Kris Safarova  00:45

Welcome to the Strategy Skills podcast. I’m your host, Kris Safarova, and our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com and we have a gift for you. It is a copy of a book I co authored with some of our amazing clients. It’s called Nine Leaders in Action, and you can get a copy of it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash gift. And today, we have with us a very, very special guest. His name is Duncan Wardle, and he’s the author of Imagination Emporium. And Duncan is the former head of innovation and creativity at Disney, where he spent 30 years fostering groundbreaking ideas, and he now helps organizations like Apple, the NBA and Spotify, redefine problem solving with practical tools that make innovation accessible and creativity actionable. Welcome Duncan. What did magic mean at Disney, and how was it created internally?

Duncan Wardle  01:44

It’s based on storytelling. At the end of the day, what was the master storyteller? And I think that was based in empathy. You know, it’s interesting, because here comes artificial intelligence, scheduled to take away hundreds of 1000s of white collar jobs. But what will be the hardest skills to program into artificial intelligence? Well, I working with Google’s DeepMind and their lead engineer said the things that would be the hardest to program in AI will be probably the most employable skill sets the next five to 10 years. We’re born with all of them, right? But we’re born with imagination, we’re born creative, we’re born curious, we’re born with intuition, we’re born with empathy. And so these innately human skill sets will probably be the last. Will they be programmed one day? None of us know, but Pixar does empathy, probably better than anybody else. If you remember the film, Wally, there he is, this dusty robot. You can’t really he’s mute. He doesn’t speak. We open on the sequence of an empty planet. We see but how do we fall in love with Wally? Why do we feel empathy for him? Because within the first three minutes of the film starting, we see Wally watching a television show where these two celebrities hold hand and insulin Wally’s eyes. We see that Wally desires to be loved, but we all desire to be loved, and so if you remember the film The Incredibles, there’s syndrome. He’s the bad guy. Nobody likes a villain. And yet, there’s one moment where we feel empathy for syndrome, because he catches up with Mr. Incredible and they flash back to all the moments in time where he’s tried to join a super who superhuman group, a superhero group, and he’s been rejected. And we feel empathy for this villain, because we know that we’ve tried to join a group in our time, a social group, where we also have been rejected. So I think what Disney in terms of magic is it comes about through storytelling, but storytelling with empathy.

Kris Safarova  03:23

What is the top lesson from Disney you now teach others? I know there are so many, but if you could pick one or two.

Duncan Wardle  03:29

So let me ask you a question. Close your eyes, where are you and what are you doing when you get your best ideas? So I’ve done this with up to 20,000 people. You will hear people say, walking, jogging in the gym, waking up, falling asleep, playing with the children in nature, commuting, driving, but not one person ever says at work. Nobody, nobody ever says at work. So why not close your eyes again? Picture that last verbal argument you were in with somebody. Bit of a shouting match. Perhaps your voices are raised. You’re angry at each other. Now you turn to walk away from that argument. Now you’re walking away. You’re beginning to relax. You’re 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, away from the argument, and what just popped into your brain totally spontaneously the second you turn to walk away from the argument. What did you think of the killer one liner? One perfect, beautiful line. You wished you’d use during the argument, but you didn’t use it. Did you know why not? Because when we’re in an argument, our brain is moving at 1000 miles an hour, right? Defending ourselves when we’re in the office, we’re doing emails, we’re doing presentations, we’re doing weekly reports, and we hear ourselves say, I don’t have time to think the number one barrier to innovation and creativity and so, so, and when you say I don’t have time to think, you’re in the brain state the science calls beta. I call it busy beta, where the reticular activating system much easier, remembered as a door between your conscious and subconscious brain is firmly closed. When that door is closed, you only have access to your conscious brain, believe it or not, you can Google this. Only 13% of your brain is conscious. 87% of your brain is subconscious. Every meeting you’ve ever attended, every innovation you’ve ever seen, every creative problem you ever saw. Was back here to serve as unrelated stimulus to help you solve the challenge you’re working on right now. But when that door shut, you’d have access to it. So what do I do? I run an energizer. You’ll find a bunch of them in the book. They are 62nd exercises specifically designed very purposely to make you laugh. Why? Because the moment I hear laughter, I know that metaphorically, I placed you back in the shower where you are when you have your best ideas, and I’ve opened the door between your conscious and subconscious brain. How did I get there? By being playful. Now, who are the most creative people we’ve ever met? Oh, yeah, children. What do they do better than us play, and so I don’t expect people to be playful every minute of every day, but I do expect people to be playful at the right time when they’re trying to develop new ideas.

Kris Safarova  05:38

In your book, you mentioned examples of utilizing the special time just before we fall asleep, when we have access to our subconscious mind. Do you personally use some kind of practice?

Duncan Wardle  05:48

The expression when the penny dropped comes from Thomas Edison. He used to fall asleep at night with a penny between his knees a tin tray on the floor. And as he’s as he would fall asleep, his muscles would relax, the penny would drop, would hit the chin train and wake him up, and he would write down whatever he was thinking. And you may think, well, that’s mad. Well, who had more patent interventions in the 20th century than anybody else? Salvador Dali would fall asleep against his easel. As he fell asleep, he’d fall over that would wake him up, and he would sketch whatever he was dreaming. Of course, I will know we’re smoking before he went to bed, but he was not an unsuccessful artist. If you’re one of those people who get your best ideas as you’re waking up or falling asleep. Keep an eye pair by the bed. Far more importantly, when you are working on a particular challenge with a group of people, brief it in a week or two in advance, not on the day, because you know they’re going to fall asleep, you know they’re going to wake up, you know they’re going to have a show, they’re going to go to all those places they go when they have their best ideas.

Kris Safarova  06:36

Do you personally use some kind of practice to fully leverage that time before you fall asleep and when you just wake up?

Duncan Wardle  06:44

Well, I drink. So no, I am more. I don’t actually practice that one particularly, I’m very playful and deliberately playful, but And so the way I’ve designed the book is because I hear people say, I don’t have time to think. Let me ask you a question. When you see the book, a business book in an office. Where is the book physically in the office? Where is it?

Kris Safarova  07:03

It could be on the table, on the bookshelf.

Duncan Wardle  07:05

Yeah, well, that’s a waste of money, isn’t it, because we never read it, because we don’t have time. Our boss needs this by three o’clock, and we don’t have time to think, I don’t have time to read. So I thought, Okay, what non fiction book have I ever read where you could read one page today, what not worry about the rest of the rest of the book, and you get exactly what you want. I thought, wait a minute, my mum’s cookbook. You want shepherd’s pie. You gotta pay 67 so the book is designed the same way. So the contents page, for example, says, Have you ever been to a brainstorm where nothing ever happened? Go to page 67 don’t know how to look outside of your industry for an insight for innovation. Go to page 32 work in a heavily regulated industry. Go to page 12. It’s about making innovation accessible and less intimidating, make creativity tangible and make the process fun, but it also has to work for all three learning styles. So let me ask you a question, can you close your eyes for me? How many days are there in September 13? I want you to keep your eyes closed. I want you to think about how you knew the answer to that, how you learned it, how you remembered it, or what you could see right now, with your eyes closed. How do you know there’s 30 days in September?

Kris Safarova  08:05

I intuitively know it from experiences. Intuitively.

Duncan Wardle  08:09

You don’t get away with intuitively eyes closed. How did you know it? What did you hear? What did you do? What can you see? What? How do you know there’s 30 days in September?

Kris Safarova  08:19

I just have a feeling that it is 30 days, a feeling that it’s 30.

Duncan Wardle  08:23

I think I would, well, okay, all right, we’ll go with feeling. So you can open your eyes, 30% of us will recite the rhyme 30 days has September, blah, blah, blah and November. Or they just told me they’re an auditory learner. How do I know that? Because they learned it when they were six. How’d they remember it? Because they heard it. Ever seen anybody count their knuckles. January, February, March, April, May, June, July. These are kinesthetic learners. How do we know? Because they learned that when they were six, and the other 40% of the people do what I actually believe you did when you said intuitively, they could just see a calendar with the word September and number 30 on it. They’re visual learners. And so the book is designed to appeal to all three learning styles. It has a QR code in each chapter with auditory cues for a Spotify playlist for people who learn by listening animated videos where I pop out of the book with a bunch of animated characters. For visual learners, we teach you how to use the tools. And then on the back page, starting today, because it’s now fully programmed, it’ll be the first ever fully integrated artificial intelligence book published where you’ll be able to ask the book questions through the QR code at the back, through chat, GPT, and it will answer you through WhatsApp. It will tell you how to use the tools and how to use those tools against a specific challenge.

Kris Safarova  09:31

I’m looking forward to check that out. That is a very smart idea to do it that way. So in the book, you talk about three magical characters, Spark, Nova and Zin. Can you tell us about it? And maybe we can start with Spark.

Duncan Wardle  09:44

Well, I’ll tell you the history behind it. I created a character called Archie. Well, who’s Archie? Archie is a direct descendant of Archimedes, the Greek philosopher. Why would I choose Archie? Because when you ask people where they are when they get their best ideas, just like you did, they’ll say, shower. Well, Archimedes was in the bath when he got his best idea. And. And said Eureka, and jumped out the bathroom, ran through the streets of Marathon naked. So I thought, Archie, it’s perfect. My daughter is about 25 at the time. She walks in the door, she goes, Dad, he’s our white guy. You can’t do that shit anymore. You’re an old white guy. You’ll do have some diversity. So I created Spark. Spark is a light bulb. Spark introduces the creative behaviors. He is based on Edison. You know, we have a spark of an idea, spark of creativity. I need that ignite spark to get me going in the morning. And that’s zing. Zing is gender neutral. Zing introduces you to the energizers and Nova. She’s female. She introduces you to the innovation tools. The creative behaviors, such as playfulness that we talked about earlier on, are the being of innovation. The innovation tools are the doing of innovation, and the energizes that it move you from beta into alpha, and again, they’re fun. Why shouldn’t work be fun? I don’t want people to leave the book on the bookshelf or the coffee table. That’s a waste of a waste of your money.

Kris Safarova  10:56

100% agree. There are so many books that never get read. What’s the point, people?

Duncan Wardle  11:03

So example of one of the innovation tools just to give you. So the tools are the challenge for all of us, right? Is the more experience, the more expertise we have, the more is our I call it our river of thinking, allowing you and me in your industry and mine to make quick and informed decisions. But we are being tasked with getting out of that river of thinking more and more often because the level of disruption in the last four years, we’ve seen global pandemics, we’ve seen Generation Z entering the workplace. We’ve seen climate change coming, and then we’ve seen AI. Here it is, we don’t get to think the way we’ve always done. So the tools are designed to stop you thinking the way you always do and give you permission to think differently. So for those of you say, I work in a very heavily regulated industry, or for those of you like breaking the rules, this tool is for you. It was created by a man called Walt, last name Disney, for the film Fantasia. He wanted to pump mist and heat into the theater, and the theater owner said, no, what? Far too expensive. That’s not the way we do it. Here. We tried that last year. All the classics, right? So Walt listed the rules of going to a movie theater. Step one list the rules of your challenge. So if it’s a movie theater, what are the rules? I must go to a physical theater. I must go at a set time. I must sit down, it is dark. Only can watch one movie at a time. I must pay to get in. I won’t cannot control the environment in which consumers experience my product. Step one list the rules. Don’t think about the more. You’ll start thinking of all the reason you can’t break them. Step two, pick one rule and ask the most audacious, provocative, outrageous question. The more outrageous you’re what if, the further out of your river of thinking you’ll jump? So Walt chose the environment. He said, What if I could control the environment? Well, he couldn’t. He didn’t know the movie theaters. Besides, that wasn’t provocative enough. So he said, All right, if I can’t control the environment, what if I take my movies out of the theater. Well, Don’t be daft. Well, it’s 1940 they’re two dimensional. They’re fall over. People wouldn’t be able to see them. What if I made them three dimensional? If you know the answer you’re illustrating, if it scares you, you know you’re innovating. People say, Well, how you do that? Well, he said, Well, what if I had people dress up as pirates, princesses and cowboys? I’ll have people in costume, yeah. But what? You can’t have Cinderella standing next to Jack Sparrow. People wouldn’t be immersed in her story. So he said, Well, wait a minute, what if I put each of them in a different themed land? Oh, wait, what if I call it Disneyland? Simple, powerful, fun. That’s how the tools are designed.

Kris Safarova  13:13

I love it. So let’s talk about Nova. What do you want to say about Nova?

Duncan Wardle  13:17

Nova is, look, every time I go into a workshop or somebody’s because I talk about bravery a lot, and I’ve learned in workshops that I do when asking for volunteers, women are much braver than men. They just are right. And so women take more risks. Women are braver. There’s no question about it. And so Nova is designed. She’s there to help you through all the innovation tools. Basically, they’re set into four sections. The first one is, Did we ask the right question in the first place? Because so often the chairperson walks in and says, I need more people in my theme park in September, and we all go off trying to solve it. You’re like, well, hang on a minute. Why do you need more people in your theme park in September? Well, because I want to wait more money. Well, wait a minute. Is that a promotional player? Is that a pricing play? What if I put the theme park tickets up strategically, less people will come to the park, but they’ll have a better experience, and they’re more likely to return or recommend the park. So we just is, and if you ask the wrong question, when you get going one degree off, you start 180 degrees. This is about giving people the tools to ask the right questions in the first place. The second step, and there’s a series of tools, are about gaining insights for innovation by looking where your competition is not looking in new and unusual ways. The third is specifically designed to get you out of your river thinking and thinking differently with big, innovative, expansive ideas. And the fourth is, okay, I’ve got all of these ideas. How do I know which one is most aligned with my brand, most aligned with the consumer insight going to hit my quarterly results, etc, and take this subjectivity out of the business and ours allow us very objectively to reach a decision. One of the tools is very simple. It’s called How again, simple, powerful, fun. It’s called How else, how by simply reframing it. Damage. Can I stop you from thinking the way you always do and give you permission to think differently? Now let’s pretend you and I are going to go into business together. We are going to open a car wash near your house. Tell me, if you would, what are the three or four essential ingredients we must have in a car wash? What must we have so we need people, machines, water and soap. Okay? Now we are venture capitalist, we have been invited to open a new franchise of autos. Now, close your eyes, a new franchise of auto spas who are a spa. Now, what have you seen in a spa? If there’s anything you would like in your spa? What would you like in your spa? You got candles, scented, music, cucumber, water, etc. All I did was reframe the challenge. I said, car wash. You be careful of your river, of thinking you went straight into your everything. You said, water, soap, brushes, vacuum, dryer. I said, auto spa. Suddenly, people are thinking of candles and music and cucumber water and masses. All I did was reframe the challenge. It’s the same product. Walt Disney created the tool. He said, We will not have any customers in our park. We’ll only have employees. Well, we won’t have any sorry, we won’t have any customers. In our part, we’ll only have guests. We won’t have any employees, we’ll only have cast members. And with that simple re expression over the relationship between the cast member and the guest, Walter created a culture of hospitality that’s really been repeated elsewhere.

Kris Safarova  16:19

I would love to listen to your stories about Walt Disney all day. Do you have any other stories you would like to share about Walt? What’s your favorite?

Duncan Wardle  16:27

Let’s stay on the same tour for a minute. In 2011 if we asked the question, how might we make more money, we put the gate price up by 3% but by using the how else tool, instead of saying, how might we make more money, we said, how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point? Everybody knew what it was. It was called standing in line. So we used another tool called where else that’s also in the book. This is about looking for insights for innovation outside of your industry. Most of the insights for innovation come from looking outside of your industry. We found a small pharmacy in Tokyo, Japan had already solved the challenge of stopping people from standing in line using RFID technology. All we did was put an RFID chip and little plastic band. It’s called Disney’s Magic Band. I don’t check on and check out of a Disney Resort today. I the theme park ticket. It’s on here, favorite rides on here, favorite character meet and greets on here. I can pay for merchandise with it. I can pay for food and beverage with it. Had we have started by asking, how might we make more money? Would have made 3% but by reversing the challenge and saying, how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point. The average guest at Walt Disney World today has two hours free time each and every day they didn’t have six years ago. What does that result in? Record intent to return, record revenues and record intent to recommend. But two hours free time a day times 25, million people a year times 365, days. That’s a lot of revenue.

Kris Safarova  17:39

Let’s talk about zing. What would you like to say about the energizing?

Duncan Wardle  17:43

Well, I kind of covered it earlier on. Zing is about they are exercises specifically designed to move you out of busy beta and into amazing alpha. So I get a lot of people coming in saying, I’m not creative, and I give them an exercise where they prove to themselves they’re far more creative than they give themselves credit for. But the biggest challenge for all of us is the more expertise, the more experience we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won’t work. So I’d like to demonstrate with you, if you’ll come back up onto screen, we’re going to demonstrate a way that I think we’re ideating today, and then we’re going to demonstrate a way that you might start ideating tomorrow. Now are you familiar with Harry Potter a little bit. So I’m going to come at you with amazing ideas for a Harry Potter birthday party. I’d like you to start each and every response with the following two words, no, because they’ll be the first two words you use. And then you’ll tell me, why not? So I was going to come to your house put a sorting hat inside the front door. All the good people get Gryffindor party. All the people get slither in?

Kris Safarova  18:42

No, because I don’t want anyone to feel bad.

Duncan Wardle  18:45

Oh, that’s a fair point. Well, then what if we had a magic potions room where we’ll have some amazing, uh, cocktails that turn us all into something totally freaky.

Kris Safarova  18:52

No, because what if some people will be allergic to something in the cocktails. Okay, right?

Duncan Wardle  18:57

What if we get them broomsticks. They can go running around your back garden, and we could have a little snitch on on drones. We could play Quidditch,

Kris Safarova  19:02

No, because I don’t want anyone to get hurt.

Duncan Wardle  19:06

Fair point, right? What if we just served butter beer and let people watch the movies?

Kris Safarova  19:10

No, because that will be boring. Okay, so we’ll stop there.

Duncan Wardle  19:14

Was our idea getting bigger or smaller as we were going? Which direction was it headed? Smaller? So let’s try it again. Are you familiar with Star Wars a little bit. Okay, so I’m going to come out use amazing party ideas for Star Wars this time around. I want you to start each and every response with the words yes and and then you’ll give me your build on my idea, and you’ll give me back an idea. So I was thinking of taking over your kitchen, painting it black, and turning into the intergalactic Food and Wine Festival with food and wine from half the boon tattooing, yes.

Kris Safarova  19:41

And let’s make sure that we have very nice music playing that compliments. Oh yes.

Duncan Wardle  19:48

Yes. And we could have John Williams, right, actually, dressed as Darth Vader, so you don’t know it’s John Williams. And we could have the LA Philharmonic all dressed as stormtroopers, and Darth Vader could conduct that orchestra with his lightsaber.

Kris Safarova  19:59

Yes. And let’s also dress up in some nice questions.

Duncan Wardle  20:03

Oh, yes. And all the tall people could come as Darfur and all the little people come dressed as Ewoks, yes.

Kris Safarova  20:07

And I think children will really like being dressed as Ewoks, yes.

Duncan Wardle  20:11

And we can put everybody on the corporate jet and fly them down to Disneyland so they can see the new Galaxy’s edge. So let’s stop there. This time around, was our idea getting bigger or smaller? This time bigger, and by the time we just finished building it together, whose idea was it? By the time we finished, it was co created ours, two very simple words from the word of improv that have a remarkable power to turn a small idea into a big one really quickly. Can always value engineer a big idea back down, but far more importantly, transfer the power of my idea, which never goes anywhere, to our idea and accelerate its opportunity to get done. I know you have responsibilities. I know you have deadlines. I know you have quality results. Just remind yourselves when somebody comes at you with an idea you’re not thinking of. We are not green lighting this idea for execution today. We are merely green housing it together using yes.

Kris Safarova  20:57

Let’s talk about four key elements of the imagination Emporium.

Duncan Wardle  21:01

Mastering your mind is all about how to teaching people how to move from busy beta, where the door is closed, and giving you permission to move into amazing Alpha. It also talks about how we learn by seeing, how we learn by doing, and how we learn by listening, which we also talked about. The energizers, as I mentioned, are just playful exercises specifically designed to make you laugh and place you metaphorically back in the shower. The creative behaviors are the being of innovation. If you don’t get the creative behaviors right, such as nurturing, which is about yes and rather than No, because such as playfulness, such as we talked earlier on about, where I am when I have my best ideas. There’s about eight or 10 different there’s empathy, there’s intuition. It’s about to how to dial those up. And then the innovation tools are how to stop you thinking where you always do and how give you permission to think differently. But they are designed to be simple, powerful and fun.

Kris Safarova  21:51

Duncan. And how do you think businesses can create that emotional connections like Disney does. You did it in your book with those characters, and you had depiction of those characters so imagination can go wild. How can businesses do that though?

Duncan Wardle  22:07

I think look one be authentic. You know, every time you see a press release, you know that their public relations team and their senior executives have edited it 3000 times to the point where nobody gives a damn by the time they read it, same with 32nd commercials, every single brand strategies has touched every single commercial, and by the time it appears on television, it’s boring. So yeah, you can be you can tick your brand strategy boxes, and then you can bore the living death out of your consumers. Or you can create something with using store. We are born storytellers. We all tell stories every day, and using empathy and intuition and those human innate qualities within all of us. I think brands need to do a better job of telling their stories. I also think brands need a purpose, and I think most brands today are just hell bent on quarterly results. Well, guess what? Here comes Generation Z and they don’t want to work for you. So how would it be relevant if this whole new generation of kids don’t want to work for you? Well, why is purpose so important? Well, I was asked to give a talk to the world’s largest manufacturer of tools, hammers, chisels and saws, about innovation and Generation Z. So I went down to Home Depot and Lowe’s, and I watched and listened to Generation Z at that decision making moment, at the moment I’m taking this home. And I went to the brand that I said, Listen, this generation didn’t mention your brand once. They didn’t mention your product or the price point. They talked about what was important to them. We’re going to remodel our dream kitchen, our dream bathroom, our dream apartment. I said, your purpose, if you choose to create one, is you could be the brand who helps people build their dreams. And you can see them laughing at me, thinking, this is stupid. How will that help me drive my quarterly results? What if you’re the brand who can help people build their dreams? Could you be an education? Yes. Sports, yes. Hospitality, yes. Finance, yes. Banking, yes. Insurance, yeah. Education, you can be in any line of business. No, no. We make tools. We’ve done it for 100 years. This is our river thinking. It’s all we know. We will build the tools. They will buy it. Yeah, okay, good luck with that. We’re printing houses in Houston, Texas today for $1,500 in five days that are fully sustainable on a 3d printer. Now you fast forward 10 years from today. Do we really think Amazon will be delivering your goods by drone, or do we think you’ll be printing your goods at home? I’m working with the world’s largest snack manufacturer on you printing your nacho chips at home. Within 12 years from today, if I can print anything I want on demand, 15 years from today, what will I use? A hammer and chisel or a saw for? No, you won’t. You’ll be in a museum, the Smithsonian Museum. I promise you, that company will be gone by 2035 because they have no purpose. They’re maniacally focused on quarter results.

Kris Safarova  24:32

If we think about your time at Disney, could you share with us the biggest innovation challenge that you face there?

Duncan Wardle  24:38

I think with the one that we talked about already, the one where we talked about, how might we solve the biggest consumer challenge, standing in line, and we use that what if tool to say, what if there were no lines? Then we said, Where in the world? Else? That’s where else tool. And we looked outside of our industry and found that pharmacy and we came up with RFID technology. I think that was probably the biggest breakthrough.

Kris Safarova  25:00

For our listeners, who many of them are senior leaders within large organizations, given everything that is happening and what you just shared with us, how world will change very, very fast, as we all know and concerned about, but also excited about, what do you think are the key skills people should focus on?

Duncan Wardle  25:19

Developing the skills that weren’t important to us for the vast majority of our careers. I’m working with Google on their DeepMind project, and I asked them how I will compete with artificial intelligence. How will any of us compete with artificial intelligence? What will be the most employable skill sets of the next five to 10 years? And the lead engineer said, the ones that will be the hardest to program into artificial intelligence, and we both agreed on what they were, imagination, creativity, intuition, empathy and curiosity. You were born with all five but then you went to school and the first thing your teacher told you to do was, don’t forget to come in between the lines. Then you were told to stop asking, Why? Because there’s only one right answer. Education is killing the most employable skill sets that are the next decade. They almost certainly were not the most employable skill sets of our entire careers, but they are now.

Kris Safarova  26:02

Powerful words. So when you are hiring, when you worked at Disney, what did you look for? Curiosity?

Duncan Wardle  26:10

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why again? So it is the number one question. A small child asks you the children. The child asks you five or six. Why is our data today only goes to the first or second. Why it’s getting better, of course, but it’s not as good as a six year old child. Well, that’s a ridiculous statement, or is it? So if I were to survey 5000 people ask you, why you go to Disney on holiday, the number one response I’ll get is, well, we go for the new attractions. Well, if I were to only rely on my data, I’d go spend two $50 million on a capital investment strategy. But if I were to pause for a moment that child like and say, Well, why do you go for new attractions? Well, no, I like the classics. Well, why do you like the classics? Well, I like it’s a small world. Why do you like it so small? I remember the music? Oh god. Why the music? Well, it’s my mom favorite. Why do we used to go every summer? Why does that portu, 25 years later, I take my daughter. Now, boom, there’s your insight for innovation. The core consumer Truth has nothing to do with the capital investment strategy whatsoever and everything to do with that person’s personal memory and nostalgia. That’s a communication campaign. But then we go to school, and our teacher tells us to stop asking why, because there’s only one right answer.

Kris Safarova  27:11

When you were writing this book that is beautifully illustrated, so much work went into it, beautiful book, what was the most challenging for you?

Duncan Wardle  27:21

Well, I’ve never written a book before, so I love to do things I’ve never done before, right? So I’ve never used a QR code. I mean, I’ve used them, but I’ve never thought I’d put them in my products. I’ve never done Spotify playlist before. I’ve never been the animated character before. I’ve never had artificial intelligence inside a book before. So it was I like to challenge myself, but at the end of the day, I wanted to make a book that was simple to use powerful tools and fun so that, because when we my task at Disney was, how might we embed a culture of innovation in creativity into everybody’s DNA? Right? Because we train our legal team, we train our marketing team, we train our sales team, we train our IT team. But when it comes to innovation and creativity, we just tell people to get in the room. They have a big idea with no training or tools whatsoever, that is a waste of time. So I wanted to create something that people choose to use when I’m not around.

Kris Safarova  28:11

Let’s talk about resisting risk. It is normal. Corporate cultures often resist risk. How can leaders foster that environment where calculated risks are embraced?

Duncan Wardle  28:21

If they don’t, they’re gone. Look, the world has changed. People. Anybody who’s doing mandatory, mandatory return to the office will watch all the good people leave. Are you kidding me? He said, Get over it. We’ve gone global, right? We’ve gone had a global pandemic. We’ve moved virtual. The world has moved on. Do not ask us to come back to 1964 so it’s so 2005 to 2020 Ebola, bird flu, age one in one, SARS and COVID. Think we’re not having another one five years from now. You’re nuts. Of course, we are. Don’t be frightened of AI. They gave us an algorithm and a new vaccine in six months. They used to take 10 years, but after three or four of those, they were reaching at the time, I sat in the room and used the what if tool from my book. And I said, What if one of these goes global? What if we had to close our theme parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo? What if you had to dock our ships? What if nobody went to the movie theaters for a month? And I turned it around, said, what if we went to the consumer hands up. Who has Disney plus at home today? Thank you. By simply turning the challenge on its head, so I think, look, the world’s moved up Hollywood. Hollywood doesn’t take us. I went to the movies in 19 60x I went last week. Guess what? Oh, nothing’s changed. So Hollywood said a year ago, AI is not coming. We’re going to go on strike. Oh, yeah, good luck with that. Well, the coal miners went on strike in 1973 How’d that work out for them? AI is here. People embrace it. Number one barrier to innovation and creativity is I don’t have time to think. What do you think AI is about to give you? It’s going to do you all the mundane stuff. It’s going to give us time to think. So, you know, let’s say, Oh, I don’t know how much money was lost on Indiana Jones, but I know it was a lot. So option A you can go to another script writer and say, good luck. But perhaps Wall Street would suggest that you don’t do that. But. Actually could go to chat GPT today and say, write me a new movie based on a character called Indiana Jones. Needs to be set in Berlin in 1932 we need to stop Hitler from becoming Chancellor, and I want you to build the script, the storyline and the character development on the algorithms of the top performing shows in the action adventure category of the last 12 months. That’s a three minute assignment for chat GPT. Is it good enough today? No, it is not. Will it be three good enough in less than three to five years? Hell yes, it will. Tom Cruise. No offense Tom. I don’t need Tom Cruise anymore. His name is Peter Smith or Sally Struthers. I don’t care. They don’t exist. They speak 37 different languages. In fact, they speak every language on the planet. They don’t age. They don’t go the bathroom break, and I don’t have to pay them, and they exist today. The number four selling k pop band in the world does not exist today. So and then you think about where augmented reality is going to take us. Augmented reality is turning products into experiences. 19 crimes, the fastest growing red wine in the United States America. The number one selling why the wine is not that good. But if you ask people, What did they buy? They won’t say the wine. They say they bought the experience, because you could hold your phone up to the label. Somebody comes popping out the label in the middle of the supermarket starts talking to you. Well, so now multiply that. So I’m working with a let’s just call them a very famous baseball team that also owns a very famous football, what you would call soccer team in the United Kingdom. And they both house, you know, 50,000 people in their stadiums, but they’ve got 10s of millions of fans. Of millions of fans around the world. Now, Apple vision pro today too expensive and too big, but give it another five years, there’ll be normal glasses. Now suddenly, Bobby, sitting in Cairo, can pay $1 to sit on the back of a stadium, $5 to sit on the halfway line, and $10 and he’ll sit in the dugout. I have sat in the dugout of a baseball game live, of a very famous baseball team. I sat between the players, but no wait, I was in the Apple store in London, and so it’s you can deny you say artificial intelligence isn’t coming or mental reality, yeah. Okay, good luck with that. And so I think we must now innovate in iterating for quarterly results is not going to see you survive in a post pandemic world.

Kris Safarova  32:01

Why do you think there’s so much fuzziness around the definitions of creativity and innovation? How do you define them? Very crystal clear.

Duncan Wardle  32:08

Creativity is the ability to have an idea. We all do that every single day. Innovation is the ability to get it done. And that’s why, because that’s the hard part, and that’s why the book is mainly focused on the tools to help you get the work done.

Kris Safarova  32:22

You earlier spoke about the river of thinking. You talk about it in the book, of course. Could you elaborate on strategies that can help leaders escape their habitual ways of problem solving?

Duncan Wardle  32:33

Yep, they’re all in the book. So what if is about listing the rules of your industry or the rules of your Chinese the one I referred to earlier on with Walt Disney picking one rule, asking, What if that rule no longer applied? There was a very The next one is, where else? How might I by looking outside of my industry and asking, Who else has already solved the challenge I’ve been just tasked with, when that came up with Disney’s Magic Band, or reframing the challenge, car wash, auto spa, just getting me out of my river, thinking. And then so there’s where else? What if? How else? Oh, who else? Who, by not thinking like you, might help you think differently. I call them the naive experts. They are somebody who perhaps does not work in your industry, or at least in your line of business. Why are they in the meeting? Because, not because they can solve the challenge for you. That will be an unrealistic objective, but they’re there to ask the silly question that you and your colleagues are embarrassed to ask in front of your team, because you’re supposed to know the answer. They can also shout, shout out audacious ideas ungoverned by your river thinking again. They won’t necessarily solve the challenge for you, but they will stop you thinking the way you always do, and give you permission to think differently.

Kris Safarova  33:37

Time, risk aversion, product attachment were not as major innovation roadblocks. We spoke about some of them today, or which of this is most critical to address first, and how I think.

Duncan Wardle  33:48

What I hear back from people is, when I run surveys, etc, the biggest barrier they say is I don’t have time to think. I actually think that’s not true. I think it is your river of thinking, your own expertise, your own experience. That’s why I’ve created those tools to get you out. However, on this message that I don’t have time to think, there’s a very famous expression in Britain called there’s no time like the present, I would reverse that and say there’s no present like the time. Give yourselves and your teams the gift of time to think, how might we do that? What if you took one hour a month from nine till 10am first Friday of every month. Be consistent if it’s going to be 90 or 10, keep it there. If it’s the first Friday, keep it there. And invite your teams in, real or virtual and just no PowerPoint presentations. No. Why is it good for the business? Ask them to come in and talk about something they’ve seen in their business life, or ideally, their personal life they thought that was innovative or creative. You’ll be amazed at the amount of new ideas you drive into the business.

Kris Safarova  34:41

Are there specific so to say success habits you use in your day to day that allow you to be such an effective freshness?

Duncan Wardle  34:49

I call it invigorate. So let me ask you a question. Hands up if you’ve ever gone to your favorite restaurant, your favorite cafe, and you read the menu, the appetizers, the main. Courses, you listen to the specials and then you order the same thing every single time. All right, hands up, if you get in and sleep on the same side of the bed every night, I know you do, even when you’re staying in hotel room by yourself. Yeah, of course you do. Have you ever commuted home and you get home from your commute and you look at the front door of your apartment or your house, and you just think, oh, man, how did I get here? Yes, that happens. Yeah. So here’s what happened on the way home, because you went past the same stimulus, day in, day out, day in, day out, your brain physically shut down and didn’t wake up till you got home. No fresh stimulus in, no new ideas out. So different companies do it different ways. Hasbro gives their employees $5 a quarter to put something on the table. Can’t be a toy. Microsoft has think weeks, no meetings, no emails, no presentations. Google has their 20% time for their engineers, 20% of their day time to think. Pixar does not sit by department. They sit by this philosophy created by Steve Jobs called unplanned collaboration, specifically designed to bring two people together who weren’t supposed to meet, have a conversation they weren’t supposed to have to spark a new idea. It’s about getting fresh stimulus into our lives.

Kris Safarova  36:03

Duncan. Thank you so much. I could talk to you all day. I really appreciate you being here. Where can our listeners learn more about you by your book?

Duncan Wardle  36:10

Sure, normally find me at a pub in Scotland, but when I’m not there, they can find me at duncanwardle.com or if they’re interested in the book, the theimaginationemporium.com.

Kris Safarova  36:21

Our guest today, again has been Duncan Wardle. Check out Duncan’s book. It’s called The Imagination Emporium, and our podcast sponsor today is strategytraining.com. If you want to strengthen your strategy skills, you can get the overall approach used in well-managed strategy studies. It’s a free download, and you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash overall approach. And you can also get McKinsey and BCG winning resume, which is a resume that got offers from both of those firms. And you can get it at firmsconsulting.com forward slash resume PDF. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to connect with you all next time.