The hidden math of transformation: Why 2+2 > 5
I stepped off the stage feeling different. Not just the usual post-presentation buzz, but something deeper — a quiet recognition that something bigger had the chance to take shape.
Let me take you back to last week, where I had the privilege of sharing stages at Product at Heart with two people who've profoundly shaped my journey: Marty Cagan, my mentor and friend who encouraged me to get into what I now know is my dream job — coaching, and Anuar Chapur, my client and friend, who is a prime example of what determination and great leadership look like, especially when leading a company through transformation. In two different sessions for two different audiences, we explored transformation from different angles.
What made this different was how we chose to tell our story. Instead of delivering another solo presentation about transformation, I shared the stage with two people who had lived the same journey from completely different angles: Marty Cagan, my mentor, who had watched from the senior leadership perspective, and Anuar Chapur, my client, who had felt every decision from the trenches.
What happened next was pure magic. We complemented each other. The story sounded different because it was. We were able to build on each other’s points, each from our own view of the world. It showed the beauty of nuance and the importance of perspective.
In one talk, Anuar and I shared the story of The Palace Company’s transformation, which I’ve written about in previous editions (find them here and here), from both the operator and coach’s perspectives. In the other talk, Marty and I discussed one of the hardest topics behind transformation — a topic many shy away from: the politics behind transformation. We explored how those same politics looked from the senior leadership/executive level and also from the product leadership perspective.
The audiences weren't just hearing about change or hearing a story — they were witnessing how the same reality is different depending on where you stand. Each session offered two angles and multiple truths, which together revealed a clearer story: one that neither of us could have uncovered alone.
That's when it hit me: perspective isn't just about how we see the world, it’s about making space for others to share their lens and allowing those views to reshape our own. And yes, I’m fully aware this is meta, but the real insights don't live within any single viewpoint — they emerge in the collision between perspectives.
Sometimes the only way forward is to go backward
Anuar often describes me as a coach, his lighthouse—a guiding light that always steers him toward shore. It reminds him of what’s important at the right time. The perspective I want to share isn’t about the talk itself; you can read or watch that later. It’s about what happened the day before the keynote, when I came to him and suggested we change everything.
It’s not normally advisable to revise your entire talk the day before presenting to a crowd of nearly 1,000 people. But we both felt something wasn’t clicking. As we dissected it, we realized the talk was overscripted and missing the raw beauty of the actual experience — that’s what we truly wanted to share. When I brought this up over dinner, I expected some resistance. Instead, he simply said, “Of course, it sounds right.”
We spent the next day, over way too many espressos, rewriting the talk. In doing so, we refocused on what mattered most: the changes we made and the story we wanted to tell.
Rewriting the talk felt surprisingly similar to the transformation itself. We had done all the work — assembled slides, rehearsed, practiced — and still hit a wall. It wasn’t strong enough. It needed to be tighter. So we stepped back and started from a blank keynote deck to figure out what truly mattered and redesign how we told the story. The process was invigorating, and the clearest sign of success came when we rehearsed it once and instantly knew it was 10X better. We didn’t need to rehearse again because the new storyline let us communicate what actually mattered.
In transformation work (and especially in our time working together at The Palace Company), Anuar and I often hit similar speed bumps. Disagreements with sales or marketing, for example, would prompt us to pause, reassess, and reframe the narrative in a way that made sense not just to his team in tech but to the entire organization.
Now, I’m not suggesting everyone should rewrite their talk the night before a keynote, though it worked for us. What I am suggesting is to stay critical and thoughtful about when it’s time to take two steps back in order to move three steps forward. It all comes back to perspective and being able to take the bumps in the road and the common disagreements as opportunities to re-examine your outlook and keep moving in a better direction.
Real transformation demands not shying away from tough conversations
This was the first time my mentor and friend, Marty Cagan, and I gave a talk together. We decided to tackle one of the hardest topics in transformation: politics. It’s not a popular subject — many people shy away from it — but the truth is, you can’t talk about real transformation without addressing politics. There’s no framework or playbook that guarantees change. More often than not, it’s politics (navigated masterfully) that actually drives behavior change within an organization.
Marty typically works with senior executives and CEOs, so he brought that high-level lens. I usually work with senior product leaders, so we each approached the same issues from complementary dimensions. That contrast lets us dive deeper and offer a more complete view.
Interestingly, this was also not a very rehearsed talk, despite everyone saying we felt so “in sync”. Reflecting back, I think a core reason why we did was that we did not rehearse. We knew we both were deeply familiar with the topic, and we trusted each other, making it very comfortable for us to not only speak about each topic but also to build on top of each other’s contributions. We also know each other very well, so being on stage together brought a level of security and openness that allowed us to talk openly.
We identified the 10 most relevant transformation politics topics (we had to cut quite a few, and it was so hard), and we then picked the ones we wanted to start with. We knew we wouldn’t be covering them alone. We had each other on stage to expand the conversation, and after a great coffee chat the morning of, we delivered the talk.
I was even having 'aha' moments on stage and getting inspired by Marty's framing of a few key points. It was a clear example of the power of perspective, but more than that, the power of compounding perspectives. When you combine two lenses that deeply understand the topic, the result is more than additive. One plus one really can be greater than two.
It was a joy to share the stage with Marty, dig into a topic we both care deeply about, and build on each other’s thinking in real time. As a product leadership coach, I often work with clients on this exact idea — how cross-functional teams can achieve far more together than any discipline can alone. By giving a talk on what it takes to lead transformation, and doing it in a way that embodied those principles, we weren’t just talking about the work — we were doing it.
The lens that enables change
Across both of our talks and many others throughout the day, one theme stood out: something my friend and incredible product leader, Afonso Malo Franco, highlighted in his session — the power of agency. He spoke about the different lenses we can use to view the world, and how we get to choose which one we use, or in other words, which perspective we adopt. I always encourage my clients to choose a lens that enables agency, because they often have more power than they realize.
Transformation doesn’t happen without agency. Not from the top. Not from the middle. Not from anywhere. If you want change, you have to own your part in it and then make space for others to do the same.
