 |
| newsletter | newsletter(保留原文) |
| operationalize | 运营化 |
| Pivotal Corner | 转折角(播客固定环节名称) |
| PM | PM(保留原文,Product Manager 缩写) |
| recovery score | 恢复分数 |
| Sea Grapes | Sea Grapes(Derek Walcott 的诗作,保留原文) |
| shot clock | 计时器(原为篮球术语,此处比喻产品开发的时间窗口) |
| shout-out | shout-out(公开表扬/点名表扬,保留原文用法) |
| T-shirt size | T-shirt 尺码估算(软件开发中用 S/M/L/XL 衡量工作量的方式) |
| The Rehearsal | The Rehearsal(Nathan Fielder 的电视节目,保留原文) |
| VO2 Max | 最大摄氧量(VO2 Max) |
| Whoop | Whoop(保留原文,知名可穿戴科技品牌) |
| WHOOP age | WHOOP 年龄 |
| zero to one | 零到一 |
| Zwift | Zwift(室内骑行训练平台,保留原文) |
此文档由 AI 分片翻译(translate_long_document)