562: Steve Jobs' Former Colleague on How to Achieve Creative Velocity in the Age of Gen AI

562: Steve Jobs' Former Colleague on How to Achieve Creative Velocity in the Age of Gen AI

Leslie Grandy, a seasoned executive who has led global product teams at Apple, Amazon, Best Buy, and T-Mobile, shares a deeply practical perspective on how leaders can activate creativity across functions, not just in design or strategy.



Drawing from her early years in the film industry and later executive roles in technology, Grandy explains how she developed three capabilities that proved critical in high-performance product environments:



"You've got to grind it out… and you have to have that intrinsic motivation to continue, even when it looks like failure is obvious."

"You have to be resilient and flexible… because you have so many people depending on the outcome."

"If I haven't seen the problem before, it doesn't seem daunting to me… It seems fun."

These capabilities (grit, adaptability, and creative problem solving) formed the foundation of her success in ambiguous, fast-moving, and high-stakes environments.

Grandy also speaks directly to what supports and undermines creative velocity inside organizations. She notes that the most adaptive cultures don't reserve creativity for a few select teams:

"They expect every role is going to show up with that same creative intention… that the status quo doesn't seep into the lower ranks."

But she also warns:

"Status quo as a cultural norm is dangerous."
"Consensus-driven thinking is equally problematic for creative velocity."

Her insights on Steve Jobs provide a rare look inside Apple's leadership culture. When asked about her interview with him, she explains:

"Your interview will be five minutes or it'll be 60 minutes. It's up to Steve."
"I didn't come in there acting like I was an equal… I just came in there with a confidence that I could answer whatever he asked."

When her team added preset engraving suggestions to iPods to help customers complete purchases, Jobs reacted immediately:

"He saw it, and within a day, it was pulled down."
"He had such a finite view of his brand… there were no blurry edges around the brand."

Grandy's new book, Creative Velocity, argues that creativity is not a fixed trait, but a capability that can be developed with intention.

She addresses how leaders should approach generative AI, not just as an efficiency tool, but as a creative partner:

"What's really transformative… is doing the exact opposite of prompt engineering."
"It's not about speed to answer. It's about using that time to evolve a thought into different tributaries of thought."

This episode raises a critical question for senior leaders:

"Are you designing your organization to perform or to invent?"

Get Leslie's book here: https://rb.gy/d5zr69

Creative Velocity: Propelling Breakthrough Ideas in the Age of Generative AI

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103: The secretive world of Samsung, the South Korean tech giant. Geoffrey Cain

103: The secretive world of Samsung, the South Korean tech giant. Geoffrey Cain

Strategy Skills Podcast 103: The secretive world of Samsung, the South Korean Tech Giant. With Geoffrey Cain Access advanced training episodes: http://www.firmsconsulting.com/promo An explosive expose of Samsung, one of the biggest and most secretive companies in the world, as the Korean juggernaut battles Apple and Sony to dominate the world of technology. Seen for decades in tech circles as a fast follower rather than an innovation leader, Samsung today has grown to become a market leader in the United States and around the globe. They have captured one quarter of the smartphone market and have been pushing the envelope on every front. In SAMSUNG RISING: The Inside Story of the South Korean Giant that Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech, Geoffrey Cain offers a penetrating look behind the curtains of the biggest company nobody in America knows. Forty years ago, Samsung was a rickety Korean agricultural conglomerate that produced sugar, paper, and fertilizer, located in a backward country with a third-world economy. However, with the rise of the PC revolution, Chairman Lee Byung-chul began a bold experiment: to make Samsung a major supplier of computer chips. The multimillion-dollar plan was incredibly risky but Lee, wowed by a young Steve Jobs, who sat down with the Chairman to offer his advice, became obsessed with creating a tech empire. In SAMSUNG RISING, readers follow behind the scenes as the company fought its way to the top of tech. Today, Samsung employs over 300,000 people (compared to Apple's 80,000 and Google's 48,000). The company's revenues have grown more than forty times from that of 1987 and make up more than 20 percent of South Korea's exports. It is also one of Apple's chief suppliers of technology critical to the iPhone, while its own Galaxy phone outsells the iPhone. Yet their disastrous recall of the Galaxy Note 7, with numerous reports of phones spontaneously bursting into flames, reveals the dangers of the company's headlong attempt to overtake Apple at any cost.

15 Huhti 20201h 30min

102: Current crisis = golden opportunity to transform your life

102: Current crisis = golden opportunity to transform your life

Our clients are often facing crises and catastrophes somewhere in the world. From virus outbreaks to earthquakes, wildfire evacuations and more. And they write to us about their immediate plans to manage the situation. What we find is that they almost always take actions that damage their careers and hurt their lives. They let external factors, the media narrative and their social network influence them to make poor choices that handicap their lives. Often severely. They don't realize that the biggest, fastest and most sustainable way to transform one's life and career is to leverage a crisis. Don't run from a crisis. Run into a crisis. This is a short episode released on Strategy Skills iTunes channel and YouTube which includes an overview of the full program we released for FC Insiders (StrategyTraining.com/Strategy Training apps). The full program: https://www.strategytraining.com/how-to-manage-a-crises

19 Maalis 20207min

101: Interview with McKinsey partner Peter Dahlström on the source of competitive advantage in the digital era

101: Interview with McKinsey partner Peter Dahlström on the source of competitive advantage in the digital era

This is #101 episode of the Strategy Skills podcast. In this episode we interview senior partner at McKinsey & Company Peter Dahlström on the source of competitive advantage in the digital era. Peter Dahlström leads McKinsey's client and firm communications. As the global leader for McKinsey Digital's B2C team, he serves leading institutions in the telecommunications, high-tech, media, and fast-moving consumer-goods industries. Peter is a co-author of FAST TIMES: How Digital Winners Set Direction, Learn, and Adapt. Access free training episodes from our paid advanced strategy training programs here (opt-in for free to get access): https://www.FIRMSconsulting.com

28 Helmi 202058min

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