🔥10 Lessons from Lenny's Newsletter for Communicators
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I like learning from different disciplines, from hospitality and CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) to recruiting and design thinking. Product Management is one of those fields I admire, and I turned to one of the top voices in the field,
of for learnings for us. is “a weekly advice column about building product, driving growth and accelerate your career.” As I read and listen, I curated 10 top learnings for communicators and communicators. If you’re a Lenny fan, drop a comment with a top tip.Also, hi
, if you’re reading this, I’d love to interview you! Let me know if you would be open to being featured. But, I totally understand if you say no because I admire your prioritization process, outlined in #10. Here are 10 top lessons to explore more below:📚 Stories Spark Memories: Matthew Dicks
🔮 Gain Clarity by Getting Started: Julie Zhuo
⛔ Learn from Failure: Ethan Evans
📀 Make Culture Matter: Elizabeth Stone
🇺🇦 Support Your People: Noam Lovinsky
✅ Track a “waiting for” list:
💯 Embrace Transparency: David DeSanto
🎧 Make People Feel Heard: Annie Duke
🎨 Encourage Coaching: Cameron Adams
❎ On Saying No:
1. Stories Spark Memories: Matthew Dicks
To be a storyteller means you have to separate yourself from the herd…how many times have you gone to a conference, listened to someone speak and by the time you're pulling into the driveway you really can't remember anything that they said?
Because that's what happens if we don't speak in story. Our minds are not designed to remember a pie chart or facts or statistics or platitudes or ideas that are not attached to imagery. The risk you take if you're not telling stories is that you will be forgotten, 100% you will be forgotten.
2. Gain Clarity by Getting Started: Julie Zhuo
The act of writing allowed me some quiet time to sit down and organize my thoughts. I appreciate my writing as letters to myself. This is the framework and advice I need to give myself to do better. That is what my writing became for me. It was hugely helpful to clarifying my train of thought and do a better job at express myself.
3. Learn from Failure: Ethan Evans
Recovering from failure is easier than you think. Own the mistake, learn from it, and work relentlessly to regain trust. Even after a failed public launch at Amazon, Ethan regained Jeff Bezos’s trust and got promoted.
4. Make Culture Matter: Elizabeth Stone
We give people the freedom and the space to explore and question things and experiment in a way with solutions. I think that would be very hard if not dangerous if we didn’t have a top talent density…The lack of process and prescriptiveness is all hinging on we’ve got amazing people who are smart, but even better have good judgement.
5. Support Your People: Noam Lovinsky
The team in Ukraine at Grammarly is something else. It’s a really fantastic team. When you speak to many of them, the work provides sometimes a very useful distraction. They feel a lot of pride in this business…that team is incredible and continues to deliver a ton of impact to the company even in the circumstances they are in…The founders want the company to succeed for Ukraine…That’s some serious resilience.
6. Track a “waiting for” list:
Whenever you ask someone to do something for you, add them to your “waiting for” list. I keep this alongside my to-do list.
7. Embrace Transparency: David DeSanto
GitLab aims to be open about as many things as possible. The company shares internal meetings on YouTube, maintains a public issue tracker for projects, and provides a 2,000-page handbook detailing their operational procedures. This dedication to transparency has enhanced user trust and encouraged community engagement, retention, and growth.
8. Make People Feel Heard: Annie Duke
Replace confrontational language like “I disagree” or “you’re wrong” with phrases like “I don’t understand” so everyone feels heard and valued. If people feel heard, they are more likely to feel like they contributed to the decision, even when they disagree.
9. Encourage Coaching: Cameron Adams
Canva employees have coaches, rather than managers. Coaches are people working in your specialty (e.g. other product managers, engineers) who are constantly thinking about your personal growth. They check in, do one-on-ones, and might even help on projects like strategy documents.
10. On Saying No:
Do more things that energize you: Run an energy audit and learn what brings you energy and what saps your energy. Say yes to more of the former and less of the latter. It may sound simple, but this simple practice is life-changing.
Ask yourself, What if you had to do it tomorrow? It’s incredibly easy to say yes to something that’s months in the future. Then all of a sudden that talk is next week, and 100% of the time I’m thinking, “WTF was I thinking?” Now I always ask myself, “Would I be excited about this if it were tomorrow?” The answer is almost always no. So I say no.
From practicing writing to developing better processes to caring for your team, these themes resonate throughout these articles. Thanks Lenny for sharing these lessons from product leaders and thought-leaders. Let me know if you have a favorite discipline that you learn from that I share study next.
A campfire is the logo for Lenny's Newsletter. Here’s a photograph inspired by it. Thank you for tuning into this edition of The Switchboard. I’m always grateful for your support growing this community of caring communicators and connectors. If you enjoyed this article, give it a heart, consider sharing it with a friend or posting a learning on LinkedIn. Signing off — Julia