Watch Innovation & Creativity Consultant Duncan Wardle Present His Signature Techniques on how to trick your brain into Thinking Differently
Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower? Have you ever pitched a new idea to watch it diluted or killed as it moves through the processes? Ever wanted to know how Walt Disney came up with the idea for a Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie rental industry? Or perhaps found yourself amazed at how some brands develop killer insights that enabled them to break into major new categories. Building on over 25 years of experience with The Walt Disney Co. around the globe, most recently as Vice President of Innovation & Creativity, Duncan will lead an immersive, engaging forum that will not only answer these questions, but leave you with the tools to take on your own challenges in new and different ways that deliver tangible results.
Having worked for The Walt Disney Company for nearly 30 years, Duncan Wardle now serves as an independent innovation & creativity consultant.
Most recently Duncan was Vice President of Innovation & Creativity for The Walt Disney Company, a team of creative ideation and innovation catalysts. Disney’s Innovation & Creativity team works across all Disney segments. (e.g. Pixar, Marvel, Lucas Films, Disney ABC Television Group, Disney Interactive, Disney Consumer Products, ESPN, and Disney Parks and Resorts) as both “creative ideation consultants” and “cultural change agents;” designing engaging, collaborative ideation forums and a creative problem solving, design thinking process known as the ToyBox, that capture unlikely connections, leading to both fresh thinking and revolutionary ideas.
Prior to heading up Creative Inc. Duncan was Vice President, Global PR for Disney Parks and Resorts around the world. Over the last three decades, Duncan has served in an executive role for The Walt Disney Company in London, Paris, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Mumbai and most recently Shanghai.
Born in London, Duncan is a graduate of Edinburgh University. In 2008 he was honored with the “Outstanding American Citizen Award” at the White House. In 2014 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Edinburgh University. He also holds the Duke Edinburgh Gold Award, presented by the Her Majesty the Queen.
– Our next presenter is Duncan Wardle an independent innovation catalyst. For the past 25 years he’s been at Disney, most recently as vice president of innovation and creativity. His more audacious stunts include sending Buzz Lightyear into space, building a full length pool down Main Street, U.S.A. at the Magic Kingdom Park for Michael Phelps, and working with the Obama administration to send the Thanksgiving day turkeys to Disneyland Resort. That’s a thing. In the past six years he created a design thinking creatproblem-solvingving model that helps everyone think differently and he’s here to share some of it with us now. Please welcome to the stage the next presenter Duncan Wardle.
(applauding and cheering)
You are welcome
– Good morning, if I could ask you all to stand up please. And, if you could find, just
number yourself off, get with a partner, decide who’s gonna be person A and who’s gonna be person B. I don’t have any music. Guys I need some music. Okay so person A I’m gonna give you your chosen career. You’re the world’s most renowned expert in that career. Nothing that you can say is wrong. You are the guru of that chosen career. Person B you’re gonna be a reporter, and you’re gonna ask person A questions about their chosen career. I’m gonna give you about 60 seconds. Person A you are the world’s most renowned expert in making parachutes for elephants, off you go. I need some music I can’t plug in. I need to plug my music in. Don’t run away. The plug for my iPhone is gone. The plug for my iPhone is gone.
(chattering)
Cool thank you, thanks, sorry I couldn’t find it. Oh, sorry.
(upbeat music)
Alright, you’re clearly having far too much fun. So guys let me have you back.
(chattering)
Don’t sit down yet. So person B who clearly wanted to be the person who went last, we’ve saved the best for you, stand up guys, I need you to stand up to participate. Person B your chosen career, person A is gonna play the news reporter and ask you questions about your chosen career. Person B you’re a sex therapist for honey bees, off you go.
(laughing) (chattering) (upbeat music)
Alright guys take a seat, take a seat.
(chattering)
I don’t know what it is about the sex therapist for honey bees but if you ever get two girls together, the laughter is that much louder. Good morning, thank you for having me, thank you to IZEA. I’m delighted to be here. My name’s Duncan, I’ve worked for Disney for about 25 years. About six years ago I got a call from the chairman who said you’re no longer in charge of global PR, you’re in charge of innovation and creativity, to which my response was, “What the hell is that?” And so we sent, the first thing we did was survey 5,000 people across the organization. Lucas Films, Marvel, Pixar, Disney, Disney Parks, consumer products, ABC, ESPN, what are the five biggest barriers to being innovative and creative at work I don’t suppose any of them
will come as an enormous surprise to you, but our five biggest barriers were first is time, or lack thereof. And you’ll hear people in the office say, “I don’t have time to think.” So how might we give them more time to think? The second one is innovation. Everybody, oh my God I
must have innovation. And if you ask anybody for their definition of innovation, you’ll get a different one, and so we needed to establish some common language in the organization as to what innovation was. The third is we’re a risk averse organization, so how might we create a design thinking creative problem solving model that gave people the courage, capability quite frankly to go out and take smart risks. The fourth one, which I think is a huge barrier for a lot of organizations is consumer insight was being underused, I would say it was being ignored by a great deal of the organization. So how might we make all of our marketing team at the time much more consumer centric than they were. And the last one which I know is never a barrier for any of you, ideas get stuck, diluted, or killed as they move through the organization.
So we created something we called the innovation toy box. It’s about four stages, I’m only covering one today. The first one is how might we align around a challenge and make sure you’re working on the right thing? Number two is how might we go out and collect insights for innovation by actually getting out of our offices and spending time with our consumers? Number three is help me think differently, probably the biggest single barrier for all of us. That’s the section I’m going to cover today. And number four is okay now I’ve selected the idea, how do I get it executed without it getting diluted, stuck, or killed as it moves through the organization.
So the first thing we did was create a definition of creativity. It’s not the right one, it’s not the wrong one, it’s just one so that we had a common definition. Ours is the habit of continually doing things in new ways to make a positive difference to our working lives. The habit of continually doing things in new ways to make a positive difference to our working lives. What one word in that particular definition stands out for you?
– [Audience] Habit.
– Habit right? Creativity is not a habit for most of us. Your boss comes in and says, “I need a big idea, you’ve got 20 minutes.” That’s usually the way.mSo you run off to the cupboard, you get the dusty box off marked creativity, you bring it out, and you’re creative. And it’s like a muscle, it’s like anything. It’s like my French, I used to live in France. I had fluent French, now I order a ham sandwich every time I go to Paris because I can–
(speaking French)
It’s the only thing I can order when I get there. It’s about making a habit, and I will prove to you that you can learn new habits. What I’d like you to do for a moment is just sit back on your chairs and fold your arms, get comfy. Just fold your arms. Okay how does that feel?
(chattering)
Comfortable? How else?
(chattering)
Sorry?
– [Woman] Guarded.
– Guarded? Okay, what I’d like you to do, put your hands in the air, give them a good shake. Now I want you to fold them the other way. If it still feels comfortable I promise you you’re not doing it right, took me a few. So how does that feel?
(chattering)
Uncomfortable, how else does it feel?
(chattering)
Awkward. Sorry?
– [Woman] Restrictive.
– Restrictive. Whose arms are these anyway right? So you can let go, it’s all good. Innovation makes you feel awkward. That’s how you know you’re doing something innovative. Woody Allen once said, “If you’re not failing every now “and then you’re not trying something new.” But the science of your brain says that if you fold and unfold your arms simultaneously the wrong way 40 times, three days in a row, you will have rewired your brain to what, fold your arms the other way so you can in fact learn new habits. One of the biggest challenges is actually let me just ask you a question, who are the most creative people you know?
(murmuring)
Kids, alright usually about this tall. What are kids really good at?
(chattering)
Imagination, alright. Shout out guys because it’s hard to hear you over the people at the back, what else?
– [Man] Speaking freely.
– Speaking freely, what else?
(chattering)
Play.
(shouting) (laughing)
What? Okay, no politics. What else are kids really good at?
– [Woman] Fearless.
– Fearless. (murmuring)
Honest, yes they are. Let me tell you how honest they are. Because I have the accent from the small island in the British isles, I was naturally elected to teach soccer at my son’s junior school. Of course I was crap at soccer but I was the coach. So we’re running out onto what I call the pitch, what everybody else will call the field. And this little kid, he’s about six years old, he goes, “Hey coach.” I was like, “What?” And he goes, “You look like “a really famous English soccer player.” I was like, “What?” Well clearly the only soccer player he could know is David Beckham right? So I said, I leaned in, I said, “David Beckham?” He goes, “No, Wayne Rooney.” I don’t know if you know Wayne Rooney, he’s the ugliest player in the English Premier League.
(laughing)
What questions do kids ask?
(chattering)
Why, and what do they ask after that?
– [Audience] Why.
– And the third question?
– [Audience] Why.
– Alright, they’re very very curious, very curious. What’s the answer after the third why by the way?
– [Audience] Because I said so.
– Exactly. If that’s what kids are really good at what do we do really well? What are we good at?
(chattering)
Saying no.
(chattering)
Limits.
– [Man] Rules.
– Rules, we’re good at rules.
(chattering)
Sorry, process.
(shouting) (laughing)
What?
– [Man] Great nap.
– Taking a great nap.
(laughing)
Let me ask you, what about words that end in I-Z-E we’re really good at that.
(shouting)
Analyze.
– [Man] Organize.
– Organize. Criticize. Prioritize.
– [Man] Marginalize.
– Marginalize. Judgemental-ize, we’re really, we’re really good, terrorize, we’re really good at the I-Z-E. Here’s what these are. These are really just two forms of thinking. There is expansive thinking and reductive thinking. Children think expansively. Adults think reductively. Those are both stages that are required in an innovation project. As a percentage of time, how much do you think you should spend in expansive, and how much do you think you should spend in reductive? Anybody?
– [Woman] 60/20.
– 60/20.
(laughing) 60/40, sorry, I was not in the finance department for a reason people.
(laughing) Anybody else wanna hazard a guess?
– [Woman] 80/20.
– 80/20 which way?
(murmuring)
80/20? Actually it’s the reverse and I was shocked when somebody told me that. It’s actually quite easy to have ideas. It’s very hard getting them done. You’ve got a legal department, you’ve got a brand strategy department, you’ve got operations to be involved, you have finance to be involved, you’ve got investors to be involved. You actually tend to be, need to be far more creative down here than you do up there. But here’s the importance. Expansive and reductive mix like oil and water. You do not want me in a reductive session because I will come bouncing in when you’re trying to decide which idea we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna do it, I’ll come in with a new idea. You don’t want me there. Equally, I don’t want somebody in an expansive session saying, “No because,” all the time because I’ll shut down. So one of the creative behaviors I would encourage you to use is signaling. Signaling is incredibly important. Be careful what you ask people for. If you ask somebody, “What do you think?” What are they gonna tell you? They’re gonna judge it immediately. I don’t invite people to presentations anymore, I invite them to see where we are in the journey. And I’ll give you another tip, don’t do a PowerPoint presentation. And another signal, never put a physical object between you and the person you’re talking to. I always go in now, there’s clients on one side of the table, and the agency on
the other side of the table If you put a table between you and your clients, you’ve immediately asked them to judge whatever it is you’re gonna bring. If it’s Randy, Simon, and Paula, there’s the table, I’m a judge. Don’t put a table between you and them. Put your presentation all
the way around the wall. Even if it’s a PowerPoint, start over there, walk with them. A presentation becomes a conversation. My idea suddenly becomes our idea during the conversation, they start to build on it, you’ll notice, see them do it. And once you’ve transferred my idea to our idea, you have a much better chance of getting it through. We’ll do it, all sorts of signaling at the beginning of the meeting. I might draw a picture of a birthday present, and I’ll ask people to guess what it is. And they’ll say, “It’s a present.” And I’ll say, “Yes, I need you to be present. “I know you’re here physically, “I need you to be here mentally as well.” If the boss or the client gets their cell phone out and I can see it, I can’t run up to the boss or the client and say, “Hey could you put your cellphone away please?” But I can go back here and say, “Hey guys, remember we all agreed to be present today?” And I’ll watch that person put their cellphone away without having to be asked. It’s all about giving very clear signals. We’re an expansive session today. Molson Coors has a red card and a yellow card in their ideation sessions. If somebody’s “No because-ing” they’ll through down a yellow card, and so it’s a warning. Hongkong Shanghai Bank have a physical green house in the middle of their offices. We had a room called ideate. Pixar has a meeting called a plus-ing meeting. What’d you think they do at a plus-ing meeting?
(chattering)
Yeah, they add on, they plus it. Did you work for Pixar?
(murmuring)
No, it’s just a very clear signal of what’s being required from people in the meeting. That’s signaling, it’s just incredibly important that you signal very clearly at the beginning of the meeting. We use toys because it’s a light touch. Toys enable you to have a conversation you might otherwise not be able to have, and we use images because it’s a light touch. What I’m gonna do now is we’re gonna actually model a particular, one of our first creative behaviors. What I’d ask you is has anybody ever pictured an idea to have it killed?
(chattering)
Come on people put your hands up, come on own it. Okay, how do people kill ideas?
(chattering) What?
– [Woman] Opinions.
– Opinions, what do they say?
(chattering)
– [Woman] Close minded.
– Close minded. (murmuring)
Too difficult, or how about the, “We tried that last year.” I know I’m sure you’ve never heard that. “I’ll never get that past legal. “It’s not a strategic brand fit.” They’re immediately gone into reductive, right? The one that instantly meant your idea was dead in the environment I used to work is if somebody senior said, “Hmm interesting.” What that instantly meant was your idea is dead now as opposed to in five minutes from now. I’m gonna borrow Christopher, thank you very much. We’re gonna demonstrate green housing. We’re gonna demo it, and then I’m gonna give you a chance to do it yourselves. Chris, thank you for joining me. Tomorrow night IZEA,
they’re hosting people to a pool party here in the hotel.
– Okay.
– But the CEO of IZEA, Ted, really nice guy.
– Okay.
– He’s actually given us $500,000 to do a party tomorrow night wherever we want in Orlando. So I was thinking we’ll create a Death Star bus. There’ll be a giant black carpet in a galaxy far far away. And we’ll take them to Disney’s Hollywood studios for a sneak peak at Star Wars Land that doesn’t open for another two years. What’d you think?
– I don’t get it.
No, because there’s just so many legal things with that. Disney never likes to show anything early. They’re still in the very preliminary stages of building that section of the park, so unfortunately not.
– Alright I’ll tell you what then.
We’ll bring the Disney characters, all the Star Wars characters from Naboo and Tatooine and Hoth and we’ll do an international intergalactic food and wine festival with the cantina band in the pool.
– Duncan that, Lucas Films, despite the fact that hey made the prequels, they’re very very strict
with their guidelines when it comes to the characters so we can’t have certain things working together, so it just, ugh it’s a lot.
– Okay we’ll serve a Death Star cocktail at the pool party.
– [Chris] Okay.
– Alright so you get it. So what I’d like you to do is stand up in a second, one of you, you’ve got $500,000 for a party tomorrow night, you can do whatever you want. One of you is throwing out the ideas, the second person the first two words out of your mouth are “No because”, off you go.
(chattering)
(upbeat music)
– I should let you build it a little bit more? I thought that was your last one. Okay, okay.
(upbeat music)
– Alright let me have you back. Let me have you back. So let me ask you for those of you, guys let me have you back, for those of you who were throwing out the ideas, how was that?
– [Man] Hard.
– Hard. Frustrating.
(chattering)
Annoying. What, so no because. I get two no becauses in an ideation session, I shut down. You have two types of people in your ideation sessions, you have extroverts and introverts. Extroverts tend to talk before they think.
(laughing)
I am guilty of that. Introverts think before they talk. Who has the better idea? Actually you both do, but it’s important that you’re heard. And if you’re constantly no because-ing somebody, somebody will shut you down very quickly. Did your idea get bigger or smaller?
– [Audience] Smaller.
– Smaller right, so we’re just gonna demonstrate one other one, and then you’re gonna get to have a go. Same gig.
– [Chris] Sure.
– $500,000 tomorrow night. We’re gonna take the buses, they’re gonna be themed to the Death Star, we’re going down to Disney, and we’re gonna do a Star Wars themed party.
– I love it Duncan, yes and let’s give tickets to everybody, not just Star Wars, we’ll cover the whole park, all of Hollywood Studios. Once that wraps up we’ll go over to Magic Kingdom too.
– Yes and we’ll give them all their Star Wars costume of choice to wear to the party.
– Oh yes and we’ll invite Mark Hamill and maybe Harrison Ford too to join the party, that’ll be awesome.
– Yes and you fly back in the Millennium Falcon.
(cheering)
Alright so now whoever was throwing out the idea the last time stand up because you get much better energy if you’re standing up. Whoever was throwing out the idea the last time becomes, all you’re gonna do is yes and each other, so one of you will start and just first two words out of your mouth are yes and, off you go.
(chattering) (upbeat music)
Alright take a seat, let me just ask you, guys? Let me have you back. Let me just ask you in that exercise did your idea get bigger or smaller?
– [Audience] Bigger.
– And when you finished whose idea was it?
– [Audience] Both.
– Bingo, very important. The moment you can transfer my idea to our idea is the moment you can get it through an organization. Yes and sounds really simple, it’s designed to be really simple. These tools were designed to take a very complex creative problem design thinking model and just make it easy for people to use. When you’re in an ideation session, yes and. What you wanna do is we call it sum. Suspend judgment. It doesn’t matter, the first thing out of somebody mouth might be the wackiest thing you’ve ever heard. It doesn’t matter, go with it because it will get you to somewhere different that you couldn’t get to by yourself. That’s innovative and lateral thinking, I’m gonna cover that in just a minute. Understand, seek to understand what that person said. Ask them questions. Well why do you think pink fluffy slippers are a good idea for Star Wars weekends? And ask them, “Where do you think we should sell them? “What’s the price point? “What’s the tie back?” And then nurture the idea together using yes and that’s green housing. Another behavior that goes really well with green housing is playfulness. So let me ask you a question and I need you to shout loud because they’re a little loud at the back. Just the first thing that comes into your mind when I ask you this question. Where are you and what are you doing usually when you get your best ideas?
– [Audience] Shower.
– Shower, what else?
(chattering)
Commuting.
– [Man] Running.
– Running.
(chattering)
Glass, drinking, nice, man after my own. Driving, commuting, the other two that I’m sure I heard but I didn’t quite hear is just about to nod off to sleep, just about to wake up. Number one answer is always the shower. Except I did this for a month in India last year, and number one answer was always the toilet which I thought was remarkably honest.
(laughing)
But shower, commuting, riding, riding the bus, playing with the children. You are 100% consistent with the 3,000 people we’ve trained over the last six years. None of you said, “At work.”
(groaning)
I’d ask you to close your eyes for just a second. I want you to be as honest with yourself as you choose to be you don’t have to tell anybody about it that’s the good news. I want you to picture the last verbal argument you were in with somebody and I’ll give you 20 seconds to do it. Just picture that verbal argument. You’re having a screaming match. Alright you can open your eyes. The argument’s over, you storm out of the room, you leave the building, you cross the street, you’re still angry, get in the car, maybe drive down to Starbucks, sit down, order a coffee. Sit down in an armchair, relax. Five minutes after the argument’s over.
(snapping)
What just popped into your head, just then, bang, straight in.
(murmuring)
What you should’ve said, the killer one liner you’d wished you’d used during the argument. “Oh my god if I had said that I’d have killed it.”
(laughing)
How annoying, always five minutes after the argument. Never ever never during, “Oh if I said that I’d have landed it.” Never, always five minutes afterwards, here’s why. When you are in an argument, sadly it’s the same as being in an office. Your brain is in busy beta. You hear yourself say, “I don’t have time to think. “I’m scheduling an email, I’m doing a presentation, “I’m talking to somebody, “I’m going to a meeting, I’m typing a PowerPoint.” And when you’re in busy beta, 87% of your brain is subconscious, only 13% is conscious. 87% every person you’ve ever kissed, every license plate, even the ones you’d like to forget. Every license plate you’ve ever read, every meal you’ve ever had, every texture you’ve ever felt is back there as stimulus for new ideas. You cannot access that when you’re in busy beta. That is the importance of playfulness. That’s why I did an energizer when I walked in here to begin with, because I needed to metaphorically place you back in the shower. I don’t expect you to be playful
every minute of every day, but when you need people to be playful because you want to get them out of busy beta into amazing alpha is when you need to be a bit more playful. Chris and I are gonna demonstrate playfulness for you in a classic game called, “Oh no do I have to.” I love this, when you go to Hollywood Studios in the old days and there was the Indiana Jones stunt show and they would ask for volunteers and all the Americans were like, “Me me me!” And all the Brits were handcuffed underneath the chairs saying, “Please God don’t let him find me.” I’m gonna be the storyteller, Chris is gonna be the word chucker. I need the name of a place, but a place you think I would know.
(chattering)
I can’t hear it.
(chattering)
London, I know London, thank you very much. And an object?
– [Woman] Ball.
– A ball, alright.
Last weekend I was over in London, I went to see the Chelsea versus Arsenal game. We won three one by the way thank you very much.
(applauding)
Thank you thank you thank you.
(laughing)
So I was on my way out the door–
– Corgi.
– When not, Her Majesty the Queen had actually been at the game with her corgis.
– Bicycle.
And they let them out on the pitch, and I didn’t know, because Britain doesn’t do a half time show like America would, cheerleaders and everything else. So next you got the queen’s corgis on bicycles.
(laughing)
With the Coldstream Guards, doing a halftime show which I’d never seen before.
– Pineapple.
– Sorry?
– Pineapple.
(laughing)
– There was an overly late start, it was a promotion for Hawaii, who knew right? Did you know corgis came from Hawaii, neither did I.
– The rarest kind.
– They actually had pineapples on their heads while balancing on a one wheel bicycle–
– Cell phone.
– During, and just then I had to take a call.
(laughing)
Thank you very much. You get it, now it’s your turn. The good news is you don’t have to get up on the stage. I’d like you to get up in a pair. One of you’s gonna be the storyteller, one of you’s gonna be the word chucker. Once the storyteller has used the word you’ve given them, give them another one okay. And I want you to start the conversation, whoever’s the storyteller, “I was on my way to IZEAFest today when…” And then word chucker starts throwing in the words. Up you get, two minutes, off you go.
(chattering) (upbeat music)
Alright lemme have you back, lemme have you back.
(chattering)
By a show of hands, when you were, before, once you realized, “Oh my God I’m gonna have to get up and do this.” Who thought the word chucking was gonna be the easier of the two roles?
(chattering)
And who thought storytelling was gonna be the easiest? Yeah not many right? Word chuckers, how was that for you?
– [Audience] Hard.
– Hard, why?
(chattering)
One of four things probably happened. Number one, if you’re bilingual
you have millions of words. If you only speak one language you have hundreds of thousands. And how many could you remember just now?
(laughing)
“I can’t remember a single word.” The next one is you start looking around the room for random objects, you’re like, “Flip chart, carpet, screen.” It’s like, seriously?
You sad sad people. The other one is if you’re a very empathetic person, chances are you were throwing out words that were helping to build the story. When you actually look back on the words you threw out, they might not have been as random as they were when you were throwing them out. Storytellers, was that easier or harder than you thought it was gonna be.
– [Woman] Easier.
Easier, okay. Some of you harder, but most of you I think easier. Let me tell you why it was easier. You couldn’t control where the story was going. I was off to watch Chelsea football club play football, suddenly I had to work in the queen’s corgis, a bicycle, a pineapple, and,
(chattering)
yeah and Hawaii right? I was like what? I couldn’t control where the story was going. It’s the same as an ideation session. I need to get you out of your river of thinking, out of your expertise, and get you somewhere else. That is the benefit of playfulness when you’re in an ideation session, and you wanna run an energizer to actually, to get people metaphorically back in the shower, and I’m gonna have a signup sheet out the back afterwards if you wanna sign up for a little book of energizers I’ll happily send them to you, so take a seat please, thank you Chris. So why? Believe it or not your brain has four brain states. Busy beta is the one you’re in when you’re in an argument. Busy beta is the one you’re in when you’re in the office, it helps you get through the day and make decisions. There is a reticular activating system which is a really boring word, I’d remember the word door. There’s a door between your conscious and your subconscious, and when you’re stressed at work and you don’t have time to think, you’re in busy beta. The door between your conscious and your subconscious is firmly closed, you cannot access 87% of stimulus for new ideas. Amazing alpha, when you’re metaphorically just about to get in the shower, when you’re drinking a glass of something that I like.
(laughing)
When you’re walking the dog I heard somebody say, when you’re running, when you’re commuting. It’s just the, the door is just wide enough open that you can move between your conscious and your subconscious, that’s when you can have ideas at work. The next stage is thoughtful theta, the door is pretty much wide open. I think a couple of you said, “When I’m just about to go to sleep,” or “When I’m just about to wake up.” That’s theta, if you
tend to have ideas then, get a notepad by the bed. A couple of gentlemen that explored with it, Thomas Edison. Not as commonly known in America is the expression when the penny drops, it’s that eureka moment, that, “Oh I’ve got the big idea.” Thomas Edison used to fall asleep in an armchair at night, put a penny between his knees, and a tin on the floor, and as he would nod off to sleep, the penny would drop, and he would write down whatever he was thinking. He had more patented inventions in the patent hall in the 20th century than any other inventor. Dali did the same thing, he would fall asleep next to his easel, and as he fell asleep, and he would fall off the easel, he would sketch whatever he was dreaming. Says a lot about Salvador Dali’s paintings, but not an unsuccessful painter, thoughtful theta. Then there’s dreamy delta. Dreamy delta, you are gone, you are fast asleep, you’re probably riding through the forest on a giant green chicken being chased by a purple unicorn, and just then David Beckham in a loincloth sweeps in to take you away to safety. I know you’ve all had that dream.
(laughing)
Or one like it, the one where you wake up in the morning you think, “Man what was I
smoking before I went to bed?” Here’s the challenge with dreamy delta, when you wake up in the morning you could’ve solved world peace but you can’t remember anything. I will tell you though, Google are experimenting with sleep pods in the offices, specifically for this reason, but for creativity in the workplace, amazing alpha, you get there by doing energizers, and I will, for people who want to sign up leave you a little book of energizers like experts which is the one we just started with. Your brain, I like to think of your brain also as like a mountain. With each one of life’s new experiences, a different raindrop falls onto your brain. Could be the first time
you remember seeing your mom and dad, first time you learned to walk, first time you learned to ride a bicycle. Then you go off to junior school, elementary school, kindergarten, and you start, those raindrops start to come into what we call streams of recognition. It could be learning how to count, could be learning your ABCs, could be learning a different language, could be learning to play nicely with other children. From elementary school you go to junior school, middle school, high school, college, four years, marketing, communication, you join Disney, you go into their PR team, you work in global PR for Disney for 25 years. How wide, how fast, and how
deep do you think my river of thinking is on Disney and public relations?
(murmuring)
Pretty wide, pretty fast, pretty deep. This is why you’re employed by your companies, for your expertise. That’s the good news. The bad news is you’re expertise is the single biggest barrier you have to be more innovative. Because if I asked you, “Have you ever tried “to cross a very fast flowing deep wide river?” The answer is no, why? Because it’s difficult. Thinking differently is difficult. Your own expertise keeps you locked and loaded, and so somebody comes at you with a completely different idea to yours, and your expertise is subconsciously going, “No I saw “somebody try that last year, it didn’t work so well. “I’ll never get that past legal. “The brand strategy team won’t go for that. “I’ll never get the financial resources.” You’re not even listening to the new idea. We’ve developed a series of four lateral thinking toys. I’m gonna touch on three
today that you can use to help people think differently, including yourselves. And they’re very easy, that’s the benefit. The first is borrow it. The borrow it is asking you a question. Where is the world has somebody already solved the challenge I’m trying to solve? And borrowing back the underlying principle. What’d you think this object is here? It’s not that badly drawn people, come on.
(murmuring)
Thank you a roll on deodorant. Before the days of roll on deodorant and aerosols, believe it or not deodorant came in a tub. It was almost like a cream, you put your hand in and kinda went whop, and hoped it didn’t drip all over the place. So the people at deodorant asked themselves the question where in the world has somebody already solved the challenge of applying a thin layer of liquid across a smooth surface at an even rate? So where in the world has somebody already solved the challenge of applying a thin level of liquid at an even rate on a smooth surface? Sorry?
– [Woman] Pen.
– Pen, ball point pen. But if they just stole the idea and created a ball point pen as a deodorant, it would kinda take awhile right? So all they did was make it wider. George de Mestral was one
of several people who went after a bid from NASA to create suits that could open and close quickly in the vacuum of space, and they couldn’t use metal buttons because they were too cold, they would burn their fingers. They couldn’t use zip for the same reason. He was out walking his dog in Switzerland, and he got those little green burs, those little round balls on your socks. You know the annoying ones that you throw it in your sister’s hair, and you can take them out and throw them back again, and go, “Ooh I could do this again.”
(laughing)
He put it under a microscope and found that it has little hooks and little loops that allows it t attach and reattach, attach and reattach, and he came up with Velcro. Just by looking out in the world for somebody who had already solved that challenge. Perhaps the easiest one to get our heads around is Speedo. In 1996 Speedo were commissioned by the US Olympic Committee and the brief was, “Make our swimmers go faster through water.” So they looked out into the world. Where in the world has somebody already solved the challenge of moving quickly through water?
(murmuring)
Shout because I can’t hear you.
(chattering)
Fish, sharks, dolphins, speed boats, torpedoes. They chose sharks, they did bio mimicry on a bullnose shark. I wouldn’t recommend it but if you pet a bullnose shark from nose to tail it’s remarkably smooth. If you pet it the other way you’ll lose all the skin on your hand because the bullnose shark has tiny little hooks on top of its skin all the way down its body which allow it to contain a little air pocket underneath it which it can expand or contract as it chooses to expand its surface friction to turn quickly or reduce its surface friction to move quickly through water. They borrowed the underlying principle behind that back, they created those one piece suits that you saw in all the Olympic swimmers in the year 2000 in Sydney. They broke 18 world records. It was considered so innovative the suits were banned. That’s when you know you’ve got a good idea by the way.
(laughing)
The other tip I’ll just give you as an aside for an ideation session, always bring in a naive expert. A naive expert is somebody who doesn’t know what you’re working on. They will ask the embarrassing question. They will ask the awkward question. They will ask the silly question. They will ask the question you’re too proud or too embarrassed to ask. They will get you out of your river of thinking. What I’d like you to do now, if you’ve got a pen and paper, don’t worry if you haven’t, but if you’ve got a pen and paper, I’m only gonna give you like 10 seconds, I want you to draw a house, go. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, pens down.
(chattering)
I’m gonna bet it looked like that. I’ll be you 95% of you drew the house like that. It’s the square, the door’s at the middle, the windows are nicely placed, and yep, there’s a roof and it’s triangular. I invited a group of architects into an ideation session for something we were doing with Hong Kong Disneyland, and all the architects came in, I gave them 15 seconds, and they drew that. Because they were in their rivers of thinking. I also invited in a chef, people challenged me as to why I invited the chef in. I said, “Well the chef’s really creative. “He has to be creative. “He’s creating new dishes with maybe an ingredient’s missing “maybe somebody’s got an allergy “I mean that guy turns creativity every day.” He drew… Dim sum architecture. He took two giant steam pork balls in a straw basket and drew it as a massive piece of architecture. And everybody’s like, “Wow, I have never seen dim sum architecture before.” Here’s what he had just done. He gave permission for the architects to get out of their river of expertise and think differently and if any brand in the world can create audacious architecture, it will become Disney. Somebody in a meeting happened to say, “Wow distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese.” Three years later, what’s the brand positioning for Shanghai Disneyland? Distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese, came from a chef. That’s the importance, I could give you lots of examples, but naive experts, they will very rarely solve your challenge for you if at all, but they will get you out of your river of thinking, and thinking differently. Next one is twist it. I love twist it because I like breaking the rules, and I happen to work for an organization that had a lot of rules so they were easy to break. However Walt was the master of using twist it. Twist it comes in three columns, it’s very easy. Write down the rules of your challenge. Write down what if those rules didn’t apply. The more provocative you make this the bigger the innovation, and imagine a world where they might. Walt when he made Fantasia in 1940, he wanted, does everybody know Fantasia, the classical masterpiece? Yeah it was critically acclaimed, never did that well at the box office. Walt was way ahead of his time, 1940 he wanted mist pumped into the theaters during Drip Drip Little April Showers. He wanted heat pumped in during Night On A Bare Mountain. And the theater owners said, “Walt that’s too expensive.” Because the movies were only in the movie theater for three months in those days. And they wouldn’t go with him. So Walt listed all the rules of showing a movie in a movie theater. By the way there is an industry that is ripe for disruption because if you go to 1940 when Walt premiered Fantasia to today, the only difference is the cigarette girl’s not there anymore and there’s no intermission. Other than that, still the same. It’s dark, it’s dirty, I can’t sit next to the person I want to, I never get the chair I want, they make me watch the previews, I have to go at a set time, I can’t talk, I can’t text. He listed all the rules but from his point of view. He listed the environment. And he said, because he couldn’t control it. His provocative question was, “What if I could control the environment?” Okay, well if I can control the environment, imagine a world where I might. Well I don’t own the movie theaters, so my stories would have to come out of the theaters. Well I don’t own any screens. Well then I’d have to make my characters come out of the screens. Well if my characters came out of the screens, they’d have to be three dimensional. Well if they were three dimensional, they’d need somewhere to live. With somewhere to live, the princesses couldn’t live next to the pirates because they wouldn’t be immersed in the story. So he came up with Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Disneyland, the biggest single creative invention of the 20th century. Reed Hastings, a man like myself, only he’s a lot more wealthier than I am. He created Netflix because he had $130 worth of late fees at Blockbuster.
(laughing)
Like all of you who had children and returned that video on a Monday morning, they were sitting in the hall, you put it through the letterbox, you come back on Friday, and they say, “That’ll be $50 please.” You’re like, “What?” Because your children left the cassette stuffed down the side of the sofa, and you returned the empty box. So he asked the questions what are the rules of going to Blockbuster, so you all went. What were the rules of going to Blockbuster?
(chattering)
Be kind and rewind. What else?
(chattering)
Membership fee, what else?
(chattering)
Couldn’t reserve, yeah limited selection, you could never get the one you wanted on opening day weekend, ever. The late fee. Did you have to go anywhere?
– [Man] Yeah.
– Yeah to a physical store right? Physical store. He asked the question what if there was no physical store? What if there were no late fees? Okay, well imagine a world where I make that work. Well okay there’s no physical store so I’d need a central distribution point. If I have a central distribution point, it could be a physical warehouse and I send the videos out and they come back. But still people want that video on opening day weekend and I don’t have enough. Well what if I streamed it? Suddenly you don’t have to drive anywhere. I can cut your rental off
at the end of 24 hours so you’re not, there’s no late fee. You’ll all get the one you want on opening day weekend. And he came up with Netflix and put Blockbuster out of business within five years. He took the idea to Blockbuster four times by the way. The last one is re-express it. Re-express it can be done through words, senses, and perspectives. Words are remarkably powerful. I was up in a reception desk waiting to meet somebody in New York about six months ago, and I was chatting to this young lady behind the reception, or behind a desk, there were quite a few people there. We got chatting for about 20 minutes and she was the most empathetic, friendly, nice, just one of those people you wanna steal and bring back to the office. So I was upstairs with a bloke called Simon and I said, “Your receptionist, she was remarkable.” He said, “Oh, we don’t have a receptionist.” I was like “God, who the hell was I talking to for 20 minutes?” I said, “Oh her name was Sarah.” “Oh yeah, that’s our director of first impressions.”
(laughing)
Let me tell you, you know when somebody’s got a good idea because you’re sitting there going, “Shit I wish I’d thought of that.” All they had done, they hadn’t given her anymore money, no more shares, no more bonuses, they had empowered her to own the space. Let me ask you, if I was going to go out this afternoon and open a car wash, what would you normally expect to see in a car wash?
– [Man] Massage chairs.
– Massage chairs, chairs, what else? In a normal car wash what would you see?
(laughing) (chattering)
Water, vacuums.
(chattering)
What else?
– [Woman] Soap.
– Soap, brushes, I heard wax, what else?
(chattering)
Sorry? Vacuum, I’ve got vacuum, what else?
– [Audience] Towels.
– Towels. Cash register right? Alright so, let’s say I didn’t open a car wash. Let’s say I chose to open an auto spa. What could you put in an auto spa? At a spa what could you put in it?
– [Man] Massage chairs.
– Masseuses.
(laughing)
Masseuses, what else?
– [Man] Starbucks.
– Starbucks, baristas, what else?
– [Woman] A bar.
– A bar, what else?
(shouting)
A what?
(shouting)
Internet, what else?
(chattering)
Cute employees, of course you could.
(laughing)
In less than 60 seconds you went from your river of thinking chairs, vacuums, soap, brushes, wax, towels, register, to masseuse, baristas, bar, internet, and cute employees, just by simply re-expressing the challenge up front. There was a gentleman in the first Gulf War, there were these three staff canteens on the border between Kuwait and Iraq. Two were in the green zone, one was in the red zone. The red zone was right up against the front lines, you could get shot at
going to that canteen. But the vast majority of troops, or a disproportionate amount of troops would go to the one in the red zone. They couldn’t figure it out, they had the same ingredients, they did an IE study on the recipes, on the troops, on the experience, on the budgets, on the gadgetry they had, and they couldn’t, so they brought in the chefs and asked them what they thought their mission was. The two chefs in the green zone said they thought their mission, they were in charge of producing proteins and carbohydrates to make the troops lean mean killing machines. They asked the guy in the red zone, he said, “No no no, we’re in charge of staff moral.” Just by twisting his challenge, he had got his team to come up with completely different ideas. I don’t have time for the other ones but one thing you might do is perspectives. Just as you did experts earlier on, you might ask that you choose somebody who has nothing to do with your challenge, a minion. How would a minion get more people to go to this cafe on a Friday, and you stay in character, and they interview you as a minion because I guarantee you a minion will solve that challenge very differently to you, well hopefully they would solve that challenge very differently to you. The last behavior is freshness, and what I’d like is I’d love you to be as honest as you chose to be. When you go to your favorite restaurant, how many of you order the same meal every time? Starbucks you order the same drink? Who uses the same search engine everyday? Honesty please people come up.
(laughing)
Who sleeps on the same side of the bed every night? Now you’re all here in the Gaylord Palms Hotel Who’s still sleeping on the same side of the bed every night? Come on people, own it, we are all creatures of habit. Let me ask you have you ever commuted home, wherever home is, and you get to the front door, and you look at the front door and you think, “How the hell did I get here?” Here’s what happened on your commute home, your brain shut down, it got bored. No fresh stimulus in, no new ideas out. People do not take time for fresh stimulus, so you need fresh stimulus in to get fresh stimulus out. BMW give their engineers an exercise where they can build anything they like as long as it’s not in the automotive industry. Two guys came up with a cappuccino machine, they came up with a new steam injection system that actually allowed them to come up with the e-fuel injection system for the BMW M4. Google gives their engineers 20% time. 20% a week to work on anything they’re passionate about We’re about to create an innovate report where we’re just gonna webcast, Chris and I once a month where we’re just gonna showcase the world of innovation from around the world, different from different industries, for different people, if you wanna sign up, there’ll be a sheet in the back, it’s one hour a month commitment to get fresh stimulus to think of new ideas. The last behavior I wanna demonstrate, and it’s only gonna take 30 seconds, because I can see the orchestra’s playing me up over here, is bravery, and to demonstrate that I’m looking for one volunteer because we’ve only got about 30 seconds left anyway, I want you to come up on the stage, hang on just a second, looking for a volunteer to come and sing with me. We’re gonna do Kiki Dee and Elton John Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, karaoke. But actually what we decided to do when we were putting the lottery tickets and handing them out, we came in early this morning, and on the count of three what I’d like you to do is just put your hand underneath your chair because underneath one of your chair is a post it note that says it’s you. One two three. Okay people I’m just kidding, I would not finish.
(laughing and chattering)
Did somebody get that on camera? I really really want it on the camera. You all just became British very quickly.
(laughing and chattering)
What is the bravest animal in the jungle?
– [Man] Lion.
– Lion. I would argue differently. I would argue it’s right there, the humble butterfly. What you were just feeling just then. Because I would argue that the, when you’re doing, again that Woody Allen quote, if you’re not failing every now and then, you’re not trying something different. I am the youngest company in the United States of America, I registered myself five days ago, and every morning I wake up, thank you very much, I wake up half excited and half terrified, but it forces me to be brave and that’s a good thing. So I would argue the opposite of bravery is not cowardice, it’s conformity. Thank you very much, go and enjoy your lunch.
(cheering and applauding)
Thank you.
I just, I also wanna thank the team from IZEA for putting on the conference, Lindsey for helping to bring me in, and Ricardo for introducing me to the great people at IZEA in the first place, thank you very much.
(cheering and applauding)
