How is creative confidence important in product leadership? Product leaders often underestimate their creativity, leaving the design responsibility to others they deem more artistic. However, this lack of confidence in their creative abilities can limit their ability to approach challenges or leverage technology in new and innovative ways. With the rise of Generative AI, fostering human creativity in the workplace is more important than ever. Collaborating with Generative AI tools, whether crafting a prompt or deciding what is relevant and valuable in the output, requires imagination, forethought, and creativity. In this webinar, Amazon Fmr Product Director Leslie Grandy will share insights on how to disrupt linear thinking, bust biases, and enhance customer, business, and personal outcomes.
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Show Notes:
- Creativity is a critical skill for product leaders, especially with the rise of generative AI.
- The speaker, Leslie Grandi, is an experienced product leader who has worked at top brands like Amazon, Apple, and T-Mobile.
- The webinar focuses on boosting creative confidence and leveraging it to challenge biases and unlock new opportunities.
- Creativity is often overlooked as a skill for product leaders, but it’s more important than ever.
- Leslie struggled to find her creative medium as a child, which crushed her creative confidence.
- Problem-solving and the ability to figure things out became Leslie’s superpower in her career.
- Generative AI can provide inspiration, but humans need to bring meaning, emotion, and discernment to make the ideas valuable.
- Key elements for building creative muscle include motivation, self-awareness, flexibility, and regular practice.
- Techniques like the alternative use test, combinational/combinatorial thinking, and analogical thinking can boost creativity.
- Inversion thinking (premeditation of evils) can help design solutions to avoid the worst-case scenarios.
- Finding flow states through activities like showering or walking in nature can spark creative insights.
- Practical exercises like the New York Times Connections puzzle and six-word stories can develop creative skills.
- Habit stacking and managing emotional reactions are important for preserving creative capacity.
- Failure should be analyzed, not feared, as it provides valuable learning opportunities.
- As a leader, Leslie’s unconscious creative behaviors had a bigger impact than her conscious ones.
- Leslie’s book-writing journey proved the value of a collaborative, iterative creative process.
- Generative AI can be a useful tool, but requires human discernment and oversight to ensure meaningful output.
- Developing creative confidence and velocity is crucial for product leaders in today’s rapidly evolving landscape.
- Leslie will be launching a Maven course and publishing a book to further explore these topics.
About the speaker
Leslie Grandy is a global, first-to-market product executive and board advisor with a 25+ year career delivering game-changing products for top brands – Best Buy, Discovery, T-Mobile, Apple, and Amazon. Throughout her career, Leslie has been at the front end of innovation, launching the first paid video streaming service, RealOne SuperPass, with over 1 million subscribers after co-authoring a patent for a system that provides integrated media, delivering the first Android mobile device, the T-Mobile G1 and the first cellular-enabled digital picture frame, the T-Mobile Cameo; and leading Best Buy’s Digital Innovation Lab. Leslie founded The Product Guild, a product and innovation advisory services company through which she has advised early-stage ventures and numerous publicly traded companies on innovation and new product development, including Starbucks, Oracle Power, and Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. A sought-after keynote, featured speaker, and lecturer on creative leadership, product and service design, and digital transformation for Emeritus.org, The Product School, the University of Michigan College of Engineering, Center for Entrepreneurship, Regis College, West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media, and the University of Washington Foster School of Business Elevate Program, Leslie is also an IDEO-trained leader in Design Thinking who inspires audiences to achieve their creative potential.
About the host
Nisarg is currently the Director of Product at cloud security unicorn Lacework, and has a decade of experience in Product Management with the entirety of his focus on securing enterprises from cyberattacks. He has built both 0-1 and 1-100 products in cybersecurity. He is passionate about pushing forward the field of product management by helping a diverse field of entrants grow into successful PMs. He lives in Boston, MA.