The Knowledge Project, with Shane Parrish
Studying and excelling in product management is a cross-functional effort, and this is the ultimate podcast,
I’ve written before about how studying product management requires such a cross-functional skill-set and mindset, that you never know quite where the next insight would come from. Indeed, the best insights sometimes come from applying knowledge from other fields.
I came across The Knowledge Project podcast when a friend who follows it sent me an episode with Shreyas Doshi. Now, Doshi is always a pleasure to listen to on anything product management, but that discussion in particular stood out as insightful; Shane Parrish seems to be able to elicit the most profound wisdom with his questions. So I listened to another episode or two. And then I just scrolled all the way to episode number one, and have listened to the whole thing back-to-back (dropping my usual podcasts, which were getting somewhat repetitive).
Why? Because I found it fundamentally interesting and useful in life. In fact, some recent posts here were inspired by comments I’ve heard on the podcast — you probably wouldn’t guess that my post on leadership by asking better questions was inspired by interventions that social-workers do with new mothers.
I’d recommend you give it a try and listen to a few episodes, as a round-about way to improve both in the practice of product management and in thinking in general. If you like
’s podcast for all the topics above and beyond ‘pure’ product work, think of TKP as all that on steroids.What follows is a survey of recurring themes, to give you a taste.
The podcast covers many themes, with guests from all walks of life at the peak of their respective fields. From scientists and philosophers to politicians, from Olympic sportspeople to investors of funds in the billions. They each spoke on different topics, or similar topics but from different viewpoints and experiences. Throughout this, I find that certain subjects repeat, with insights perhaps phrased differently but sharing a common understanding.
I’ve organised the themes according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, for the fun of it. Again, think of yourself and of product management holistically. Don’t over-focus on a specific subject, but look for a broad understanding and improvement across all your life’s aspects.
Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise
My grandfather used to say that all there is to life is eating and sleeping, but the trick to a good life is know what to eat and who to sleep with😉 Luckily, the podcast guests go a bit deeper into these subjects.
From the relationship between diet and aging, to hacking your sleep to ensure optimal performance. Some are scientists with their own labs and can go to extreme lengths in measuring and optimising minute indicators with precise supplements dosages, which is interesting but may not be applicable for most of us. Still, there’s a lot that we can do above the “eat less, move more” that still falls within the 80/20 range to reap benefits of improvement.
Relationships & Psychology
From children and spouses to workplace cultures, from behavioural economics to brain chemistry, the science of psychology and application of relationships comes up often. How fundamental is the need to be heard to all human connections and relationships, and how you should use it to build relationships.
Considering how fundamental maintaining relationships with a (very!) diverse audience is for product management, there are a lot of insights and nuggets of information that I found illuminating and useful.
Professional Achievements
What does it take to be an Olympic level athlete? A CEO of a company valued in the billions? Or a professional poker player?
Before you scoff at that last one, consider that the book Thinking in Bets — and the whole movement around small experiments in product development it inspired — was written by Annie Duke, from her experiences in playing professional poker. She was also a early guest on the show, and hearing her — as well as CEOs, VCs, and other business leaders. It’s interesting to compare and contrast what people who have the drive (and results) to achieve the extraordinary have in common.
Spirituality
Self-awareness in an important recurring topic, and one is amazed at how often meditation is mentioned. Stoicism and other spiritual leanings in general come up occasionally. The strive to quiet the mind and allow us to focus, to bend our thoughts to our will is important in these days of heightened stress.
Meta themes
Parrish is always after the study of decision-making processes, in an attempt to help everyone learn to make better decisions. Considering product management involves a thousand small decisions daily, this aspect of the podcast is very useful.
So meta-themes come up repeatedly, which I’ll touch on here:
Probabilistic thinking
As mentioned above re thinking in bets, product management is operating in a world with incomplete information. You can’t have perfect knowledge, and chasing it will lead to paralysis by analysis. Thinking in probabilities, defining ahead what might change your mind and what’s a cost effective way to acquire this info (if any) will aid you.
Compounding effects
We like to believe in silver bullets. If we just did this. This one thing can make all the difference. The reality is that there are none. What matters is consistent efforts.Even small small changes — actually, often it’s the very small changes, but consistently applied — make a long term difference.
The problem is that the benefits of small changes consistently applied are at the end. It’s like the parable of grains of rice on a chess board. It may take a long while for the effects to be noticeable and appreciated.
Another way this comes up is “the extra mile” — it’s doing an extra 5% effort, but it’s the 5% at the end that matter. You have to consistently do a little bit better for a long time to have a great result, but that is the way to get above mediocrity.
Mental-Models vs Reality
One way to deal with reality (because we can’t ever hold the full reality in our minds — it’s just not possible), is to have a mental model. I certainly love them, as I find they make it easier to think about topics (eg see Visualising Product Management).
But it’s important to remember that The Map Is Not The Territory. Or, to put it another way, all models are wrong but some are useful (George Box). In a future post I’ll cover the Cynefin framework, VUCA, and how to think and act in situations of high ambiguity and uncertainty.
For now consider how F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Life, especially as a product manager, is full of contradictions, of situations where the complexity of situations is such that we are pulled in opposite directions and both have validity.
The “trick” is not to fight it, to try and force data to point the way we want it to. Rather, it’s to embrace these contradictions, and — similar to every other type of learning — never forget the importance of trying, failing, and reflecting. It’s usually upon reflection and modifying our actions that we can grow and resolve (to a degree) some of these contradiction, or at least keep functioning effectively in the face of them. (For an example, see my previous post on The tension between First Principles and Product Sense.)
That’s it for now. I highly recommend The Knowledge Project podcast for broadening your horizons. The core function of every knowledge work, is the ability to think — and you improve that by breadth as well as depth.