Jake Kozonis

🚀 Your team is moving fast. But here’s the question—are they moving together? Silos. Missed cues. Disconnected conversations. Most teams know these patterns too well. What if, instead of just talking about them, you could step into them—feel them—and practice shifting them in real time? 🎭 Theatre of the Self isn’t a workshop. It’s an embodied experience. Drawing from Improvisational Theatre, Forum Theatre, and Archetypal Exploration, it makes your team’s invisible dynamics visible—and changeable. Picture this: — An idea gets lost in silence. — Feedback doesn’t land. — Tension builds but stays unnamed. Now picture the chance to rehearse those moments—then rewrite them. Through this immersive approach, teams learn to: ✅ Collaborate through “Yes, and…” ✅ Stay agile under pressure ✅ Build trust through embodied learning ✅ Interrupt limiting patterns with choice ✅ Explore inclusion through lived experience At Syngrity, we know transformation doesn’t live in slides. It lives in the body. In the room. In the moment. ✨ Theatre of the Self is where teams experiment, evolve, and reimagine how they show up—together. 📩 Curious to explore this with your team? Read more here : https://lnkd.in/gv4JQBym #TheatreOfTheSelf #Syngrity #LeadershipDevelopment #EmbodiedLearning #Improvisation #ForumTheatre #TeamTransformation #Inclusion #Agility #Collaboration #CreativeLeadership #ExperientialLearning Vikram Badhwar Rashid Ansari Shena Gamat Malati Vasudeva Keya Bardalai (PhD) Yasser Bilgrami Aladdin Taha Vidushi Chadha Monica P Mahendru Sumal Abraham Varghese Priyanka Renjen Kumar (PCC) Sina Fakhroddin Ghaffari Ekta Anand Shambhavi Pande Chhavi Singh Raghuvanshi Rohit Mehra Pallavi .

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As product leadership, if you don't define what success looks like for your game or app, someone else will. What success means for your product is specific to your org's, your audience's, your market's, and your product's needs and reasonable time frames. It can be commercial: reach X ARR, or sell through Y units. It can be qualitative: be associated with "high quality", capture the mind share of a specific genre or vertical, or create buzz around a topic. It can be comparative: secure Y position on a chart, or win Z award. When, how, and what you define as "success" is going to impact alignment, incentivize behaviors and thought patterns, and speak volumes about what the org should value. Be careful about setting these goals without the greater context of what they mean or your teams will start selecting for behaviors that support those which may run counter to what you really want to incentivize. This isn't something that can be left until you're about to launch. It should be built into the fabric of how you operate.

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I’m not in Sales. But I can’t imagine doing my job as a Product leader without Gong Agents. I’m in front of so many customers. AI Briefer helps me prepare for customer meetings with the points that matter. AI Ask Anything helps me double-click and get specific VoC needs. AI Theme Spotter helps me understand opportunities to help us win more. It’s such a powerful tool for data-informed product planning and accelerating product growth.

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So true... Rule of thumb: workflows for repeatability; agents for ambiguity. Building agents is trendy & exciting - but they’re not always the best tool for the job. If a task can be handled with clear, deterministic steps, a workflow will usually be faster, cheaper, and more reliable than introducing an agent’s probabilistic behavior. Use agentic approaches where they actually shine: messy, open-ended problems that need “think → act → learn → iterate” like a human would.

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Last night’s ProductTank Denver Leadership Series was PACKED. And not just with people, but with sharp perspectives on what it really means to lead product in the age of AI. 🔍 We tackled what’s changing for PMs and PM leaders alike: - Org structures: Smaller teams, new roles, blurred lines between product, design, engineering, and AI/ML. - Processes: Moving from pilot AI features to production-grade systems (with real risk and real value). - Craft: PMs getting faster and more technical, but staying grounded in user problems—not just prompts. 🎯 A few favorite moments: “AI is not a product. It’s not a strategy. It’s a capability you have to continually feed and adapt with.” — Micah “Right now, everything looks like a nail and AI is the hammer. But sometimes the old tools still make the most sense.” — Laura “Critical thinking, adaptability, and product sense are more important than ever. Those don’t get automated.” — Micah “Learn, learn, learn. And put your AI side projects at the top of your resume.” — Laura 💡 Final Takeaways - For PM Leaders: Don’t just decree “we’re doing AI!” Map out the why, the how, the goals, and give your teams real space (AI learning clubs, 20% AI time, hackathons) to build muscle. - For PMs: Be curious and get your hands dirty. Build a mini-agent, tune a model, ship an AI prototype. And showcase your work -- show your boss, put your AI projects at the top of your resume. But START TODAY. What an amazing collaboration space provided by VentureX LoDo, great food provided by Buffalo Wild Wings, and adult beverages provided by your ProductTank Denver co-hosts! With a special shout out to the stars of the evening, our panelists Micah Evans and Laura Ford. We can’t wait to see you at the next one! In the meantime, keep exploring. Cody McDonald Crystal Hatch Arezou Seifpour #ProductTank #ProductTankDenver #ProductManagement #ProductLeadership #AIProductManagement #AIPM #AI #Networking #Community #PMCommunity #DenverTech

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Product managers aren’t paid to be right. They’re paid to decide. I was listening to ITX Corp.'s Product Momentum podcast Phil Hornby recently, and one line cut through a lot of product theater I see every day: "You are paid to have an opinion." Phil’s framing was sharp: Product is decision making, not backlog grooming. Not roadmap theater (great phrase, by the way). Decisions that stick. If you can’t make a decision that holds, you’re not empowered. You’re just busy. A few ideas that stuck with me. 👀 Trust isn’t vibes. It’s character plus competence. Leaders don’t “grant” trust. Teams earn it by making high-quality decisions in the open. Not perfect ones. Thoughtful ones. 📈 Data-informed beats data-driven. Data can justify anything. Evidence includes data, customer feedback, and intuition. And yes, intuition counts. You’re paid for taste. The job is to surface all three, then stress-test them. 🤝 A roadmap is just an articulation of decisions. Not a wish list. Not a sales artifact. It’s a visible record of what you’re betting on and why. If the roadmap is fuzzy, the decisions underneath are too. The part I keep coming back to is this: avoiding a decision is still a decision. It just pushes the cost downstream to your team. You can see the full conversation and sources in the comments 🎧

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How do you know you're building what's right? Brittany Hansen made a post recently about having the right team, and how important that is, but even the right team doesn't mean that product feedback isn't a nightmare. I've tried lots of different things: RICE prioritization, pre-grooming, weekly meetings, bi-weekly meetings, daily meetings, customer interviews with existing customers, interviews with people who meet the ICP but aren't customers, interviews with random people off the street, revenue projections, product solution trees, etc. Even if you've nailed product market fit (and that is a TOUGH row to hoe), how do you know what enhancements and fits make the cut when you're saying "no" or "not right now" to 95% of the requests you get? I'm curious, product people: what's the best system you've found? What made it work? What did you like about it that you didn't like about other systems? Are you rolling your own, doing it Agile, or did you grab a system and adhere to it like a religious text?

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The best PMs aren’t the strongest designers or engineers, they’re the ones who can best translate between those worlds. I recently had the opportunity to connect with Noah Manger, Director of Product Management at Zapier, about the balancing act of product leadership: supporting your team, staying close to the work, and knowing when to zoom out. In his role at Zapier, Noah supports multiple teams serving both technical and non-technical users, so he navigates this balance daily: 🪄 “The real magic happens when you have design, engineering, and business all working together to find creative solutions to difficult problems. This concept influenced my approach to product management, and later my approach to leadership. I manage my team by encouraging them to do the same and grow to become highly effective cross-functional leaders.” 🪄 Some key takeaways from our conversation: 🤿 Know when to dive deep, and when to let go, so your team can truly own their work 🖥️ Demos are powerful tools for tracking progress 🤝 Great prioritization starts with deep customer connection Here's the full conversation 👉 https://lnkd.in/ezxUd7Ws #ProductLeadership #ProductManagementLeadership

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This is what fintech-forward product strategy looks like. Building financial features is easier (and smarter) with the right partner. HoneyBook shows how they did it with Unit. 👇

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In product, we obsess over the "Aha!" moment—that split second where the user realizes the value of the tool. We build for retention, utility, and friction reduction. But lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the step before the user even gets into the product. The storytelling. The "Why." I’m looking to expand my network with Brand & Community Marketers who specialize in the "Zero to One" phase. Specifically, people who understand how to build movements, not just user bases. If you’re a marketer who loves solving the "cold start" problem for communities, let’s grab a virtual coffee. #ProductManagement #Marketing #CommunityBuilding #ZeroToOne #Networking

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I think this episode of Hard Calls is perfect for starting the new year as we are all deep in planning. As product leaders, we have to make the hard calls, and after speaking with a dozen guests, I realized those hard calls fall into three main buckets: People calls, Stop calls and Go calls. I appreciate how Jodi McDermott, Jessica Soroky, Pierre Naude, Peter Bailey, Naomi E. L. , Noa Taffet Ginsberg, Mark Mitchell, Ben Currin, Todd Olson, Gabrielle Bufrem, and Marty Cagan all shared their experiences of making hard calls. Start this year by learning from their success and failures,, so when it’s your turn to make a hard call, you are prepared. Find the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eXb4f8HM

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What I’ve Learned Leading Cross-Functional Teams at Scale The hardest part of scaling product leadership isn’t the product. It’s the people. When I moved from leading within a function to leading across sales, engineering, enablement, services, implementation, domain teams - and across time zones - I realized something quickly: alignment is rarely a given, and authority is rarely enough. The biggest mindset shift for me was moving from “driving outcomes” to “connecting perspectives.” From product thinking… to people thinking. At platform scale, no single team has the full picture. Each sees a slice -priorities, incentives, risks - and all of them are valid. My role shifted to connecting those dots, understanding internal frictions, and helping teams see how their work shaped the entire product lifecycle. There were moments when alignment was harder than the product problem itself: ·       Competing priorities and success metrics ·       Vested interests surfacing late ·       Customer engagement challenges across time zones ·       Risks being identified too far downstream What helped wasn’t pushing harder, it was slowing down. I learned to work with two levels of goals: 1️⃣ Top-down clarity on what truly moves the needle, and 2️⃣ Bottom-up understanding of what teams need to get there. Enrolling partners early, keeping communication channels open, and explaining the why, not just the what made a real difference. One moment that stands out was during a rapid shift driven by AI momentum. We paused work that was moving too fast, reframed priorities through an enterprise-readiness lens, and brought in new voices - AI teams, partners, sales, support, customers. More stakeholders meant more complexity - but also better decisions. Leading without authority taught me something else: trust is built outside the roadmap. It’s built in 1:1s. In listening. In addressing concerns without putting teams on the defensive. In recognizing that not everyone aligns through the same channels -some need forums, others need conversations. I’ve also made mistakes. Early on, I waited too long to engage teams because I wanted 70–80% clarity. I’ve since learned that proposal beats perfection and leaving space for discussion invites ownership. If I had to distil one principle that’s guided me through all of this, it would be this: - Put people first. - Ask leading questions. - Help teams arrive at alignment - instead of arriving there alone. That shift - from product to people - changed how I lead at scale. What was your shift like?

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If you’re a PE CFO or part of a Fund Finance team, we know the pain of chasing ownership data across Excel files, legal docs, and valuation models—just to get clean numbers into your fund accounts. At DealsPlus, we’ve seen it up close. And we’re solving it—properly. We’re building a system where even the most complex structures—prefs, loan notes, ratchets, interest schedules—are digitised once and flow automatically into reporting, valuation, and fund workflows. No more manual inputs. No more rekeying. No more painful reconciliations. Just clean, auditable data—ready when you need it. This is why we’re here. And we’re just getting started. #PrivateEquity #PECFO #FundFinance #CapTableManagement #InvestmentManagement #PEtech

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Career hack - know your product deeply. Understand how what you are building connects to the rest of the system, avoid building in silos, and know how changes in one area affect others. Make sure the pieces work well together, not just in isolation. Use your product every single day to stay grounded in reality. 🙏

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Customers delivering results is the only differentiator left in AI. We're all hyped-out. So at ServiceNow, we're focusing on telling real CRM stories. I'm calling this series "The Real Ones". Like ProAssurance, who cut over 10,000 hours of manual work in just 8 months. #TheCRMRealOnes John Ball Steve Zirkel Colin Fleming Sean Regan

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Totally agree with this. I can’t tell you how many times I find myself saying: “You’re going into the how—let’s focus on the why and the problem we are solving.” Too often, conversations start racing toward execution—features, tools, sprints—before anyone has stopped to ensure we’re solving the right problem. It might feel productive to talk about the how, but if the why and the customer problem aren’t clear, all that speed just burns energy without delivering value. In my experience, keeping the team anchored in the why not only builds alignment, but also reduces rework, strengthens collaboration, and ultimately accelerates the right outcomes. It’s easy to get caught up in momentum—but the real discipline of product is pausing long enough to ask: • What problem are we solving? • Why does it matter to the customer and the business? • How will we measure success? Only once those are clear should the “how” come into play. 😉 #CustomerInsights #UnderstandingWhy #ProductManagement #Leadership #CustomerCentric #Innovation #Strategy #OutcomeDriven #ProblemSolving #ProductLeadership #BuildTheRightThing

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Tired of toggling between systems? Ashley shares how CSS’s LOS integrations are helping lenders place and receive title and valuation orders without leaving their system.

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