512: Improve your product creativity by finding the right partner – with Leah and Phillip Abraham

Product Mastery Now for Product Managers, Leaders, and Innovators

Product innovation lessons from social media content creation

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TLDR

In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I’m interviewing Leah and Philip Abraham, a creative duo with expertise in songwriting, acting, music production, and filmmaking. Their diverse background offers valuable lessons for product managers looking to improve their innovative thinking techniques. Throughout our conversation, we explore insights from their creative process that can be applied to product innovation and management.

• Innovation is a learnable process, not just an innate talent
• Complementary skills in teams can lead to more holistic product innovation
• Balancing intuition with data-driven decision-making enhances product development
• Rapid prototyping and iterative development accelerate learning and innovation
• Embracing a “no bad ideas” culture fosters creativity in product teams
• Learning from failures and maintaining enthusiasm through setbacks is crucial for long-term success
• Continuous learning and adaptation of innovation processes are essential in product management

This episode explores insights from creative professionals that can be applied to enhance innovation in product management, offering practical strategies for product managers to foster creativity, leverage rapid feedback cycles, and overcome challenges in the innovation process.

Dismantling Misconceptions About Innovation

We start by addressing common misconceptions about innovation, particularly the belief that creativity is an innate talent rather than a skill that can be developed. This idea is especially important for product managers and leaders responsible for driving innovation within their organizations. Leah and Philip share their experiences, showing that innovation is indeed a process that can be learned and improved over time.

Complementary Creativity in Partnerships

Leah and Phillip have experience in acting and film production and are now most famous for cinematic shorts on social media. They explain that they enjoy creative collaboration in many areas, including filmmaking, photography, music, and art.

Leah and Phillip share that their creativity is complementary and they bring out creativity in each other. Phillip has a technical background while Leah focuses on character arcs.

Innovation in the Creative Process

When making a skit, Leah and Phillip often start with a sketch of the story and improv to fill in the details. They’re often inspired to make a skit based off something that happens in their lives. For example, a recent video called “When they cancel plans but you’re both introverts,” was inspired by Leah and Phillip’s introvertedness.

Leah and Phillips use a “no bad ideas” approach, which creates a safe space for sharing and building upon concepts. They give each other permission to throw out ideas without shame and then make those ideas better together.

Benefits of Rapid Feedback Cycles

Compared to producing a whole film, creating short-form content on social media provides more opportunity to receive rapid feedback and iterate. Analytics let Leah and Phillip see what aspects of their content viewers are engaging with most. Sometimes the parts of their content they almost didn’t include end up being the most popular with their audience.

Leah and Phillip share that feedback from viewers has been affirming and eye-opening, and the most fulfilling part of their creative process is figuring out what viewers like about their content and building an intuition for creating engaging content.

The Role of Intuition in Creativity and Innovation

Leah and Phillip explain that they’re learning about to balance intuition with data-driven decision making. I think of intuition as my experience taking shape that my brain hasn’t recognized yet. Leah describes intuition as your body knowing something before your mind can articulate it. She had an intuition that she and Phillip should start doing social media and that it made sense for their hodgepodge of creative skills. They observed that most viral TikTok videos were not high-quality narrative skits and decided to use their skills to fill that gap.

Conclusion

This episode offers valuable perspectives on fostering creativity and innovation in product management. By embracing collaborative approaches, rapid prototyping, and a willingness to learn from failures, product teams can enhance their innovation capabilities and create more successful and impactful products.

Key takeaways for product managers:

• View innovation as a learnable process, not just innate talent
• Leverage complementary skills within teams for holistic innovation
• Balance intuition with data-driven decision-making
• Embrace rapid prototyping and iterative development
• Foster a culture that encourages risk-taking and learns from failures
• Continuously evolve and adapt innovation processes

Useful links:

• Check out Leah and Phillip’s content on YouTube and other social media platforms @leahandphillip
• Watch the trailer for Leah and Phillip’s film, Where Were You

Innovation Quotes

“If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – unknown

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure without any loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Application Questions

1. How can you create a “no bad ideas” culture within your product development process? What obstacles might you face, and how can you overcome them?
2. In what ways can you implement rapid prototyping and testing in your current product development cycle? How might this affect your timelines and resource allocation?
3. How do you currently balance intuitive decision-making with data-driven approaches? Are there areas where you could improve this balance?
4. What strategies can you implement to better learn from your failures and maintain team enthusiasm through setbacks?
5. How can you encourage team members to step outside their comfort zones and explore new approaches to product innovation?

Bio

Leah and Phillip Abraham are an up-and-coming social media couple known for their highly cinematic viral skits, which have gained over 85 million views since their launch in February of 2024. Having both spent over a decade hustling in Hollywood, and acting on shows like Aquarius, CSI, Ballers, and Good Trouble, they found a ceiling placed on their potential as creatives, ultimately moving to Nashville and starting their production company, Philea Media. Together they wrote, produced, and acted in a feature-length musical that is loosely based on how they met, which is scheduled to premiere at film festivals in 2025.

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.