April 1, 2025 • 50 mins
This interview was so entertaining to host because I felt like I was back in college for an hour and had the most interesting guest teacher who made me laugh, play games, and have fun - all while learning.
Duncan Wardle, the former head of innovation and creativity at Disney, is on a mission to teach people how to access their natural creative abilities, to be innovative, explore curiosity, connect through empathy and tap into one’s intuition.
As soon as I saw Duncan in the online recording room, he just jumped straight into teaching and you’ll notice that the first few minutes of our conversation were missing because I hadn’t yet hit the record button.
After a few minutes I thought, hit the dang record button, which I did. Next time, I’ll hit it sooner.
In this episode, you may wonder - who is leading the show? LOL
At one point, my husband overheard us in the distance and said, “it sounded pretty negative when you kept on saying No… what was up with that?” I guess you’ll just have to listen in to figure out what that was about.
https://theimaginationemporium.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncanwardle
https://www.instagram.com/duncanjwardle/
https://www.facebook.com/DuncanJWardle
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to how I Built my Small Business.
I'm Anne McGinty, your host.
This interview was soentertaining to host.
It felt like I was back incollege for an hour and had the
most interesting guest teacher,who made me laugh, play games
and have fun, all while learning.
Today's guest is Duncan Wardle,the former head of innovation
(00:30):
and creativity at Disney.
He's on a mission to helppeople tap into their natural
creativity, fuel innovation,spark curiosity, connect through
empathy and trust theirintuition.
The moment Duncan popped intoour online recording room, he
jumped straight into teachingand the first few minutes of our
(00:53):
conversation are missingbecause I hadn't yet hit the
record button.
But I learned a lesson hit thedang button sooner.
You may even find yourselfwondering wait, who's hosting
this show again?
At one point my husbandoverheard us and said it sounded
kind of negative when you kepton saying no, what was up with
(01:16):
that?
Well, you'll just have tolisten in to find out.
Let's jump in.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
How are any of us going to compete with this?
And she said well, she believesthe most employable skill sets
of the next decade will be thethings that will be the hardest
for her to program into AI.
And I said but what are those?
She said the ones with whichyou were born imagination,
creativity, curiosity, empathyand intuition.
But the problem is this Then wego to school and we have them
kicked out of us.
And how do I know that?
(01:45):
I wanted to prove it, so I wentto a university to give a talk.
There are about 3000 universitystudents.
So I brought in one first gradeclass of 30 little
six-year-olds, sat them in themiddle with their teacher.
Everybody else was 18 to 24.
I said hands up, who's creative?
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
But only 30 hands went up.
And so we define creativity mostof us as the ability to write
(02:06):
music or paint.
I don't.
I define creativity as theability to have an idea.
We all do that 100 times a day.
I define innovation as theability to get it done.
That's the hard part and that'swhy I wanted to create the book
.
I said to the publisher it'snot a book.
He goes what do you mean it'snot a book.
I said it's a toolkit.
I said people don't use books,they use toolkits.
It has three principles Takethe BS out of innovation and
(02:27):
make it accessible to normal,hardworking, busy people.
Take creativity and make ittangible for 50% of us who are
uncomfortable with ambiguity.
But, far more importantly, makeit fun.
Give people tools they chooseto use.
When you and I are not around,people are busy.
If you don't make it fun, theywon't use it.
And then why have the book?
Well, because it's on thebookshelf.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, get people to play again.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Get people to let go of their the confines of like
modern society and just have alittle fun.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You said that you get your best idea.
Where were you when you getyour best ideas?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Driving in the car.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Right, so I can do this with all.
I've done it with 20,000 people.
And you stand up, you say,right, close your eyes.
Where are you and what are youdoing when you get your best
ideas?
And people will say shower,driving, walking, falling asleep
, waking up, jogging, exercisingin the park.
And I get them to write it down.
And I say, right, hands up, whowrote down at work?
Oh, guess what?
Zero, zero, zero.
People get their best ideas atwork.
Well, so that's frustrating,isn't it?
Because we're paid to have ourbest ideas.
So I'll give you an analogy asto why close your eyes.
(03:29):
Now picture the last verbalargument you were in with
somebody.
Close your eyes, you don't haveto tell anybody about it.
Just picture it.
Voices are raised, you're angryat each other.
You're arguing about somethingyou probably regret later on.
You're really angry.
Now you turn to walk away fromthe argument.
Now you're five seconds away.
You're 10 seconds.
You are no more than 20 secondsaway from maybe 30 seconds away
from the argument, maybe aminute.
(03:50):
And what just popped into yourhead totally spontaneously the
moment you turn to walk awayfrom that argument?
What was it?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I don't think that I thought of anything other than I
want to read a book andmeditate and shift my brain off
of this.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But wait, what about the killer one-liner, that one
line you wished you'd usedduring the argument, the perfect
line, oh yeah.
But guess what?
You didn't, did you?
No, none of us ever do.
Why?
Because when we're in anargument, our brain is moving at
a thousand miles an hour, likethis, defending ourselves.
And when we're at work, we'redoing emails, we're doing
presentations, we're doingcompliance training, we're doing
weekly reports, we're attendingweekly meetings and I hear
(04:25):
myself say I don't have time tothink.
And when you say I don't havetime to think, you're in the
brain state called beta.
I call it busy beta.
The official title, thescientific title, is reticular
activating system.
Nobody remembers it.
So we just call it a door.
When the door between yourconscious and subconscious brain
is firmly closed, when thatdoor is closed, you're only
(04:45):
working with your consciousbrain.
You can Google this whatpercentage of my brain is
conscious?
13% of your brain is conscious.
87% of your brain issubconscious.
Every meeting you've everattended, every bicycle ride
you've ever been on, everyinnovation you've ever seen,
every creative problem you'veever solved is back here as
unrelated stimulus.
But when the door is shut, youdon't have access to it.
So what do I do?
I run an energizer.
(05:07):
You can find them in the book.
They're 60 second exercises.
What are they designed to do?
They're designed to make youlaugh.
Why?
Because the moment I hearlaughter, I know that
metaphorically, I've just openedthe door between your conscious
and subconscious brain andplace you metaphorically back in
the shower.
Option B ask your boss if youcan bring showers to meetings.
And so, by being playful at theright, I don't expect people to
(05:28):
be playful every minute ofevery day, but I do expect
people to be playful whenthey're leading ideation
sessions, because if you're notplayful, you can't open the door
between your conscious andsubconscious brain, and that is
where you are when you have yourbest ideas.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So what do you do when you drop into like let's
imagine that you were droppinginto the most boring, bland
corporate boardroom my dailylife.
What do you?
What's the first thing thatyou're going to do to shake it
up, if it's up to you?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So the first thing I'll do is I'll ask people if
they're, if they think they'recreative.
Nobody will put their hands up.
Then I get them to stand up inpairs and I tell person A, you
design parachutes for elephants.
Person B, you interview themabout their job and you just
hear this amazing laughter andsuddenly they prove to
themselves that they're far morecreative than they thought they
ever were.
But particularly for leadershipteams, I do this exercise
(06:19):
because the more experience, themore expertise we have, the
more reasons we all know why thenew idea won't work.
So we constantly shoot it downright.
Actually, I'm curious to hearwhat is the most common phrase
you hear when people are killingyour ideas.
What's the classic one-linerthat they tell you?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
They shoot it down.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, they shoot it down.
So are you a Harry Potter fanor a Star Wars fan?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Ooh Harry Potter.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay, so I'm going to come at you with some ideas for
a Harry Potter party.
We've been given a hundredthousand dollar budget pretty
good budget for a Harry Potterparty.
I'd like you to start each andevery response with the
following two words no because,and then you'll tell me why not.
Okay so, but you'll alwaysstart with those sentence with
no because.
So he's thinking right, I couldcome to your house, put a
sorting hat outside the frontdoor.
(06:59):
All the good people will getthe Gryffindor party and all the
dark, mysterious people willget the Slytherin party.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
No, because that would be too many people at our
house and the kids might getupset with which house they get
put in.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No fair point.
I'll tell you what then.
We'll take over your diningroom and we'll turn it to a
magic potions room whereeverybody could drink some
amazing alcoholic cocktail.
That turns us into somethingtotally freaky.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
No, because it'll get so messy and I'll have to clean
up and decorate the room.
It sounds like too much work.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
OK, what if we did a cosplay party?
I could come as AlbusDumbledore and you could be
Professor McGonagall.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
No, because the kids will think it's cheesy and you
could be Professor McGonagall.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
No, because the kids will think it's cheesy.
Yeah, fair point.
Okay, Gosh right.
Well, what if we just show themovies and give people free
popcorn and Coca-Cola?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
No, because that's not an activity.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, so let's stop there.
I call it business as usual.
Was the idea getting bigger orsmaller?
Which way was it going?
Smaller and smaller and smaller, when people are constantly no
because in you?
How does that make you feellike my ideas aren't important?
Right, exactly?
So let's try it again.
Are we okay with star wars?
Can we do star war or a partyof your choice?
(08:07):
What would you like?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
sure we could do star wars.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I'm going to tell you some star wars ideas I'd
like you to start with, insteadof starting with, the words no,
because in each response i'd'dlike you to use the words yes,
and that'll be the first twowords you use and you'll just
build on what I've given you.
Okay, and we'll just build oneach other's ideas.
Oh yeah, we could get into yourkitchen, turn it into an
intergalactic canteen where wecould have the cantina band and
we could have a food and winefestival from Hoth and Naboo and
(08:32):
Tatooine.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yes, and we can bring theme food in so that every
aspect of the party just emergesyou straight into Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Oh, yes, and we kind of glow in the dark lightsaber
fights full of our favoritealcoholic liquid.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, and we should open up the back door so that
the kids run outside to playwith those lightsabers and they
don't knock things down in thehouse.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Oh yes, and then we could actually have Disney's
corporate jet pick everybody upat the party, fly them down to
Disneyland and take them toGalaxy's Edge.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yes, and that will be the best party of the year.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Okay, so we'll stop there.
So a lot more laughter, a lotmore smiles on your face, a lot
more energy this time around.
Was the idea getting bigger orsmaller?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Bigger.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, you can always take a big idea and value
engineer it down.
Very hard to turn a small oneinto a big one.
Far more importantly, we workinside big organizations, small
organizations.
We have colleagues andconstituents and clients and
bosses to bring on board withour idea.
By the time we just finishedbuilding that idea together,
whose idea was it?
By the time we finished?
Everybody's of improv that canturn a small idea into a big one
(09:35):
really quickly.
But far more importantly,transfer the power of my idea,
which never goes anywhere insidean organization, to our idea
and accelerate its opportunityto get done.
Don't be the Eeyore in the room.
That'll never work here.
I know you haveresponsibilities, we all have
responsibilities.
Just remind yourselves we'renot greenlighting this idea for
(09:56):
execution today.
We're merely greenhousing ittogether using yes.
And Just remember when somebodycomes at you with an idea
you're not thinking of, that's areally good place to start.
Innovation is about getting youto an idea you can't have by
yourself.
If the first two words out ofyour mouth are no, because do
you think they're coming backnext week when they've got a
really big idea?
Not a chance.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
So then, where do people take this fun game though
?
I mean, we're talking about aStar Wars party, or we're
talking about a Harry Potterparty, but what if it's a really
large business decision or anorganizational decision,
something that, together as ateam, will impact the future of
the employees?
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So here's what I also recommend is you must very
clearly signal are we inexpansionist session today or in
a reductionist session?
So, and what I mean by that isare we here to have ideas or are
we here to evaluate them?
Unless you make that very clearfrom the beginning, you're
going to have lots ofno-be-cosing inside an
expansionist session.
Pixar, marvel, lucasfilms andDisney has at least one,
probably multiple rooms wherethey're called the expansionist
(10:58):
rooms.
You don't get to kill an ideain this room.
So we had the greenhouse atDisney and everybody knew when
they were in the greenhouse thiswas the one room where you
don't get to kill ideas that wewill evaluate them later on
Unless you very clearly signalto people what type of behavior
you're looking for.
So, for example, I might havethe yellow card and red card
from the world of soccer and ifpeople are trying to kill ideas,
(11:19):
I'll throw them the yellow card.
I've never had to throw the redone.
I might get people to stand upand say I'm a reductionist and
we'll all cheer for them andlaugh and they'll sit back down
again.
The physical room is reallyimportant, particularly in
ideation session.
American Idol, america's GotTalent, usually three
(11:43):
celebrities on the show.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
What physical object separates the celebrities from
the contestants.
Well, there's the desk and thestage, the desk, the table.
And what?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
is the role of the celebrities on the show.
To evaluate the performers, tojudge the moment you leave
somebody on the other side of atable in an ideation session, in
a brainstorm, in a meeting,they will judge your work and
think reductive simply becauseyou left a physical object
between you and them.
Walt Disney created thestoryboard for a reason because
what he realized when he broughtpeople from out behind the
table and went for a walk withthem, he was taking them on a
journey.
Not only that, by removing thebarrier between the two of them,
(12:08):
he was turning a presentationinto a conversation.
Your bosses have moreexperience than you do.
They want to add value.
Give them the opportunity to doit or they'll shoot it down.
But back to the real world.
I want to give you a couple oftools for people listening in,
because people want to know okay, so how does this work in the
real world?
So hands up who likes breakingthe rules when the boss isn't
looking?
Or hands up who works in a veryheavily regulated industry.
(12:33):
We all do.
So what if it was a tool thatenabled you to metaphorically
break the rules of your industryor your challenge, to help you
jump out of your river ofthinking your own.
I call your river of thinkingyour expertise and experience.
And the more expertise andexperience we have, the more
reasons we know why the new ideawon't work.
So we constantly shoot it down.
In the last four years we'vehad a global pandemic, climate
(12:54):
change, generation Z not wantingto work for anybody, here comes
an AI.
So unless we think differently,we're out of a job.
So I created a set of toolsthey're in the book that takes
the intimidation out ofinnovation, makes creativity
tangible and the process fun.
The tools are designed to besimple, powerful and fun.
There's a tool I call what If?
It was created by Walt Disneyfor the film Fantasia in 1940.
(13:15):
He wanted mist and heat pumpedinto the theater, but the
theater owner said no, walt, tooexpensive.
So Walt observed the industryand wrote down the rules.
Step one write down the rulesof the challenge you're working
on next week.
Don't think about them oryou'll start thinking of all the
reasons you can't break them.
So Walt wrote down the rules ofgoing to a movie theater I must
sit down, it is dark.
(13:36):
Rules are going to a movietheater I must sit down, it is
dark, I must be quiet.
I must pay to get in.
I can only watch one movie at atime.
I must watch the previews.
I can't control the environment.
There's the list, pick one.
He chose the environment andasked the most audacious,
outrageous, provocative, what-ifstatement of all.
The more provocative, thefurther out of your river you'll
jump.
So Walt said well, wait aminute, what if I could control
(13:58):
the environment?
Well, he couldn't.
He didn't own the movietheaters Besides, that wasn't
provocative enough.
So he said OK, if I can'tcontrol the environment inside
the theater, what if I take mymovies out of the theater?
Well, don't be daft, walt.
They're two-dimensional.
They fall over.
What if I made themthree-dimensional?
If you know the answer, you'reiterating.
If he scares you, then you'reinnovating.
They said well, how do you dothat?
(14:19):
Well, he said well, what if Ijust had people dress up in
costume?
I could have princesses andcowboys and pirates.
Yeah, but well, you can't.
These are all the no-be-causes.
Right, you can't haveCinderella standing next to Jack
Sparrow.
People wouldn't be immersed inher story.
Yeah, you're right.
What if I put each of them in adifferent themed land?
Oh, wait a minute.
What if I called it DisneylandBoom.
(14:40):
We're done here.
Simple, powerful, fun.
Now let me ask you a questionDid you ever used to go to
Blockbuster Video?
Oh yeah, did you ever pay latefees?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Of course you did.
Were you pissed off at payingthe late fees?
Of course you were.
So the founder of Netflix usedexactly the same tool as Walt
had used all those years before.
He was so fed up of paying latefees.
He walked into a blockbustervideo, sat down on a chair for
four hours and observed theindustry.
Step one write down the rules.
I must drive to a physicalstore.
I must go during opening hours.
(15:11):
They have a very limited stock.
I can only take out three at atime.
I had to return it.
I had to be kind of rewind it,and if I took it back later I
had to pay a late fee.
He picked one of those rulesthe store.
And in 2005, he said what ifthere was no physical store?
Didn't know how to solve for itat the time.
So he looked outside of hisindustry and found this new
(15:32):
company called YouTube.
They were six months old.
They were only streamingamateur content.
So he said, well, hang on aminute.
What if I did a deal with themajor movie studios?
I'll just stream professionalcontent?
Huh, nobody would have to driveanywhere.
I'll be open 24 hours a day,seven days a week.
I'll have an unlimited stock.
Everybody will get the one theywant.
They won't have to return it orrewind it.
(15:54):
I'll cut the rental off at 24hours.
Nobody pays a late fee.
Oh, I'll call it Netflix.
I'll take it to Blockbusterfive times.
They'll turn me down five times.
Guess what?
I'll take them out of businessin less than five years.
Now, with people listening, I'msure a lot of people will sit
there and say well, that's great, duncan.
You know Disney and Netflix hasmultiple resources.
I don't.
Well, ok, to be fair, walt wasbankrupt in 1940, but that
(16:18):
doesn't help you.
Reed Hastings was working outof his mom's garage in 2005.
But I'll give you a smallerexample because I want everybody
to understand.
The tools work for them too.
Very small company in GreatBritain in the late 60s we used
to make glasses that we drinkout of, like this one, and they
found too much breakage and notenough production when the
glasses were being packaged andshipped.
(16:38):
So they went down to the shopfloor, sat down for eight hours
and observed the process andwrote down the rules 26
employees, conveyor belt, 12glasses to a box, six on the top
, six on the bottom.
Glasses separated by corrugatedcardboard.
Glasses wrapped individually innewspaper Employees reading the
newspaper.
So somebody asked the somewhatprovocative what-if question
(16:59):
what if we poke their eyes out?
Well, that's against the lawand it's not very nice.
But because they had thecourage to ask the most absurd
what-if question of all, thelady sitting next to me said
well, wait a minute, what if wejust hire blind people?
So they did Production up 26%,breakage down 42% and the
British government gave him a50% salary subsidy for hiring
people with disabilities.
(17:19):
List the rules of the industryin which you work or the
challenge you're working on nextweek.
Pick one rule and ask the mostaudacious, outrageous, absurd
what-if statement.
The more absurd, the furtherout of your river you will jump.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And then, once you have those what-if questions
asked, it sounds like youevaluate yeah, but then figuring
out how to actually make itcome to fruition is a whole
nother department.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, so then we get to reductive.
Is this, forgive me?
Is this an audio podcast orvideo podcast?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's both, okay, oh good.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So right, okay, Now let's see if I can draw on this.
This is the hotel's guidebook,so I'm probably not supposed to,
but hey, what if I drew on it?
So there's a tool calledStargazer.
It's in the book.
Now let's see if this shows up.
If not, I'm going to go get aSharpie.
Ideas are the most subjectivething on the planet.
Can you see that?
Okay, so ideas are the mostsubjective thing on the planet.
(18:13):
You like pink, I like blue, ourboss likes yellow.
Chances are we'll be doing theyellow idea.
Well, hang on just a minute.
So I use two tools to evaluateideas.
One is Passionometer, which isabout voting with your heart.
One is Stargazer, which isvoting with your head.
Why do I use Passionometer?
First, because if the team arenot passionate about an idea,
(18:33):
they're the team who have toexecute it.
They've got too many otherthings on their plate.
I guarantee you that idea willget stuck, diluted or killed as
it moves through to execution,because we've got too much else
on our plate.
We weren't passionate about it.
So the traditional brainstormthe ideas are up on the wall and
then we're told we can put ourthree red dots on the ideas we
like the most.
So what do we do?
We wait to see where our bossputs their three red dots, and
(18:56):
then we line up behind them andtell them how much we like the
idea.
But guess what?
We didn't.
And so when the idea goes offto execution, it gets stuck,
diluted or killed.
So the first thing I do is letpeople vote anonymously.
I can get down from 50 ideas toabout eight like that.
All I'm looking for at thatstage is which ideas are up on
the wall that you want to gohome and tell your loved one.
I'm working on this.
(19:17):
This is the coolest thing everNow.
Okay, great.
So I've gone from 50 down toeight.
Now, yes, now you've got tolook out for the business and
vote with your head.
So this is called Stargazer.
I borrowed it from RichardBranson at Virgin.
Virgin is the most elasticbrand on the planet, right?
Richard's done condoms andspace travel and everything in
between.
Disney is a non-elastic brand.
(19:38):
It does family magicalentertainment.
So how does Virgin decide whatproducts and service to bring to
market?
Well, they use this tool.
It has five criteria on it Now.
So what you do is you draw astarfish you'll find it in the
book.
It's called Stargazer and thenyou draw three criteria points
on each one of the legs.
Then you decide your successcriteria.
I would suggest you agree yoursuccess criteria with the senior
(20:02):
stakeholder on day one.
If you don't do that, we bothknow the goalposts are going to
move, because another seniorvice president will join the
project and they'll move thecriteria Every time I come back
in at different points in theproject.
I share the criteria and I saydo we all agree on the criteria?
Because if the goalposts aregoing to move, I need to know
now, because I don't want towaste another six weeks working
(20:23):
on this.
And so let's just I'm makingthese up for today.
You will make up your owncriteria, but today let's just
say we're looking for ideas thatare strategic, brand fit, ie
they are aligned with who westand for as a brand.
They are embedded in theconsumer truth.
Let's say, today we're lookingat we want to engage 21 to
24-year-olds.
(20:43):
I need to be able to get thisinto the market in the next 18
to 24 months.
It's socially engaging.
It needs to get the 21 to24-year-olds to come off and
spend more money and I can makea bucket load of money out of it
.
Obviously, you'll have financialgoals and all you do is, let's
say idea number two you goaround and ask yourself does
this do a poor job, a good jobor an outstanding job of being
(21:06):
aligned with our brand?
And you put a dot where youthink it scores.
So that's idea number two.
Will it make a bucket load ofmoney?
Does a good amount?
Is it socially engaging?
Very, can I get it in themarket in the next 80, 24 months
?
Yes, is it embedded in consumertruth?
It does a fairly good job.
And then what you do is just asyou did when you were a
six-year-old whoops, you goaround and join the dots, just
(21:29):
like you did when you were asix-year-old.
Now then.
So you'll do it with adifferent color for each of your
different ideas.
You've got eight ideas up onthe wall.
At some point, one idea isgoing to rise to the top as
meeting your success criteriathe most, not the one you like
the best, and so that just takesout all the subjectivity out of
(21:50):
the marketplace and makes itobjective.
Again, the tools are simple,powerful, fun.
Now Richard Branson gave mesome advice.
He said unless the idea is 100%embedded in consumer truth and
100% aligned with our brand.
Throw it out.
You must have the courage notto do it, and I'll tell you how
(22:10):
powerful the tool is.
When we were bringing two newDisney cruise ships into the
market, we had to decide wherethe old ships would go.
Tuesday cruise ships into themarket.
We had to decide where the oldships would go.
The new ships were clearlygoing to come into Port
Canaveral because the Caribbeanis the large share of revenue of
the cruise market.
So we had to decide where theold ships would go.
Well, any large corporation.
That decision just takes toolong.
It takes six weeks.
(22:31):
It takes six months of overanalysis, paralysis, and Sarah's
not here today.
We have to cover off.
So what about Dave?
Oh, dave's not.
And then the decision gets madein the corridor and nobody
understands how you got there.
So we use this tool and one ofthe criteria was can we get the
ship into the berth of thisparticular port in the next 12
months?
And guess what, if you can't,can't do it, because the
(22:57):
conversation normally comes downto subjectivity.
One senior vice president goesdo you know what we did the Med
Cruise last year.
It was great.
And then the EVP goes no, mywife and I did the Alaska.
I didn't give a toss.
What you like, right, it'sabout, is it embedded in
consumer truth?
Can I get the ship into theberth in 12 months?
And we took 16 executive vicepresidents into a room.
We made a decision in 59minutes Unheard of.
(23:23):
Again, the tools are designedto be simple, powerful and fun.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And these tools.
I mean, how did you learn thiscreativity?
Is this something that you justwere born with?
Have you always been like this?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Well.
So when it comes to that, whatif tool?
I love breaking the rules.
So that one was easy.
So I mean, look, I was atDisney for 30 years and the last
12, I was in charge ofinnovation and creativity, and
you learn by mistakes, right?
So when I was first given therole you know and Bob Iger said
listen, I want you to create aculture that embeds a culture of
(23:58):
innovation and creativity intoeverybody's DNA At the time I
was head of global PR I thoughthow the hell am I going to do
this?
I don't know.
So the first thing I did wassurvey 5,000 people and ask them
what were the barriers to beingmore innovative and creative
where they worked?
Number one I don't have time tothink.
Number two we don't have theresources.
Number three we say we'reclient-centric but we're
(24:20):
measured by quarterly results.
Number four our ideas get stuck, diluted or killed as they move
through the organization.
And number five we all have avery different definition of
creativity.
So Pixar was going this way,lucasfilm was going, marvel was
going.
I was like guys, could we justget together?
So I tried four models.
The first three failed.
The first one was I hired anoutside consultant, an
(24:40):
innovation consultant.
He said make me look good.
Not quite, but you know whereI'm going.
They were very good at whatthey did.
They were very expensive, butthey were never around for
execution.
They sure as hell weren't goingto show me how they did it
because they were worried Iwouldn't hire them again.
So, okay, that got me so fardown the road.
Then I thought we'll create aninnovation team.
Duncan will be in charge.
What could possibly go wrong?
(25:01):
So nobody outside of legal doeslegal.
Nobody outside of marketingdoes marketing.
Nobody outside of operationsdoes operation.
So when you create aninnovation team, you've
subliminally just told 98% ofthe organization you're off the
hook.
You don't have to innovate,which is not a good idea.
The third model we tried anaccelerator program where we
bring in some young techstartups and invest in their
(25:22):
business.
What we could offer them was wecould scale their product, and
what they could offer us is theycould enable us to bring ideas
to market much quicker than wenormally would, because they
weren't governed by our policies, our procedures and our
politics.
But we had failed in Bob'soverall goal, which was how
might we embed a culture ofinnovation and creativity into
everybody's DNA?
So I set out to create thattoolkit, one that creates tools
(25:46):
that are simple, powerful andfun, that takes the intimidation
out of innovation, makes itaccessible to normal hardworking
, busy people and make it fun.
There's too many things thatcould become a flash in the pan.
What we realized at Disney waswe had a three and a half year
wait list for what was a two-dayvoluntary workshop to learn how
(26:07):
to use the tools.
A lot of people pay me to goand give keynotes, and I enjoy
giving keynotes.
You can inspire and motivatepeople in 60 minutes.
You can't help them.
People learn by doing, theydon't learn by listening, and so
I love getting in a room with agroup of people who don't think
they can innovate, they thinkthey're not creative, and you
doing these one day workshopswith them where halfway through
(26:28):
the day, you just see the smileon their face when they realize
they can do it.
That, to me, gives me enormouspride.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So do you think that creativity is more of like a
muscle that you build throughpractice, or do you think that
it's more of like a mindset?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Creativity is a muscle the more you use it, the
stronger it gets.
But we think we can't break oldhabits and we think we can't
learn new ones.
So we've all been successful inour careers thinking the way we
always have, and that's workedreally, really, really well
until global pandemics, ai,climate change and Generation Z
not wanting to enter theworkplace.
And so we have to thinkdifferently, and that's why I
(27:05):
created the toolkit.
The toolkit is designedspecifically to stop us thinking
like this and give uspermission to think like that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Can you give us an example of some time that you
did that like where you feltcreatively stuck?
And then you had to get out ofit.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yes, I'll give you an example and then I'll tell you
how we got to it.
So this tool was created by aman called Walt, last name
Disney.
How, by simply reframing achallenge, can I stop us
thinking the way we always doand get us to think differently?
He said we will not have anycustomers in our park, we'll
only have guests.
We will not have any employees,we'll only have cast members,
and with that simplere-expression of the
(27:39):
relationship between theemployee and the customers, the
cast member, the guest Walt hadcreated a culture of hospitality
that's rarely been repeatedelsewhere.
So how does this work?
And then I'll explain how weactually did it.
So you live just north of GoldenGate Bridge.
Sorry, never understood why itwas red, but that's beside the
point.
Sorry, duncan's gone off script.
Let me ask you a question.
(28:00):
I'm coming to a town near you.
You and I are going to go intobusiness together.
We're going to open a car wash.
Tell me, if you would, thethree or four essential
ingredients we must have in acar wash.
What must we have?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
We need space.
We need soap, water, buildingsome sort of auto pay function.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Okay, so we'll stop there.
So we need space, water, soapbuilding and auto pay.
So car wash is really boring.
You and I are venturecapitalists.
We have been invited to open anew franchise of auto spas who
are a spa.
Now, what have you seen in yourfavorite spa?
What would you like to have inyour spa?
Anything you want.
What would you like?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
To be attractive, visually appealing relaxing.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
What else can we have in a spa?
Anything you want.
What do you want?
Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh, food drinks, what else Music?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Music.
What else?
Mani-pedi perhaps?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
At a spa, sure, at a spa.
Oh, it's a spa, it's a sparight.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Okay, what else do you want?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, Facials massage Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So we've got massage, we've got facials, we've got
mani-pedis, we've got ambience,we've got nice music, blah, blah
blah.
So which one would you rathergo to the car wash or the auto
spa?
The?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
auto spa.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Well, there you are, then see.
So all I did was reframe thechallenge.
I said car wash.
I knew you were going to saywater, soap and brushes.
That was a gimme.
That's the danger of our riverof thinking.
So this tool specifically turnsthe river of thinking on its
head.
So, instead of in 2011,.
If we'd said how might we makemore money, we 11,.
(29:31):
If we'd said how might we makemore money, we'd have put the
gate price up at Walt DisneyWorld by 3%.
Instead of asking that question, we reframed.
So Car Wash Auto Spa, how mightwe make more money?
How might we solve the biggestconsumer pain point?
Everybody knew what it was.
It was called standing in linein Disney parks.
So we identified where thebiggest lines were Space
Mountain, meeting Mickey Mouse,checking or checking out a
potential resort, paying forfood or merchandise and we use
the tool called when Else, whichwe haven't covered yet, which
(29:53):
is about looking outside of yourindustry.
Most of the insights forinnovation were not coming from
looking within the industry inwhich you live.
So we looked outside of ourindustry and asked ourselves
where in the world has somebodyalready solved the challenge of
not standing in line?
And we found a pharmacy inTokyo, japan.
This was God 15 years ago.
Now, using RFID technology toenable people not to stand in
(30:16):
line.
Welcome to the world of Disney'sMagic Band.
It sits on your wrist.
Is it your room key?
Yes, you don't check in andcheck out with Disney Resort.
You haven't done that for sevenyears.
The turnstiles what turnstiles?
They went away six years ago.
You swipe and you walk in withyour magic band.
Your reservations for yourfavorite character, meet and
greet, your favorite ridesthey're on your magic band.
Now it's morphing towards theiPhone today.
(30:37):
Can you pay for merchandisewith it?
Hell, yes.
Touch it once, goes to my hotelroom.
Touch it twice, goes to myhouse.
Can I pay for food with it?
Of course I can.
I walk into the restaurant whenI want to walk in.
I sit at the table I want tosit at.
The food comes fresh to me.
Had we have started by askinghow might we make more money,
we'd have put the gate price upand made our revenue goals by 3%
(30:59):
.
But by reversing the challengeand calling the challenge
something completely different,ie, how might we solve the
biggest consumer pain point?
The average guest at WaltDisney World today has over two
hours free time each and everyday, they didn't have six years
ago.
What has that resulted in?
Record intent to return, recordintent to recommend.
And what is it you lovelypeople do with your free time in
(31:19):
Disney parks?
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, one of the biggest single
revenue generating ideas inDisney parks history.
By not asking how might we makemore money?
And what is the consumer doingevery second of every day with
their magic band and theirphones?
They will be live crowdsourcingthe future of every products
and service Disney creates, bytelling them every second of
(31:41):
every day what they like andwhat they don't like.
Now again, if I give you a bigexample, I'll give your
listeners a smaller example,because I want them to know the
tool would work anywhere.
I was up in New York, satchatting to this young lady
behind the reception desk I waswaiting for a meeting.
Got upstairs, met the boss.
I said your receptionist,absolutely delightful, so
(32:01):
friendly, so empathetic, lovelygirl.
He said, oh, that's nice tohear.
He said well, how long were youchatting to her for?
I said, oh, about 10 minutes, Isuppose he goes.
Oh that, how long were you, youknow, chatting to her for?
I said about 10 minutes, Isuppose he goes.
Oh, that's odd.
I said, well, why the hell isthat odd?
He goes.
Well, we don't have her exactly.
So I was like, well, who thehell was I talking to for the
last 10 minutes?
I said well, hang on a minute.
Her name was sarah.
She had a summer dress onbecause she had no sleeves.
He goes oh, sarah, sarah's ourdirector of first impressions.
(32:23):
It's like boom.
That simple re-expression of aform of employment empowered the
owner space she is.
So the next time you're workingon a challenge, are you working
in the banking industry or areyou working in the dreams come
true industry, and how mightthat help you think differently?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That is an interesting way of thinking and
not intuitive, I don't think formost of us.
You know you had mentioned howtime was like the number one
reason why people did not havethe ability to think creatively.
So if you were able to redesignthe work week to be magical and
promoting creativity, like whatwould the work week look like
(33:04):
for most corporations?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, different companies do it different ways
and I'll explain the importanceof why.
Now, hands up, and we'll haveto.
I'll'll say if you put yourhands up to the people who are
just listening, hands up.
If you've ever gone to yourfavorite restaurant, right, you
get your menu, you know, you'vebeen there plenty of times.
Before you read the menu, youadvertise the main course of
desserts.
They've never changed.
You're listening to thespecials, but you're not
(33:27):
listening.
Listening to the specials, butyou're not listening.
Hands up.
If you order the same thingevery single time you go, come
on, own it, girl.
Her hand is up, listeners.
Okay, hands up.
If you get in and sleep on thesame side of the bed every night
, come on, girl, put it up.
I know you do, even when you'restaying in a hotel room on
business by yourself, come on, Iknow.
Come on, confess, I know you do.
So remember when we used tocommute backwards and forwards
(33:49):
to work and we'd get home, andwe always used to go past the
same route.
And you get home and there'sjust that split second where you
get home and you just go.
Oh, how did I get home?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, every day.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Because you went past the same stimulus day in, day
out, day in, day out, your brainphysically shut down and it
didn't wake up till you got home.
No fresh stimulus in, no newideas out.
So how do we get fresh stimulusinto our lives?
Different companies do itdifferent ways.
Microsoft has Think Week nomeetings, no emails, no
presentations.
Hasbro gives their employeesthree or five dollars a quarter
(34:23):
to put something on their deskbut it cannot be a toy.
Just spark a differentconversation.
Pixar I think this was genius.
Steve Jobs created this wholephilosophy called unplanned
collaboration.
It doesn't sit by legal andmarketing and sales and IT
Everybody sits everywhere underthis philosophy called unplanned
collaboration, specificallydesigned to bring two people
(34:44):
together who are not supposed tomeet to have a conversation.
They were not supposed to haveto spark a new idea.
And why is Google smarter thanthe rest of us?
What have they got that wedon't?
What's the number one?
Oh, I don't have time to think.
What did they give theirengineers Time to think?
20% time.
It's not an urban myth.
I work with them.
I'm working with them onDeepMind.
I'm not suggesting you walk upto your boss next week and say,
(35:06):
boss, dude, I need Fridays offfrom now on?
Duncan said 20%, but what if wetook one hour a month?
Let's call it the first Fridayof every month, from 9 to 10 am.
Whatever day and time you pick,be consistent.
Just one hour a month is not abig ask.
And invite your teams to comein.
Brown bag breakfast, real orvirtual.
No, powerpoint presentations,no, why is it good for the
(35:27):
business?
Just invite each person to comein prepared to talk about one
thing they've seen in the last30 days in their business life
or, ideally, their personal life, that they thought was
innovative or creative.
You'll be amazed at the newenergy and ideas you drive into
the building so these concept inthis toolkit, it's all in your
book.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
What led you to want to write the Imagination
Emporium?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Five years of getting off a stage and somebody goes
have you got a book?
No, have you got a book?
No, have you got a book?
No, piss off.
I got fed up of answering thebloody question no.
But also, I love doing things.
I don't know how to do so.
I'd never written a book before, so I thought, right, I'm going
to do that.
(36:11):
Then animation I'm an animatedcharacter.
I created a new character.
I'd never done that before,never put QR codes in a book
before, and now it's got AI init.
You can literally scan the backQR code and ask the book a
question why did I do it?
Partially, I'm not going to lie, I'm selfish.
I wanted to do it because Ididn't know how to do it, and I
wanted to do it because I wantedto see where it could go.
(36:32):
But not only can you ask thebook about how to use the tool
on page 67, but if you've readthe book, you already know how
to use the tool on page 67.
So you can actually ask thebook how to use the tool on page
whatever page, whatever toolyou choose, how to sell more
orange pencils in the state ofPennsylvania on January the 13th
, and, yes, the book will answeryou, and so it's been a real
(36:56):
challenge getting it ready, andso much of a challenge.
The book was printed before Idecided to do the AI, so there's
nowhere in the book does ittell you.
So here here's a secret thelast one's AI.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
What do you mean?
The last one's AI?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
The QR code on the back cover of the book.
If you scan it, you'll go tothe brain and the brain will ask
you do you want to sign up?
You'll say yes, please, and youcan ask the brain three free
questions a day, for which I pay, because somebody has to pay
for it.
I wanted to do it for free.
The publisher was like no.
So if you want to ask the bookmore than three free questions a
day, you subscribe.
But I wanted to do it becausenobody else has.
(37:36):
I wanted to do it because Ihaven't.
I wanted to do it because I wasscared of it.
And it's exciting.
I just love those projects atDisney where you go in and
present them and somebody seniorto you would approve it.
And then you thought, shit, Ihave no idea how to get this
done.
The Buzz Lightyear you saw itin the book.
Or how I stole the turkey fromthe President of the United
States of America onThanksgiving Day oh yeah, yes, I
did.
Or how I built a full-sizeOlympic swimming pool down Main
(37:58):
Street, usa, from the castle tothe train station, and convinced
Michael Phelps to swim down it.
And when I said, hey, let'stake Buzz Lightyear into space,
do you think I'd ask NASA?
No, the chairman said go do it.
You're like, oh shit, I'm goingto go bitch.
So it was funny because thiswas the launch of Toy Story,
right.
So we had to create some buzzaround it, pun intended.
(38:19):
And I thought, well, ok, whatwas Buzz Lightyear's dream?
Well, his dream was to fly.
And I said, well, what if wecan make him fly?
And people were like, well, howare you going to do that?
I said I'm going to send himinto space.
I had no idea how I was goingto do it at the time.
So then it was approved.
So I went off to meet with NASA.
There was about 23 people inthe room and you could tell that
half the people just loved theidea of taking Buzz Lightyear
(38:40):
into space and half of the roomjust wanted to throw me through
the window without opening itfirst.
But the senior guy at the endof the table goes well, you know
I won't try and do an Americanaccent because it won't come off
very well.
He said if we're going to takeBuzz Lightyear into space, we're
going to have to take him outon a spacewalk.
I was like, oh my God, did NASAjust agree to take Buzz
Lightyear.
So, anyway, so about six monthsbefore launch, I get a call from
(39:04):
Johnson Space Center and I saidwe need Buzz Lightyear tomorrow
.
What do you mean tomorrow?
The launch is six months fromnow.
He said, well, no, tomorrow'sthe deadline.
I was like why?
He says, well, because we haveto take it apart, molecule by
molecule.
In fact we need two identicalones.
I was like because he said well, because if there's a bubble
the size of an atom inside theplastic, that could explode in
(39:24):
the vacuum of space.
I was like, oh, I knew that.
Yeah, sure I did.
So then do you ever see the filmJingle Bells with Arnold
Schwarzenegger, the one where hecouldn't find the Christmas toy
for his son?
Well, here was the problem.
When we launched Toy Story,disney underestimated how
successful Buzz Lightyear wasgoing to be.
You could not find a BuzzLightyear to save your life.
(39:45):
I thought I had 37 cast membersat Walmart Kmart Target trying
to find Buzz Lightyear.
I I had 37 cast members atWalmart Kmart Target trying to
find Buzz Lightyear.
I said don't tell me, this dealis going down because the Walt
Disney Company can't find BuzzLightyear.
So we found one.
Right, this was 2004, I think itwas.
And so I'm now in my carbecause I'm desperate.
This was the days beforesmartphones.
I had the Motorola Flip, whichI still think was the coolest
(40:07):
phone on the planet.
You know Bond, james Bond.
And so I got a call, but youcouldn't see who was calling and
all I heard was to infinity andbeyond.
I was like who is it?
And it was my wife.
She goes, it's me dear.
I was like where'd you get it?
She goes.
It was underneath James's bed.
It's been collecting dust for awhile.
(40:30):
I said look, don't destroy thisBuzz Lightyear.
This belongs to aneight-year-old boy called James.
So six months later we wereinvited down to the launch at
Cape Kennedy and I cried.
I was like my little boy isgoing.
It was pathetic.
I burst out crying my littleboy is going into space.
So anyway, off goes buzz.
And nasa was sweet enough.
(40:50):
I've got this amazingphotograph taken from the
cockpit of the space shuttlediscovery above planet earth,
looking straight down ontocentral florida to james's house
.
It was like, oh my god, so fastforward two years.
We're launching another toystory, of course.
And I thought, well, how thehell do you top uh, sending buzz
light year into space?
I thought I'm gonna bring himhome.
(41:11):
So I phoned up the director ofcomms at nasa.
I said when you bring him buzzback, there's total silence.
On the other end of the phone Iwas like no man left behind,
right?
I mean, my tongue was so far inmy cheek because that was never
in the contract.
We never agreed to buzzlightyear home.
I said, well, you bringeverything back, right?
He don't.
I said, well, what do you dowith all the stuff you take up?
(41:32):
He goes, you just open thehatch and shove it out the back.
I was like you can't incinerateBuzz Lightyear in the Earth's
atmosphere.
I'll leak it to the world'spress that NASA killed Buzz
Lightyear.
My tongue was so far into mychin.
Anyway, god bless him, god blessNASA, god bless the American
taxpayer.
Yes, I am one of you, eventhough I have a funny accent.
The cost of I won't tell youthe cost to bring three pounds
(41:55):
of a toy back through theEarth's atmosphere, but that day
the weather was poor.
He couldn't land at Canaveral,so he went out to Edwards Air
Force Base in California and Idon't know you look too young,
but there's amazing images ofthe 747s that used to piggyback
the space shuttle on top of themthat would bring them back to
Florida.
They'd actually literally thespace shuttle would sit on the
top of a plane and I have theactual passenger manifest of
(42:18):
their flight, the actual pieceof paper.
Seat 1A congressman blah blahblah.
Seat 3A commander blah blahblah.
Seat 4D astronaut blah blahblah.
Seat 47B Commander BuzzLightyear oh, wow.
And now, if you go to theSmithsonian Museum in Washington
DC yes, to the Air and SpaceMuseum you will find Commander
(42:41):
Buzz Lightyear with a littlebronze plaque underneath it that
says Gift to James Bordell agedate.
I'm a great believer in theHenry Ford quote.
Whether or not you think youcan or think you can't, you're
probably right.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Such an inspiration.
I mean, you definitely are notlimited by any belief.
No, you think big.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
So impossible.
Put an apostrophe between the Iand the M, give it a bit of a
space.
And now what have you got?
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I'm possible.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Bingo we're done here , it's just spelled differently.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Duncan, this has been a masterclass.
Honestly, I wish I could justsit in one of your classrooms.
I want to know what do youteach at Yale and Harvard?
I wish I could sit in thoseclassrooms and participate.
And we all want to be morecreative.
So what's the next best step?
For somebody who's listening in, who wants to work with their
creativity, Would the book be agood place to start.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I hope so.
Look, number one be playful.
I mean, you know, the mostcreative people we know are
children.
Hello, how many resources theyhave.
They don't.
This is not a lie.
I didn't want people to buy thebook.
I wanted it to be free, and thepublisher wouldn't let me.
And I still want to give itaway free for anybody underneath
the age of 18, if I can getpermission for them.
Why?
Because by the time we're 18,we've been told we're not
(43:59):
creative.
We've given up, and it's reallysad.
We're all creative, right, weall used to play with the box.
We didn't play with the toy, wejust had it squeezed out of us.
It's about reminding peoplethat they are creative.
Again, I'll start where I don'tbelieve in this.
Oh, the creatives.
Forgive me, bullshit, right?
The problem is we've definedcreativity as the ability to
(44:20):
write music or paint or be anartist.
I disagree.
I define creativity as theability to have an idea.
We all have a hundred a day.
I define innovation as theability to get that done.
That's the hard part and that'swhere the tools in the
innovation toolbox, inside theimagination in Purim, can help
people.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Well, and maybe the confidence too, to express your
idea.
How many times have you satwith somebody and you're
brainstorming, and they'rescared to share what they're
thinking?
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
So I think that's a great shame.
In every room is 25% extroverts, the people who talk before
they think I like to say I talkas I think.
I know that's a lie.
And then there's the 75% of theroom who are the people who
think first, but we never hearfrom them, and that's a great
shame.
And so you'll find inside thebook there's a technique where
(45:09):
you'll actually get 100%participation, not 25%, and it's
quite invaluable because theseare the people, more often than
not, that are closer to yourcustomers.
Are you familiar with 19 Crimes?
No.
Do you drink red wine?
No, oh well, but you live inNapa Valley, for God's sake.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I know but apparently we're all California sober out
here.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Next time you have the opportunity to go to your
supermarket, walk up to thebottle of red wine in the
cabinet and hold your phone upto the label of the 19-pound
bottle.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Oh, I have heard of this.
It's like an interactive winecompany.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Fastest growing number one selling red wine in
the United States of America.
How did it get there?
They turned a product into anexperience.
Simple as that.
Augmented reality is going todominate virtual reality in the
next five years.
One, because vr is not goodenough yet.
Two, because the headsets, likeapple vision pro too expensive.
B, because you're asking peopleto do something they're not
(46:07):
already doing.
We all carry one of these.
Just think about so.
You don't think disney'sprobably talking to mcdonald's
about virtual happy meals whereyou could choose the character
that pops out of your child'sHappy Meal and speaks to you in
Portuguese and says happybirthday for a bark.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Oh my gosh, the speed of innovation.
It feels like, with all of thistechnological advancement, it's
just getting faster.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, duncan, thank you so much.
Everybody.
Go and buy the ImaginationEmporium, Try some of the games
and see for yourself what he'stalking about.
Thank you so much.
Everybody.
Go and buy the ImaginationEmporium, try some of the games
and see for yourself what he'stalking about.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Thank you for having me.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Today's key takeaways .
The most employable skill setsin the future may be imagination
, creativity, curiosity, empathyand intuition.
Creativity is the ability tohave an idea.
Innovation is the ability toget it done.
When you're in busy beta,you're only working with your
(47:13):
conscious brain.
13% of your brain is conscious,87% of your brain is
unconscious, and that's wherethe magic happens.
But we have to relax to accessit.
Your best ideas are when thatdoor between the two is open.
Laughter is one key thatunlocks the door between the
(47:34):
conscious and unconscious.
Playing games is another way toget creative.
Conscious and unconsciousPlaying games is another way to
get creative.
For example, Duncan mentioned agame where you assign person A
the role of designing parachutesfor elephants and person B has
the job of interviewing thatperson about their job.
Try it out.
Your brain has to stretch.
Your river of thinking is yourexpertise and experience, and it
(47:58):
can be both a gift and a trap.
The more you know, the easierit is to shut down new ideas.
So stay open and practice.
What if thinking?
Write down the rules of yourindustry, business or challenge.
Then ask what if we did theopposite?
What if the rules didn't apply?
The more ridiculous the better.
(48:20):
The more absurd, the furtheroutside of your river of
thinking you'll jump.
Know, because is an idea killer,yes, and can turn a small idea
into a big idea.
Remember you can always take abig idea and value engineer it
down.
Know which session you're in.
Are you in an expansionistsession or a reductionist
(48:43):
session?
In other words, are you here tohave ideas or here to evaluate
them?
Physical space matters Duringideation.
Don't let tables, desks orobjects create barriers between
you and your team.
Keep it open.
Turn a presentation into aconversation.
People lean in when they feelinvolved.
(49:06):
Evaluate ideas with the passionmeter first and then get your
head involved.
If you don't have passion forthe idea, or some part of it,
then the idea will get stuck,diluted or killed.
So whoever is on the team andwill be working on the idea,
have them vote anonymously forthe idea that they would be
(49:27):
stoked to be working on Analysis.
Paralysis is real.
Don't get stuck overthinking.
Just take the first step andlearn as you go.
People learn by doing.
They can be inspired andmotivated by listening including
, hopefully, shows like this one, but listening alone won't help
(49:49):
.
You have to learn by doing.
Creativity is a muscle the moreyou use it the stronger it gets
and as AI grows, creativethinking is going to become even
more important.
Reframe challenges.
A new perspective can unlock abetter solution.
Look outside of your industry.
(50:09):
If your business has a painpoint, how have others outside
of your industry solved thispain point?
Maybe you can borrow theirbrilliance.
Industry solved this pain point.
Maybe you can borrow theirbrilliance.
There is creativity in everysingle one of us, and it's
society that squeezes it out ofus.
As Henry Ford said, whether youthink you can or you can't,
(50:32):
you're probably right.
That's it for today.
I release episodes once a week,so come back and check it out.
Have a great day.
Welcome to how I Built my Small Business.
I'm Anne McGinty, your host.
This interview was soentertaining to host.
It felt like I was back incollege for an hour and had the
most interesting guest teacher,who made me laugh, play games
and have fun, all while learning.
Today's guest is Duncan Wardle,the former head of innovation
(00:30):
and creativity at Disney.
He's on a mission to helppeople tap into their natural
creativity, fuel innovation,spark curiosity, connect through
empathy and trust theirintuition.
The moment Duncan popped intoour online recording room, he
jumped straight into teachingand the first few minutes of our
(00:53):
conversation are missingbecause I hadn't yet hit the
record button.
But I learned a lesson hit thedang button sooner.
You may even find yourselfwondering wait, who's hosting
this show again?
At one point my husbandoverheard us and said it sounded
kind of negative when you kepton saying no, what was up with
(01:16):
that?
Well, you'll just have tolisten in to find out.
Let's jump in.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
How are any of us going to compete with this?
And she said well, she believesthe most employable skill sets
of the next decade will be thethings that will be the hardest
for her to program into AI.
And I said but what are those?
She said the ones with whichyou were born imagination,
creativity, curiosity, empathyand intuition.
But the problem is this Then wego to school and we have them
kicked out of us.
And how do I know that?
(01:45):
I wanted to prove it, so I wentto a university to give a talk.
There are about 3000 universitystudents.
So I brought in one first gradeclass of 30 little
six-year-olds, sat them in themiddle with their teacher.
Everybody else was 18 to 24.
I said hands up, who's creative?
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
But only 30 hands went up.
And so we define creativity mostof us as the ability to write
(02:06):
music or paint.
I don't.
I define creativity as theability to have an idea.
We all do that 100 times a day.
I define innovation as theability to get it done.
That's the hard part and that'swhy I wanted to create the book
.
I said to the publisher it'snot a book.
He goes what do you mean it'snot a book.
I said it's a toolkit.
I said people don't use books,they use toolkits.
It has three principles Takethe BS out of innovation and
(02:27):
make it accessible to normal,hardworking, busy people.
Take creativity and make ittangible for 50% of us who are
uncomfortable with ambiguity.
But, far more importantly, makeit fun.
Give people tools they chooseto use.
When you and I are not around,people are busy.
If you don't make it fun, theywon't use it.
And then why have the book?
Well, because it's on thebookshelf.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, get people to play again.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Get people to let go of their the confines of like
modern society and just have alittle fun.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
You said that you get your best idea.
Where were you when you getyour best ideas?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Driving in the car.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Right, so I can do this with all.
I've done it with 20,000 people.
And you stand up, you say,right, close your eyes.
Where are you and what are youdoing when you get your best
ideas?
And people will say shower,driving, walking, falling asleep
, waking up, jogging, exercisingin the park.
And I get them to write it down.
And I say, right, hands up, whowrote down at work?
Oh, guess what?
Zero, zero, zero.
People get their best ideas atwork.
Well, so that's frustrating,isn't it?
Because we're paid to have ourbest ideas.
So I'll give you an analogy asto why close your eyes.
(03:29):
Now picture the last verbalargument you were in with
somebody.
Close your eyes, you don't haveto tell anybody about it.
Just picture it.
Voices are raised, you're angryat each other.
You're arguing about somethingyou probably regret later on.
You're really angry.
Now you turn to walk away fromthe argument.
Now you're five seconds away.
You're 10 seconds.
You are no more than 20 secondsaway from maybe 30 seconds away
from the argument, maybe aminute.
(03:50):
And what just popped into yourhead totally spontaneously the
moment you turn to walk awayfrom that argument?
What was it?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I don't think that I thought of anything other than I
want to read a book andmeditate and shift my brain off
of this.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
But wait, what about the killer one-liner, that one
line you wished you'd usedduring the argument, the perfect
line, oh yeah.
But guess what?
You didn't, did you?
No, none of us ever do.
Why?
Because when we're in anargument, our brain is moving at
a thousand miles an hour, likethis, defending ourselves.
And when we're at work, we'redoing emails, we're doing
presentations, we're doingcompliance training, we're doing
weekly reports, we're attendingweekly meetings and I hear
(04:25):
myself say I don't have time tothink.
And when you say I don't havetime to think, you're in the
brain state called beta.
I call it busy beta.
The official title, thescientific title, is reticular
activating system.
Nobody remembers it.
So we just call it a door.
When the door between yourconscious and subconscious brain
is firmly closed, when thatdoor is closed, you're only
(04:45):
working with your consciousbrain.
You can Google this whatpercentage of my brain is
conscious?
13% of your brain is conscious.
87% of your brain issubconscious.
Every meeting you've everattended, every bicycle ride
you've ever been on, everyinnovation you've ever seen,
every creative problem you'veever solved is back here as
unrelated stimulus.
But when the door is shut, youdon't have access to it.
So what do I do?
I run an energizer.
(05:07):
You can find them in the book.
They're 60 second exercises.
What are they designed to do?
They're designed to make youlaugh.
Why?
Because the moment I hearlaughter, I know that
metaphorically, I've just openedthe door between your conscious
and subconscious brain andplace you metaphorically back in
the shower.
Option B ask your boss if youcan bring showers to meetings.
And so, by being playful at theright, I don't expect people to
(05:28):
be playful every minute ofevery day, but I do expect
people to be playful whenthey're leading ideation
sessions, because if you're notplayful, you can't open the door
between your conscious andsubconscious brain, and that is
where you are when you have yourbest ideas.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
So what do you do when you drop into like let's
imagine that you were droppinginto the most boring, bland
corporate boardroom my dailylife.
What do you?
What's the first thing thatyou're going to do to shake it
up, if it's up to you?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
So the first thing I'll do is I'll ask people if
they're, if they think they'recreative.
Nobody will put their hands up.
Then I get them to stand up inpairs and I tell person A, you
design parachutes for elephants.
Person B, you interview themabout their job and you just
hear this amazing laughter andsuddenly they prove to
themselves that they're far morecreative than they thought they
ever were.
But particularly for leadershipteams, I do this exercise
(06:19):
because the more experience, themore expertise we have, the
more reasons we all know why thenew idea won't work.
So we constantly shoot it downright.
Actually, I'm curious to hearwhat is the most common phrase
you hear when people are killingyour ideas.
What's the classic one-linerthat they tell you?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
They shoot it down.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, they shoot it down.
So are you a Harry Potter fanor a Star Wars fan?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Ooh Harry Potter.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Okay, so I'm going to come at you with some ideas for
a Harry Potter party.
We've been given a hundredthousand dollar budget pretty
good budget for a Harry Potterparty.
I'd like you to start each andevery response with the
following two words no because,and then you'll tell me why not.
Okay so, but you'll alwaysstart with those sentence with
no because.
So he's thinking right, I couldcome to your house, put a
sorting hat outside the frontdoor.
(06:59):
All the good people will getthe Gryffindor party and all the
dark, mysterious people willget the Slytherin party.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
No, because that would be too many people at our
house and the kids might getupset with which house they get
put in.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
No fair point.
I'll tell you what then.
We'll take over your diningroom and we'll turn it to a
magic potions room whereeverybody could drink some
amazing alcoholic cocktail.
That turns us into somethingtotally freaky.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
No, because it'll get so messy and I'll have to clean
up and decorate the room.
It sounds like too much work.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
OK, what if we did a cosplay party?
I could come as AlbusDumbledore and you could be
Professor McGonagall.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
No, because the kids will think it's cheesy and you
could be Professor McGonagall.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
No, because the kids will think it's cheesy.
Yeah, fair point.
Okay, Gosh right.
Well, what if we just show themovies and give people free
popcorn and Coca-Cola?
Speaker 1 (07:44):
No, because that's not an activity.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Okay, so let's stop there.
I call it business as usual.
Was the idea getting bigger orsmaller?
Which way was it going?
Smaller and smaller and smaller, when people are constantly no
because in you?
How does that make you feellike my ideas aren't important?
Right, exactly?
So let's try it again.
Are we okay with star wars?
Can we do star war or a partyof your choice?
(08:07):
What would you like?
Speaker 1 (08:09):
sure we could do star wars.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I'm going to tell you some star wars ideas I'd
like you to start with, insteadof starting with, the words no,
because in each response i'd'dlike you to use the words yes,
and that'll be the first twowords you use and you'll just
build on what I've given you.
Okay, and we'll just build oneach other's ideas.
Oh yeah, we could get into yourkitchen, turn it into an
intergalactic canteen where wecould have the cantina band and
we could have a food and winefestival from Hoth and Naboo and
(08:32):
Tatooine.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yes, and we can bring theme food in so that every
aspect of the party just emergesyou straight into Star Wars.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Oh, yes, and we kind of glow in the dark lightsaber
fights full of our favoritealcoholic liquid.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, and we should open up the back door so that
the kids run outside to playwith those lightsabers and they
don't knock things down in thehouse.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Oh yes, and then we could actually have Disney's
corporate jet pick everybody upat the party, fly them down to
Disneyland and take them toGalaxy's Edge.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
Yes, and that will be the best party of the year.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Okay, so we'll stop there.
So a lot more laughter, a lotmore smiles on your face, a lot
more energy this time around.
Was the idea getting bigger orsmaller?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Bigger.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah, you can always take a big idea and value
engineer it down.
Very hard to turn a small oneinto a big one.
Far more importantly, we workinside big organizations, small
organizations.
We have colleagues andconstituents and clients and
bosses to bring on board withour idea.
By the time we just finishedbuilding that idea together,
whose idea was it?
By the time we finished?
Everybody's of improv that canturn a small idea into a big one
(09:35):
really quickly.
But far more importantly,transfer the power of my idea,
which never goes anywhere insidean organization, to our idea
and accelerate its opportunityto get done.
Don't be the Eeyore in the room.
That'll never work here.
I know you haveresponsibilities, we all have
responsibilities.
Just remind yourselves we'renot greenlighting this idea for
(09:56):
execution today.
We're merely greenhousing ittogether using yes.
And Just remember when somebodycomes at you with an idea
you're not thinking of, that's areally good place to start.
Innovation is about getting youto an idea you can't have by
yourself.
If the first two words out ofyour mouth are no, because do
you think they're coming backnext week when they've got a
really big idea?
Not a chance.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
So then, where do people take this fun game though
?
I mean, we're talking about aStar Wars party, or we're
talking about a Harry Potterparty, but what if it's a really
large business decision or anorganizational decision,
something that, together as ateam, will impact the future of
the employees?
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So here's what I also recommend is you must very
clearly signal are we inexpansionist session today or in
a reductionist session?
So, and what I mean by that isare we here to have ideas or are
we here to evaluate them?
Unless you make that very clearfrom the beginning, you're
going to have lots ofno-be-cosing inside an
expansionist session.
Pixar, marvel, lucasfilms andDisney has at least one,
probably multiple rooms wherethey're called the expansionist
(10:58):
rooms.
You don't get to kill an ideain this room.
So we had the greenhouse atDisney and everybody knew when
they were in the greenhouse thiswas the one room where you
don't get to kill ideas that wewill evaluate them later on
Unless you very clearly signalto people what type of behavior
you're looking for.
So, for example, I might havethe yellow card and red card
from the world of soccer and ifpeople are trying to kill ideas,
(11:19):
I'll throw them the yellow card.
I've never had to throw the redone.
I might get people to stand upand say I'm a reductionist and
we'll all cheer for them andlaugh and they'll sit back down
again.
The physical room is reallyimportant, particularly in
ideation session.
American Idol, america's GotTalent, usually three
(11:43):
celebrities on the show.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
What physical object separates the celebrities from
the contestants.
Well, there's the desk and thestage, the desk, the table.
And what?
Speaker 2 (11:46):
is the role of the celebrities on the show.
To evaluate the performers, tojudge the moment you leave
somebody on the other side of atable in an ideation session, in
a brainstorm, in a meeting,they will judge your work and
think reductive simply becauseyou left a physical object
between you and them.
Walt Disney created thestoryboard for a reason because
what he realized when he broughtpeople from out behind the
table and went for a walk withthem, he was taking them on a
journey.
Not only that, by removing thebarrier between the two of them,
(12:08):
he was turning a presentationinto a conversation.
Your bosses have moreexperience than you do.
They want to add value.
Give them the opportunity to doit or they'll shoot it down.
But back to the real world.
I want to give you a couple oftools for people listening in,
because people want to know okay, so how does this work in the
real world?
So hands up who likes breakingthe rules when the boss isn't
looking?
Or hands up who works in a veryheavily regulated industry.
(12:33):
We all do.
So what if it was a tool thatenabled you to metaphorically
break the rules of your industryor your challenge, to help you
jump out of your river ofthinking your own.
I call your river of thinkingyour expertise and experience.
And the more expertise andexperience we have, the more
reasons we know why the new ideawon't work.
So we constantly shoot it down.
In the last four years we'vehad a global pandemic, climate
(12:54):
change, generation Z not wantingto work for anybody, here comes
an AI.
So unless we think differently,we're out of a job.
So I created a set of toolsthey're in the book that takes
the intimidation out ofinnovation, makes creativity
tangible and the process fun.
The tools are designed to besimple, powerful and fun.
There's a tool I call what If?
It was created by Walt Disneyfor the film Fantasia in 1940.
(13:15):
He wanted mist and heat pumpedinto the theater, but the
theater owner said no, walt, tooexpensive.
So Walt observed the industryand wrote down the rules.
Step one write down the rulesof the challenge you're working
on next week.
Don't think about them oryou'll start thinking of all the
reasons you can't break them.
So Walt wrote down the rules ofgoing to a movie theater I must
sit down, it is dark.
(13:36):
Rules are going to a movietheater I must sit down, it is
dark, I must be quiet.
I must pay to get in.
I can only watch one movie at atime.
I must watch the previews.
I can't control the environment.
There's the list, pick one.
He chose the environment andasked the most audacious,
outrageous, provocative, what-ifstatement of all.
The more provocative, thefurther out of your river you'll
jump.
So Walt said well, wait aminute, what if I could control
(13:58):
the environment?
Well, he couldn't.
He didn't own the movietheaters Besides, that wasn't
provocative enough.
So he said OK, if I can'tcontrol the environment inside
the theater, what if I take mymovies out of the theater?
Well, don't be daft, walt.
They're two-dimensional.
They fall over.
What if I made themthree-dimensional?
If you know the answer, you'reiterating.
If he scares you, then you'reinnovating.
They said well, how do you dothat?
(14:19):
Well, he said well, what if Ijust had people dress up in
costume?
I could have princesses andcowboys and pirates.
Yeah, but well, you can't.
These are all the no-be-causes.
Right, you can't haveCinderella standing next to Jack
Sparrow.
People wouldn't be immersed inher story.
Yeah, you're right.
What if I put each of them in adifferent themed land?
Oh, wait a minute.
What if I called it DisneylandBoom.
(14:40):
We're done here.
Simple, powerful, fun.
Now let me ask you a questionDid you ever used to go to
Blockbuster Video?
Oh yeah, did you ever pay latefees?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Probably.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Of course you did.
Were you pissed off at payingthe late fees?
Of course you were.
So the founder of Netflix usedexactly the same tool as Walt
had used all those years before.
He was so fed up of paying latefees.
He walked into a blockbustervideo, sat down on a chair for
four hours and observed theindustry.
Step one write down the rules.
I must drive to a physicalstore.
I must go during opening hours.
(15:11):
They have a very limited stock.
I can only take out three at atime.
I had to return it.
I had to be kind of rewind it,and if I took it back later I
had to pay a late fee.
He picked one of those rulesthe store.
And in 2005, he said what ifthere was no physical store?
Didn't know how to solve for itat the time.
So he looked outside of hisindustry and found this new
(15:32):
company called YouTube.
They were six months old.
They were only streamingamateur content.
So he said, well, hang on aminute.
What if I did a deal with themajor movie studios?
I'll just stream professionalcontent?
Huh, nobody would have to driveanywhere.
I'll be open 24 hours a day,seven days a week.
I'll have an unlimited stock.
Everybody will get the one theywant.
They won't have to return it orrewind it.
(15:54):
I'll cut the rental off at 24hours.
Nobody pays a late fee.
Oh, I'll call it Netflix.
I'll take it to Blockbusterfive times.
They'll turn me down five times.
Guess what?
I'll take them out of businessin less than five years.
Now, with people listening, I'msure a lot of people will sit
there and say well, that's great, duncan.
You know Disney and Netflix hasmultiple resources.
I don't.
Well, ok, to be fair, walt wasbankrupt in 1940, but that
(16:18):
doesn't help you.
Reed Hastings was working outof his mom's garage in 2005.
But I'll give you a smallerexample because I want everybody
to understand.
The tools work for them too.
Very small company in GreatBritain in the late 60s we used
to make glasses that we drinkout of, like this one, and they
found too much breakage and notenough production when the
glasses were being packaged andshipped.
(16:38):
So they went down to the shopfloor, sat down for eight hours
and observed the process andwrote down the rules 26
employees, conveyor belt, 12glasses to a box, six on the top
, six on the bottom.
Glasses separated by corrugatedcardboard.
Glasses wrapped individually innewspaper Employees reading the
newspaper.
So somebody asked the somewhatprovocative what-if question
(16:59):
what if we poke their eyes out?
Well, that's against the lawand it's not very nice.
But because they had thecourage to ask the most absurd
what-if question of all, thelady sitting next to me said
well, wait a minute, what if wejust hire blind people?
So they did Production up 26%,breakage down 42% and the
British government gave him a50% salary subsidy for hiring
people with disabilities.
(17:19):
List the rules of the industryin which you work or the
challenge you're working on nextweek.
Pick one rule and ask the mostaudacious, outrageous, absurd
what-if statement.
The more absurd, the furtherout of your river you will jump.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And then, once you have those what-if questions
asked, it sounds like youevaluate yeah, but then figuring
out how to actually make itcome to fruition is a whole
nother department.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, so then we get to reductive.
Is this, forgive me?
Is this an audio podcast orvideo podcast?
Speaker 1 (17:50):
It's both, okay, oh good.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So right, okay, Now let's see if I can draw on this.
This is the hotel's guidebook,so I'm probably not supposed to,
but hey, what if I drew on it?
So there's a tool calledStargazer.
It's in the book.
Now let's see if this shows up.
If not, I'm going to go get aSharpie.
Ideas are the most subjectivething on the planet.
Can you see that?
Okay, so ideas are the mostsubjective thing on the planet.
(18:13):
You like pink, I like blue, ourboss likes yellow.
Chances are we'll be doing theyellow idea.
Well, hang on just a minute.
So I use two tools to evaluateideas.
One is Passionometer, which isabout voting with your heart.
One is Stargazer, which isvoting with your head.
Why do I use Passionometer?
First, because if the team arenot passionate about an idea,
(18:33):
they're the team who have toexecute it.
They've got too many otherthings on their plate.
I guarantee you that idea willget stuck, diluted or killed as
it moves through to execution,because we've got too much else
on our plate.
We weren't passionate about it.
So the traditional brainstormthe ideas are up on the wall and
then we're told we can put ourthree red dots on the ideas we
like the most.
So what do we do?
We wait to see where our bossputs their three red dots, and
(18:56):
then we line up behind them andtell them how much we like the
idea.
But guess what?
We didn't.
And so when the idea goes offto execution, it gets stuck,
diluted or killed.
So the first thing I do is letpeople vote anonymously.
I can get down from 50 ideas toabout eight like that.
All I'm looking for at thatstage is which ideas are up on
the wall that you want to gohome and tell your loved one.
I'm working on this.
(19:17):
This is the coolest thing everNow.
Okay, great.
So I've gone from 50 down toeight.
Now, yes, now you've got tolook out for the business and
vote with your head.
So this is called Stargazer.
I borrowed it from RichardBranson at Virgin.
Virgin is the most elasticbrand on the planet, right?
Richard's done condoms andspace travel and everything in
between.
Disney is a non-elastic brand.
(19:38):
It does family magicalentertainment.
So how does Virgin decide whatproducts and service to bring to
market?
Well, they use this tool.
It has five criteria on it Now.
So what you do is you draw astarfish you'll find it in the
book.
It's called Stargazer and thenyou draw three criteria points
on each one of the legs.
Then you decide your successcriteria.
I would suggest you agree yoursuccess criteria with the senior
(20:02):
stakeholder on day one.
If you don't do that, we bothknow the goalposts are going to
move, because another seniorvice president will join the
project and they'll move thecriteria Every time I come back
in at different points in theproject.
I share the criteria and I saydo we all agree on the criteria?
Because if the goalposts aregoing to move, I need to know
now, because I don't want towaste another six weeks working
(20:23):
on this.
And so let's just I'm makingthese up for today.
You will make up your owncriteria, but today let's just
say we're looking for ideas thatare strategic, brand fit, ie
they are aligned with who westand for as a brand.
They are embedded in theconsumer truth.
Let's say, today we're lookingat we want to engage 21 to
24-year-olds.
(20:43):
I need to be able to get thisinto the market in the next 18
to 24 months.
It's socially engaging.
It needs to get the 21 to24-year-olds to come off and
spend more money and I can makea bucket load of money out of it
.
Obviously, you'll have financialgoals and all you do is, let's
say idea number two you goaround and ask yourself does
this do a poor job, a good jobor an outstanding job of being
(21:06):
aligned with our brand?
And you put a dot where youthink it scores.
So that's idea number two.
Will it make a bucket load ofmoney?
Does a good amount?
Is it socially engaging?
Very, can I get it in themarket in the next 80, 24 months
?
Yes, is it embedded in consumertruth?
It does a fairly good job.
And then what you do is just asyou did when you were a
six-year-old whoops, you goaround and join the dots, just
(21:29):
like you did when you were asix-year-old.
Now then.
So you'll do it with adifferent color for each of your
different ideas.
You've got eight ideas up onthe wall.
At some point, one idea isgoing to rise to the top as
meeting your success criteriathe most, not the one you like
the best, and so that just takesout all the subjectivity out of
(21:50):
the marketplace and makes itobjective.
Again, the tools are simple,powerful, fun.
Now Richard Branson gave mesome advice.
He said unless the idea is 100%embedded in consumer truth and
100% aligned with our brand.
Throw it out.
You must have the courage notto do it, and I'll tell you how
(22:10):
powerful the tool is.
When we were bringing two newDisney cruise ships into the
market, we had to decide wherethe old ships would go.
Tuesday cruise ships into themarket.
We had to decide where the oldships would go.
The new ships were clearlygoing to come into Port
Canaveral because the Caribbeanis the large share of revenue of
the cruise market.
So we had to decide where theold ships would go.
Well, any large corporation.
That decision just takes toolong.
It takes six weeks.
(22:31):
It takes six months of overanalysis, paralysis, and Sarah's
not here today.
We have to cover off.
So what about Dave?
Oh, dave's not.
And then the decision gets madein the corridor and nobody
understands how you got there.
So we use this tool and one ofthe criteria was can we get the
ship into the berth of thisparticular port in the next 12
months?
And guess what, if you can't,can't do it, because the
(22:57):
conversation normally comes downto subjectivity.
One senior vice president goesdo you know what we did the Med
Cruise last year.
It was great.
And then the EVP goes no, mywife and I did the Alaska.
I didn't give a toss.
What you like, right, it'sabout, is it embedded in
consumer truth?
Can I get the ship into theberth in 12 months?
And we took 16 executive vicepresidents into a room.
We made a decision in 59minutes Unheard of.
(23:23):
Again, the tools are designedto be simple, powerful and fun.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
And these tools.
I mean, how did you learn thiscreativity?
Is this something that you justwere born with?
Have you always been like this?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Well.
So when it comes to that, whatif tool?
I love breaking the rules.
So that one was easy.
So I mean, look, I was atDisney for 30 years and the last
12, I was in charge ofinnovation and creativity, and
you learn by mistakes, right?
So when I was first given therole you know and Bob Iger said
listen, I want you to create aculture that embeds a culture of
(23:58):
innovation and creativity intoeverybody's DNA At the time I
was head of global PR I thoughthow the hell am I going to do
this?
I don't know.
So the first thing I did wassurvey 5,000 people and ask them
what were the barriers to beingmore innovative and creative
where they worked?
Number one I don't have time tothink.
Number two we don't have theresources.
Number three we say we'reclient-centric but we're
(24:20):
measured by quarterly results.
Number four our ideas get stuck, diluted or killed as they move
through the organization.
And number five we all have avery different definition of
creativity.
So Pixar was going this way,lucasfilm was going, marvel was
going.
I was like guys, could we justget together?
So I tried four models.
The first three failed.
The first one was I hired anoutside consultant, an
(24:40):
innovation consultant.
He said make me look good.
Not quite, but you know whereI'm going.
They were very good at whatthey did.
They were very expensive, butthey were never around for
execution.
They sure as hell weren't goingto show me how they did it
because they were worried Iwouldn't hire them again.
So, okay, that got me so fardown the road.
Then I thought we'll create aninnovation team.
Duncan will be in charge.
What could possibly go wrong?
(25:01):
So nobody outside of legal doeslegal.
Nobody outside of marketingdoes marketing.
Nobody outside of operationsdoes operation.
So when you create aninnovation team, you've
subliminally just told 98% ofthe organization you're off the
hook.
You don't have to innovate,which is not a good idea.
The third model we tried anaccelerator program where we
bring in some young techstartups and invest in their
(25:22):
business.
What we could offer them was wecould scale their product, and
what they could offer us is theycould enable us to bring ideas
to market much quicker than wenormally would, because they
weren't governed by our policies, our procedures and our
politics.
But we had failed in Bob'soverall goal, which was how
might we embed a culture ofinnovation and creativity into
everybody's DNA?
So I set out to create thattoolkit, one that creates tools
(25:46):
that are simple, powerful andfun, that takes the intimidation
out of innovation, makes itaccessible to normal hardworking
, busy people and make it fun.
There's too many things thatcould become a flash in the pan.
What we realized at Disney waswe had a three and a half year
wait list for what was a two-dayvoluntary workshop to learn how
(26:07):
to use the tools.
A lot of people pay me to goand give keynotes, and I enjoy
giving keynotes.
You can inspire and motivatepeople in 60 minutes.
You can't help them.
People learn by doing, theydon't learn by listening, and so
I love getting in a room with agroup of people who don't think
they can innovate, they thinkthey're not creative, and you
doing these one day workshopswith them where halfway through
(26:28):
the day, you just see the smileon their face when they realize
they can do it.
That, to me, gives me enormouspride.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
So do you think that creativity is more of like a
muscle that you build throughpractice, or do you think that
it's more of like a mindset?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Creativity is a muscle the more you use it, the
stronger it gets.
But we think we can't break oldhabits and we think we can't
learn new ones.
So we've all been successful inour careers thinking the way we
always have, and that's workedreally, really, really well
until global pandemics, ai,climate change and Generation Z
not wanting to enter theworkplace.
And so we have to thinkdifferently, and that's why I
(27:05):
created the toolkit.
The toolkit is designedspecifically to stop us thinking
like this and give uspermission to think like that.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Can you give us an example of some time that you
did that like where you feltcreatively stuck?
And then you had to get out ofit.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yes, I'll give you an example and then I'll tell you
how we got to it.
So this tool was created by aman called Walt, last name
Disney.
How, by simply reframing achallenge, can I stop us
thinking the way we always doand get us to think differently?
He said we will not have anycustomers in our park, we'll
only have guests.
We will not have any employees,we'll only have cast members,
and with that simplere-expression of the
(27:39):
relationship between theemployee and the customers, the
cast member, the guest Walt hadcreated a culture of hospitality
that's rarely been repeatedelsewhere.
So how does this work?
And then I'll explain how weactually did it.
So you live just north of GoldenGate Bridge.
Sorry, never understood why itwas red, but that's beside the
point.
Sorry, duncan's gone off script.
Let me ask you a question.
(28:00):
I'm coming to a town near you.
You and I are going to go intobusiness together.
We're going to open a car wash.
Tell me, if you would, thethree or four essential
ingredients we must have in acar wash.
What must we have?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
We need space.
We need soap, water, buildingsome sort of auto pay function.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Okay, so we'll stop there.
So we need space, water, soapbuilding and auto pay.
So car wash is really boring.
You and I are venturecapitalists.
We have been invited to open anew franchise of auto spas who
are a spa.
Now, what have you seen in yourfavorite spa?
What would you like to have inyour spa?
Anything you want.
What would you like?
Speaker 1 (28:38):
To be attractive, visually appealing relaxing.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
What else can we have in a spa?
Anything you want.
What do you want?
Yes, and.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Oh, food drinks, what else Music?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Music.
What else?
Mani-pedi perhaps?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
At a spa, sure, at a spa.
Oh, it's a spa, it's a sparight.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Okay, what else do you want?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Yeah, Facials massage Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
So we've got massage, we've got facials, we've got
mani-pedis, we've got ambience,we've got nice music, blah, blah
blah.
So which one would you rathergo to the car wash or the auto
spa?
The?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
auto spa.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Well, there you are, then see.
So all I did was reframe thechallenge.
I said car wash.
I knew you were going to saywater, soap and brushes.
That was a gimme.
That's the danger of our riverof thinking.
So this tool specifically turnsthe river of thinking on its
head.
So, instead of in 2011,.
If we'd said how might we makemore money, we 11,.
(29:31):
If we'd said how might we makemore money, we'd have put the
gate price up at Walt DisneyWorld by 3%.
Instead of asking that question, we reframed.
So Car Wash Auto Spa, how mightwe make more money?
How might we solve the biggestconsumer pain point?
Everybody knew what it was.
It was called standing in linein Disney parks.
So we identified where thebiggest lines were Space
Mountain, meeting Mickey Mouse,checking or checking out a
potential resort, paying forfood or merchandise and we use
the tool called when Else, whichwe haven't covered yet, which
(29:53):
is about looking outside of yourindustry.
Most of the insights forinnovation were not coming from
looking within the industry inwhich you live.
So we looked outside of ourindustry and asked ourselves
where in the world has somebodyalready solved the challenge of
not standing in line?
And we found a pharmacy inTokyo, japan.
This was God 15 years ago.
Now, using RFID technology toenable people not to stand in
(30:16):
line.
Welcome to the world of Disney'sMagic Band.
It sits on your wrist.
Is it your room key?
Yes, you don't check in andcheck out with Disney Resort.
You haven't done that for sevenyears.
The turnstiles what turnstiles?
They went away six years ago.
You swipe and you walk in withyour magic band.
Your reservations for yourfavorite character, meet and
greet, your favorite ridesthey're on your magic band.
Now it's morphing towards theiPhone today.
(30:37):
Can you pay for merchandisewith it?
Hell, yes.
Touch it once, goes to my hotelroom.
Touch it twice, goes to myhouse.
Can I pay for food with it?
Of course I can.
I walk into the restaurant whenI want to walk in.
I sit at the table I want tosit at.
The food comes fresh to me.
Had we have started by askinghow might we make more money,
we'd have put the gate price upand made our revenue goals by 3%
(30:59):
.
But by reversing the challengeand calling the challenge
something completely different,ie, how might we solve the
biggest consumer pain point?
The average guest at WaltDisney World today has over two
hours free time each and everyday, they didn't have six years
ago.
What has that resulted in?
Record intent to return, recordintent to recommend.
And what is it you lovelypeople do with your free time in
(31:19):
Disney parks?
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, one of the biggest single
revenue generating ideas inDisney parks history.
By not asking how might we makemore money?
And what is the consumer doingevery second of every day with
their magic band and theirphones?
They will be live crowdsourcingthe future of every products
and service Disney creates, bytelling them every second of
(31:41):
every day what they like andwhat they don't like.
Now again, if I give you a bigexample, I'll give your
listeners a smaller example,because I want them to know the
tool would work anywhere.
I was up in New York, satchatting to this young lady
behind the reception desk I waswaiting for a meeting.
Got upstairs, met the boss.
I said your receptionist,absolutely delightful, so
(32:01):
friendly, so empathetic, lovelygirl.
He said, oh, that's nice tohear.
He said well, how long were youchatting to her for?
I said, oh, about 10 minutes, Isuppose he goes.
Oh that, how long were you, youknow, chatting to her for?
I said about 10 minutes, Isuppose he goes.
Oh, that's odd.
I said, well, why the hell isthat odd?
He goes.
Well, we don't have her exactly.
So I was like, well, who thehell was I talking to for the
last 10 minutes?
I said well, hang on a minute.
Her name was sarah.
She had a summer dress onbecause she had no sleeves.
He goes oh, sarah, sarah's ourdirector of first impressions.
(32:23):
It's like boom.
That simple re-expression of aform of employment empowered the
owner space she is.
So the next time you're workingon a challenge, are you working
in the banking industry or areyou working in the dreams come
true industry, and how mightthat help you think differently?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That is an interesting way of thinking and
not intuitive, I don't think formost of us.
You know you had mentioned howtime was like the number one
reason why people did not havethe ability to think creatively.
So if you were able to redesignthe work week to be magical and
promoting creativity, like whatwould the work week look like
(33:04):
for most corporations?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah, different companies do it different ways
and I'll explain the importanceof why.
Now, hands up, and we'll haveto.
I'll'll say if you put yourhands up to the people who are
just listening, hands up.
If you've ever gone to yourfavorite restaurant, right, you
get your menu, you know, you'vebeen there plenty of times.
Before you read the menu, youadvertise the main course of
desserts.
They've never changed.
You're listening to thespecials, but you're not
(33:27):
listening.
Listening to the specials, butyou're not listening.
Hands up.
If you order the same thingevery single time you go, come
on, own it, girl.
Her hand is up, listeners.
Okay, hands up.
If you get in and sleep on thesame side of the bed every night
, come on, girl, put it up.
I know you do, even when you'restaying in a hotel room on
business by yourself, come on, Iknow.
Come on, confess, I know you do.
So remember when we used tocommute backwards and forwards
(33:49):
to work and we'd get home, andwe always used to go past the
same route.
And you get home and there'sjust that split second where you
get home and you just go.
Oh, how did I get home?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
Yeah, every day.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Because you went past the same stimulus day in, day
out, day in, day out, your brainphysically shut down and it
didn't wake up till you got home.
No fresh stimulus in, no newideas out.
So how do we get fresh stimulusinto our lives?
Different companies do itdifferent ways.
Microsoft has Think Week nomeetings, no emails, no
presentations.
Hasbro gives their employeesthree or five dollars a quarter
(34:23):
to put something on their deskbut it cannot be a toy.
Just spark a differentconversation.
Pixar I think this was genius.
Steve Jobs created this wholephilosophy called unplanned
collaboration.
It doesn't sit by legal andmarketing and sales and IT
Everybody sits everywhere underthis philosophy called unplanned
collaboration, specificallydesigned to bring two people
(34:44):
together who are not supposed tomeet to have a conversation.
They were not supposed to haveto spark a new idea.
And why is Google smarter thanthe rest of us?
What have they got that wedon't?
What's the number one?
Oh, I don't have time to think.
What did they give theirengineers Time to think?
20% time.
It's not an urban myth.
I work with them.
I'm working with them onDeepMind.
I'm not suggesting you walk upto your boss next week and say,
(35:06):
boss, dude, I need Fridays offfrom now on?
Duncan said 20%, but what if wetook one hour a month?
Let's call it the first Fridayof every month, from 9 to 10 am.
Whatever day and time you pick,be consistent.
Just one hour a month is not abig ask.
And invite your teams to comein.
Brown bag breakfast, real orvirtual.
No, powerpoint presentations,no, why is it good for the
(35:27):
business?
Just invite each person to comein prepared to talk about one
thing they've seen in the last30 days in their business life
or, ideally, their personal life, that they thought was
innovative or creative.
You'll be amazed at the newenergy and ideas you drive into
the building so these concept inthis toolkit, it's all in your
book.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
What led you to want to write the Imagination
Emporium?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Five years of getting off a stage and somebody goes
have you got a book?
No, have you got a book?
No, have you got a book?
No, piss off.
I got fed up of answering thebloody question no.
But also, I love doing things.
I don't know how to do so.
I'd never written a book before, so I thought, right, I'm going
to do that.
(36:11):
Then animation I'm an animatedcharacter.
I created a new character.
I'd never done that before,never put QR codes in a book
before, and now it's got AI init.
You can literally scan the backQR code and ask the book a
question why did I do it?
Partially, I'm not going to lie, I'm selfish.
I wanted to do it because Ididn't know how to do it, and I
wanted to do it because I wantedto see where it could go.
(36:32):
But not only can you ask thebook about how to use the tool
on page 67, but if you've readthe book, you already know how
to use the tool on page 67.
So you can actually ask thebook how to use the tool on page
whatever page, whatever toolyou choose, how to sell more
orange pencils in the state ofPennsylvania on January the 13th
, and, yes, the book will answeryou, and so it's been a real
(36:56):
challenge getting it ready, andso much of a challenge.
The book was printed before Idecided to do the AI, so there's
nowhere in the book does ittell you.
So here here's a secret thelast one's AI.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
What do you mean?
The last one's AI?
Speaker 2 (37:08):
The QR code on the back cover of the book.
If you scan it, you'll go tothe brain and the brain will ask
you do you want to sign up?
You'll say yes, please, and youcan ask the brain three free
questions a day, for which I pay, because somebody has to pay
for it.
I wanted to do it for free.
The publisher was like no.
So if you want to ask the bookmore than three free questions a
day, you subscribe.
But I wanted to do it becausenobody else has.
(37:36):
I wanted to do it because Ihaven't.
I wanted to do it because I wasscared of it.
And it's exciting.
I just love those projects atDisney where you go in and
present them and somebody seniorto you would approve it.
And then you thought, shit, Ihave no idea how to get this
done.
The Buzz Lightyear you saw itin the book.
Or how I stole the turkey fromthe President of the United
States of America onThanksgiving Day oh yeah, yes, I
did.
Or how I built a full-sizeOlympic swimming pool down Main
(37:58):
Street, usa, from the castle tothe train station, and convinced
Michael Phelps to swim down it.
And when I said, hey, let'stake Buzz Lightyear into space,
do you think I'd ask NASA?
No, the chairman said go do it.
You're like, oh shit, I'm goingto go bitch.
So it was funny because thiswas the launch of Toy Story,
right.
So we had to create some buzzaround it, pun intended.
(38:19):
And I thought, well, ok, whatwas Buzz Lightyear's dream?
Well, his dream was to fly.
And I said, well, what if wecan make him fly?
And people were like, well, howare you going to do that?
I said I'm going to send himinto space.
I had no idea how I was goingto do it at the time.
So then it was approved.
So I went off to meet with NASA.
There was about 23 people inthe room and you could tell that
half the people just loved theidea of taking Buzz Lightyear
(38:40):
into space and half of the roomjust wanted to throw me through
the window without opening itfirst.
But the senior guy at the endof the table goes well, you know
I won't try and do an Americanaccent because it won't come off
very well.
He said if we're going to takeBuzz Lightyear into space, we're
going to have to take him outon a spacewalk.
I was like, oh my God, did NASAjust agree to take Buzz
Lightyear.
So, anyway, so about six monthsbefore launch, I get a call from
(39:04):
Johnson Space Center and I saidwe need Buzz Lightyear tomorrow
.
What do you mean tomorrow?
The launch is six months fromnow.
He said, well, no, tomorrow'sthe deadline.
I was like why?
He says, well, because we haveto take it apart, molecule by
molecule.
In fact we need two identicalones.
I was like because he said well, because if there's a bubble
the size of an atom inside theplastic, that could explode in
(39:24):
the vacuum of space.
I was like, oh, I knew that.
Yeah, sure I did.
So then do you ever see the filmJingle Bells with Arnold
Schwarzenegger, the one where hecouldn't find the Christmas toy
for his son?
Well, here was the problem.
When we launched Toy Story,disney underestimated how
successful Buzz Lightyear wasgoing to be.
You could not find a BuzzLightyear to save your life.
(39:45):
I thought I had 37 cast membersat Walmart Kmart Target trying
to find Buzz Lightyear.
I I had 37 cast members atWalmart Kmart Target trying to
find Buzz Lightyear.
I said don't tell me, this dealis going down because the Walt
Disney Company can't find BuzzLightyear.
So we found one.
Right, this was 2004, I think itwas.
And so I'm now in my carbecause I'm desperate.
This was the days beforesmartphones.
I had the Motorola Flip, whichI still think was the coolest
(40:07):
phone on the planet.
You know Bond, james Bond.
And so I got a call, but youcouldn't see who was calling and
all I heard was to infinity andbeyond.
I was like who is it?
And it was my wife.
She goes, it's me dear.
I was like where'd you get it?
She goes.
It was underneath James's bed.
It's been collecting dust for awhile.
(40:30):
I said look, don't destroy thisBuzz Lightyear.
This belongs to aneight-year-old boy called James.
So six months later we wereinvited down to the launch at
Cape Kennedy and I cried.
I was like my little boy isgoing.
It was pathetic.
I burst out crying my littleboy is going into space.
So anyway, off goes buzz.
And nasa was sweet enough.
(40:50):
I've got this amazingphotograph taken from the
cockpit of the space shuttlediscovery above planet earth,
looking straight down ontocentral florida to james's house
.
It was like, oh my god, so fastforward two years.
We're launching another toystory, of course.
And I thought, well, how thehell do you top uh, sending buzz
light year into space?
I thought I'm gonna bring himhome.
(41:11):
So I phoned up the director ofcomms at nasa.
I said when you bring him buzzback, there's total silence.
On the other end of the phone Iwas like no man left behind,
right?
I mean, my tongue was so far inmy cheek because that was never
in the contract.
We never agreed to buzzlightyear home.
I said, well, you bringeverything back, right?
He don't.
I said, well, what do you dowith all the stuff you take up?
(41:32):
He goes, you just open thehatch and shove it out the back.
I was like you can't incinerateBuzz Lightyear in the Earth's
atmosphere.
I'll leak it to the world'spress that NASA killed Buzz
Lightyear.
My tongue was so far into mychin.
Anyway, god bless him, god blessNASA, god bless the American
taxpayer.
Yes, I am one of you, eventhough I have a funny accent.
The cost of I won't tell youthe cost to bring three pounds
(41:55):
of a toy back through theEarth's atmosphere, but that day
the weather was poor.
He couldn't land at Canaveral,so he went out to Edwards Air
Force Base in California and Idon't know you look too young,
but there's amazing images ofthe 747s that used to piggyback
the space shuttle on top of themthat would bring them back to
Florida.
They'd actually literally thespace shuttle would sit on the
top of a plane and I have theactual passenger manifest of
(42:18):
their flight, the actual pieceof paper.
Seat 1A congressman blah blahblah.
Seat 3A commander blah blahblah.
Seat 4D astronaut blah blahblah.
Seat 47B Commander BuzzLightyear oh, wow.
And now, if you go to theSmithsonian Museum in Washington
DC yes, to the Air and SpaceMuseum you will find Commander
(42:41):
Buzz Lightyear with a littlebronze plaque underneath it that
says Gift to James Bordell agedate.
I'm a great believer in theHenry Ford quote.
Whether or not you think youcan or think you can't, you're
probably right.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Such an inspiration.
I mean, you definitely are notlimited by any belief.
No, you think big.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
So impossible.
Put an apostrophe between the Iand the M, give it a bit of a
space.
And now what have you got?
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I'm possible.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Bingo we're done here , it's just spelled differently.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Duncan, this has been a masterclass.
Honestly, I wish I could justsit in one of your classrooms.
I want to know what do youteach at Yale and Harvard?
I wish I could sit in thoseclassrooms and participate.
And we all want to be morecreative.
So what's the next best step?
For somebody who's listening in, who wants to work with their
creativity, Would the book be agood place to start.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Yeah, I hope so.
Look, number one be playful.
I mean, you know, the mostcreative people we know are
children.
Hello, how many resources theyhave.
They don't.
This is not a lie.
I didn't want people to buy thebook.
I wanted it to be free, and thepublisher wouldn't let me.
And I still want to give itaway free for anybody underneath
the age of 18, if I can getpermission for them.
Why?
Because by the time we're 18,we've been told we're not
(43:59):
creative.
We've given up, and it's reallysad.
We're all creative, right, weall used to play with the box.
We didn't play with the toy, wejust had it squeezed out of us.
It's about reminding peoplethat they are creative.
Again, I'll start where I don'tbelieve in this.
Oh, the creatives.
Forgive me, bullshit, right?
The problem is we've definedcreativity as the ability to
(44:20):
write music or paint or be anartist.
I disagree.
I define creativity as theability to have an idea.
We all have a hundred a day.
I define innovation as theability to get that done.
That's the hard part and that'swhere the tools in the
innovation toolbox, inside theimagination in Purim, can help
people.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Well, and maybe the confidence too, to express your
idea.
How many times have you satwith somebody and you're
brainstorming, and they'rescared to share what they're
thinking?
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah.
So I think that's a great shame.
In every room is 25% extroverts, the people who talk before
they think I like to say I talkas I think.
I know that's a lie.
And then there's the 75% of theroom who are the people who
think first, but we never hearfrom them, and that's a great
shame.
And so you'll find inside thebook there's a technique where
(45:09):
you'll actually get 100%participation, not 25%, and it's
quite invaluable because theseare the people, more often than
not, that are closer to yourcustomers.
Are you familiar with 19 Crimes?
No.
Do you drink red wine?
No, oh well, but you live inNapa Valley, for God's sake.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
I know but apparently we're all California sober out
here.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Next time you have the opportunity to go to your
supermarket, walk up to thebottle of red wine in the
cabinet and hold your phone upto the label of the 19-pound
bottle.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Oh, I have heard of this.
It's like an interactive winecompany.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Fastest growing number one selling red wine in
the United States of America.
How did it get there?
They turned a product into anexperience.
Simple as that.
Augmented reality is going todominate virtual reality in the
next five years.
One, because vr is not goodenough yet.
Two, because the headsets, likeapple vision pro too expensive.
B, because you're asking peopleto do something they're not
(46:07):
already doing.
We all carry one of these.
Just think about so.
You don't think disney'sprobably talking to mcdonald's
about virtual happy meals whereyou could choose the character
that pops out of your child'sHappy Meal and speaks to you in
Portuguese and says happybirthday for a bark.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Oh my gosh, the speed of innovation.
It feels like, with all of thistechnological advancement, it's
just getting faster.
Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Well, duncan, thank you so much.
Everybody.
Go and buy the ImaginationEmporium, Try some of the games
and see for yourself what he'stalking about.
Thank you so much.
Everybody.
Go and buy the ImaginationEmporium, try some of the games
and see for yourself what he'stalking about.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Thank you for having me.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Today's key takeaways .
The most employable skill setsin the future may be imagination
, creativity, curiosity, empathyand intuition.
Creativity is the ability tohave an idea.
Innovation is the ability toget it done.
When you're in busy beta,you're only working with your
(47:13):
conscious brain.
13% of your brain is conscious,87% of your brain is
unconscious, and that's wherethe magic happens.
But we have to relax to accessit.
Your best ideas are when thatdoor between the two is open.
Laughter is one key thatunlocks the door between the
(47:34):
conscious and unconscious.
Playing games is another way toget creative.
Conscious and unconsciousPlaying games is another way to
get creative.
For example, Duncan mentioned agame where you assign person A
the role of designing parachutesfor elephants and person B has
the job of interviewing thatperson about their job.
Try it out.
Your brain has to stretch.
Your river of thinking is yourexpertise and experience, and it
(47:58):
can be both a gift and a trap.
The more you know, the easierit is to shut down new ideas.
So stay open and practice.
What if thinking?
Write down the rules of yourindustry, business or challenge.
Then ask what if we did theopposite?
What if the rules didn't apply?
The more ridiculous the better.
(48:20):
The more absurd, the furtheroutside of your river of
thinking you'll jump.
Know, because is an idea killer,yes, and can turn a small idea
into a big idea.
Remember you can always take abig idea and value engineer it
down.
Know which session you're in.
Are you in an expansionistsession or a reductionist
(48:43):
session?
In other words, are you here tohave ideas or here to evaluate
them?
Physical space matters Duringideation.
Don't let tables, desks orobjects create barriers between
you and your team.
Keep it open.
Turn a presentation into aconversation.
People lean in when they feelinvolved.
(49:06):
Evaluate ideas with the passionmeter first and then get your
head involved.
If you don't have passion forthe idea, or some part of it,
then the idea will get stuck,diluted or killed.
So whoever is on the team andwill be working on the idea,
have them vote anonymously forthe idea that they would be
(49:27):
stoked to be working on Analysis.
Paralysis is real.
Don't get stuck overthinking.
Just take the first step andlearn as you go.
People learn by doing.
They can be inspired andmotivated by listening including
, hopefully, shows like this one, but listening alone won't help
(49:49):
.
You have to learn by doing.
Creativity is a muscle the moreyou use it the stronger it gets
and as AI grows, creativethinking is going to become even
more important.
Reframe challenges.
A new perspective can unlock abetter solution.
Look outside of your industry.
(50:09):
If your business has a painpoint, how have others outside
of your industry solved thispain point?
Maybe you can borrow theirbrilliance.
Industry solved this pain point.
Maybe you can borrow theirbrilliance.
There is creativity in everysingle one of us, and it's
society that squeezes it out ofus.
As Henry Ford said, whether youthink you can or you can't,
(50:32):
you're probably right.
That's it for today.
I release episodes once a week,so come back and check it out.
Have a great day.
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