Product Engineer to CEO: Sten Pittet, A Thinkydoers Career Profile

Have you ever thought about a career in product -- whether product management, product development, or product engineering?

You'll enjoy this conversation with Sten Pittet, CEO of Tability. In our last episode, Sten interviewed Thinkydoers host Sara about her journey into OKRs; today, we flipped the script for Sara to interview Sten about his fascinating journey starting in software development after uni, into product engineering in a mid-size company (that became a large company during his tenure), and then the transition into the CEO and founder seat with his latest venture, Tability.

For complete show notes and transcript, visit http://saralobkovich.com/thinkydoers-pod.

Episode Highlights:

• Sten’s journey from software development in France to becoming a CEO in Australia.
• Role of OKRs in shaping Sten’s approach to product management and leadership.
• Some of the differences between the role of product leadership in large and smalller or start-up companies.
• Importance of stakeholder management and involving others in decision-making.
• Creation and mission of Tability, inspired by practical experience with OKRs.
• Emphasis on creativity in software development and product engineering.
• Learning to involve stakeholders and build collective alignment and collaboration.
• Sten’s advice on focusing on people and conversations over perfection.

Common Questions:

• What is the difference between working in product at a smaller company and being in product at a larger company?  In smaller companies, you have more direct user interaction and creativity, while larger companies require more stakeholder management and strategic alignment.

• What are OKRs and how did they influence Sten’s work? OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting framework that helped Sten and his teams stay focused and aligned.

• What led Sten to start Tability? His practical experience with OKRs and the desire to create a product that helps teams achieve their goals more effectively.

Notable Quotes from Sten Pittet:

• “When a company is bigger, for you to change direction, it’s like it’s a big ship. And so if we decide to turn left, you’re moving a lot of people out of what they’re doing.”

• “If you try to convince a group of people, the first thing you need to do is not tell them why you think you’re right, but ask them what they think is going to go wrong.”

• “I think what’s good about the world is that you have like really different types of people.”

• “Don’t try to be perfect. One mistake that I see people doing—trying to have a perfect cascading, perfect set of forecasts, perfect everything.”

• “For me, OKRs and our platform, the way we see ourselves is we want to enable the right conversations.”

Sten’s Links and Resources

• Tability Website
• Sten Pettit on LinkedIn

Sara's Links and Resources

• The No-BS OKRs Workbook, currently available as a PDF download from https://findrc.co/pdfworkbook (USD) or https://findrc.co/pdfwkbkAUD (AUD)
• Join the Launch Squad for Sara's Upcoming Books: You Are A Strategist and the No-BS OKRs Workbook
• Join Sara's Email Newsletter
• Email Sara at [email protected]
• Download: No-BS OKRs In A Box one sheet
• Virtual OKR Consult: Start your personalized virtual OKR consult
• Other Free No-BS OKRs Resources: Access all free resources
• Thinkydoers (not-just-an OKR podcast) Home Page