Product Therapy – "Coaching Stakeholders" (January 22, 2026)

Host: Christian Idiodi
Guest: Chris Jones, SVPG Partner

Episode Overview

In this episode, Christian Idiodi and Chris Jones from SVPG go beyond just coaching product teams and dig into the equally essential—but often neglected—skills and challenges of coaching stakeholders. The conversation demystifies the relationships between product teams and business stakeholders—executives, finance, sales, operations, compliance, and more—exploring how to foster genuine partnership, trust, and alignment in empowered product organizations. They break down what a healthy stakeholder relationship looks like, typical pitfalls, and practical tools for transforming adversarial or transactional relations into ones defined by shared context, accountability, and outcomes.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Stakeholders and Why They Matter

• Stakeholders are "everyone outside the core product org but reliant on it for business needs" (01:16).
• Product teams exist within a wider ecosystem: sales, legal, finance, brand, operations, and others affect and are affected by product decisions.

2. Animosity & Misconceptions About Stakeholders

• Many product professionals treat stakeholders as adversaries, stemming from legacy "project models" where teams serve the business in a subservient, order-taking capacity (03:45).
  • Quote (Chris Jones, 05:40):

    "There is not an incentive in the project model for deep partnership between the product organization and the business. In the product model, there is a very, very strong incentive for that."

3. What Does a Healthy Stakeholder Relationship Look Like?

• Characteristics of healthy collaboration:
  • Stakeholders communicate desired outcomes, not just solutions.
  • They freely share context, business constraints, and data.
  • Stakeholders facilitate, rather than block, direct access to customers and data.
  • Product teams are empowered and accountable for crafting solutions that actually work for the business (07:16, 10:03).
• Quote (Chris Jones, 07:16):

  "...the stakeholders fundamentally are very comfortable working in a currency or a canvas of outcomes. They are able to communicate to teams the work they need done more around outcomes and a lot less about...solutions."

4. What Stakeholders Need from Product Teams

• Trust is essential; earned through competence and responsible handling of business problems (11:11).
• Product teams must demonstrate reliability before stakeholders can relinquish detailed solution requests in favor of outcome definition.
• Quote (Chris Jones, 11:11):

  "The first order of business for the product organization is to get its own house in order...the first step needs to be taken by the product organization and it's a big step, right? We have to actually earn that trust."

5. The Critical Role of Context

• Stakeholders hold essential information—business constraints, compliance, contractual obligations—that teams need to create viable solutions (14:55).
• Product teams must do foundational "homework" and proactively seek context, not just rely on stakeholders to hand it all over.
• Quote (Chris Jones, 14:55):

  "The only way they can get the information about what that means is to be engaging deeply with the stakeholders."

6. Coaching Through Communication Gaps

• Common anti-pattern: Stakeholders assume teams have equivalent context ("you should already know this"), leading to silence and misunderstandings (18:01).
• Product managers may feel unsafe or embarrassed to ask for clarification, compounding this gap.
• Coaching tip: Use practical, targeted questions to elicit context, e.g., "How will we know we've solved the problem?" or "If we don't build this, what happens?" (24:15).
• Quote (Chris Jones, 24:15):

  "One way to come at all of this is to ask questions that are a little bit less lofty..."

7. Educating Stakeholders on the Product Model

• Many stakeholders fear loss of control or accountability in empowered models (27:56).
• Clarify that stakeholders still own the problems and can retain oversight of solutions via regular check-ins and feedback (30:30).
  • True empowerment also means increased accountability for outcomes, not just outputs.
  • Innovation and speed improve as more of the company works on the right problems.

8. Special Stakeholder Challenges

• Executives: Often struggle with focus and strategic clarity; need clear constraints and priorities for product teams (32:32).
• Finance: Used to project-based funding; need to shift to funding by teams and targeted outcomes. Start with pilots (33:57, 34:24).
  • Quote (Chris Jones, 34:24):

    "You switch it from output to outcome and you start small... a finance person should understand that buying an outcome is way, way better than buying output that has no guaranteed outcome."

• Compliance/Legal: Not everything must be an explicit ‘problem’; some “keep the lights on” work is necessary, but even then, sharing context allows teams to make the best decisions (39:31, 41:34).

9. Signs of Stakeholder Misalignment or Unhealthy Relationships

• Teams are still fed roadmaps or "shadow roadmaps" despite lip service to outcomes (44:43).
• Overcommitment and confusion may signal a stakeholder alignment issue more than a team problem (45:37).
  • Quote (Chris Jones, 44:43):

    "...they might pay lip service to outcome, but they're still feeding these teams roadmaps."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On trust:
  (Christian Idiodi, 13:21)

  "...in many cases teams have just not earned the trust, you know, because they haven't demonstrated that they can come up with a solution even better than the stakeholder."

• Stakeholder pride and product ownership:
  (Chris Jones, 43:00)

  "If they're not feeling deep pain and embarrassment and frustration about these sorts of things that the stakeholders are also feeling, then those teams are mercenaries... you haven't...adequately transformed."

• On funding models:
  (Christian Idiodi, 37:43)

  "...I said, well, let's do a test. I want you to fund some people to solve a problem...same budget for people to solve the problem...took us a year for him to count. He's like, I got eight projects from that."

  (Chris Jones, 38:31)

  "More importantly, though, I got eight things that worked, right?...That is the fundamental difference."

• On handling "Because I Said So":
  (Chris Jones, 24:15)

  "What you're communicating to them at this point is, yeah, I get it, I'm on board. We're gonna do this. We want to ensure, though, that what we do is actually going to be effective..."

Practical Coaching Techniques & Tactics

For Product Teams

• Get your own house in order—build competence and trust with stakeholders (11:11).
• Ask specific, practical questions for context (24:15, 26:49).
• Demonstrate reliability by showing stakeholders prototypes and regular updates—don’t create a "black hole" (54:42).
• Provide transparency about what teams are trying, without surrendering empowerment or accountability (52:32).

For Stakeholders

• Focus on communicating the problem and desired outcomes, not the delivery approach or features (60:38).
• Share all relevant context—even (and especially) uncomfortable constraints or business realities—to allow teams to make effective decisions (41:34, 43:00).
• Stay involved via lightweight, regular check-ins, offering feedback and reality checks rather than micromanagement (30:30).

For Leaders/Educators

• Pilot the product model in small domains to demonstrate value before scaling (34:24, 51:01).
• Reframe planning and predictability discussions around desired business outcomes, not the illusion of rigor built into fixed roadmaps (46:44, 52:13).
• Use retrospectives/postmortems to learn from failures without defaulting to blame or reverting to old models (58:18, 59:47).

Stakeholder Objections & Counterpoints (with Timestamps)

• "We need predictability!"
  • Focus on predictable outcomes, not just outputs or delivery dates. Use high-integrity commitments when dates are essential, validated after adequate discovery (46:44).
• "This model is slower!"
  • Product discovery accelerates useful delivery by reducing waste, focusing resources, and building fewer things that work better (49:31).
• "We're too big/complex!"
  • Start with pilot areas—empirical proof from giants like Amazon and Google, but acknowledge complexity. Don’t attempt organizational "big bang" transformations (51:01).
• "I need to plan!"
  • Combine commitment to outcomes with candidate ideas, regular communication, and transparency (52:32, 54:42).
• "Who is accountable?"
  • Teams sign up for and are accountable for outcomes, with shared responsibility between product leaders and stakeholders. Use postmortems to learn, not blame (57:01, 58:18).

Key Takeaways & Final Advice

• For Stakeholders:
  (Chris Jones, 60:38)

  "...We are trying to bring the product organization in as a partner to figure out the best solution. How can you help them deeply understand the problem that you need solved and communicating to them that way?"

• For Product Teams:
  Ask stakeholders:

  "How do we know for you that this solution is actually working? What can we actually look at to know that this is actually going to be a successful solution?" (60:38)

Big Picture:
Coaching stakeholders is fundamental to sustaining empowered product teams. It requires patience, active communication, and building mutual trust. Many stakeholders are succeeding in ways that made sense under old project models. To transition, both sides must engage in continuous learning, transparency, and a focus on outcomes over output.

Key Segment Timestamps

• Defining stakeholders: 01:16–02:53
• Why is there animosity? 03:45–05:40
• What does healthy look like? 07:16–10:03
• Building trust: 11:11–14:55
• How stakeholders can share context: 14:55–18:01
• Coaching through gaps: 18:01–24:15
• "Because I said so" and context-seeking tactics: 24:15–27:56
• Educating on the product model: 27:56–32:32
• Coaching different stakeholders (Execs, Finance, Compliance): 32:32–41:34
• Signs of misalignment, shadow roadmaps: 44:43–46:10
• Objections & counterpoints: 46:44–58:08
• Accountability, postmortems: 57:01–59:47
• Practical coaching advice: 60:38–61:30

Summary crafted in the original, candid, and pragmatic tone of Christian Idiodi and Chris Jones.
For more detailed resources, visit svpg.com.