The Three E's of Career Growth
by Paige Costello • Product Lead, Core Product at Asana
Paige Costello is a Product Lead at Asana, overseeing the core product experience including desktop, web, and mobile apps. Previously, she served as Director of Product at Intercom and spent over five years as a Group Product Manager at Intuit.
🎙️ Episode Context
Paige Costello shares her strategies for building trust as a young leader, coaching product managers through example, and evolving product processes at scale. She discusses Asana's unique planning cycles, their implementation of the Double Diamond framework, and how to deliver effective feedback using the SBI model.
Problem It Solves
Helps PMs break out of a linear mindset where they think they must strictly 'learn' then 'do' to advance.
Framework Overview
Career growth isn't just Education and Experience. 'Exposure' is the critical third pillar—being in the room to observe how decisions are made, even if you aren't the decision maker.
🧠 Framework Structure
Education: Formal learning, books, an...
Experience: Learning by doing the act...
Exposure: Being 'in the car' to hear ...
Repetition: Using all three to reinfo...
When to Use
When planning career development or feeling stuck in a role.
Common Mistakes
Focusing solely on Education (reading about management) and Experience, while neglecting the value of shadowing and observation.
Real World Example
Paige learned a profound lesson about strategy just by being in the room when a leader said, 'Always answer the question that they should have asked' after a high-stakes review.
Exposure was such an important one where I thought like, 'Okay. So you're not in the driver's seat, but you're in the car, and you hear what's happening.'
— Paige Costello