Designers, engineers, managers, researchers…no matter which role you take, you work with a team of members who have completely different skill sets on a daily basis. The efficiency of communication becomes vital for team success. But the frustration among cross-functional communication is always haunting us —“why can’t this person just get me???”

It turns out in many cases the cause of miscommunications is not that we are different but the insufficiency of our own patience, attention, and listening. There are many courses for improving productivity and efficiency, but who teaches us to be slow or to wait? Yet there is so much lying in the art of waiting, from which we process information, we understand, we connect. 

As the second panel of the Empower Communication Skills In The Product World, we invite three product experts who have not only survived this struggle but also are able to lead teams that share a mutual trust among members. How did they do that? Let’s ask!

Our guests:

Tim Lombardo

Director of Product Management, Cloud Foundry, Pivotal, Inc. 

Tim has spent the last 8 years helping teams build new products and businesses. Through consulting at Lean Start Machine and Neo Innovation and now in product leadership at Pivotal Inc, his focus has been on establishing highly collaborative and experimentation based product teams. 

Andrea Chesleigh

VP Product and Engineering, One Kings Lane 

Andrea has spent over fifteen years in Product and Tech, and has led teams at startups and Fortune 500 companies, including Rent the Runway, Zappos, Time Warner, and Verizon. She is currently the VP of Product and Engineering at One Kings Lane, a digital-first resource for making your home an expression of your personal style. Andrea is a hands-on leader with a player/coach style, diving into the details with her team to partner, advise, and guide them to success.