In this episode of Decoding Leadership, Jade sits down with experienced engineering leader Jason Poole to discuss the ins and outs of building strong partnerships between product, engineering, and design. Jason shares his insights on:

• Establishing trust and a unified front in engineering/product relationships
• Integrating design into the triad and its transformative impact
• Communicating effectively within the triad through structured and ad-hoc touchpoints
• Helping local teams develop their own effective triads
• Lessons learned from experimenting with the single threaded owner model vs. triad approach
• The distinction between management and leadership skills
• A powerful framework for efficient, high-quality decision making as a leader

Nadya is an accomplished product leader and chief product officer. I've always been impressed with how she has navigated getting large groups of people on the same page. And she's really good at aligning executives. She gives us some tips for getting better at that, and talks through her approach to radical candor, protecting teams, and growing the people on her team.

Keizan Shaffer talks through how he thinks about mentorship. He talks about the importance of surfacing your thinking and sharing your mental models, how mentorship, teaching, coaching, and sponsorship are different. And he shares some career advice that his mentors have found useful. He also talks about Conway's law, and some tips for managing reorgs successfully.

Alexa Stefanko led one of the most dramatic improvements in a team I've seen. We talk about a set of changes we introduced at Gremlin, including the Single Threaded Owner model, the introduction of product metrics, and setting up an "API" between local teams and senior leadership. Alexa also talks about her move to being a director, the differences between medical and tech leadership, and how animal training has influenced (and not influenced) her approach with people.