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Mind the Product

Podcast

Why product managers are getting fired – Dave Wascha (CPTO and Advisor)

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The key principles of PLG: Leah Tharin at #mtpcon London 2025 (Product Advisor)

B2B product management

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Three unconventional ways to be a better product manager 

What product leaders can learn from mergers and acquisitions – Vincent Jong (CPO, Dealfront)

Inside Amex’s mobile app redesign – Jose Quesada at #mtpcon London 2025 (VP Product, Amex)

Breaking into product management: A practical guide for aspiring product professionals

The best resources for product managers in 2025

Andres is a freelance writer and digital marketer with a background in engineering and a keen interest in the latest technology advancements. He currently helps tech companies and startups tell their stories by turning their complex ideas into easy to understand material. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn

Andres Phillips

<p>In this <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProductTank</a></span> Wellington talk, Chief Digital Officer at BCITO, Peter Fletcher-Dobson, shares his journey with storytelling and how product managers can use it to create impactful change. Something he believes is the most powerful evolutionary development and humankind and a currency for product leaders.</p>
<p>Watch the video to see his talk in full, or read on for an overview of his key points:</p>
<ul>
<li>Introducing storytelling into product management</li>
<li>The power of stories</li>
<li>A smart model for business</li>
<li>The hidden power of narrative</li>
</ul>
<h2>Introducing storytelling into product management</h2>
<p>Peter begins by recalling his journey in storytelling as he transitioned from being a journalist to becoming a technologist, where he found the importance of telling good stories. However, not every story has a positive impact.</p>
<p>As a product leader, your mission is to create the best possible product by finding customer problems to solve and validate. From there, you can create a product vision, a team to build that product, and customers to find and purchase that product.</p>
<h6 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-style: italic;">You might also like </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/hooked-connect-engage-and-inspire-with-storytelling-by-yamini-naidu/">Hooked! Connect, engage and inspire with storytelling</a></span></strong></h6>
<h2>Power of stories</h2>
<p>People will forget what you said and did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Stories allow you to achieve your mission as a product manager by inspiring those around you.</p>
<p>Humans are wired for stories through the chemicals in their brain, and the right story can trigger endorphins such as dopamine, oxytocin, cortisol and adrenaline.</p>
<h2>A smart model for business</h2>
<p>Peter provides a five-step process that turns strategy into a story that can be relayed back to your stakeholders or your team:</p>
<ol>
<li>Reflection: Where we are today</li>
<li>Ambition: The tomorrow we could have</li>
<li>Jeopardy: The challenge we must overcome &#8211; the need for action/change</li>
<li>Hope: The insight that gives us a way through</li>
<li>Solution: The idea</li>
</ol>
<h6 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-style: italic;">You can also check out </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/effective-storytelling-to-motivate-and-align-your-team-by-anna-marie-clifton/">Effective Storytelling to Motivate and Align Your Team</a></span></strong></h6>
<h2>The hidden power of narrative</h2>
<p>Many people confuse narrative and stories. However, the narrative is the glue that connects stories. There are four key structural elements to doing narrative:</p>
<ol>
<li>It must be authentic, meaning that it should be truthful, credible, and provide vulnerability.</li>
<li>It must be relatable, meaning that there is a shared purpose, joint outcome, and something aspirational.</li>
<li>There should be a call to action. That can be mental, emotional, physical, or economic</li>
<li>There should be a counterpoint with opposing voices, resistance, and contrast.</li>
</ol>
<p>The key takeaways are that you need to identify what the narrative is and who you are trying to influence as a product manager. Then you need to ask, what makes it authentic and relatable? What is the call to action? Who are the initiators? Who are the respondents? And what stories could you create to amplify or counter the narrative?</p>
<h6 style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-style: italic;">Keen for even more on storytelling? Try </span><span style="font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/metaphor-stories-product-management/">Metaphor and Stories in Product Management</a></span></strong></h6>
<h2>Enjoy more from ProductTank</h2>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ProductTanks</a></span> are informal meetups, created by Mind the Product, to bring local product people together and to enable speakers to share amazing product insights. Today we have ProductTanks in more than 200 cities across the globe and there’s probably one near you.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more about ProductTank </a></span>– find your local meetup, explore more ProductTank content, see the latest ProductTank news, and discover ways to get involved!</p>

core/freeform

Product Management Process

How to F.A.I.L. better in product by Marc Abraham

Fighting product-market drift by Dave Wascha

Building a digital product organisation, brick by brick by Nils Michaelis

Learnings from London: Going from Meh to Awesome by Shiva Rajaraman

The art of product management with Ken Norton

Using principles to make better decisions faster by Martin Eriksson

Rethinking delivery with product operations in the age of product

What’s stopping teams from running experiments by Cameron Savage

Top 7 signs you’re in a bad product system by Scott Williamson

How to bring product thinking to any team by Merissa Silk

Storytelling for product leaders by Peter Fletcher-Dobson

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