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Norton: Senior executive challenges stem from people, not product mechanics

Ken Norton · How to unlock your product leadership skills | Ken Norton, Ex-Google · Jul 24, 2022 · at 46:49

Ken Norton, former Google product director and executive coach, discusses common blind spots among product managers ascending to executive leadership.

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“The, how much all of the challenges that senior executives are dealing with come down to people. Versus, you know, product, right? So it's like, you know, it's fun to think about designing products, optimizing, doing user discovery and, you know, what testing, what, but it's like you sit down with an executive and it's all about people, right? That's the hard part. It's about persuading people, getting groups of people to want to work together. Trying to figure out how to deal with difficult personalities, figuring out how to set a vision and articulate a vision and create an environment where people can collaborate and play.”

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