What do product leaders need to consider when driving innovation at large organizations? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by EY Platform Operations Lead Justin Leibow, EY Ecosystem Leader Terry Luciani speaks on his extensive experience in fostering innovation, including the launch of EY’s Growth Labs program and his previous work at MetLife. The discussion covers strategies for overcoming the challenges of driving innovation in established firms, such as securing leadership buy-in, empowering employees, and measuring success. Terry also discusses approaches to building a balanced portfolio of innovation bets, from near-term optimizations to long-term, transformative initiatives, as well as the importance of partnering with startups and external innovators to access unique capabilities while protecting an organization’s core competencies. Finally, Terry provides valuable advice for product managers on being thoughtful, open-minded, and willing to take calculated risks in order to drive impactful innovation.
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Show Notes
- Innovation can be intoxicating and rewarding, but requires a structured approach.
- Securing leadership buy-in is crucial, but focus on supporters rather than non-believers.
- Overcoming the “it’s not my job” mentality is a key challenge in driving innovation.
- Innovation should be aligned with business goals, not just a side project.
- Measuring innovation progress should shift from activities to results over time.
- Failure is an acceptable outcome as long as learnings are applied going forward.
- The McKinsey three horizon model can help balance near-term, mid-term, and long-term innovation bets.
- Empowering employees with the right tools and support is key to driving bottom-up innovation.
- Seeing ideas progress, even if they fail, helps sustain employee engagement in innovation.
- Targeting smaller clients first can provide valuable learning before scaling to larger enterprises.
- Partnerships with startups can unlock unique capabilities that complement an organization’s strengths.
- Identifying the “secret sauce” that differentiates a company is crucial when deciding what to build vs. buy.
- The Star Wars analogy of founders as a blend of Leia’s brains, Luke’s belief, and Han’s grit is insightful.
- A structured evaluation framework (Alignment, Backing, Company, Difficulty, Economics) can help assess potential partners.
- The hype around AI solutions can sometimes overshadow solving real business problems.
- Thoughtfulness in understanding customer needs is paramount for effective product management.
- Maintaining an open mind to translate customer needs into innovative solutions is key.
- Embracing calculated risks and “smart failure” enables growth and learning.
- Putting oneself out there and being willing to fail are essential for career development.
- Balancing tactical execution with strategic vision is an ongoing challenge for innovation leaders.
About the speaker
Terrance Luciani is responsible for all alliance and ecosystem relationships for EY Nexus. He focuses on building and growing the relationships with third parties that help power customer solutions. Before EY, Luciani was the vice president of innovation at MetLife. In this role, Luciani was responsible for establishing an innovation culture through process and tool development for crowdsourced, facilitated and co-innovation efforts. He managed the sourcing of external capabilities through MetLife’s relationship with venture capital companies, led the MetLife Digital Accelerator, was President of MetLife Digital Ventures, and launched partnerships with the MIT Media Lab and other academic institutions. Before joining MetLife’s Enterprise Innovation group in 2011, he helped lead the development of the company’s refreshed operating model. He previously held a variety of leadership roles in MetLife’s Information Technology organization. Luciani came to MetLife from The Bank of New York in 2001. Luciani holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in computer information systems from American University.
About the host
Certified Digital Product Manager (CDPM), Certified Project Manager Professional (PMP) and ScrumMaster (CSP) Specialties: Product Development, Product Management, Insurance, Banking, Financial Transformation, Process Improvement, Business Risk