Tag Archives: coaching

In the News, Reflection

Goodbye Babbel. And Thank you, Babbelonians!

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“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler.

My 4 ½ year journey comes to an end, but it felt like both Babbel & I experienced a decade-worth of change, advancement and growth. I wanted to take a moment to thank every Babbelonian that made it so enriching. And to my family for the leap of faith to change countries again. ✈️

People 🤘🏼

When asked about the one thing I’ll miss: like countless Babbelonians, I pointed to this. You onboarded me to a new culture. You live & breathe our purpose to create mutual understanding – for us and our learners. You are what makes Babbel unique. There’s so many of you to name and I fear missing one out. But you know who you are! Seeing your goodbye messages come far and wide was heart-warming. Sorry for being speechless on the farewell call. Thanks and you rock! 

Babbelonians helped me blend in a new culture; to learn and reflect on my values and identity.

Product & Leadership 🎯

When I took over leadership of the PM team early 2018 and was asked to double it, I was still learning to lead at scale. Not every strategy, organisation and process change was straight-forward – especially restructuring into tribes. I want to thank all the PMs for their trust, commitment patience while I figured it. Looking back at how far we’ve come makes me proud: from how & how many decisions we make using data, to how consistent we’ve become at driving outcomes; from lateral transitions to well-deserved promotions. Leading designers and product marketeers was a step change; thanks for the smooth transition. You’ve all been tremendous partners! 

Scale-up to IPO-ready 🚀

Hacking. Failing. Winning.

I want to thank all Impressionists (members of our revenue & growth tribe) for your drive to hack, clean-up and scale. You should be proud of launching free-trial, a platform for new subscriptions like multi-user & lifetime plans, a platform for promotions and iterating on content. Your contribution and strong collaboration with Marketing, CS, etc, chipped strongly into our user & revenue growth.

I owe a great deal to the inspiring leaders that challenged, inspired, and guided me through it – Martin Keuter (ex-COO), Geoff Stead (CPO) and Julie Hansen (CRO & CEO, US). I learned a lot, but most of all, you helped sharpen my strategic thinking, organisation development and change management skills. 

Continue reading Goodbye Babbel. And Thank you, Babbelonians! →
Culture, Human Capital

Engage in one-on-ones & motivate your team with this Trello board

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After a lot of reading & thinking, I came up with the idea of a simple Trello board to help me conduct effective one-on-one meetings with my team, and to plan each team member’s growth. This is the boilerplate that I could quickly replicate for each team member using  Trello’s “Copy Board…” feature. My team has been using it since last October and they’ve found it really helpful to communicate their achievements, issues and most importantly, to plan their growth.

Thanks to them, its now mature enough to help other managers better engage with their teams.  The boilerplate board is now public so you can easily copy & build on top of it. Here is a sample board showing real-world use. Get started by copying the boilerplate, and let me know how it works or how we can improve it.

Boilerplate (Get started by copying) | Real-world example

Motivation/Idea

My one-on-one pattern has greatly evolved over the last 4 years that I’ve managed teams. Starting naively by tracking work,  it now leaves the daily stuff out and instead focuses on the individual itself. When my travel increased, I felt the need for something online to retain the connect. I believe in transparency and I hate secret dossiers; I wanted a platform where we both have the same view of the relationship, which becomes the single version of truth for all discussion. Also, since it was their plan, I wanted my team to have access even when they decide to move on.

I’ve got inspiration from a lot of sources: blogs, surveys & talks I’ve participated in, etc. Thanks to all!

Board Structure

There’s enough on the board for either of you to take interest. It helps drive strategy, but still track tactical stuff; stuff that’s important for the individual’s growth, and the manager’s. Continue reading Engage in one-on-ones & motivate your team with this Trello board →