1017: How to Reclaim Your Creativity and Unlock Innovation with Duncan Wardle

Pete Mockaitis
Duncan, welcome.

Duncan Wardle
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I am so excited to talk creativity and The Imagination Emporium. And, first, I’d love it if you could kick us off, no pressure, but I’d love to hear a super riveting high-stakes story that’s also instructive and behind the scenes related to a Disney classic masterpiece that we’re all familiar with. Just no problem.

Duncan Wardle
Any particular masterpiece you had in mind?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy, it’s not hard enough. Let’s make it more specific. I’ll keep it open. I’ll keep it open. I mean, I’m thinking my kids love Moana, but we can go anywhere you think there’s a juicy story.

Duncan Wardle
So, I started, I finished as Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney. Didn’t start that way. I started as the coffee boy in the London office. I used to go and get my boss six cappuccinos a day from Bar Italia on Frith Street. And about three weeks into the role, I was told I would be the character coordinator, that’s the person who looks after the walkaround characters, at the Royal Premiere, for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” in the presence of the Princess of Wales, Diana.

I was like, “Ooh, what do I do?” They said, “Well, you stand at the bottom of the stairs, the Princess will come in along the receiving line, Roger Rabbit will come down the staircase, the Princess will greet Roger, she’ll move into the auditorium.” How could you possibly screw that up? Well, that’s the day when I found out what a contingency plan was, because I didn’t have one.

But a contingency plan would tell you, if we were going to bring a very tall rabbit with very long feet down a giant staircase towards the Princess of Wales, one might want to measure the width of the steps before the rabbit clips on the top step and is now hurtling like a bullet, head over feet at torpedo speed directly down the stairs towards Diana’s head. Whereupon he was taken out by two Royal Protection officers who just flattened him.

There’s a very famous picture on Reuters of Roger going back to the air like this, two secret service heavies diving towards him, and a 21-year-old PR guy from Disney about going, “Oh, shit. I’m fired.” So, I thought, “You know, there’s no point going to work tomorrow.” So, I got a call from somebody called a CMO. I didn’t even know what that was at the time. I thought, “Oh, he’s going to tell me I’m fired. He goes, “That was great publicity.” I said, “Who knew? I could make a career out of this.”

And so, for the next 20 or 30 years, to be precise, I got to have some of the more mad, audacious, outrageous ideas for Disney, Pixar, LucasFilms, etc. and I was like a kid in a candy store. I always liked the ideas that I had no idea how to pull them off. When I sent my son’s Buzz Lightyear into space, I had to convince NASA to take Buzz Lightyear into space. He’s the world’s longest serving astronaut on the International Space Station.

I built a swimming pool, a full-size Olympic swimming pool down Main Street, USA for Michael Phelps to swim down. I really only ever liked the ideas that I had no idea how I was going to pull them off once they were approved.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that sounds like a ton of fun. I’m just taking it all in. Wow! So, basically, you had nothing to do with the tripping, and had you thought of it, you would have prevented it, and you would not have had this beautiful serendipitous pathway of fun, creative goodness, unfold for you.

Duncan Wardle
So, basically for 20 years, I got to do the more mad, audacious, outrageous ideas, and about, oh, God, 2009, 2010, I got a call from the boss who said, “Listen, you’re the guy with all the mad ideas who seems to get them done inside a very large organization, you’re going to be in charge of innovation and creativity,” to which my response was, “Well, what the hell is that?” He said, “Well, I don’t know. We just want to embed a culture of innovation and creativity into everybody’s DNA.” I said, “Okay.”

So, I tried three or four models, I hired outside consultants, we did accelerator programs, we created innovation team. But what we failed in, actually, our overall goal, which was “How might we embed a culture of innovation and creativity into everybody’s DNA?” So, I set out to create a toolkit, one that has three principles: takes the BS out of innovation and makes it more accessible to normal hard-working people; makes creativity tangible for a 50% of us who are uncomfortable with ambiguity and grey; but far more important, make it fun, give people tools they’ll choose to use when the boss isn’t around. That’s when you know you’re changing a culture.

And we ended up having, I think it was like a three-year waitlist for what was a two-day voluntary training course. So, we must be doing something right.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. Well, I’m intrigued then, with all this study and practice and teaching and experiencing in the zones of creativity and imagination and innovation, is there a key surprising discovery you’ve made about us humans when we’re trying to do this stuff?

Duncan Wardle
Yes. Close your eyes. Where are you usually and what are you doing when you get your best ideas?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m often in bed or in the shower.

Duncan Wardle
Okay, there we go, so we’ll go with those. So, you can open your eyes. I’ve done this with up to 50, now 20,000 people in the audience, and used either here, in bed, in the shower, jogging, running, commuting, playing with the children, out walking, and nobody ever says at work. Not one person. Well, that’s a bummer, isn’t it, because we’re paid to have our big ideas at work.

So, close your eyes again. Picture that last verbal argument you were in with somebody. A bit of a shouting match. Your voices are raised. You’re angry. You turn to walk away from that argument. Now you’re five seconds away. You’re 10 seconds, you’re 20 seconds away from the argument. And what just spontaneously pops into your head the second you turned to walk away from that argument? What was it?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, a smarter thing that I should’ve said.

Duncan Wardle
Yeah, the killer one-liner, the one perfect, beautiful comeback you wish you’d used during the argument but you didn’t, did you? No. Why? Because when we’re in an argument, our brain is moving at a thousand miles an hour. defending ourselves, and when we’re in the office, it’s the same for meetings, emails, presentations, and I hear myself say, “I don’t have time to think.” But the split second you gave yourself time to think, came up with a killer one-liner, came up with a big idea.

But we don’t give ourselves time to think. And how do you get there? By being playful. Why is that important? Because when you are in the argument or at work you, and you hear yourself say, “I don’t have time to think,” you’re in the brain state called beta, where you only have access to your conscious brain. Well, that’s only 13% of your brain; 87% of your brain is subconscious. Every meeting you’ve ever been, every creative problem you’ve ever solved, every innovation you’ve ever seen, it’s back here. It’s unrelated stimulus but you don’t have access to it.

How do I get access to it? By being playful. What do I do? Sixty-second exercises deliberately designed 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. When you ask, Pete, I often hear people say, you know, you ask, “What’s the barriers to being more innovative and creative where you work?” People say, “We don’t have the resources, you know.” “Oh, okay. All right. Well, who are the most creative people you’ve ever met?” “Children.” “How much money they got?” “None.”

There is a correlation there. The challenge is this. I believe that the most employable skillsets of the next decade are being killed through Western education. Why do I believe this? Because I was doing some work recently with Google on their DeepMind project, and I asked the engineer, that’s their artificial intelligence program, what she believes will be the most employable skillsets in the next decade. And she said the ones that would be the hardest for her to program, and we agreed on what they were. The ones that which we were born with.

We were all born creative. We were all born with amazing imagination. We’re all born with empathy and intuition, but then we go to school, and the first thing our teacher tells us to do is “Don’t forget to color in between the lines. Well, stop asking why because there’s only one right answer.” So, by the time we’re 18, we identify as not creative and we’re not curious anymore. And yet with AI coming into the marketplace, these will be some of the most employable skillsets for the next decade.

So, I am on a mission. I believe everybody is creative. I don’t believe it’s just some people. I define creativity as the ability to have an idea, and I define innovation as the ability to get it done. That’s the hard part. But here’s the thing, we train our lawyers, train the IT team, train marketing, train sales, but when it comes to innovation, we just tell people to get in a room and have a big idea with no training, no equipment. So, I thought, “Right. I’m going to create a toolkit.”

So, let me ask you a question, actually, before I describe the toolkit. When you’re in your office, or anybody else’s office, for that matter, and you see a business book, where, physically, where is that business book? Where is it in the office?

Pete Mockaitis
On a bookshelf.

Duncan Wardle
Yeah, bingo. Do you ever read it? “No, I’m too busy. My boss needs this by three o’clock. I’ve got a weekly report to do, so I don’t read the books.” I thought, “Okay, what nonfiction book have I ever read, where I could only read one page, don’t have to read the whole book, but I get exactly what I want?” A cookbook. You want Shepherd’s pie? Go to page 67. And so, I’ve designed the book exactly the same way.

So, there’s a contents page for the left-hand side of the brain, and there’s a contents page for the right-hand side of the brain, and it says, “Have you ever been to a brainstorm where nothing ever happened? Go to page 67.” “Fed up with your boss shooting your ideas down? Go to page 12.” “Don’t know how to find an insight for innovation? Go to page 47.” So, I’m trying to make it accessible for people, and then I want it to really make it tangible and fun.

Because the more expertise, the more experience we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won’t work, so we constantly shoot it down. And I call it our river of thinking. And, basically, in the last four years, we don’t get to think the way we thought four years ago. We’ve got climate change, we got artificial intelligence coming into the marketplace, we’ve got Generation Z that doesn’t want to work for us, and we’ve got global pandemics, so we don’t get to think the same way we always have. So, I want to give people a set of tools that stop you thinking the way you always do and give you permission to think differently.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, it’s a lot of goodness to dig into. We’ve got the creative side, getting ideas, and the innovation side, the hard part, making them happen. So, let’s talk about each of these in succession. On the creative side, you said you want to get us into a playful zone, and you’ve got some 60-second exercises that make us laugh. I would love to be able to laugh within 60 seconds regularly, just in general, as a life skill for joy and happiness. So, how do I pull that off?

Duncan Wardle
Well, let me see. Experts, okay. I’m going to give you an occupation. You’ve worked in this occupation for the last 25 years. Therefore, you are the world’s leading guru on this particular topic. I will play the role of a news reporter and I’ll interview you about how you get your job done. So, Pete, for the last 25 years, you are the world’s leading guru as a designer of parachutes for elephants. I will now interview you about your job.

So, Pete, I’m just curious, is there a difference in how you design the parachute for an Indian elephant versus an African elephant, given that their ears are totally different sizes?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure thing. Given the aerodynamic qualities of the ear, we make sure that the shape of the parachute can accommodate them effectively and slow things down just right, compensated for the fact that we’re getting some ear help along the way.

Duncan Wardle
And the airplane, do they go up to 30,000 feet? Or, do they go up to a thousand feet? Do they have to go to a higher altitude because of the weight of the elephants versus a human?

Pete Mockaitis
No, same height works just fine.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. And are the elephants, the Indian elephants more intimidated than the African elephants? Is one more bold and loves throwing themselves out of planes? Or is it sort of a joint fear factor?

Pete Mockaitis
They both hate it.

Duncan Wardle
And how did you get into this line of business in the first place, I’m curious?

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I met this charming podcast guest and he inspired a whole career journey.

Duncan Wardle
All right. Well, thank you very much. So, I walk into a room and ask people, “Hands up if you think you’re creative,” and less than 3% of the audience will put their hand up. And then I’ll give them this exercise, and you just hear a huge laughter, and they realize that they’re far more creative than they thought they were. And I think that’s important.

The other one that I do, because I think it’s really impactful, is this one. So, you and I are going to brainstorm an idea for a birthday party. We’ve got $100,000 in the budget. And so, would you like it to be a Star Wars party or a Harry Potter party? What would you like?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s funny, I can’t help but going meta, so we only have two choices, huh?

Duncan Wardle
Well, we’ll pick a theme. What do you want?

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking Superheroes, broadly speaking.

Duncan Wardle
Okay, superheroes. We’ll go superheroes. So, I’m going to come at you with some ideas for a superhero party. I want each and every response, every time you respond, I want the first two words out of your mouth, if you would, to be “No, because” and then you’ll tell me why we shouldn’t be doing that idea. So, I was thinking, right, we’ll get all the superheroes together. We’ll get the DC heroes, we’ll get the Marvel heroes, and we’ll even put Disney characters in there with capes and masks.

Pete Mockaitis
No, because we don’t have the intellectual property rights to do DC. This is Marvel country.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. All right. Okay, I’ll tell you what then, we’ll just do a cosplay party using all the…wait, no. Actually, superheroes, we could do a crossover party between Star Wars and Marvel, and all the tall people could come as like Darth Vader, and all the little people can come as Ewoks.

Pete Mockaitis
No, because that’s offensive to people who suffer from disabilities.

Duncan Wardle
No, a fair point. So, what if we do a Guardians of the Galaxy party because that’s got superheroes from all different, a very diverse background, and we just show the movies back-to-back-to-back, and we’ll have a playlist where we can actually all set ourselves back into, oh, LP 1970s. We’ll look good in the ‘70s.

Pete Mockaitis
No, I want people to really connect and engage with each other as opposed to seated and watching films.

Duncan Wardle
Oh, well, okay. So, we’ll stop there. So, let me ask you a question. When you’re throwing out ideas and somebody’s constantly “No, because-ing” you, how does that make you feel?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s really deflating. It’s just like, “Oh, no, no.” I was like, “I regret starting this conversation. Hmm.”

Duncan Wardle
And do you think our idea, where we were going there, do you think we were heading in a much bigger direction or were we getting smaller? Which direction were we heading?

Pete Mockaitis
Smaller.

Duncan Wardle
So, let’s try it again. Pick another theme.

Pete Mockaitis
Another party theme?

Duncan Wardle
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, sure thing. Let’s go with the ‘90s.

Duncan Wardle
The ‘90s, okay. Man, what do I remember about the ‘90s? Not much, but that’s okay. Who cares? So, I’m going to come at you with some ideas for a ‘90s party. Unlike our colleague, the other Pete, who started with the words “No, because,” I’d like you to start with the words “Yes, and” in each response, and we’ll just kind of build it together.

So, I was thinking we could, oh, yeah, a David Hasselhoff lookalike party. It’d be great.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and we’ll have cars that are like KITT.

Duncan Wardle
Ooh, yes, and we could have Transformers and the cars could actually turn themselves into Transformers, and everyone gets to take one home, and it could be sponsored by Ferrari.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and we’ll have ChatGPT in the cars so they could actually talk back and forth to us.

Duncan Wardle
Ooh, yes, and we’ll have ChatGPT in all different languages around the world. And then we’ll bring in holograms of ABBA from the ABBA Live Show in London. And then we could actually all be holograms, so we’re not actually in the party at all, but that we are.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, and we’ll have 3D headsets to make it a more immersive experience for the people who are there remotely.

Duncan Wardle
Oh, yes, Apple Vision Pro, so people could actually join us from around the world. So, we’ll stop there. So, a lot more laughter, a lot more energy. This time around, if you were to describe that exercise in one word, what one word would you choose?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun.

Duncan Wardle
Fun. By the way, why shouldn’t work be fun? This time around, bigger or smaller?

Pete Mockaitis
Bigger.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. Far more importantly, when we work inside big companies, we’ve got bosses and colleagues and constituents to bring on board with our ideas. When we just finished building that idea together, whose idea was it by the time we finished?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s a team. It’s both of ours.

Duncan Wardle
It’s ours. So, just using “Yes, and” has amazing powers to turn a small idea into a big one really, really quickly, but far more importantly, allows us to transfer the power from my idea, which we know never goes anywhere inside a large organization, to our idea and accelerate its opportunity to get done. But the more experience, the more expertise we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won’t work.

So, we start, “No, because we tried that last year,” “No, because that won’t hit our KPIs,” “No, because that’s not the way we do it here.” Just remind yourselves and the colleagues who tend to start with the words “No, because,” “Look, we’re not green lighting this project for execution today. We’re merely just greenhousing it together using yes and.” You can change your culture overnight with “Yes, and.”

Pete Mockaitis
Greenhousing, that’s fun. And even just imagining a greenhouse puts you in a good mood, with the water mists and the sunshine and the plants and the flowers.

Duncan Wardle
Actually, whilst I’ve got you, I’m going to grab a pen and a piece of paper. Have you got one? I know I should have probably mentioned that in advance. I want to talk about the power of diversity in innovation, because everybody talks diversity and then nobody does anything about it. So, I want to prove to people how diversity drives innovation.

We’ve been designing a new retail dining and entertainment complex for the Hong Kong Disney Resort, in the room that day were, the Disney Imagineering team, a team you would expect to be there, but on that particular day, I was faced with 12 white male American engineers, all over 50. That’s called groupthink.

So, I invited in a naive expert. Well, what’s a naive expert? A naive expert is there because they don’t work in the industry in which you work. Well, how can they help you solve the challenge? Well, they can’t but that’s not why they’re there. They’re there because they will say or do something to stop you thinking the way you always do and give you permission to think differently.

So, I brought in a young chef from China, a female. Why? She wasn’t male, she was female. She wasn’t American, she was Chinese. She wasn’t over 50, she was under 20. And far more importantly, she wasn’t an architect or an engineer, she was a chef, and I knew she would say or do something to get us out of our river of thinking and thinking differently.

So, I gave them the same challenge that I should give you now, pen and paper. I’m going to name an object. You have seven seconds to draw it, and then I want you to hold it up. Are you ready?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. Please, would you draw a house? Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Share your genius, if you would, please. Let’s take a look. Let’s take a look. And, ooh, can’t see, it’s fading in and out there a bit. Okay, so hands up if you drew one door.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, one door, yep.

Duncan Wardle
How many windows?

Pete Mockaitis
I have one window, but I ran out of time. I would have had two.

Duncan Wardle
Did you draw bars over the windows?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. And what shape is the roof?

Pete Mockaitis
A triangle.

Duncan Wardle
Shocker. So, all of the Disney Imagineers drew exactly what you did because they were constrained by their river of thinking. But the young female Chinese chef, she drew, hang on let’s just see if I can’t sketch this in 10 seconds, she drew a dim sum house with some dim sum on the top of it, a chimney. And so, it never occurred to her to draw the house the same way we would because she wasn’t stuck in our river of thinking.

And on the way out the door, a Disney Imagineer slapped a Post-it note over her dim sum house, and said, “Distinctly Disney. Authentically Chinese.” Seven years later, the strategic brand position that guided the entire design of the Shanghai Disney Resort, “Distinctly Disney. Authentically Chinese.” The point is this, diversity is innovation.

If somebody doesn’t look like you, they don’t think like you. And if they don’t think like you, they can help you think differently. And so, the next time you have a leadership meeting, the one person that you could do within that meeting room is not a leader, “Oh, we can’t do that.” Well, why not? Have some young 25-year-old superstar in the meeting. They’re not there to solve the challenge for you. That’s not why they’re there. They are there to challenge the way you think and to help you think differently.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Duncan, I’m loving this so much. And this reminds me when I was consulting at Bain, we had a giant department store client and I was new to the case, I was naïve. And the partner was talking about size packs, which is something I was not familiar with, but, apparently, there are garments that are sent to department stores, at least at that time, that you don’t get. You don’t say to the supplier, “I want three smalls, five mediums, ten larges.” No, you buy different size packs which have a certain preset number in there.

And I said, “Why do we have size packs? Like, aren’t we a big deal retailer who could ask for and receive from our suppliers the exact sizes that we wanted, and they would need to play ball, and would nicely meet the inventory needs and demands of how many different people of different sizes are in different stores?”

And it was funny because the partner looked at me, he’s like, “Are you kidding?” He genuinely was not sure. He wasn’t trying to be offensive or dismissive, but he was not sure if I was joking about the size pack question, because size packs are just part and parcel with what he’s been dealing with and thinking about, an industry norm forever. And so, so for me to say this is just, like, shocking.

And I don’t know, it may or may not be a wise idea with logistical efficiencies to have size packs in department stores. But I think that just by shaking it up, we are at least able to consider some new ideas and the implications of, “What if we didn’t have size packs? Maybe smaller players could work with us and we could have more fresh interesting offers in our stores. Hmm.”

Duncan Wardle
“What if” is a great tool. It was designed by Walt Disney for Fantasia. He was very frustrated that he couldn’t pump mist into the theatre or heat into the theatre during the movie. So, the theatre owners, so step one, you list the rules of your challenge. Do not think about them. If you start thinking about them, you’ll think of all the reasons you can’t break them.

So, Walt simply listed down the rules of going to a movie theatre, “I must sit down. It is dark. I must go at a set time. I can’t take in my food and beverage. I must pay to get in. I can’t control the environment.” Just list the rules. Don’t think about them. Then pick one and ask the most audacious, provocative, outrageous “What if.”

So, Walt chose the environment, he said, “Well, what if I could control the environment?” Well, he couldn’t, he didn’t own the movie theatres. Besides, that wasn’t provocative enough. So, he said, “Well, okay, if I can’t control the environment, what if I may take my movies out of the theatre?” If you know how to do it, you’re iterating. If it scares you, you’re innovating.

So, somebody said, “Well, how are you going to do that, Walt? They’ll be two-dimensional, they’ll fall over. People won’t be able to see them.” “Well, what if I made them three-dimensional?” “Well, how are you going to do that, Walt?” “Well, what if I just put people in costumes like in princesses and cowboys and pirates?” “Yeah, but, Walt, you can’t have Cinderella standing next to Jack Sparrow. People wouldn’t be immersed in her story.”

“Hey, what if I put each of them in a different themed land?” Boom, it’s called Disneyland, and that’s how he came up with the idea.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Duncan Wardle
So, let me ask you a question. Did you used to go to Blockbuster Video?

Pete Mockaitis
I did.

Duncan Wardle
Did you used to pay late fees?

Pete Mockaitis
Not much, because I was broke, and I really tried to be on time.

Duncan Wardle
Well, you were one of these people who took them back on time? Wow, okay. Well, clearly, you didn’t. Okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, but, occasionally, I did.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. So, Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, very fed up of paying late fees, walked into a Blockbuster Video, sat down, observed the process for a day, and wrote down the rules. “I must drive to a physical store. I must go during opening hours. They have a very limited stock. I can only take out three at a time. I must return it. I must rewind it. And if I take it back later, I must pay a late fee.” Listed the rules.

So, he took one in 2005, he took store, he said, “Well, what if there was no physical store?” What a stupid idea in 2005, or was it? YouTube was already seven months old. YouTube was only streaming professional content. So, he said, “Well, hang on a minute. What if I just did a deal with a major movie studio? I’ll stream professional content. Huh. Nobody would have to drive to a physical store. I’ll be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Everybody gets the one they want. I’ll have unlimited stock. Nobody would have to return it or rewind it. I’ll cut the rental off at 24 hours. Nobody pays a late fee. I’ll call it Netflix. I’ll take my ideas to Blockbuster five times. They’ll turn me down five times. I’ll take them out of business in less than five years.”

Now, a lot of your listeners are going to be sitting there saying, “Oh, but we don’t have the resources.” Uh-uh, that’s not fair. This tool works for everybody. There was a very small company in Great Britain in the late ‘60s. They used to make glasses that we drink out of, and they found too much breakage and not enough production as the glasses were being packaged and shipped.

So, they went down to the shop floor and they watched the production, and they broke down the rules. “Twenty-six employees convey about 12 glasses to a box, six on the top, six on the bottom. Glasses separated by corrugated cardboard. Glasses wrapped individually in newspaper. Employees were reading the newspaper.”

So, somebody took that one and said, “What if we poke their eyes out?” Well, that’s against the law and it’s not very nice. But because they had the courage to ask the most provocative what-if question of all, the lady sitting next to him immediately said, “Well, wait a minute, what if we just hire blind people?” So, they did. Production up 26%, breakage down 42%, and the British government gave him a 50% salary subsidy for hiring people with disabilities.

So, list the rules of your challenge. Don’t think about them, just list them. Pick one and ask the most audacious what-if question. You’ll be amazed how it gets you out of your river of thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. All right, Duncan, so we’ve hit a few guidelines for the creative, getting ideas part of things. Now let’s talk about innovation, implementing them. It’s funny, sometimes I think I have so much curiosity and love playing in the world of ideas and brainstorming and imagining and what-if and how might this work, that it’s actually a little bit tricky for me, personally, at times to hunker down. It’s like, “Okay, let’s do the things to get this going.”

Duncan Wardle
Yeah, very true. Analysis paralysis. Welcome to corporate America. So, let’s say, hang on, I’m just drawing something out here. Strategic brand fit, consumer truth, bucket load of money. Can we get it in the marketplace in the next 18 to 24 months? And is it socially engaging? I just made that up. So, this is called Stargazer. It looks like a starfish, right? And so, as you’re evaluating, let’s say, to your point, we’ve got 47 ideas up on the wall. Well, how do you know which is the right one for the consumer, for the business, etc.?

Well, so I’ve just created this and people can create their own criteria but, let’s say for today, criteria number one, “Is this embedded in our strategic brand fit? Is this aligned with what we stand for as a company? Is this embedded in consumer truth? Is the product or service relevant to the target market we want to go after? Can we actually get this into the marketplace in the next 18 to 24 months? Is it socially engaging? Will it get everybody sharing it on social media? And will it make us a bucket load of money? Obviously, you’ll have a fiscal goal.

And what you do is – I don’t have colors with me today – but you just go around each of the little criteria has three little marks on it. Does it do a poor job of meeting this criteria, a good job of meeting the criteria, or does it knock it out of the park? And all you do is you go around, let’s say it’s now idea number 13, and I’m just going to score it here on the notepad, and then I’m going to join, literally just like we were when we were kids, I’m going to join the dots.

There’s idea number 13, so it’s not really aligned with our brand, not really embedded in consumer truth but, yeah, we can get it in the market in the next 18 to 24 months, yes, it’s very socially engaging and we think it’ll make us a bucket load of money. And so, then you go around with idea number 47, I’m making it up, and you do exactly the same exercise. And very quickly, one idea rises to the top as to meeting your criteria the best, not the idea you like the most. And that’s the problem.

Ideas are very subjective, and this tool allows you, very quickly, to make an objective decision. When we were doing an event for Disneyland Paris, the CMO at the time decided it would be a really good idea to do a cowboy festival for the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris. Well, if you look at consumer truth, our average consumer was a mum with toddlers who was aged 32.

And when he got to that criteria, he realized that mums didn’t know how to spell the word cowboy, let alone knew what they looked like, so he himself had to kill his own idea. So, again, make the tools simple, make them powerful, make them fun, and people will use them.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, there, it seems like a lot of that you can do just right there, moments after you have your ideas, and other pieces, you might really need to do some extra research and to figure out, “Well, will consumers love it and share it? Well, I don’t know. I guess we’ve got to go talk to them.”

Duncan Wardle
Well, bingo, see, focus groups. We’ve stopped doing focus groups. It’s in a meeting room with no windows and no doors, and the consumer knows you’re on the other side of the window, and so it’s not a very relaxed environment for getting true insights for innovation. And our market segmentation teams tell us, “Well, we need to get in 14 different individuals.” No! Individuals don’t tell the truth.

If you ask a bloke, “Hey, what do you do when you go to Disney?” “Oh, I’m a manly man. I ride the thrill rides.” But if he’s sitting next to his husband or his wife and they go, “No, no, dear, actually, you did Small World 17 times about last year. You really loved it,” you get insights out of couples that you don’t get out of individuals. And the real insight comes from looking where your competition isn’t looking. It’s in their living rooms.

When was the last time anybody listening to this podcast actually spent a day in the living room of one of your consumers? So, we were tasked by Disneyland Paris to get more people to come more often, spend more money. The classic. Data told us who could afford the brand, who had an affinity to the brand, who’d been shopping online, who’s a 10 out of 10 every year around coming this year. Well, they hadn’t come, so my intuition told me these people were liars or procrastinators. Let’s go find out.

So, we went to go. And our going, in hypotheses, was the classic “If we build it, they will come.” Why? Well, because that’s the way we’ve always done it. We just build a new attraction, people will come. Our data tells us that. So, we went off to live with a consumer for a day, each of us. Now, I’m curious, do you have children, by any chance?

Pete Mockaitis
I do, yes. Three.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. Could you close your eyes for me, if you would? And I want you to picture a favorite photograph of your children, the one that you can already see in your mind’s eye, because you can see it. It’s a physical one. It’s somewhere in your house or your apartment. Tell me which room is that one in that you can see right now?

Pete Mockaitis
Where is the photo? It’s taken in the backyard.

Duncan Wardle
So, the picture was taken in your backyard. And can you describe the photograph to us?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure, yeah. We’re wearing white shirts, and we’re in the backyard and looking happy.

Duncan Wardle
And who’s the we part?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, the whole family.

Duncan Wardle
Oh, and can we name them or is that…?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Myself, Katie, Johnny, Mary, Joey.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. And which ones are the children?

Pete Mockaitis
Johnny, Mary, and Joey.

Duncan Wardle
And how old were they the day that photograph was taken?

Pete Mockaitis
About five, four, and a half, years old.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. And how old are they today?

Pete Mockaitis
They are now approaching seven, six and two.

Duncan Wardle
So, that photograph is, give or take, three years old. Give or take.

Pete Mockaitis
In the ballpark, yeah.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. All right. So, you can open your eyes. And here’s what we found in each of the houses we went into, I saw this photograph above the mantelpiece, and I asked the mum, I said, “Oh, how old are your children, love? Four or five?” She goes, “No, love, 14 or 15.” I said, “Oh, okay. Well, write it down. It’s one individual observation. It doesn’t mean anything.”

When we got back together, we all had the same insight. When we asked the mum how old the children were in reality versus the photograph in her living room, they were anywhere from three years older to 25 years older. Well, does that mean we don’t print photographs of our children anymore? Yeah, of course, we do. Graduations, promotions, etc. And so, why did you pick one that was three years old?

Actually, let me just try another one because your children are quite young. So, close your eyes again. Picture your parents’ house and that really dorky photograph of you from 15 or 20, 25 years ago, where you looked like a complete dickhead. Tell me which room is that photograph in?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s in a downstairs bedroom.

Duncan Wardle
Bingo. So, it’s still there, isn’t it?

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hmm.

Duncan Wardle
You wish they burned it 25 years ago, but it’s still there. Right, so you can open your eyes. So, I was like, “Why is the photograph still…why do all the mums have photographs of their children from 20 to 25 years ago? Why don’t they have more recent ones? Why did she pick that one?” And so, we dug a bit deeper, asking why, why, why, why, why, because the insight for innovation comes on the fourth or fifth why, not the first way. And, by the way, our data only goes to the first why today.

And each of the mums told me about three moments in time, I label them bittersweet transitions, that take place between a parent and a child through which you must cross. And, Pete, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to break your heart now because you haven’t gone through any of these but you will. I remember where I was when my son was 10 years of age, he came around the corner, Christmas Eve, and his eyes were half full of tears, he says, “Papa,” I said, “Why?” He goes, “Are you Santa Claus?” Boom. Imagination, gone. Spider-man, history.

But what hurt was so much was behind what he had said, was, “I’m not your little boy anymore, Daddy. I’m grown up.” Now, do you have a daughter, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Duncan Wardle
Okay. How old is she?

Pete Mockaitis
Six.

Duncan Wardle
Six. So, you probably got about another six or seven years left, and one day you’re going to be walking down a high street, and I was outside Panera, Adriana was on my left-hand side, I was in Kissimmee, Florida. It was a Tuesday morning. It was my left hand she dropped in public for the first time because she didn’t want to hold Daddy’s hand in public. Every time you put your hand back now, you know she’s going to grab it, but, well, in one day, she won’t, and it’ll hurt.

And then, the last one was the day where we sent her off to college for the first time, and we put her in her dorm, made the beds, made friends with the roommates. Then it was time to turn around and say goodbye for the very first time. And we hugged and laughed and cheered and told her how much we loved her, and then we walked out to the car park and cried our eyes out like everybody else. And our mums described each of the same three moments in time.

So, what we realized, despite what our data hoped has told us, which was, “If we build it, they will come,” there isn’t a mum alive today who wakes up in the morning, wondering about whether or not Disney is going to build a new attraction this year. But there are, every mum, wakes up every morning, as your wife does today, worried about how quickly her children are growing up and how she wants to make special memories for them “While they still believe, while they still hold my hand, while they’re still here.”

That’s a segmented communication campaign, another capital investment strategy, one that drove the doors down to Disneyland Paris and turned a very product-centric culture into a genuinely consumer-centric culture. It’s now mandatory for every Disney executive to spend at least one day a year cleaning the streets of Disneyland, Walt Disney World, or Disneyland Paris, or serving popcorn, and one day every two years in one of the living rooms of one of our consumers. It’s about looking for insights for innovation where your competition isn’t looking.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Lovely. And so, then the focus groups aren’t doing the trick. You really got to get kind of intimate and up close and personal in the natural environment, and seeing what’s going on.

Duncan Wardle
Look, I don’t discard focus groups, but I just think there are more insights to be found in people’s living rooms than there are in a room with no windows and no doors, because it’s not just what they tell you. It’s what you see and notice in those living rooms that will confirm or deny your data, or you may just find an insight for innovation your competition couldn’t find because they weren’t looking there.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely. Well, Duncan, tell me anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things.

Duncan Wardle
I genuinely believe everybody is creative. I just think education is killing you, and I’m on a mission to prove it. It’s as simple as that, and make it fun, why not?

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Duncan Wardle
“If you’re going through hell, keep going,” Winston Churchill.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And favorite book?

Duncan Wardle
Virgin by Design by Richard Branson, or Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull, or The Imagination Emporium, that’s coming out on December 10.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?

Duncan Wardle
“If you do what you love, you’ll be good at it.” It’s amazing how many people fail to recognize it. When I was at school, I did eight subjects. I failed at seven. I got an A in one. Why? Because I loved it. If you apply that principle to life, if you do what you love, you’ll be successful. It doesn’t matter what it is. I don’t care what your job is. And so many people, I see them so miserable in their jobs and they’re not successful at them. But, particularly young people, my advice is do what you love. You’ll be really good at it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Duncan Wardle
DuncanWardle.com would be the easiest place, I think.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Duncan Wardle
Think about some of the tools we talked about today, what-if. List the rules. Pick one and ask the most audacious what-if? Or, naive expert, having a naive expert in the room. Think about some of the things we’ve talked about or how why playfulness is so important. And write down three “I wills.” Three things you say you’re going to do in the next 30 days as a result of what you may have heard today, and just put it away in a drawer and take it out 30 days from now. And, hopefully, you’ll have done all three. And if you haven’t, hopefully, it’ll remind you of some of the things you’ve heard and you can go use them now.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Duncan, thank you. This is fun. I wish you many delightful imaginations.

Duncan Wardle
Cool. Thank you very much, indeed. Lovely to meet you.