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1072: Reclaiming Your Creatvitity–No Matter Your Role with Tania Katan

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Tania Katan reveals tricks for turning daily drudgery into opportunities for innovation.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why creativity can be an antidote to burnout
  2. How to find inspiration in the everyday
  3. Creative hacks to make meetings more human and engaging

About Tania

Tania Katan is a global transformational speaker, award-winning author, and co-creator of the viral social impact campaign #ItWasNeverADress; a movement that has inspired over 100 million people to see, hear, and celebrate creativity and diversity. Her visionary way of formulating ideas led to her award-winning book, Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life (Penguin Random House),  as well as the award-winning memoir, My One Night Stand With Cancer (Alyson Books).

Katan is highly sought after to teach people and companies how to generate unlimited creative breakthroughs in less overtly creative industries, work cultures, and lives. Some of the organizations and major conferences impacted by her talks and workshops include: CiscoLive!, Expedia, Amazon, Talks at Google, Etsy, TED Talks, American Express, and more. 

Resources Mentioned

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Tania Katan Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Tania, welcome!

Tania Katan
Pete, thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited. We’re pushing record right away because we noticed that there’s something unique about us, or noteworthy, I should say, about us. You and I, we talk differently and we are also super into being creative and doing creative things. Is there a thing at play here, Tania?

Tania Katan
Totally. The reality of it is we were all actually born creative period. And, unfortunately, based on systems and well-meaning or less well-meaning parents and teachers, all the creativity was sort of, like, slapped out of us on our wrist. We were taught to kind of follow the rules and not think differently and all this.

But there is actually a study that proves that zero- to five-year-old kids are creative geniuses, which, means we’re born to think divergently, come up with infinite solutions or ideas for any problem or prompt. And then at 10 years old, that drops off to 50%. And then at 15 years old, we just can barely get out of bed and be creative. And then by the time we’re full-grown adults, all the creativity is gone unless we choose to cultivate it.

But the good news is that we were born with it so we can get it back. But I do like your enthusiasm for you and I being extraordinarily creative. Clearly, we’ve been stretching our muscles for a long time.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, you know, but I guess, if I may, and maybe I’m grasping at straws or trying to find something that’s not there, but I think there’s really something to that, that notion of we start creative and it’s beat out of us in all kinds of little ways, and we’ll dig into it.

And so, I think, perhaps, you and I, both have just doggedly refused to allow the world to wring the weirdness from us and how we choose to express ourselves. And so, we’ve held on to a bit of a unique flavor in how we express ourselves, as well as the capacity to continue pumping out a lot of ideas.

Tania Katan
Totally. Well, the good news is, guess who caught up with us weirdos? Forbes. You know it’s over. But, in all seriousness, about a year ago, Forbes said that the most important skill that we all, and by we, I mean, the workforce needs to learn and have, is creative thinking for the next four years. So, us suckers who double down on our weirdness and awkwardness and silliness and play, we’re the ones shining right now.

And that, I mean, Pete, I would be curious about your background. Like, my background ended up being, I went to theater, I did improv, all that kind of stuff. But it was because it was my natural instinct and I couldn’t fit into any other box. Like, I tried so hard. I was like, “I want to be straight. I want to have straight hair. I want to do like everything.”

And just my nature was such that I didn’t have any other option, but it did take a long time, quite seriously, and quite honestly for the workforce to catch up with what me and my parents thought were cool attributes about being creative and coming up with cool and interesting ideas. It took a while for me to find my place and for me to convince companies that, maybe, hiring me because I don’t fit in will be valuable to your bottom line and top line. And that took a long time.

And what for you? Were you just like, “Hey, I’m cool and quirky and weird and Pete, and hug me. Hire me”?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s funny how, like, oh, wow, there’s a lot I could go into, and some of it I have with therapist and others. But I did, I was into some theater in high school. It was just sort of fun, and I liked doing it. And I guess I just like performing in the stage, in general. And then when I was in high school, I thought, “I want to be a motivational speaker. That’s the job I want for myself.”

Tania Katan
You did?

Pete Mockaitis
I did. So, I was reading the book Speak and Grow Rich when I was like a 16-year-old. Like, “How does one become a professional speaker?” So, I was digging that, having fun with it. And I did an improv intensive course once just for fun. It was so funny, I was told that I’d really mellowed out. Some mentioned I’d really mellowed out a lot, and they liked that.

And it’s funny, I did not like that. I wanted to be un-mellow. But I think it’s funny how it is beaten out of us. It could be explicit or subtle. Like, there was a string of times I got dumped. I had some girlfriends, things seemed like they were going awesome, and then I just got dumped, and it wasn’t quite clear why. And it could be any number of things.

But what I managed to piece together from the little things they did say, was because some of them even said, it’s like, “Hey, no, I think we’re great one-on-one but, like, in group settings, it’s like a little off.” It’s like, “Oh, I’m too weird for you that I embarrass you.” It’s like that’s what I’m gathering, right? It’s like I am entertaining and amusing like a comedian, like, “Ha, ha, this is fun. I like this guy.” But it’s like, “Oh, but actually, I’m associated with you publicly, and that’s kind of uncomfortable.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, or then, like very subtly, I recall…well, I just recently bought a house, and it’s funny, I remember I was with a buddy, and I was helping him move, because he was also buying a house, and he said, “Hey, well, I’m going to the closing. I mean, I don’t know, you could keep boxing my stuff or you could join me at the closing.” I was like, “Hmm, joining you at the closing sounds much more fun.”

And so, I was intrigued because I’d never seen this before. I’d only seen like the episode of “The Office” where Michael Scott closes on his condo. And so, I was into it, and I was like, I had like young, childlike enthusiasm and excitement for the experience. And it’s funny, they asked, “Oh, can I get you…?” like the realtor or the closing agent or a title person, someone asked, “Oh, can I get you some coffee or anything?” And I said, “Oh, yes, please. I want the full experience.”

And, like, my buddy who I was with, he’s like, “Come on, man, don’t be weird.” And I think that’s the messaging. It’s usually fairly subtle, not like a heartbreaking dumping, but it’s like, “Hey, so like kind of just sort of be more like normal and not like you. And that would be more comfortable for all of us, please.”

Tania Katan
I love it. Pete, so, basically, what you’re saying, in essence, a couple of things. Well, one is you have been a creative trespasser your entire life, and me, too.

Pete Mockaitis
I suppose I have.

Tania Katan
So, I, basically, have been you in a parallel lesbian universe.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear it all the time, Tania.

Tania Katan
Yeah, I’m like you, only lesbian. But in all seriousness, I was the one who was like, “Buddy…” and I would say things that people wouldn’t say, and people would either laugh, crack up, or be totally embarrassed and everything in between. And at some point, they realized, “Wait a second, I want to be funny or I want to speak up, whether it’s like hanging out or in a meeting or all these spaces in between.”

And I think people started to see me as like, “Well, how do I get some of that? Like, how do I do it my own style?” And I’m like, “Ooh, what’s emerging here?” And then when I went into the workforce and, ironically, I didn’t study a book to be a motivational speaker. I was actually writing a book at 16, and a motivational speaker came to our high school, and I can’t believe that bastard.

We were in, like, a super impoverished school. We were like just a bunch of poor kids, and this guy comes in with an over, like, a cartoonishly large can that said, had printed on it, “Success comes in cans, not in can nots.”

Pete Mockaitis
I’m inspired.

Tania Katan
And then, wait, and then proceeded to talk about, like, “If you aim too high, you’re going to miss. If you aim too low, you’re going to miss. But if you aim right in the middle, that’s where success is.” And so, my message was, “Oh, so, if you aim for mediocrity…” Like, that’s what you teach poor kids, “Aim for mediocrity.”

But somehow through all of that, and through me in the same way that you couldn’t help yourself from being funny, and by funny, really, I’m guessing we pointed out obvious things or two things that seem sort of weird and stuck them together, and made new meaning. People were like, “Yeah, I want in on that, too.” By nature, again, we just get all the playfulness, all the creativity, all the fun sort of, like. beaten out of us in all these systems, and especially as adult people.

And again, this is where we are right now where everybody needs this stuff. So, at some point, I’m like, “What is this thing that I’m bringing to teams and companies? And are there other people bringing it to this level of joy that makes us want to contribute more or makes us want to bring literally our whole selves to work and we feel safe? What is it?”

And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, it’s creative,” but we’re bringing into spaces where it’s not invited, but it’s desperately needed. And now that people have experienced it, they can’t live without it. Okay, creative and trespassing, that’s when you sneak shit in that doesn’t obviously belong. But then now it’s invited in through the front door many times. I mean, sometimes it’s not, but here’s where we are. We are basically kings and queens of the nerds. And I’m happy about this anointment.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, so trespassing, I really like that. So, that’s the title of the book, Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life. And so, trespassing, like, it wasn’t invited or asked for, and it kind of seems like it doesn’t belong, frankly, “But now that you’re here, okay, we’re kind of seeing that it’s nifty.”

And that’s interesting then in terms of, so our unique flavor of expression, you and I, it resembles that of a child before it’s been beaten out. And, I guess, is the connection then, because we’re more free to explore weird, wacky, unconventional things, some of them end up being very useful innovations along the way?

Tania Katan
Yeah, and also in that, though, is the practice of doing that. It’s not just like we wake up one day after having all the creativity taken away from us, or a lot of it, because of systems and people and all that jazz, and then we believe it. We believe all this sort of default crap of like, “Oh, I’m not good enough,” or, “I’m not smart enough,” or, “I’m not funny enough,” or, “I don’t belong here,” or whatever.

And then you and I, clearly, have maintained the practice of believing like, “Huh, if I double down on everything that I’ve got, which is creativity, ability to come up with weird ideas quickly, and also not to feel ashamed or threatened by others if the ideas are wrong, to take risks and generate more ideas than not in order to get to something.” That’s interesting.

And, in fact, I was just giving a talk at Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and one of the things in my book, and that I engage this audience in is, I said, “You know, why don’t you come up with, find a problem that nobody’s looking to solve, that nobody’s looking to solve in the world? It could be local, it could be small.”

And that in itself was a trigger for people to be like, “Wait, I can just look for something that I wasn’t told to look for? I can look for something that might be invisible and kind of bring it to life?” And I had people partner with people who didn’t know each other. So, it was this older woman and this young kid, they’ve faced each other and they did the, you know, what could they solve.

And then afterwards, I’m like, “Okay, so what did you do?” And they’re like, “Well, there’s a really great restaurant in Santa Barbara, but they’re really garlic-focused and a lot of people go there for dates. So, the problem is, is you don’t want to, like, make out with somebody if you got garlicky breath. So, we’ll plant a mini garden, like a little flower box of parsley right outside the restaurant, have some colorful scissors so people can cut parsley on their way out, eat them and they don’t have to worry about garlic breath.”

Now this seems sort of like simple, but it’s actually brilliant. I mean, it’s genius. It’s like a really great idea. They had three and a half minutes to come up with this solution. And they did. And there were other people who figured out how to clean oil from the beaches, how to grow wine grapes in the sea, like all of these things.

And so, I think the first part of that is to give ourselves permission, which obviously you and I have been doing for a long time, to sort of stretch our creative muscles, trust our instincts, and be prepared to take risks and be wrong a lot. Who cares, right? Like, in the pursuit of that one sort of solution, you have to have wild, weird, outlandish ideas, and see what comes out of them.

It’s not like be perfect right out the gate. That’s ridiculous. That’s not prototyping. That’s not innovation. That’s sort of the antithesis of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and it’s interesting. Let’s talk about that emotional notion of being beat down. It’s funny, sometimes when I’m brainstorming or whatever, I have zero offense whatsoever. I provide an idea and it’s just like shot down summarily and robustly. Often, that will bother me not at all. It’s like, “Well, hey, I’ve got 20 more, so next. Let’s go.”

But other times, it hits hard, in terms of it feels personal, like a rejection of me and myself-ness. And I don’t know where the distinction is. Maybe it’s about self-expression as opposed to ideas that feel a bit removed. But, help us out, if the world is going to beat us down, and sometimes we won’t care, and sometimes we will, how do we take it and keep on trucking?

Tania Katan
Well, first of all, I’ll give you and everyone who’s listening the gift of a question, which is, “What if?” What if…? So, the minute we kind of engage this question, what if it allows for possibilities beyond this time and space? What if kind of softens the blow or lowers the stakes of, like, “I need to be responsible to come up with a solution to solve the problem of lack of women in technology.”

What if it’s, like, “What if we decided to look at something differently? Like, what if we decided to come up with the wrong answer? What if we decided to launch a campaign in outer space? Like, what if?” So, there’s something about this question that I always give to people, I’ve had it in my back pocket since I went to theater school, that lowers the pressure and the taking it personally, and making it about yourself.

It’s like a gentle punting of a question into the ether, and maybe a solution will come. Even your voice goes up an octave when you ask “What if?” as opposed to like, “Okay, here’s my solution.” And also, it decenters. It’s not about you. It’s not like, “I have an idea. I have a solution.” It’s like, “What if…?” It offers it up to everyone.

So, I think that taking it out of yourself, decentering you and our egos in our brains, and allow it to sting. It does sting. I remember coming up with the idea for, “It Was Never A Dress,” which I don’t know if you’ve seen, but I’m sure your listeners have, and they can envision in their mind’s eye, you know, the bathroom lady, the symbol? And so, she’s wearing, what is she wearing, Pete?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now I know better. She’s wearing a cape.

Tania Katan
Oh, come on. Gosh, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I’ll play along. Oh, she’s wearing a dress, Tania. She’s wearing a dress.

Tania Katan
Thank you for playing. We have some lovely party gifts for you, Pete. Right. So, I came up with this idea in a meeting and, literally, to your point, there were people who were like, “That is the dumbest idea ever in our team meeting.” And some were like, “That’s the best idea,” and everything in between.

And, to me, the moment that I took that personally was when I knew it was such a good idea, I was willing to fight and push for it to be in the world. That’s when I took it personally. But before that it was like, “Well, here’s some ideas. Let’s see what happens.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I hear you. By saying “What if,” it is, it’s not about you. It’s not about your ideas, your contribution, your smarts, your worth, your value to the team, yada, yada. It’s like, “Hey, we’re just going to play a game here and we’re going to step into this world, and we’ll kind of see what happens when we play around here.

Tania Katan
Totally. You remind me of a phrase that I loved so much and nobody ever uses it, but I bet you do, Pete. Spitballing. And when I think about spitballing, I think about saliva leaving your mouth in an ungraceful way, and just like shit kind of getting messy and all over the place. And so, thinking about spitballing as a way to just kind of like, “Eh, you know, if a little spit gets somewhere, it doesn’t mean it’s not about perfection. It’s actually the minute I open my mouth. It’s about messy imperfection.” Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Well, so sometimes, when we’re talking about creativity on How to be Awesome at Your Job, a listener will think, “Well, you know, I’m not really in one of those creative-type jobs.” Do you have a response to that? And how can we think about creativity impacting all humans and workers?

Tania Katan
Yeah, so, really, there have been studies to prove that we are all creative. There’s one, and for those people who say that, they probably have a lot of constraints in their job. Maybe, like, “I don’t have time. I don’t have a budget. I don’t have a team.” I’ve been that person many times. And there was a seminal study by Patricia Stokes with rodents, rats. And she took two groups of rats; they each had a bar they had to push.

One could use both paws. One group could only use one paw. And the group with two paws just pushed the lever, pushed it, pushed it, pushed it, and fine. The group with one paw, they pushed the lever, they pushed the lever, and they are, like, hold up. Then they pushed it behind their back, then between their legs. They came up with hundreds of ways to push this freaking lever.

And the point was that, when we have constraints, we actually are more generative. We come up with more creative ideas. So, my challenge to those people who are like, A, “I’m not creative,” you were born that way. It’s your birthright so let’s tap back into it. And, B, constraints actually foster creativity. And creativity is, literally, just coming up with infinite ideas and solutions for any problem, challenge, obstacle. Period.

So, there’s two C’s of creativity. There’s the big C, which is like, “I’m a painter,” or, “I’m a playwright,” or, “I’m a choreographer, and that requires training and maybe some innate ability.” But the little C is we can come up with infinite solutions and ideas, and that’s within us. So, constraints, so I dare you to take these constraints.

There’s actually an exercise I give in Creative Trespassing, which is come up with like the positive opposite of this sort of problem that’s ailing you. So, I don’t know, Pete, who have you had on your show that’s like, “Ah, creative? I work at a call center”? Or, I don’t know, what do you, or what kind of person or industry are you talking about?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I think you nailed it in terms of the constraints, in terms of if a person feels constricted as though they don’t feel they have the authority or resources or autonomy to go invent a new approach to whatever, it’s sort of like, “Well, hey, the processes have been established, and my role is to execute them.” Like, that’s kind of the vibe or context where they’re coming from.

Tania Katan
Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll give you an example from the art world, which is where everybody gets their goodies. There is an artist named Meg Duguid, and years ago she just wanted to open a gallery, right? She had met all these cool artists from around the world, and she’s like, “I live in Chicago. I want to bring all these artists in.” And then she went to look for a gallery.

And guess what? It’s very expensive, she’s not making much money, and this is her dream, and she doesn’t have investors. She’s not friends with VCs or whatever. And so, she had a choice. She’s like, “I could just let my dream go away, or I could find a creative way to deal with these constraints of no money, no space, no patrons, nothing.”

And so, she started Clutch Gallery. And it’s, literally, she has a…do you know what a clutch purse is? It’s like 10 inches by 10 inches, and hers is sort of hard shell. And she has, if you open it up, there’s rotating exhibitions in there. There’s, like, really tiny, she had a painter who had to do like, half-inch scale paintings. She had a performance artist who had to figure out a way.

So, the point is that, instead of giving up on her dream of owning a gallery, she decided to make it 10-inch by 10 inches. And if you call her, she’ll come with the gallery and meet you anywhere, like a coffee house or on the streets or whatever, and she’s showing art of people that she admires around the world.

And then they have the constraint and challenge of “How do they make their work fit within 10 inches and 10 inches?” And these are people who show in massive museums or galleries that are more typical. And I just thought that was the best way. I had some engineers come up to me after I gave a talk at Uber, and they’re like, “We want to start an innovation lab. But we don’t have money or buy-in or anything.” And I’m like, “Why don’t you get a clutch, okay?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s where it all starts.

Tania Katan
That’s where it all starts, yeah. And we’re laughing, and whenever I share this with people at Fortune 500 companies, they laugh, and then they’re also like, “Yeah, actually, I guess I do have some less obvious resources that would be really interesting and actually fun to activate and play with.” And that’s real innovation, not bullshit like, “Oh, I’ve got a ton of money and a whole team.” I’m sure you know, anybody who’s done anything that we admire was not necessarily done with a whole team and a lot of money.

Pete Mockaitis
And what’s really interesting about, it is creative in so far as it is novel, like certainly, like that hasn’t been done before. But then interesting implications sort of unfold from that, like, there is one clutch and she has it.

And so, like, if folks who are into a unique, cool, arty experience, if you have a money problem, may very well be, it’s like, “Well, shoot, how am going to get all my art friends together? And if I want this gallery to come to our event, well, now there’s a supply constraint so there might be a substantial fee associated with it.” It’s like, “You want the clutch? Yeah, well, your fancy friends, that’s going to be $800 for me to truck it on the L over to you there.”

Tania Katan
I like how you went to scale and capitalism in, like, one beat. Man!

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah, thank you.

Tania Katan
I like that. I like it a lot. Nice transition. So, yeah, but that’s just like saying, “Oh, somebody came up with a project management SaaS we can’t come up with anymore,” right? But the cool thing is when somebody comes up is first to market, whether that’s a clutch with a miniature painting show in it, or a software as a service, and it becomes a North Star for everybody else to tap into.

Like, “Okay, how am I going to use my unique voice, brand, style, tone to connect with my intended audience in a positive way. What’s my clutch? What’s my clutch? Ooh, hashtag, I see a new campaign. #WhatsMyClutch.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, it’s really interesting. You mentioned, like a software as a service project management piece, and it’s like, “Oh, well, that’s already been done. There are multiples.” And yet I’m just thinking, I see so many variants, and they’re kind of fun. I’m thinking randomly about the CARROT Weather app.

Tania Katan
What? I don’t know that.

Pete Mockaitis
It’ll give you attitude. You could choose from several personalities and how you want it to tell you about the weather, from professional to friendly, to snarky, to homicidal and overkill. So, it brings that fun to a very mundane activity, like, “Oh, what’s the weather? There’s plenty of weather apps. Well, if you want your weather app to have some attitude, you’ve got CARROT Weather,” and it has a boatload of users. It’s really taken off.

Tania Katan
Well, because what it’s done and that, to me, is the ultimate expression of creativity. Just taking something that’s seemingly mundane, or every day, or overlooked, and actually turning it on its head or upside down or inside out so that it can really engage people in a fun, uplifting, and positive way. Really, I mean, that’s what we need in all industries in all areas.

You’re reminding me of this, my side hustle in which I don’t get paid, but I’m turning to you to understand how to commodify and scale it, sir. But which is, whenever I’m on hold with like the bank or any kind of institution, which is all the time, they always have their hold music. And so, I decided to start doing dance and performance with the whole music and just videotaping myself, and sharing it with anybody who’s had to be on hold, and it’s so much fun.

And so, it turns something that’s not only just mundane, but actually frustrating. And sometimes when I’m haven’t had a nap, just downright irritating, I become the nasty carrot, more like a gourd, I feel. And, yeah, and so it’s taken something that I have to do, that we all have to do, which is engage with customer service in a way that’s sometimes, and oftentimes, not enlivening.

And it all starts with the canned music, and turn it into a performance or dance even if it’s just for myself, especially if it’s for my friends, and we can all enjoy it a little bit more. So, I love the CARROT.

Pete Mockaitis
Now that is fun. And I want to talk about some additional examples of that because it’s your subtitle, “How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life.” Let’s talk about some mundane dimensions of work life.

Let’s say answering emails and participating in, we’ll say, Zoom meetings, that you know they’re not the most interesting and maybe not the most essential, but, nonetheless, you’re expected to be there. And there’s probably a few minutes that are actually really necessary for you out of the 60. So, how might we bring a little bit more of that zest to these experiences?

Tania Katan
Well, first of all, I consider this one-inch by one-inch frame in our camera as a stage. It’s not this sort of, like, passive participant. We can engage with this as if we’re as a speaker, as a motivational speaker. I give a lot of talks on Zoom. And so, if you are conducting the meeting, then I would recommend that you start with seeing the space as an active, alive, performative one, not performative work, but more performance-based.

So, for example, Pete, if we were just entering a Zoom meeting, and I was “running it,” I would say, “Okay, Pete, our meeting today is creativity. We’re talking about creativity. So, you know what? Let’s start with something creative. We’re going to leave the frame and we’re going to count to three on our own. One, two, three. And when we get to three, enter the frame in a new way. You ready? Let’s do it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Tania Katan
“Okay. We’re going to leave the frame. Bye.” Okay, so, look, here’s the deal. A lot of people forget thought and form, right? The thought is, “Why have we all convened? What’s the theme? Why are we here?” And if it’s about creativity or innovation, a lot of these meetings we’re having are for a reason and we forget about it. We get just perfunctory and, like, we check off the bullet points on the agenda.

0And I’m here to tell you that connect what you’re talking about to the actual form in which it takes. So, don’t start a meeting about innovation by saying, “Okay, who has the notes from the last meeting? Hey, Pete, can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

I mean, why wouldn’t you engage people with the substance that you’re trying to sell, to commodify, to champion as, like, “This is our vision and mission.” And yet, it’s the first thing to go away when we sit down at a meeting or when sometimes we engage in practices that we think are like less interesting.

Having that connection to what we do and why we do it is so important. And I don’t think it should be left out of anything. It needs to be brought into everything. And I promise you, it’ll change culture and it’ll change your mindset and change how fun Zoom meetings are.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, that’s fun. I’m imagining, when you talk about the little camera square as a performance space, like a stage, well, I‘m imagining from “Arrested Development,” Tobias Fünke, you know, placed aside his artist’s smock to adorn his director’s hat or whatever, you know, get props, get silly with it. And that’s kind of fun.

I want to hear your take on email. You reminded me of some things. I’ve only done this a few times. I guess I was that desperate, like, “I need to do these emails and I really, really don’t want to.” I put on a headset, which kind of helped because I was doing some dictation to speak a little bit. But more so, I was pretending to be the character Chloe from “24,” talking to Jack Bauer about some very urgent situations as I was quickly typing away on the screen, because that’s what Chloe always did.

And it was life or death, terrorism, you know, big high stakes, just to put a little bit of juice into the email processing. And that kind of worked. I’ve also tried timings, like, “Oh, it’s a race. Let’s try and get 100 by these many minutes or whatever.” So, I’d love your hot take on how do we bring some more spark and joy back to email processing.

Tania Katan
So, I love that you created a whole meal out of your persona to sit down to respond to emails but you’re not responding in their vernacular or like with their language. It’s Pete responding, but you’re giving yourself that urgency and excitement of being the character.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, but if I don’t answer these emails, the terrorists are going to win.

Tania Katan
So, you’re holding yourself hostage.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well, put some duct tape on your mouth, “Hmm, hmm.”

Tania Katan
I’ll approach it from another way, which my clients, who I worked for like big tech companies, like Expedia and stuff like that, and they have to construct the most boring emails to people who have not read anything that they were supposed to read, in a way in which suggests, like, “I’m sure you read the 20-page reports. And here’s blah blah blah.”

And so, what they do that is really exciting, is they just throw in an Easter Egg, because not everybody has tapped into that. So, it’ll be all about like the new version of, you know, whatever, the new release of the technology, and they’ll throw in like a few Easter Eggs from Star Trek or whatever film or TV show, to see if they’ve read the thing they should have read.

And if they do then, they get bonus points. And the person who’s on the other end gets excited, they’re like, “Okay, I’m going to read that because I know there’s going to be some Easter Eggs in there.” I’ve never tried that, but I’m going try adapting. I feel like my persona is just so I’m always performing in relation to that. I love that. I’m going to start using that. I’ll hashtag, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. I’m on it. Thank you.

Tania Katan
I’ll TM you. I love that. That’s such a great way, is to like put on the hat of whatever character you think is sort of weird and wily and wonderful, and get all the high-pressure stakes that they have in their situation, and respond to an email about the next team meeting. I think that’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Fun. Well, is there anything you do when drudgery enters your work life? What are your personal practices for spicing it up?

Tania Katan
Well, first of all, this is really practical spice and it’s a tomato. I feel like you had a carrot. I should bring some vegetable-fruit to the table. And the Pomodoro method, I know this sounds sort of boring, but this is the best thing that I’ve given to all my clients. It’s a time management. It’s a constraint. So, basically, it’s started with like a tomato timer, but set a timer for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, and get done what you need to get done. And when the timer goes off, you take a break.

You dance, you work out, you breathe, you jump up and down, whatever the hell you want. You drink a coffee, and then you set it again. So, creativity isn’t always like, “I’m racing against time in, like, a larger sense.” Sometimes it’s all about, like, “I give myself this constraint so that I can approach what I’m doing in a way that’s, like, doesn’t beat me down, feels kind of fine. And I can move on to the next thing that’s actually more fun for me.”

So, I know that’s not sexy, but tomatoes can be sexy sometime, time management can be sexy, because it allows us to do the things that we really love to do. Thus, the gift of AI, I’ve got to say. I mean, that’s where, if you really want to be developing your creative muscles, let something else do the boring tasks. Boom!

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, when it comes to AI, I would love to hear your pro tips, do’s and don’ts. I mean, I think we’ve seen AI really go both ways in terms of a worker has used it to be more effective and efficient, and a worker has used it to embarrass themselves royally because these citations or legal cases don’t exist, or they let it sort of do all. They actually let it do the fun parts for them. So, help us out, what are your do’s and don’ts for AI in helping us have more fun and creative goodness in our work?

Tania Katan
Okay. Here’s the deal. I did a thought experiment. So, I was an early adopter with ChatGPT, and you can’t forget the learning part of machine. It’s machine learning. So, it’s what you’re feeding it and what we’re all feeding it, whether we’re feeding it burritos or like Twyla Tharp, you know. It’s getting a lot of stuff in its pie hole, and that’s part of the process.

But for me, early on, with ChatGPT, I realized, what AI won’t do is it won’t write 50 shitty pages in order to get to that one line that you’re like, “Oh, my God, I thought my book was about this, but it’s really not about that.” It’s not process-oriented, it’s a process-er. And we are process-oriented and we are driven to have those moments where we doubt we could write the book, we doubt we could write the code. We doubt it.

And in the doubting, we dig in deeper and then we find a totally different way to do it, a way that isn’t a pattern that is less obvious. And that’s the beauty of us being human beings.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, agreed. So, then is there anything you think it’s handy for?

Tania Katan
So, I find it really effective and efficient for the stuff that slows me down as a creative, right? Making the bullet point list, organizing thoughts and ideas into a clear form that I can take to a company that I just met with. And I’m like, “Here.” I met with them, I’m like, “I can help you tell your story in all these different ways, engage your audiences.”

And then I get home and I’m exhausted. I don’t want to sit down and make a proposal that’s cogent. So, I’ve really worked with ChatGPT and helped it nail down the tone, and do the hard stuff. That’s what it’s there for, is to do the stuff that is boring to me. That’s why I love it so much. And also, and in fairness to this processor that is kind of gleaning and gathering all kinds of information, because I’ve fed it so much over the years, it can be kind of a thought partner.

I guess I think about it as like a very high achieving intern. It’s not, like, it’s shabby ideas, to your point. It can come up with creative ideas, but that’s based on years of me sort of showing how I think, how I feel, how the people I work with think and feel. And so, it can be really good, like an intern who’s like, “Hey, Tania, I have a really good idea.” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s good. It’s super good.”

The tone isn’t there yet, but that’s my job. That’s what I delight in is the creative crafting of that, of the messages. So, I think it’s a good thought partner, first drafter, and definitely great with the tedious tasks that us humans shouldn’t be doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, and it’s intriguing. Tedious tasks, in some ways, to get philosophical, it’s a bit in the eye of the beholder insofar as an attorney might delight in crafting a contract that seems, oh, so thorough and risk-mitigating and comprehensive. Or, maybe they hate it, too, Tania. I’m not sure.

Tania Katan
Yeah, but, no, conversely, to your point, Pete, so if that’s your creative output is the sort of the tasks and the focusing in on the details, then you’re training it to come up with the creative ideas that you’re feeding into it.

And maybe those ideas aren’t perfect, but maybe within the realm of the people that you’re engaging with, that those are like really radical ideas that you can explore together as humans and see if they work. Test them out.

So, use them for the opposite, the person who’s expressing or sort of stretching their creative muscles all the time, desires to use it for.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell me, any final thoughts, tips, do’s and don’ts about creativity and joy?

Tania Katan
There are no don’ts. It’s do’s. Creativity is the new job security. Pass it on. Really, I mean, in all seriousness, back to the full circle to the Forbes quote, I mean, they’ve literally doubled down. In four issues, they’ve written about how important creative thinking is for knowledge workers, because AI will be able to do everything we can do and faster.

And if we don’t cultivate our creative thinking, if we don’t get back to our birthright of being creative individuals who can solve any problem, accept any challenge, and even turn ourselves into a character that has high-pressure stakes in order to answer emails, we’re going to be out of a job. And I don’t want us to be like that. We’re the ones who created AI. So, let’s wield the power of technology rather than it dragging us around.

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

Tania Katan
Maya Angelou all the way, “People will forget what you did, people will forget what you said, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Tania Katan
The Patricia Stokes study on rodents and creativity and constraints.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Tania Katan
Yeah, Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart. That’s my favorite, When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chödrön, all the way. It’s a good read anytime, especially now.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Tania Katan
An espresso cup.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Tania Katan
Laughing.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there a key nugget you share that people quote back to you often?

Tania Katan
God, no. What people say is, “Oh, Tania, I love what you said. Can you say it again?” And I say, “No. Whatever comes out of my pie hole is there for you to use or throw away immediately. There’s no in between.”

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

Tania Katan
TaniaKatan.com, T-A-N-I-A Katan.com.

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

Tania Katan
Lower the stakes. Take some risks. Do it in places and with people you feel safe first, and then expand the circle, and then expand the circle even more until it’s so big that every place is a place for you to take risks and find some joy, and double down on being a creative human.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Tania, thank you.

Tania Katan
Thanks, Pete.

1058: Getting Creative Breakthroughs and Turning Them Into Action with Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle

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Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle shares the tools and strategies for seeing the creative process through from start to finish.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to feel more confident taking risks
  2. How to make creative blocks work in your favor
  3. How to get the most out of AI for work

About Zorana

With more than 25 years as a scientist studying creativity, Zorana brings insights into the nature of the creative process, from the first decision to engage with new ideas to its culmination in creative performances and products. She is a scientist at Yale University, author, and speaker. Zorana’s work has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, ArtNet, US News, Education Week, Science Daily, El Pais, and others, and she is a regular contributor to Psychology Today and Creativity Post.

Resources Mentioned

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Zorana Ivcevic Pringle Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Zorana, welcome!

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to dig into your wisdom and talk creativity. And I think it’s important that we address, right at the beginning, if professionals listening, say, “You know, I’m not really in one of those really creative roles,” what do you say to that? How does learning about creativity help every professional become more awesome at their jobs?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
It helps a lot because creativity is not just for creative industries. It’s not just for R&D. It’s not just for artists. Creativity is really for everybody. And one of the favorite examples of creativity that I encountered in my consulting work was actually a supervisor in the food services unit of a large hospital. Now do you expect it there?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, that doesn’t sound like we’re creating TV or plays or anything in such a role.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
No, but he was really influential because he has created a completely new workflow for his workers, and that really improved their health outcomes. They were not as stressed and frustrated in their work. It was easier.

They did not have aches and pains from reaching for things, but also it made it safer for the patients they are serving because it was easier for the workers to do the job and food is part of treatment. Everybody was winning in the process of something that this particular supervisor created.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s nifty. So, the creation was kind of rearranging where the stuff was in the process flow by which we move the food and the ingredients and the serving items?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, it was completely rearranging where things were, where the individual orders for tickets of what’s supposed to come on a tray were, and where individual food items were placed.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it feels like this could be a TV episode on HGTV or one of those restaurant turnaround situations. I could visualize how that could be transformational, and then maybe someone is crying toward the end because of the dramatic turnaround that has unfolded with this makeover.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
It could be. It could be. It certainly made them more awesome at their job.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, I was just going to ask for an inspiring story, and that’s a cool one. Can we have another?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Well, I think that, really, whatever you are doing, you can do something creative. I’m a scientist and I oftentimes get the question, “What is your creative outlet?” with an assumption. Well, creative outlet should be something artistic, but my creative outlet is my science and communicating about my science.

We can use creativity in everyday life. I remember a couple of years ago we had one of the really impossible seeming problems of how to arrange our summer travel. Our child was young, there were these constraints from my end, from my husband’s end, and he completely transformed this seemingly impossible puzzle problem into something that was more interesting to deal with, and that we approached in a different way when he said, “Hey, let’s take this as a creative problem.”

What happened with this challenge is that our thinking changed from, “This is an impossible problem. This cannot be assembled into a coherent puzzle,” into, “Well, how do we play with the pieces, move them around so that they end up snapping together?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, emotionally, that sounds a whole lot more fun and uplifting and edifying. But, well, now we’re in suspense, what was the ultimate solution here?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
So, what happened was that, because of different sets of travel for work for my husband and for myself, I ended up traveling with our son, who was young at the time, to Croatia where I grew up for him to see grandparents, stayed there for a week.

Then my husband came, joined me there, and ended up staying there with the child while I ended up traveling for my own work purposes. So, all was possible to do. And even, in the meantime, my husband and I went on just two of us, a trip together.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, fantastic. Well, well done. And I really like what you had to say about science being a creative outlet. I am the kind of dork who will read the full text of many scientific journal articles. And it’s actually fun to peer inside the brains of the researcher. I was just reading one about a human randomized control trial about a yoga intervention.

And so, you can tell they were really racking their brains for “What’s the control here?” Because there’s consequences. Folks could feel disappointed if they’re into yoga, and they say, “Actually, you’re in the control group. You’re not doing any yoga.” And that could skew the results one way.

And so, they were very clever, they said, “Okay, we’re going to teach them about the history of yoga and some of the language and words and context and background, and then tell them that, after the education, they’ll get a chance to do the exercises.” And that seemed to be as satisfactory as they could come up with, and there was some real creativity there.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yes, certainly, there’s lots of creativity in designing the studies and coming up with questions, and seeing how different pieces fit together and in communicating that in coherent and persuasive ways.

Pete Mockaitis
So, your book is called “The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions to Turn Ideas into Action.” What’s the big idea here? What is the creativity choice?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
There actually isn’t the creativity choice. That is a title that was a little provocative, but there isn’t one creativity choice.

We start with a single choice, but then we have to make many more, because it is not as if, “Okay, you made one choice, and now you are done.” It is recommitting to the process of choosing creativity, choosing the challenging option, the original option that could produce something of interest and something truly awesome repeatedly.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the A choice, or a key choice, from which many subsequent choices flow is just that we are going to try to create something new and different here, as opposed to just kind of continue on going with the flow.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Exactly. So, the first choice is the one, “Okay, you have an idea. Now you are deciding to do something with it.” Oftentimes, people have lots of ideas, but don’t do anything with them, don’t develop them, don’t have performances or products that come out of them. It stays in the realm of imagination and fantasy. You know, you meet over coffee with your best friend, you talk about your ideas, but it stays there.

And we oftentimes ask the wrong question of, “How did you come up with that idea?” Where, really, the more difficult question is, “You had that idea. How did it happen? How did you take something that is just in your mind into something that is in the real world?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well said. Absolutely. It’s funny, I had the idea for Airbnb along with a friend, and then again with another friend, because we were in consulting and/or accounting, and seeing, “Hey, there’s a lot of travel, a lot of empty bedtime in this apartment. Maybe that should really turn into money somehow. This could really be a thing.”

But we proceeded to do nothing about it after we, I think we chatted with a Hyatt executive that we knew, and he said, “Oh, man, that’s a liability nightmare. Random people inside your house and vice versa. There’s going to be crimes. There’s going to be problems. It’s going to seem…” It’s like, “Okay, yeah, you’re probably right.” And then just never did anything with it. But the Airbnb folks have done pretty well for themselves by pursuing it.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Oh, I had the fabulous idea also. I am very small, so I get cold all the time. I live in New England and I had this idea to create a coat that, would from the outside, look just like a wool fancy fashion coat, and then the inside, have heaters so that you are always warm. Never did anything with it.

Pete Mockaitis
Did somebody else?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Apparently, it seems that it’s starting. So, there are now coats you can buy with heaters. On the outside that don’t look up to my standards, but it’s just a matter of time at this point.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood, yes. Well, so then, you make the argument that creativity is more about decision-making than self-expression. Can you expand on this?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Oh, I think it’s about both. So, creativity is about self-expression, in some ways that creativity happens. So, in the arts, there’s lots of self-expression. In the example I shared before with developing a new workflow, it’s not really about self-expression, it’s about solving a problem. And in other domains of creative work, it may be about something different, but throughout, no matter what is the psychological process by which something is done, the constant is this making of choices.

So, at any given point, you are facing a choice whether you will do something that is more commonplace, similar to something you have done before, or something that will be different, but still can work in some important ways, still effective for whatever you are after. And there are many choices along the way.

Like, I’m a scientist, there are choices of what research question you’re going to ask, how you’re going to ask it, what kinds of measures you are going to use in addressing it, in asking the question, how you will set up your studies. Will it be an experiment? Will you go into observing something that happens in the real world outside the laboratory? So, these are all choices that have consequences for what you end up doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. And I’m curious then, since you and I have both had ideas we have not pursued, what are your pro tips for wise decision-making amongst our ideas in terms of what are the best practices or processes by which we discern whether to go ahead and go after something versus just let it lie?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Well, it is really hard to get going. It is hard to get going. There are lots of uncertainties in this process. There’s an uncertainty of what psychologists call intellectual risk, a risk whether you can make it happen, whether you have what it takes to develop your idea and to build it. And then there are social reputational risks, “What are other people going to say?”

And in the example that you have mentioned with you invented Airbnb, you actually went to somebody, and that somebody told you all the reasons why it couldn’t be. And so, these are the risks, social risks of embarking on something, and they can stop you in the tracks. Well, what do you do for that not to happen?

Well, maybe you could have talked to more people, and maybe different kinds of people that is not just somebody who is an executive in Hyatt and who has a self-interest in business as usual, but maybe some other kinds of perspectives.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I didn’t even think about that. Was he torpedo-ing our idea on purpose? I think he’s a pal. I think it came from the heart. But you’re right. Why not say, “Oh, that’s a great point, liability. Let’s also talk to some people in insurance to hear if that’s the kind of thing that there is insurable against and how that even works”? Because it’s not like a home or auto or life policy that I know about. It’s a whole other thing. And then I could get educated there.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, exactly. And there are actually things like Airbnb in different parts of the world, existed in some shape or form before. So, you could learn from experiences there. I grew up in Croatia and there is a great tradition of renting rooms in houses, in private houses. Didn’t exist here in the US, but maybe you can learn from other perspectives and from other ways of doing it. So, that is one big barrier.

Another big barrier is we don’t feel confident. We don’t feel that we can picture 10 steps ahead, and this feeling of, “I don’t have the self-confidence for it,” can be in our way. But when we say that we are making this assumption, we are making an assumption that you have to be 100% confident to try anything out.

Well, if we take an analogy with fuel, confidence being fuel of getting you started and getting you going, well, you only need enough fuel to go for a few miles until that first little task along the way, and then you refuel. You refuel by realizing, “Well, I was able to do something. Therefore, chances are I can do another task along the way,” breaking one big thing into smaller chunks.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, little steps, one bit at a time, gathering input from other sources, seeing what’s next, not getting overwhelmed. I like that. I also want to hear your perspective on putting more of an emphasis on problem finding as opposed to problem solving. How do you think about that?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
If you want to say it in, like, one sentence, problem finding is a way to problem solving. When psychologists called this process that happens in creative work problem finding, they made our communication a little bit more difficult because it suggests that, “Okay, you find a problem and then you solve it kind of step by step.” They didn’t really mean that.

They mean problem finding is a process of exploration. You identify a big umbrella problem and then you are approaching with curiosity and experimentation what it could be under that big umbrella thing. And you are asking the question in different ways in the process. You are arranging it and rearranging it in different ways.

If you are designing a website, you try it one way and then you move different things around, so you can see it visually as moving pieces. Sometimes it’s physically moving pieces in different places. Like, in studies, we sometimes arrange it so that people can physically manipulate objects versus they cannot physically manipulate objects in the process of design. And if you cannot physically manipulate objects, well, you are going to be less successful in it in the end.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Could you give us some more examples of that in practice?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
So, to give you an example from a research study, one of my favorite research studies of all time, actually, it was a study of art students. And researchers invited them into the lab and said, “Your task is to make a drawing of a still life.” And they give them lots of different objects. There were more than 30 objects on a big table. They could choose whatever they wanted.

And the researchers observed what these art students were doing. And they found out that those who were judged to have produced the most original, most creative drawings in the end, did not just take a bunch of objects, arrange them, and then spend a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of detail into the minutiae of creating the drawing itself.

Rather, what they did is they played with the objects. They would physically lift them up, feel them, weigh them, compare them. If they had mechanical parts, play the mechanical parts. Think of why are they playing the mechanical parts? They’re never going to be seen on the 2D drawing, right? You’re not going to see what this toy is capable of doing or how it moves.

But if you did that anyway, it ended up being more creative in the end. You’re getting more feel of what the objects are, what their potential is, what it could suggest. And if you didn’t try just one possible arrangement of objects, but try different ones, sketched a little bit, came back and rearranged them, your end product is more creative.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that really resonates. And I’m thinking of how that can work even in a more abstract sense. Like, if I’m working on a thing, I’m thinking about a thing over time, and then I’m just exposed to more stimuli, like just things, environments, ideas, perspectives, it’s like they just collide.

And it’s really, really handy and beautiful in terms of, like, what can someone use to lean on when their ankle is sprained. It’s like, “Well, lots of things. It doesn’t have to be a cane per se. It could be a baseball bat. It could be a wood, for example. It can be a broom.”  And so, it’s interesting, and these ideas did not even occur to me until I actually had that problem in mind, and then bumped into those objects in the environment.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, that’s a great example in everyday life. There are examples in the world of work. There was a study that analyzed 1.2 million companies in the United States, big database with lots of information about companies. And they wanted to see, out of those 1.2 million, what will happen to startups, depending on what point they scale up and whether they engage in this problem finding, this construction and reconstruction of what you’re actually doing.

And they found that those companies, those startups that scale after two years, as opposed to in the first six months or 12 months after being founded, are 20 to 40% more likely to survive. That is a huge difference. That is a huge effect. And the reason for that was that they engaged in lots of testing, testing of their ideas, seeing how it worked, going back to the drawing board, and not scaling until they figured it out a little bit more.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. I’d also love to hear a little bit about the emotional groove, if you will. Because sometimes I feel like I’m in a spot where ideas are just flying left and right, quick, quick. And other times, I am just bone dry, got nothing. What’s behind this? And is there a way we can kick ourselves into high creative gear?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yes, there is. What you are describing there is the fact that how we are feeling influences how we are thinking. And the good news is that we can use those connections to our advantage. So, what you noticed is that there are times when ideas are flowing and flowing and flowing, and you are feeling positive and you’re feeling energized. And when you are in these kinds of moods, you can very quickly come up with ideas.

But at other times, ideas are not coming. and everything seems stupid, right? Well, it turns out that those kinds of feelings are also useful. They’re just not useful for coming up with ideas. They are very useful for critical thinking. And if we take creative work as not just coming up with ideas, but also developing them, making them into best products we possibly can, then you see how this could be helpful.

So, you are feeling happy, energized and upbeat. You come up with lots of ideas. At a different time, you are feeling down, you are feeling gloomy, you are feeling maybe grumpy. You can very much evaluate, successfully evaluate those ideas, find all the problems potentially with them, and then problem solve around those problems. We need both.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Yes, so the grumpiness is just like, “Oh, I’m out of luck. There’s no value in this grumpiness,” but, oh, no, perfection. Critique away now. You’re in the groove for that.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Exactly. And you can use it to your advantage. So, for instance, I am not a morning person. People know to stay away from me in the morning. And so, I use that to my advantage. In the morning, I can really tear apart things that I have written before. I can find all the things that are not clear, all the things that are flat, that fall not quite just right. And I can mark them. I can solve problems around them. And that is something that you need in creative work too.

Pete Mockaitis
So, that’s a great perspective there, is match the work you’re doing to the mood you find yourself in. That’s really cool. And I’m also curious, is it possible to make the shift? I am in the grumpy mode, but what is needed from me in the moment is creative, generative mode. Do you have any tips or tricks to manage our own emotional states to find that groove?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, the good news is that we have more agency in relation to our moods than we seem to, and then we oftentimes believe we do. And a very powerful tool there is how we think about the situation. We assume that situation, emotional reaction, one comes immediately after another, but there’s something that happens in between, actually.

And what happens in between is how we think about the situation. And if we think about the situation as a threat, it’s something that is one way or another dangerous to us or can put us at a risk, then we are going to have less control over it, and it will be experienced in a more negative and unpleasant way.

But if we shift how we look at the situation, and say, ‘Hey, right now, I’m about to give an important presentation, but I’m feeling nervous. If I’m really being truly honest, I am feeling anxious right now.” But if you say to yourself, “Hey, yes, you are feeling anxious. However, you are feeling anxious not because you are not prepared, not because you are not ready for this, but because you truly and deeply care about it. This is important to you,” you are going to do better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, the interpretation, the meaning that the frame we’re putting on, it makes a world of difference. I suppose at times, it’s perhaps easier said than done to choose an empowering, useful, effective frame. Any pro tips in the heat of battle?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, you’re right. Sometimes, we just cannot make that happen. And at those times, an emotion can already happen, we are already experiencing something unpleasant and something that seems to be getting in our way. Sometimes the only thing we can do with those instances is to choose how we react. So, what our physical reaction is going to be like. That can be influencing the activation in our body by taking a deep breath, by taking just one moment before we react.

I give a lot of talks, and sometimes you get unexpected questions. And when you get unexpected questions, you can start to feel your body getting jittery. So, you take a step back and take a breath. Taking a breath can make you seem thoughtful to the audience, but it’s also going to calm your physical reactions. And as your physical reactions calm, your emotional ones do too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. I also want to hear your take on creativity and AI. What are the best ways to engage with it and the worst ways to engage with it as we do creative stuff?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Oh, the worst ways. The worst ways are the easiest.  The worst ways is you ask ChatGPT or whatever is your AI of choice, a question. You copy paste that answer and you are done.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
And you are laughing at it, but you are laughing at it because you wouldn’t do it like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, those who have, I’m thinking about attorneys and others have faced severe consequences of the negative variety.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Exactly. So, it is a chuckle for us here in the conversation because we wouldn’t do it, but people are doing it. So that’s clearly the worst-case scenario. What are better ways of using AI is a little bit of a sparring partner. I oftentimes use AI when I’m writing, and I don’t necessarily use anything it produces. It is more of asking a question, “How could this chunk of text be said in a different way, be expressed in a different way?”

And I have heard stories from writers who are using it in a similar way, never actually taking the output itself, but having it as inspiration, as a jumping point, as, “Oh, I didn’t think of it to put it that way.” And it could be in opposition to it, or in agreement with it as a different perspective.

So, engaging with AI as a tool, where it could be a conversation partner that has a perspective of having swallowed the internet, can be something to make you think, make you think in a different way, make you arrange what you’re doing in a different way.

You are the one asking the question. Always remember you are the one asking the question, which brings us back to what we talked about earlier of creativity and the importance of problem finding in creativity. You are always the one doing the problem finding when working with the AI agent. It can give you answers, but you are the one asking the questions, asking the questions in a different way, formulating it and reformulating it to find different angles.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that a lot. And I think that often what AI will produce is the opposite of novel and innovative and kind of the most obvious standard issue, “This is what the internet says, response on a matter,” which can be helpful.

It’s like, “Oops, I overlooked that.” And also, it gives you, what I find is my experience is like a lot of great reminders, like, “Oh, of course, I should have thought of that. And because you mentioned that, this makes me think of this other thing.” So, a sparring partner is a great way to put it.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Yeah, “It makes me think of this other thing,” is really interesting. Sometimes we do that with other humans. It’s just, this AI is readily available at any time, and it has the knowledge of the whole internet so it can be useful in that way, even if it is to point to you the usual commonplace ways of looking at something. And the usual and commonplace is not creative, but usual and commonplace can be a starting point from which you make something creative.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, beautiful. Thank you. Well, Zorana, tell me, any other top things you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
The one that I want to mention is, “How do we make creativity reliable? How do we ensure that we are not a one-hit wonder?” and in the context of your job, that you are sustainably and reliably and sometimes on demand, doing creative things.

Pete Mockaitis
Tell us.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Well, the secret is it’s not secret. The key is in the social nature of creativity. When we are creating, when we are doing something, even if the act itself is solitary, like writing a book, I was the only one writing it, but there are social influences on it. There are the voices of colleagues who you interacted with and from whom you have learned. There are those lessons from having read, in my case, journal articles and books that influenced your thinking that became part of what you write and what you do.

And then there are those social influences that create an infrastructure or an ecosystem of the job. And when that climate, that job climate is one that is favorable to creativity and innovation, then it can really flourish and not just once, but sustainably.

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

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
It is by Frank Barron, a creativity researcher from the 1950s and ‘60s, and he said that creative individuals are occasionally crazier, yet adamantly saner than the average person.

Pete Mockaitis
And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
One study that I find very intriguing is a study where people have looked at the influence of instructions on creative thinking. So, there was a standard test of creative thinking, but one group of people was given the standard instruction, “Come up with as many ideas as you can.” And the other group, that same instruction plus three words, “Please be creative.” And those three words made a bunch of difference. When we ask people to be creative, they rise to the occasion.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
My favorite book on creativity, since we are at the topic, is a very old one. I like to uncover things that are sometimes forgotten. And it is from 1975 by Rollo May, and the title is “The Courage to Create.”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Make it a habit to learn what works for you. So, to learn that, yes, all the advice out there says, “Write first thing in the morning,” but if it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it that way. Create your own way that works for you, depending on who you are as a person.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a particular nugget, a sound bite, a Zorana original that you’re really known for?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Creativity is social even when it doesn’t feel like it is.

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

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Well, my website is Zorana Ivcevic Pringle with dashes in between, and that is the best way to find how to reach me, or all the information on what I’m doing and how to stay in touch.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do have a final challenge or call to action for someone looking to be awesome on their job?

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Look around you. If you have a point of frustration, it is telling you that something could be done differently, and that it is ripe for problem solving.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Zorana, thank you.

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle
Thank you.

1049: What Dyslexia Can Teach Us About Creativity, Problem Solving, and Critical Thinking with Kate Griggs

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Kate Griggs discusses the untapped power of dyslexic thinking—and how professionals everywhere can harness it.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why dyslexia matters for everyone in the workplace
  2. The surprising indicators that you may be dyslexic
  3. How anyone can develop dyslexic thinking skills 

About Kate

Kate is a proud dyslexic thinker and has dedicated her career to shifting the narrative on Dyslexia and educating people on its strengths. She has written two best-selling books on Dyslexic Thinking, published by Penguin: This Is Dyslexia and Xtraordinary People, and has shared her wealth of expertise in Made By Dyslexia’s free training courses for schools and workplaces on Microsoft Learn and LinkedIn Learning. She is one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices and is also the host of the chart-topping podcast, Lessons In Dyslexic Thinking, and the presenter on the University of Dyslexic Thinking DyslexicU courses.

Her innovative approach to social change and advocacy has garnered global recognition, with major publications including BBC Morning Live, This Morning, and Harvard Business Review covering her efforts. Her powerful TED talk has also inspired countless individuals and organizations to rethink how they perceive Dyslexia.

Resources Mentioned

Thank You, Sponsors!

Kate Griggs Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Kate, welcome!

Kate Griggs
Thank you. It’s great to be with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat. We’re over a thousand episodes into this series, and not once have we had an episode on dyslexia. So, I would love to start by putting you on the spot and tell us, why should the average, you know, knowledge working professional give thought and attention to understanding dyslexia and its impact at work?

Kate Griggs
Well, for several reasons. Firstly, dyslexia is one in five.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Kate Griggs
So, it’s 20% of us in every workplace will be dyslexic. A lot of dyslexics won’t know that they’re dyslexic, though, because it isn’t routinely picked up at school. So, a lot of people discover through their kids, where maybe their children are having struggles at school. But the reason it’s really important that you should know about it is that dyslexic people have exactly the skills that our AI world of work needs.

So, we index very highly on all of the soft skills or power skills that we’re now beginning to call them. So, things like creative thinking, complex problem solving, interpersonal skills, innovation, all of those things are things that dyslexics are naturally really, really good at. So, it’s important that you recognize those skills and lean into them as a dyslexic person.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s an intriguing setup right there. Thank you. So, if one in five of us have it, and yet very rarely is it diagnosed. How do we know? Are we one of those five? How do we determine that?

Kate Griggs
When you know about dyslexia, it’s actually quite easy to spot. Dyslexic people have what I describe as a spiky profile. So, with a normal cognitive profile, people are sort of in one either average or above average or below average across most things. Dyslexic people have things that they are exceptionally good at.

So, they’ll be in the top percentiles, but they’ll also have things that they’re exceptionally bad at, which is in the bottom percentiles. And those things are the things that we tend to measure intelligence with. Certainly, exams and tests at school and a lot of psychometric tests are based on our kryptonite, if you like. Whereas, the superpowers that dyslexics have are these soft skills of creativity.

So, you can spot a dyslexic person if they appear to be really, really brilliant at something, but then their work, their written work just doesn’t give you the same indication. So, that’s a really easy way of spotting a dyslexic colleague. But also, if you’re a dyslexic person, it’s just that you find something is really, really easy and other things really tricky.

And I think the other thing that almost every dyslexic will struggle with throughout life is bad spelling. So, I think if you spot a spelling mistake, think dyslexia.

Pete Mockaitis

Well, you mentioned bad spelling, and I think that’s what most of us, when we hear the word dyslexia, that’s what we’re thinking, it’s like, “Oh, it’s kind of hard to read because letters are mixed up and it’s tricky.” But are there, in fact, sort of multiple varieties or categories or facets associated with dyslexia?

Kate Griggs
There are. The sort of spiky profile that I mentioned, you know, not all dyslexics are going to be bad at the range of things that dyslexics can be bad at, or good at them either. So, I’ll give you an example. My entire family are dyslexic. So, my dad was, my brother is, both my kids are, my husband is as well, and I think we all have a sort of different pattern of strengths and challenges.

So, my husband’s actually really good at spelling because he has a really strong visual memory, so he can visualize a word to spell it. So, he might struggle with some sort of irregular words, but mainly he’s a very good speller. Some dyslexic people can be actually very, very good at math. I am in the camp that is not so great at math. So, your eyes seem to be really good or really bad.

It is a real pattern of strengths and challenges that that’s why it’s important to really understand what you’re good at and do much more of it and delegate what you’re not so good at.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I suppose, or maybe this is my big reveal that I’m dyslexic.

Kate Griggs
That happens a lot, by the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Or, I guess I sort of assumed that all humans had areas in which they had great strengths and yet also great deficiency. So, for example, what comes to mind for me is I can just generate ideas by the boat full. So many ideas it’s overwhelming and I can’t even possibly execute all of them, and so that’s kind of cool and handy.

But on the flip side, I will have a really hard time if someone gives me directions to sort of just, “Oh, go back the way you came.” It’s like, “Oh, that’s not going to work for me.” In the world before ubiquitous Google Maps on smartphones, I got lost kind of a lot.

And I’ll also get lost if I’m even playing a video game like Fortnite, So, does that sound like a dyslexic profile or something else?

Kate Griggs
It does sound like a dyslexic profile. Like I say, it’s a real pattern of strengths, and there’s just irregular things, things that most people are really good at that you really struggle with. And I think it definitely does sound like a dyslexic profile but, I mean, you’d have to tell me more about what you’re bad at, probably, for me to be able to tell you. I’m sure you don’t want to share all that.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, drawing three-dimensional shapes, I am bad at that. I would say processing mail and email, more so just because I find it kind of boring and I have so many exciting ideas I want to run after. Yeah, those are some things I’m bad at.

Kate Griggs
Yeah, if you think of dyslexia is really just a different way of processing information, and the regular way that we process information in work and in education is very much a sort of written format with lots of information coming at you as words, and dyslexic people are not brilliant at that. They have other strengths.

But that’s not to say, if you’re picked up and given good reading instruction, every dyslexic person can read so it isn’t just not being able to read either. But there’s loads and loads of information on our website, or we’ve done some training with LinkedIn that’s free on LinkedIn Learning because we work with LinkedIn to make dyslexic thinking a skill. So, it’s a searchable skill now on LinkedIn. So, there’s lots you can learn and we have our own podcast called Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking. So, if you start learning about it more, you’ll soon understand whether you are or not.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And is there, what’s perhaps the quickest, easiest way of assessing?

Kate Griggs
We’ve actually got a checklist test on our website, so check that out, because that’s a really good indication as well. I mean, it is just a checklist test, but if it says you’re likely to be dyslexic, then you almost certainly are.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so let’s talk about this dyslexic thinking skills in a moment. First, I’d love to dig into, perhaps, the dangers or the dark side, because, generally, I think there’s vast levels of unawareness to your message and what you’re putting out here, that dyslexia is quite common. And what are the dangers of folks not knowing this and making assessments or judgments or decisions in that darkness?

Kate Griggs
I think the not knowing is a really big cause of low self-esteem. It’s a big cause of people not actually pushing themselves to the jobs and the opportunities that they really should be pushing themselves towards. So, there’s even more of a dark side that we tend not to talk about as a charity because we’re very sort of pro the positivity.

But if you look at children that are excluded from schools, or even straight through into the prisons, very over-representatively high number of people are dyslexic because, particularly, if you are not taught to read and write properly, your trajectory in life is pretty bad. And for a lot of people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, that can be a really big issue.

So, there are some real societal issues of not identifying dyslexic or dyslexic people. But I think the main thing from a personal level is that you can go through life thinking you’re not very good at all sorts of things, and also not realizing the things that you are good at, you’re actually really good at them, and they are dyslexic thinking skills and that’s so important. You just assume, like seeing the big picture, that’s something that dyslexic people are absolutely brilliant at.

So, we solve problems from looking at the big picture, the top down, and that’s just something that we have to do because it’s the way we think, but that’s a hugely vital skill in anything that you do. And we really are better at it than people who are not dyslexic, or most people anyway. So, it’s really just understanding those skills.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you there, certainly. So, if one were to internalize a belief like, “Oh, I’m dumb,” or, “I’m no good at blank,” a broad domain, when, in fact, the truth of the matter is more nuanced. It’s like, “Oh, actually, I have some superpowers over here, and some difficulties over there. But when I compare my difficulties to whatever else seems to be doing just fine with no trouble whatsoever, I might falsely infer that, ‘Oh, I’m just not that bright. I guess certain career opportunities are just not available to me.’”

Kate Griggs
Yeah, and it’s that thing, “I’m not that academic” is one that I hear a lot. But Cambridge University always says that they have a huge number of dyslexics on those PhD programs. So, if you can, you know, dyslexics can get through education and can excel. And I think you’re quite likely to be put off the academic route at an early age when you’re struggling at school.

I had a really, really tough first few years at school, and at sort of eight years old I thought I was really stupid because I couldn’t do what the other kids could do. And there was, no, I wasn’t picked up as dyslexic then, and there was no support for my strengths. And I then went to a new school that was phenomenal, and they instantly picked up I was dyslexic. They gave me incredible support for the things that I was struggling with but also were just interested in, as much interested in what I was good at and really nurtured those strengths.

And I think that’s something, the whole reason I do the work I do, and write the books I write, and do the podcasts I do, is because I really want people to understand, dyslexic people to understand, that they are brilliant, they have a different way of thinking, and it is a phenomenally brilliant way of thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s unpack that. What is this different way of thinking and its advantages and the dyslexic thinking skills?

Kate Griggs
So, as I mentioned before, dyslexic people have, well, according to the World Economic Forum, and according to some research we did with Randstad Enterprise, the foremost sought after skills are creative thinking, communication into interpersonal skills, adaptability rather, and resilience, and complex problem solving. All of those skills are things that dyslexics really excel at.

And I can give you, as well as knowing that they’re the skills that every workplace is looking for, I can give you some real-life examples of where organizations or career routes really fit well into those thinking skills. So, for instance, we work very closely with GCHQ, which is the British intelligence agency. They have actively been recruiting dyslexic spies since they started a hundred years ago.

And the reason that they are actively recruiting dyslexics is because dyslexic people are really good at this sort of complex problem solving and connecting the dots. So, they can connect completely different things together to spot a pattern of communication or to spot a trend, and that’s an intelligence, or the sort of intelligence that GCHQ do, that’s exactly what they do.

They’re looking for cyber-crimes or they’re looking for communication to see where terrorist groups are connecting and planning things. So, they can, dyslexic people are really good at looking and joining up those interconnected things. Forty percent of entrepreneurs are dyslexic and that’s because dyslexic people need to be able to see the big picture, be able to sell their ideas, but also build incredible and motivate incredible teams around them.

So those are two areas where dyslexic people really excel. You also find lots and lots of dyslexic people in things like, surprisingly, journalism, and TV presenting, or communicating, podcast hosts, or YouTube channels, channel hosts. A lot of those people are dyslexic because we’re very good at storytelling. We’re brilliant at simplifying things, sort of seeing really complex issues and simplifying them. So, they’re all skills that we don’t test in schools, and a psychometric test wouldn’t pick up, but they’re really vital skills in every workplace now.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, can you help me understand what it is about our brains and the means by which they go, they process, they interact with the world and process information, such that a person with dyslexia will typically struggle with one set of things but excel in the other? Is there a common linkage or big picture factor that kind of illuminates or explains what’s going on here?

Kate Griggs
So, it is, literally, the way our brains process information. So, for instance, dyslexic people, we think holistically, if you like. So, we like to see the big picture, we like to see all of the facts so we can then come down and drill down into how we’re going to do things. Non-dyslexic people tend to think sequentially, so they’ll go step by step by step. Whereas, we need to see “Where is the end? Where does it all join together? And then, let’s come back and go through the process.”

We also are very multi-sensory thinkers. So, when we’re making decisions, doing things, we tend to take in lots of different things, which is what makes us very good with people, because we can read people, we look at cues that maybe other people wouldn’t see. We’re kind of seeing the person as a whole, if you like, and the situation as a whole. So those are two areas. Whereas, probably most people who are not dyslexic may be a little more less multi-sensory, it’s more sort of what you see is what you get and may not be reading the nuances.

Then when it comes to the struggles, we tend to have problems with our working memory. So, if you think of memory as a shelf and you’re putting books onto the shelf, so if you’ve got lots of books on the shelf, that is a real problem for dyslexic people because we tend to focus on one, two, or three, and then we’ve forgotten those one, two, or three as you get onto the next one.

So, that’s when you’re, if you’re giving a dyslexic person lots of commands, and saying, “Right, I want you to do this and then do that and there’s something else and something else,” you tend to kind of lose where you’ve got to. An example of that would be if somebody gives you directions. Thank God for Google Maps.

But when somebody gives you directions, that are like, “Go down the road, and you turn right, and then you walk for 10 minutes, and you turn left, and it’s the first next, left, the next right.” I mean, but I’m kind of thinking, “Hang on a minute, I get to the end of the road and am I supposed to go right or left?” because I’m trying to remember what they said next, and I’ve forgotten them.

But if I see a map, I can visualize where I need to go. So, it’s just a different way of processing the instructions versus looking at something which is as clear as daylight to me where I need to be going. So, it’s that kind of thing. And dyslexic thinking, actually, was put into the dictionary as a noun back in 2022 when it was also added as a skill on LinkedIn.

And the dictionary definition for dyslexic thinking is an approach to problem solving, assessing information and learning often used by people with dyslexia that involves pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, lateral thinking, and interpersonal communication. So, that, in a dictionary definition, sums up what dyslexic thinking is.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so, yeah, let’s hear some examples of cool stories of people with dyslexia working their strengths and skills to achieve great results.

Kate Griggs
So, a great resource for cool stories is my podcast, Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking. We’re just, next week, about to release our third series. The first person that I interviewed for the third series is Erin Brockovich, the amazing campaigner who featured in that film of her life, which Julia Roberts acted as her.

Dyslexic people do tend to make really brilliant changemakers. We don’t like the status quo. We love a challenge. If you tell us something can’t be done, it just makes us really want to do it. And you often find that we have a really strong sense of justice and right and wrong. Erin tells the most amazing story about how she, basically, she kind of worked her way into a job that she was completely unqualified for as a legal clerk working for a law firm in California.

And I think the guy who hired her actually felt sorry for her because she was a single mom and she needed some money. So, he gave her a chance and gave her a job, and basically said, “You know, go do this filing. Just, here’s loads of boxes. Just go and do the filing.” And she opened up this box that was all Hinkley, the place that we know she went on to do the big lawsuit against.

And she looked through all the files, and she could see a pattern of things going wrong and health issues for all of the residents in Hinkley. She was supposed to be just putting the filing away and just sticking things into drawers but she started looking at everything that was there, and she’s got a really amazing visual memory.

And she could see that there were these children were getting sick and things were going wrong. So, she went to her boss, and said, “Look, I’m looking at this, and I think there’s a really big issue here.” And he said, “Look, you’re supposed to be a filing clerk. You need to just file things away.” And she was so dogged because she could see there was something wrong.

And, eventually, her boss let her go out to Hinkley to meet the people and understand what was going on. And from that, from her spotting a pattern in the paperwork that she saw that something was going wrong, she then went and found out about all of the things that were happening in Hinkley, and the fact that the big company was poisoning the water. And saw that right through to the end until they got the biggest legal claim in American history. So, that was somebody who had no qualifications, was incredibly determined, and really wanted to make a difference.

Another amazing story, actually, in the last series, I interviewed Bob Ballard, who is the explorer who discovered the Titanic, and he talks about how he was on, he was doing a project for the Navy, and he was out at sea, and he’d been looking for the Titanic for ages and ages, but he was actually doing another project, and it was in the area that they thought the Titanic was.

And he just got a sense that the Titanic was exactly where he was in the ocean, and he persuaded his team to dive. And they were all saying, “Look, there’s no evidence here.” And he said, “Look, I just know it’s here. I sense it. I feel it. I’m putting all these things together. It’s here.” And they did a very, very deep dive and, sure enough, found the Titanic. So, that’s using intuition and actually putting interconnected pieces together.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool. And with the Titanic and the Erin Brockovich story, it is very effective in highlighting the unique ability that can also lead to social difficulty. It’s like, “What do you mean you know the Titanic is here?” And then, like, I could see how, in many circumstances, what happens is, “Oh, we don’t go searching for the Titanic. We go and say, ‘That guy has a screw loose,’” or some sort of demeaning, unfair judgment or characterization. Or, “No, this is not your job. Go ahead and continue filing the things.”

It’s seeing something that others don’t is already a cause for potential social rebuke or isolation. And then it’s not too hard to believe, “Oh, I guess I just don’t know, and they would know better. They’re the lawyers, they’re the divers and explorers.” And so, I see that pattern, how that could very easily unfold there.

Kate Griggs
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it’s having that understanding work environment, where people will allow you to make those leaps of reasoning. I was talking to, also on my podcast, I’ve talked to the former director, actually, of GCHQ, and we talked to spies at GCHQ as well, and they have something called the 24/7 center.

And that’s where you have a series, lots of spies, actually sitting there, looking at communications right around the world. So, from emails to, I mean, it’s amazing how people spy on us, isn’t it? But it’s a good thing in this instance, stopping cybercrime and terrorist attacks. But they look at right across social media to look at seeing if they can find patterns.

And in the 24/7 center, what happens if you think you’ve seen something, you then go to your boss, and say, “Right, this is what I’m seeing. I’m seeing a whole pattern of things happening here.” And because they need to act quickly, and it needs to be an instant, “Okay, there’s a problem. We need to stop it,” they don’t have to do what you would normally have to do in the workplace, which is, “Okay, I get where you’re going with this but go away and tell me how you’ve actually made those connections. I need to see the process behind how you’ve made those connections.”

They don’t have to do that because they are well-enough qualified and experienced enough to know that if they see a pattern, there’s a problem. They need to do something about it. And I think what’s frustrating for so many dyslexic people is that until we have the confidence to really believe in our abilities, we can see patterns, we can spot things, we can see opportunities in businesses and things.

But, often, other people can’t see those things until we explain how we got there and we often can’t explain how we got there. It’s just a sense or we’ve put some thoughts together, two plus two equals ten. And often, it’s very frustrating and until your teammates understand your strengths and you really understand them yourselves.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And so, how do we build on those strengths, these skills?

Kate Griggs
First thing is to learn about them. So, as I mentioned, we have free training for the workplace. We actually have free training for teachers in schools. We have the podcast. We have a whole series of information on our website. So, the first thing is to learn about them. I also have two books. I have a children’s book which is being released on the 27th of March on Dorling Kindersley, and I have a book on Penguin called This is Dyslexia, which is out at the moment.

And that will teach you lots and lots about dyslexia and dyslexic thinking as well. And once you start unravelling it and learning about it, you’ll either spot it in yourself or you’ll definitely spot in colleagues and friends around you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, any top tips, do’s or don’ts, you want to share before we hear about your favorite things?

Kate Griggs
If you’re a dyslexic person, don’t spend time trying to get better at your weaknesses. Delegation is the key to everything. And every successful person, dyslexic or not, has learned that delegating what they’re not so good at is the best way to be productive. So, lean into your strengths 100% and be open about your strengths and your challenges with others.

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

Kate Griggs
When we did our first report, “The Value of Dyslexia,” with EY. The then CEO of EY said, “You wouldn’t employ Superwoman and tell her how bad she was with kryptonite. You’d make sure that you told her how brilliant she was with all the things that she was good at.” So, I think that’s probably my favorite quote, and I try and live by that. I try not to do my kryptonite.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Kate Griggs
We’ve just done an amazing report called Intelligence 5.0. It came out, we launched it during UN General Assembly week, at the time we launched the University of Dyslexic Thinking, which is a short course university on Open University. The Intelligence 5.0 report is full of incredible, incredible insights, research from all over the world, but also really leans into the fact that the way that we’re testing and measuring in schools is completely outdated in an AI world.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Kate Griggs
A book I read many years ago, which sort of started me on my journey of really understanding dyslexic thinking, was Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind. It’s old now but I love that book.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Kate Griggs
I try and just have a few minutes of calm every day, whether it’s sitting in the garden, taking in nature and listening to the bird sounds, but just trying to take five minutes a day to do nothing and clear your mind.

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

Kate Griggs
Do what you’re good at. Do what you love. Find your passion. Do what you love, because that will take you far in life, whatever it is.

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

Kate Griggs
Kate Griggs, you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m a top voice on LinkedIn. MadeByDyslexia.org is our website. And both my books are available in all good bookstores, but also on Amazon, so, This is Dyslexia and Xtraordinary People, for kids.

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

Kate Griggs
I think, for every dyslexic, just learn, really, really learn about your dyslexic thinking skills, and understand what they are, and add that you are a dyslexic thinker to your LinkedIn profile because companies are now actively looking for dyslexic thinkers. And if you don’t add it as a skill, they won’t be able to find you.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Kate, thank you.

Kate Griggs
Thank you very much. Great to join you.

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

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Disney legend Duncan Wardle shares keys for tapping into your creative side.

You’ll Learn

  1. What blocks our creativity
  2. How to hone your ideas with a “naive expert”
  3. The trick to surfacing your best ideas

About Duncan 

As Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney, Duncan and his team helped Imagineering, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney Parks to innovate, creating magical new storylines and experiences.

He now brings his extensive Disney expertise to audiences around the world using a unique approach to Design Thinking, helping people capture unlikely connections, leading to fresh thinking and disruptive ideas.

Delivering a series of keynotes, workshops and ideation forums, his unique Innovation toolkit helps companies embed a culture of innovation into everyone’s DNA.

Duncan is a multiple TED speaker and contributor to Fast Company, Forbes & the Harvard Business Review. He teaches innovation Master Classes at Yale, Harvard, and Edinburgh University. 

Resources Mentioned

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Duncan Wardle Interview Transcript

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.

1010: Getting the Most Out of Generative AI at Work with Jeremy Utley

By | Podcasts | One Comment

Jeremy Utley reveals why many aren’t getting the results they want from AI—and how to fix that.

You’ll Learn

  1. The #1 mistake people are making with AI
  2. ChatGPT’s top advantage over other AI platforms (as of late 2024) 
  3. The simple adjustments that make AI vastly more useful 

About Jeremy 

Jeremy Utley is the director of executive education at Stanford’s d.school and an adjunct professor at Stanford’s School of Engineering. He is the host of the d.school’s widely popular program “Stanford’s Masters of Creativity.” 

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, Sponsors!

Jeremy Utley Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jeremy, welcome.

Jeremy Utley
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m so excited to chat, and I’d love it if you could kick us off by sharing one of maybe the most fascinating and surprising discoveries you’ve made about some of this AI stuff with all your poking and prodding and playing.

Jeremy Utley
I’ll poke the bear right from the get-go. My observation is most people are what I call prompt hoarders, which is that they’ve got a bunch of Twitter threads saved, and they’ve got a bunch of PDFs downloaded in a folder, marked, “Read someday,” but they aren’t actually using AI. They’re just hoarding prompts.

And I think of it as empty calories. It’s a sugar high. And what a lot of people are doing is they are accumulating, for themselves, prompts that they should try someday, but they’re never trying them, which is akin to somebody eating a bunch of calories and then never exercising.

And my recommendation, like, here, I’ll give one simple thing that somebody would probably want to write down. Hey, when you’re jumping into advanced voice mode, isn’t it annoying how ChatGPT interrupts you? Well, did you know that you can tell ChatGPT, “Hey, just say, ‘Mm-hmm’ anytime I stop talking, but don’t say anything else unless I ask you to”?

Everybody who’s played with advanced voice mode one time is like, “Oh, my gosh, I got to do that. That’s, oh, it is annoying.” And I guarantee you 95% plus, people who even think that, will never actually do it because they think it’s more important to listen to the next 35 minutes of this conversation than actually hit pause and go do that. And my recommendation would be, stop this podcast right now, go into ChatGPT and actually do that. That would be like going to the gym.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m thinking I’m doing that right now. Is that okay? Is that rude?

Jeremy Utley
Yes, of course. No, it’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
I think I’m following your suggestions. So, in ChatGPT, iPhone app, I’ve got Pete Mockaitis, I just issue the command, like, “Remember this”?

Jeremy Utley
I would open a new voice chat. So, from the home screen, on the bottom right, there’s kind of like a little four-line kind of a button. If you hit that, that’s going to open a new conversation in Advanced Voice mode. And the first thing I would say is, “Hey, I want to talk to you for a second, but I don’t really need you to say anything. So, unless I ask you otherwise, would you please just say, ‘Mmm-hmm,’ one word only and let me keep talking.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Hey, ChatGPT, here’s the thing. When I’m talking to you, what I need you to do, if I ever stop talking for a moment…there, he just did it.

Jeremy Utley
Isn’t that hysterical? Yeah, that’s hysterical.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, Amber, when I’m talking, I need you to remember to only interrupt with just the briefest mm-hmm, or yes, or okay until I ask for you to begin speaking. Do you understand? And can you please remember this?

Amber
Be as brief as possible with confirmations and wait until prompted to speak further.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. It’s done.

Jeremy Utley
Now what you need to do is you actually need to continue the conversation. And you need to see, “Does ChatGPT respond with mm-hmm?”

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I like that. And I love those little tidbits in terms of, “Hey, remember this and do this forever.” Sometimes I like to say, well, I have. I have said, “Give me a number from zero to 100 at the end of every one of your responses, indicating how certain you are that what you’re saying is, in fact, true and accurate and right.”

Now, its estimates are not always perfectly correct, but I know, it’s like, “Okay, if he said 90, I’m going to maybe be more inclined to do some follow-up looks as opposed to if I get the 100.”

Jeremy Utley
Yeah, I think that’s great. I think there’s all sorts of little things. The problem is, right now, people are accumulating, or they actually aren’t even accumulating, but they think they’re accumulating for themselves all these tips and tricks, but they aren’t using any of them. And so, to me, what I recommend folks do, I actually just wrote a newsletter about this just yesterday, it went out this morning.

What I recommend folks do is take 15 minutes per day and try one new thing. It requires two parts. Part one, a daily meeting on your calendar that says “AI, try this.” And that’s it. It’s just 15 minutes, “AI, try this.” And thing number two, you need an AI-try-this scratch pad, which is just a running list of things that you heard.

So, like everybody’s scratch pad right now, if they’re listening to this conversation, should include, one, tell ChatGPT to only say mm-hmm unless you want a further response. That’s not forever, but at least in a one interaction, right? And, two, they should tell ChatGPT to always end its responses with a number, an integer between zero and 100, to indicate its conviction of its response.

Everybody literally what? We’re 10 minutes into this conversation, not even, everyone should have two items on their scratch pad. The problem is most people are going to get to this, to the end of this interview and they aren’t going to have a scratch pad and they aren’t going to have any time blocked on their calendar to do it.

And the next time they use ChatGPT, it’s going to be mildly disappointing because they’re coming off a sugar high and they think the treadmill’s broken, basically. So, I mean, obviously, there’s a ton there that we can unpack, but I think for most people, what most people fail to understand is the key to use is use.

And just like a treadmill doesn’t help you combat heart disease unless you actually get on it, AI is not going to unleash your creativity or your productivity unless you use it and learn how to use it. And that, to me, that’s pretty much my obsession these days, is helping people be good collaborators to generative LLMs.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s lovely. And I suppose we could dork out about so many tips and tactics and fun things that you can do. But I’d love it if you could just orient us, first and foremost, in terms of, if there’s research or a powerful story that really makes the case that, “Hey, these things are really actually super useful for people becoming awesome at their jobs for reals as opposed to just a hype train or fad.”

Jeremy Utley
I’ll tell you about my good friend, let’s call him Michael. It’s not his name. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. But Michael was a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. and he and his family wanted to move back home to Tennessee.

And he was looking for a job, and he got a job offer from a firm. And he reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m kind of bummed because I feel like this firm is low-balling me. But my wife really just wants me to take it because she wants to be back near family in Tennessee, and I’m really struggling with knowing ‘Should I push back?’ because I know that I deserve more, but I don’t want to screw up this opportunity to get close to family.”

And I said, “Well, have you role-played it with ChatGPT?” And he said, “What do you mean roleplay with ChatGPT?”

Pete Mockaitis
Of course, the question everyone asks.

Jeremy Utley
Right. And I said, “Well, you can roleplay the negotiation and just kind of get a sense for what the boundary conditions are.” And he’s like, “Okay, wait. What do you mean?” And I said, “Well, open ChatGPT and tell it you want to roleplay a conversation. But, first, you want ChatGPT to interview you about your conversation partner so that it can believably play the role of that conversation partner.”

“You want it to start as a psychological profiler and create a psychological profile of your counterpart. And then once it creates it, you want ChatGPT to play the role of that profile in a voice-only conversation until you say that you want to get feedback from its perspective and a negotiation expert’s perspective.” And he’s like, “Give me 15 minutes.”

So, he leaves, texts me in 15 minutes, “Dude, this is blowing my mind. What do I do next?” I said, “Well, Michael, the next thing I would do is tell your conversation partner that you want it to offer less concessions, and you want it to not be nearly as amenable to recommendations because it’s had a bad day or it’s slept poorly or something, okay? I want you to get a sense for what does it feel like if the conversation goes badly, right?”

He goes, “Okay, I’ll be right back.” Comes back, “Dude, this is blowing my mind.” And he did a series of these interviews, and I touched base with him. And a couple of days later, I said, “Michael, what’s up?” And he said, “Well, three things. One, I didn’t know what my leverage in the conversation was until I roleplayed it a handful of times. Two, I didn’t have clarity on what my arguments were until I roleplayed it a few times, what the sequence of my argument should be. And, three, and most importantly, I’m no longer nervous about going into this negotiation.”

And then a week later, he dropped me a note saying, “By the way, we’re moving back to Tennessee, and I got a much better salary than they had originally offered me.”

It turns out one of generative AI’s unique capabilities is imitation and taking on different roles. As an example, you can go into any conversation you’ve ever had with ChatGPT and just say, “Hey, would you mind to recast your most recent response as if you’re Mr. T?” And, instantaneously, “Yo, fool, I can’t believe you didn’t believe the last thing I said,” just immediately starts doing it. It doesn’t take much.

And the power, actually, emotionally and psychologically, of having roleplayed with a very believable conversation partner has a profound psychological and confidence boost effect to the person who’s engaging the roleplay.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s perfect in terms of, yes, that is a top skill that the AI has, and about the most lucrative per minute use case I can think of a typical professional doing. And you’re right, that confidence, I have actually paid a real negotiation coach, and he suggested we do a roleplay. And I had the exact same experience, like, “Oh, you know what, I guess I don’t feel so silly asking for what I wanted to ask for now. It seems fairly reasonable for me to do so. And I’m going to go ahead and do so.” And it worked out rather nicely. And so, to know that you can do a decent job for near free with AI instead of hiring a phenomenal negotiation coach is pretty extraordinary.

Jeremy Utley
It’s remarkable. And so, we actually, my research partner, Kian Gohar and I wrote a weekend essay in The Wall Street Journal about this topic. But think about a salary negotiation as a flavor of a broader thing, which is difficult conversations. Maybe it’s a performance review. Maybe it’s a termination conversation. Maybe it’s talking to a loved one about the fact that you’re not going to come home for the holidays.

There’s all sorts of scenarios where roleplaying the interaction increases your confidence, strengthens your conviction, helps you, perhaps, exchange perspectives. Perspective taking is a really important thing, to understand, “How did this land to the perspective of my conversation partner?” That’s actually something that’s really hard for humans to do but an AI can read it back to you in a way that’s really reflective of your conversation partner, and, in a way, that you can understand.

So, we wrote a whole article about this but that’s just one class of activities. But the point is it really helps when you actually do it. Again, the tendency is for somebody right now to go, “Oh, cool, roleplay.” But if they don’t pull out their scratch pad, and say, “Ask ChatGPT to be a conversation partner in this upcoming salary negotiation, or my quarterly performance review, or my conversation with my loved one about our care for our kids,” or whatever it is, you just won’t do it.

I’ve even built, and you can link it in the show notes if you want, I built a profiler GPT, which is basically, it’s a version of ChatGPT which remembers who it is, unlike Drew Barrymore in “50 First Dates” where you have to remind ChatGPT who it is every time. A GPT is just like a Drew Barrymore who has memory, right, and like a real human being.

And what this GPT is instructed to do is interview a user about their conversation partner as a psychological profiler would, and then create an instruction set to give the user to copy-paste into a new ChatGPT window of instructions to GPT to perform the role of the psychological profile that it created. So, that’s totally free, but somebody can just open that up and you can say, “My significant other, Sherry,” and all of a sudden, this GPT will just interview you, ask you a bunch of questions, you answer them, and then it spits out an instruction set to a new GPT to play the role of Sherry in the scene that you have told it about.

Pete Mockaitis
I love that. And it also illustrates one of your core principles to effectively using AI is to flip the script a little bit and say, “No, no, you ask me questions.” Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Jeremy Utley
I mean, why is our default orientation that I’m the one with the questions and an LLM is the one with the answers? That’s how everybody approaches it, right? Because that’s how Google works, right? We never think, “Google, ask me a question.” It’s like, “Uh, what are you talking about?” A language model is not a technology, it’s an intelligence. That’s how I would invite people to think about it.

And you can get to know another intelligence, in a weird way, that sounds kind of crazy, but one of the things you can do is another intelligence can help you get to know yourself better. And the simple way to think about it is, here’s another thing for your AI-try-this scratch pad, folks. Get ready to write this down.

Think of a difficult decision you’re trying to make in your life, “Okay, should I take this job? Should we make this decision? Should we move? Should we put our kid in this other school?” whatever it might be, think of that decision, and then go to ChatGPT and say, “Hey, I’d like to talk about this. But before you give me any advice, would you please ask me three questions, one at a time, so that you better understand my perspective and my experience?”

Well, that is right there. If you say you were trying to figure out whether you’re going to send your kid to a new school, I have four children so it’s a very realistic kind of decision for me. I can Google and learn all about the school. But should I send my child to the school? I’m just going to get their marketing material and it’s not going to be contextualized to me at all. But if I go to ChatGPT, and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about sending my child to this school, I’d love to get your advice. But before you tell me anything, would you please ask me three questions?”

All of a sudden, well, it’ll… “Tell us about your child’s favorite subjects.” I’ll tell it. “Tell us about any weaknesses or difficulties that your child has had in school thus far.” I’ll tell it. “Tell us about your child’s favorite teachers.” I don’t know, but an LLM will ask questions like that. And then it will say, “Based on your answers, here’s how I would approach this conversation.”

That’s what I mean by turning the tables on an AI, is put it in the position of an expert that’s getting information from you rather than the default orientation, which is you’re the expert and you’re getting information from the AI.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, we’ve been saying the words ChatGPT a lot. I’m curious, in the world of LLMs, we got your ChatGPT, we got your Claude, we got your Perplexity, we got your Gemini, we got your Grok.

Jeremy Utley
Don’t forget Llama.

Pete Mockaitis
Do you think of them as having different strengths and weaknesses? Or are they kind of all interchangeable for whatever you want to use them for?

Jeremy Utley
I don’t think they’re interchangeable, but I don’t think it’s necessarily because of the underlying model. I think a lot of it is a UX thing. I think that the best AI is an AI that’s available to you that you will use. Again, the key to use is use. So, which is the best AI? Well, it’s the AI that you’re going to use. So, where are you? Most of the time you’re on your mobile. So, I would say it’s probably the AI that’s got the best mobile experience.

And what’s your default orientation? My belief is that the far better orientation towards AI is voice, not fingers. If you think about how you typically interact with a machine, you’re typically typing stuff into a machine. And I like to affectionately refer to my fingers, like as I wiggle them in front of the screen, as my bottlenecks. These are my communication rate limiters right now.

Notice you and I aren’t typing to each other. Like, that sounds absurd, right? And yet that’s how we talk to most machines. I’m typing into the terminal. Well, now, I mean, OpenAI, besides developing the world’s fastest growing consumer application, they created the world’s best voice-to-text technology. And furthermore, now they’ve got AIs that actually just process voice, don’t even go to transcription.

But the point is AIs are now capable of understanding natural language. We talk about this phrase, natural language processing. You probably hear that phrase, natural language processing. And that means something technically. I think to humans, the important thing about natural language processing isn’t what happens technically, but it’s actually you as a human being can now use your natural language, which is your spoken word with your mouth instead of your fingers.

And I would say to anyone who’s listening to this, if your default orientation to any AI, ChatGPT or otherwise, is fingers, you are limiting yourself. You’re trying to run with crutches. It’s, like, you’re in a sack race, okay? Use your voice, lose your thumbs, and watch the level of your interaction skyrocket.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, as we speak in late October of 2024, as far as I know, having played around with the apps, it seems like, indeed, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has got the voice natural interaction thing down the best, as far as I am aware of. Is that your experience?

Jeremy Utley
In my experience, it is. The only other comparison I would say is Meta’s Llama has voice as well, which you can access via WhatsApp or anything like that. The caveat, I would say, is, you know, I was doing a demo. I had a reporter at my place yesterday, kind of I was doing a demo of how I how I use AI in my personal workflow as a writer. And one of the things that I was showing was I’ll use OpenAI ChatGPT voice mode, but then I’ll often grab all the text with my cursor or with my mouse, and I’ll drop it into Claude, and I basically will parallel process ChatGPT and Claude.

So, the fact that Claude doesn’t take voice input isn’t a hindrance if I’m on my computer. When I’m on my mobile device, which, I’m probably on my mobile more than I’m at my computer actually, Claude doesn’t handle voice input, and it’s a little bit unwieldy to go back and forth in apps on your mobile relative to toggling between windows on your computer. So, it’s not to say that means ChatGPT is the best, but when you say, if you have to choose one, right now the model which is most optimized for voice interaction in a – intuitive interface. That, to me, is the way that you should prioritize, is, “What’s intuitive? What can handle the widest range of human input?” And ChatGPT’s got great vision and great voice recognition. And, therefore, I would use that. I’ll give you another example. I’m taking Spanish classes with my kids, okay, and we’re doing these lessons and we have a tutor talking to us on a bi-weekly basis.

And I get this assignment. I’ve got to conjugate a particular verb, and she wants us to write it down. We got to take pictures of it right now. Write it down in my notebook. I’m trying to conjugate this verb, and I kind of get stuck. And I’m thinking, in my mind, like, we only get her twice a week. I’m not going to be able to talk to her until Thursday. It’s Tuesday afternoon. And I thought, “I wonder if ChatGPT can help me.” And I just take a photo of my notebook and my crappy chicken-scratch handwriting, okay, in Spanish, by the way.

I take a photo, I say, “Hey, you’re my Spanish tutor. Can you tell me what I’m doing right now?” “Oh, it looks like you’re trying to conjugate the verb “estar,” and it looks like you’ve missed seven accent marks. If I were going to correct your paper, I would do this,” and rewrote all of the statements that I just made, but properly. “I made this change because of this. I made this change because of this. I made this change…”

And I go, “Dude, it read…” I mean, if you see my handwriting, it’s abysmal. But I did miss all the accent marks, it got that right, because I’m not an accent marker. But, anyway, the point is, the vision capabilities are spectacular too. And when you start to think, again, right now, write that down on your AI scratch pad, people.

Like, people are listening, and the thing is it’s like popcorn at a movie, and we’re just like, “Nom-nom, that’s so interesting. Oh, photos of AI should do that.” You will not do it if you don’t write it down. I’m obsessed with this idea. As you probably know, I’ve got this AI podcast called Beyond the Prompt, which we have amazing kind of experts and lead users and things like that.

We had a guy, who’s former dean at Harvard, 30 plus year learning scientist veteran named Stephen Kosslyn, recently. And he’s kind of the father of the school of thought called active learning. Maybe some folks have heard of it. Active learning, some people mistake as, you know, learning by doing, which isn’t exactly correct, but doing what you learn is an important step.

And what he says is he would contrast what’s typically known as passive learning, which is just consumption, but he would say it’s not actually learning at all. It just happens to you. It’s like you’re renting it. And that information has a very short shelf life and a very short expiration window. Any information that you consume but do not use, you effectively did not consume it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Yes, well said. Well, I’d also love to get your pro take here. It seems like we’ve got a whole lot of cool things we can do that are very handy. What are some things you recommend that we not do, or some limitations like, “No, no, you’re not prompting it wrong. It’s just not going to do what you want it to do right now”?

Jeremy Utley
You know, I’m not a fanboy, I’m not a stockholder, I don’t have any secondary shares. I have yet to butt up against the limitations of use, to be honest with you. I think, right now, most people’s primary limitation is not the technology, it’s their imagination. I would say, like, one way that I’ve put it to students at Stanford is, “The answer is yes. What’s your question?” “Could it…?” The answer is yes. The problem is, for most people, they don’t actually have a question.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Jeremy, if I could put you on the spot a little.

Jeremy Utley
Yeah, please, please, please, by all means, but the challenge is actually finding a question worth asking.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. One thing I’ve tried every which way I can to say, “Yo, here’s a transcript of a podcast interview. What I want from you is to give me 10 options for titles that would be great, that are kind of like these dozens of title options I’ve written for you right here, I previously selected, or teasers.” And then whenever I do that, I get 10 or 20 options, and I go, “Hmm, not one of them am I like, ‘Yes, that is intriguing. That is awesome. That’s a phenomenal title that I want to use.’”

Now, it can nudge or steer me in some good directions, like, “Okay, that was a good phrase there. That was a good word there.” And maybe that’s sort of good enough in what I should expect from it in terms of, yeah, you can have a back-and-forth dialogue, it’s not going to spit out the perfect thing the first time, and be grateful for that. But I don’t know, since you are the master, any pro tips on how I can make it do this thing it just doesn’t seem to be able to do?

Jeremy Utley
So, this is great. What I’m hearing you say is actually a great case study of what we observed in our study, which got published by Harvard Business Review and Financial Times and NPR. We studied teams trying to solve problems, and you could call “Titling this podcast” as a problem that you’re trying to solve. We studied teams and individuals trying to solve problems with generative AI and studied “What do they do?”

And one of the kinds of natural problems that people have is they treat an LLM like it’s an oracle. Like I give it a question and it just magically gives me the right answer right off the bat. And what we would say is teams that treat AI like an oracle tend to underperform. But that’s not to say that everyone who uses AI underperforms. There’s a small subset of folks we studied who actually outperform.

The difference is they didn’t treat AI like an oracle. They treated AI like a co-worker, like a collaborator, like a thought partner. And so, what that interaction might look like is you ask for, say, 10 or 20, “Make it like this.” And then you get the output, and what it looks like to…let me ask you this. If an intern gave you 10 titles that you thought were mediocre, what would you do? Would you fire the intern?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, no, I would say, “Oh, hey, thank you for this. This is my favorite. This is my least favorite. That kind of what I’m looking for is, generally, more actionable, more intriguing, based on the needs of our listeners,” da, da, da, da.

Jeremy Utley
Do you do that to ChatGPT?

Pete Mockaitis
I’ve tried it sometimes.

Jeremy Utley
Yeah, you got to kind of, you got to critique the model’s output. You got to give it feedback. And I had that experience, actually. I had a hero of mine, Ed Catmull on my show a while ago, founder of Pixar, and I wanted the perfect title, of course. It’s, like, got to be the best title ever, right? And I asked for 10 and then I immediately always asked for 10 more.

I don’t even read the first 10. I asked for 10 more and never had ChatGPT say, “Dude, come on, you didn’t read my first ones, you know.” And they’re mediocre, you know, they’re okay. And I said, “Hey, I like one and three in the first set. I like seven and nine in the second set. Can you give me 10 more like those?” What do you think, are they better or worse?

Perfectly the same. Like, not any better, not any worse. And I was like, “Huh, but why? Why didn’t I like one?” I said, “Huh, okay,” I had to think. And what’s funny is, in our study, people who underperformed, AI feels like magic to them. It’s, like, they don’t do as well, but they’re like, “Wow, it just happened so fast.” People who outperform, who use AI to get to better work, it doesn’t feel like magic. It feels like work.

And that’s actually, that’s kind of a fundamental tension. I think we expect it to feel like magic or it sucks. And the truth is it’s just like working with another collaborator, and you do get to better outcomes if you’re willing to put in the work. And in this case, for me at least, the work was, I like number one because I’m a nerd and it has like an obscure movie illusion. I like number three because there’s a pun, and I’m a punny guy. I like number seven because there’s a movie reference baked in and I like number nine, whatever it is.

Then I said to ChatGPT, “Would you leverage that rationale as design principles for another 10, please?” six of the 10 were better than anything I had thought of. But the point is, it does require that collaboration. Now, that being said, that’s as a one-off interaction, Pete. I think what you should do in this case, if that’s it, and what anybody should do is, if there’s a routine workflow, like, how often do you title a podcast?

Pete Mockaitis
At least, twice a week.

Jeremy Utley
Okay. So, to me, that’s kind of square in the crosshairs of a task that it’s kind of a creative challenge, probably takes some amount of time. There’s a potential, you know, so there’s, call it, there’s a two-by-two somewhere that you would hire BCG to spit out, right? But you got a two-by-two, and this probably falls in the top right corner in terms of, like, it’s in GPT’s wheel housing capabilities, and there’s enough regularity that it would meaningfully impact your life or productivity. Great. Okay, there’s your two-by-two. I think that that’s a prime candidate for making a GPT.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll just make a full-blown GPT?

Jeremy Utley
Yeah, why would you not make a podcast-naming GPT? And then you would put in its knowledge documents, all of the titles and your rationale. And then, importantly, it’s not that you make a GPT and you’re done. You make a GPT, then you try it, and then you see where it’s deficient, and you work to get it right, and then you reprogram, you iterate the instructions to the GPT relative to the work that you had to do in addition.

And what’s the process for that? I would say probably you’re going to instruct the GPT, “I want you to analyze the transcript. I want you to find what are the key points of emphasis in the conversation. I define emphasis as we spent more than two minutes on it or whatever,” I don’t know, right? “I want you to find wherever there is more than five back and forth, that’s evidence that this was particularly engaging.”

Or, furthermore, you might develop a protocol where, after your calls, you have a two-minute Zoom call with yourself, where you say, “Hey, here are the four things I thought were interesting.” And you load that into the GPT as well. I don’t know, “Consult the transcript and the follow-up call transcript that I’ve provided for you. Look for these points, then distill these into these brand guidelines, perhaps, or whatever it is. Then do this, then do this.”

You’d kind of walk the GPT through, you would actually articulate and codify that workflow. And then you would test it, and then you’d iterate it, and you’d test it, and you’d iterate it. And you’d get to the point, I would say, probably, if you’re doing it twice a week, by the end of the month, you’ll probably get to the point where, if you really take it seriously to iterate the GPT’s instruction set, over the course of a month, you’ll have something that’s really great.

Now, the problem is most people aren’t really systems thinkers and they just want to do like a one-off kind of like band-aid solution, which is fine. I’m probably more that way myself, unfortunately. So, I’d rather just, it’s less painful on a one-off just to do the work again myself. Systematically, it’s much more painful to do it one-off every time by myself. And so, you kind of got to decide.

And to me, that becomes a function of “What is a task whose output you would refuse to settle for less than exceptional?” That’s a great task for a GPT because you’re not going to be okay with anything less than a really good GPT. And it summons the requisite activation energy required for you to continue to invest in iterating it.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. So, it starts with a mindset of, “Okay, don’t talk to it like it’s an oracle. Expect we’re going to need some back and forth, some collaboration, some iteration, some refinement.” And then it’s your bullish take that, at the end of the day, it’s going to cut the mustard and deliver the goods.

Jeremy Utley
Unequivocally.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Beautiful.

Jeremy Utley
That, to me, is it’s unfathomable that it can’t deliver on that use case.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. You heard it here first.

Jeremy Utley
I mean, really and truly, and I’d be happy to workshop with you if you’d like. But, to me, that is absolutely a use case that GPT can shine with.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we talk about use cases. You’re real big on idea flow. It’s getting a whole lot of ideas, a whole lot of creative options generated. Tell me, how do you use AI in that endeavor well?

Jeremy Utley
Well, the easiest thing to do is, which you did well in your example, is request options. I think, for most people, they ask one question, they expect one answer. And with a probabilistic, non-deterministic model, which means LLMs are probabilistic in nature, every time you ask a question, you’re going to get a different answer.

And sometimes the answer is there’s a higher degree of overlap, sometimes they’re radically different, even within the same instruction sets. You could say it’s a bug. I actually think it’s a feature because I believe in variability of thinking is actually what drives creative outcomes. And so, when you realize that, then, “Wow, I could hit regenerate and it will reconsider the question again?” “Yeah.” “Well, why wouldn’t I hit regenerate five times?” Great question. Why wouldn’t you?

And most people go, “I’ve never hit regenerate.” I think it’s actually probably the most important button on the screen. Because you have a collaborator, you and I are going back and forth, and I say, “Hey, Pete, what do we do about this?” You go, “Well, here’s an idea.” And I go, “Okay. Well, what else?” And you’re like, “Okay, let me dig deeper,” and then you say something. I go, “Okay. Well, what, like five more ideas?” And after a while, you’d be like, “Dude, I gave you all my ideas.”

But ChatGPT is not like that. AI is not like that. And so, one of the simple tricks for idea flow with AI is recognizing you’re not going to tire itself out. In fact, you need to recognize your own cognitive bias. I mean, it’s one of my kind of nerd obsessions is what’s called the Einstellung effect, which is the tendency of a human being to settle on good enough as quickly as possible, demonstrated since the 1940s by Abraham and Edith Luchins, where they’ve kind of documented, very clearly how human beings kind of get in a cognitive rut, and they just want a good enough answer, and they don’t actually get the best answer. They just get a good enough answer.

And so, to me, the key to maximizing idea flow with an AI is recognizing that the creative problem in that collaboration is actually your human cognitive bias, not the AI’s bias.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. Oh, boy, Jeremy, I could talk about this forever. But before we hear about some of your favorite things, could you share any other top do’s and don’ts?

Jeremy Utley
One thing, I think, is a really simple thing that you can do, and it’s not unrelated to your idea of asking ChatGPT or whatever, for a number, kind of saying how confident it is. One thing that you can often do is ask it to evaluate its own work, “Scale of zero to 100, how great was the previous response? Be like a tough Russian ballet instructor, give me critical feedback.” And it’ll go, “Oh, it’s a 60 out of 100 for this reason.”

Well, then you could say, “Okay, based on that feedback, can you rewrite it as 100 out of 100? Rewrite it as 110 out of 100. Now, regenerate it. Now, regenerate it again. Now, grade that one. Is it really 100? Bring in another Russian judge. What does the second Russian judge think?” So, one thing that you should definitely do is get AI to evaluate its own work. It’s far better at being objective.

Like, as a simple example for me, and then I also want to mention chain of thought reasoning, so make sure I come back to that. But one thing I’ll do is I’ll do kind of parallel processing between ChatGPT and Claude, and I’m having both work on something. I take their output and I feed it to the other, and I ask, “Which one is better? Is Claude’s work better or ChatGPT’s work better?”

You would think that they both advocate for themselves. They don’t, but they almost always agree. It’s fascinating, actually. There are times where ChatGPT is like, “I actually prefer Claude’s response for this reason, this reason.” And if I go to Claude, it goes, “I think my response is stronger for this, this, this.” And half the time, it’s the other way.

But it’s actually exceedingly rare that they disagree. They often will say the other’s is better, but they almost always agree with the other’s assessment too, which is fascinating, which is to say you can have models evaluate one another’s work. The other thing, the other huge do, probably the single greatest empirically validated finding is that the best way to get better output from an LLM. is to prompt it with what’s known as chain of thought reasoning, which is to say, tell the language model to articulate its thought process before answering.

And so, humans have this tendency, so do AIs, of what we all know as ex post rationalizing. So, if I ask you, “What’s your favorite color?” You say, “It’s blue.” “Well, why did you say blue?” You go, “Oh, well, I like the sky, and I like the ocean, and da, da.” But if instead, I say, “Hey, tell me how you think about what your favorite color is,” and you go, “Well, I probably think about my favorite things.”

And then I go, “Well, what are your favorite things?” You go, “Well, my wife, obviously, and I think about her eye color, and they’re green. You know, green’s my favorite color.” “Well, is it blue or is it green?” Actually, and for me, even as I think through that thought exercise, green, emphatically. I take my wife’s eyes any day over the sunset. That’s a no-brainer, right?

Well, similarly, language models do the same thing. If you ask it for an answer, and it says blue, and then you go, “Why did you say blue, ChatGPT?” it will ex post rationalize. And blue is very subjective, but even with things that are objective, more objective, it will ex post rationalize its answer. If, however, you say, “Hey, before you answer the question, would you walk me through how you’re going to think about solving this problem?” It will articulate its answer and it arrives at, from a research perspective, empirically better, more valid, more cogent, etc. responses.

And the reason it does so is because of how language models work. They aren’t premeditating their answers. So, what it’s not doing, as Pete asks a question, and then it thinks of its answer and writes it out. That’s not what happens. What happens is Pete asks a question and it reads the question and says, “What’s the first word of the answer?” and it says it.

And then it reads your question, and the first word it thought of, and says, “What’s the second word?” And then it reads your question and its first and second word, and thinks, “What’s the third word?” So, it’s not premeditating responses. It’s, literally, only predicting the next token. And so, when you ask it for an answer, the only thing it’s predicting is its answer.

If, however, you ask for reasoning and then answer, it first next token predicts reasoning, and then it incorporates the reasoning that it has articulated in its response, which results in a much better response because it’s not only considered your question, but it’s also considered reasoning first. And as a user on the other side of the collaboration, what that enables you to do is not only, one, get better responses, but, two, you can interrogate its reasoning too.

And you can say, “Actually, it’s not that I have a problem with your answer. I have a problem with how you approach the question. I actually think you should do this.” And then you can guide its reasoning path because you’ve asked it to make its reasoning explicit. Those are the two probably biggest do’s, I would say, when you ask for do’s and don’ts.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. And it sounds like the key is that you ask for it in advance as opposed to, “How did you come up with that?”

Jeremy Utley
Yeah, exactly. That’s ex post rationalizing. It will give you a great answer. It’s a sycophant. LLMs have been programmed to be helpful assistants. And when you realize what that means, it’s a euphemism for suck up. So, if you ask it what it thinks, it’s going to say, “I think that’s a really great idea, Peter.” But if you say, “I don’t want you to compliment me. I want you to be brutally honest. Don’t pull any punches,” like, you got to really ask an AI to level with you to get honest feedback.

When you’re aware of that, it influences how you collaborate with the model, which goes back to the question earlier about idea flow. It’s recognizing your own, I mean, there are limitations to the technology, but a lot of times the truth is we want a suck up. I don’t want to hear how my first draft sucks. I want to hear, “Actually, you don’t need to do any more work. You go have a coffee.” That’s what I want to hear.

And if I don’t realize that the model has been trained to be a suck up, I ask it, assuming I’m getting the truth, and then when it tells me I’ve done great work, I say, “Well, let’s take a break, boys. We’re all done here.” Whereas, if I realize, “You know what, unless I really push it to give me straight feedback, it’s probably going to tell me I’ve done a great job. And I know my human cognitive bias is to overweight the response that I did a great job, and to underweight…” So, you have to understand yourself. In a way, the key to good human-AI collaboration is to really understand our own humanity.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. Thank you. And now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jeremy Utley
One is Thomas Schelling, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, who said, “No matter how heroic one’s imagination, a man can never think of that which would never occur to him.”

The second quote that I love is Amos Tversky, Danny Kahneman’s lifelong research partner, who died prior to receiving the Nobel Prize. But Amos Tversky was once asked how he and Kahneman devised such inventive experiments. And he said, “The secret to doing good research is to always be a little underemployed.  You waste years when you can’t afford to waste hours.”

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. All right. And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jeremy Utley
I think there’s a great one that I always come back to called the creative cliff illusion, which is conducted by Nordgren and colleagues at Toronto, I want to say. You can look it up, creative cliff illusion. But the basic idea is when they ask participants what their expectations of their creativity over time were, there is an illusion that one’s creativity degrades to a point that reaches a cliff where it almost asthmatically falls off. And people’s, their expectation is, “I’m just going to run out of creative ideas.”

The paper is obviously called the Creative Cliff Illusion because then, when they test people, it’s not true. They don’t run out of creative ideas. They, actually, their creativity persists. And my favorite part of the study is the shape of the creativity, over time, the variable that it’s most highly correlated with, i.e. “Does creativity dip or does it increase?” because it does increase for some people. The variable that determines the shape of your creativity over time is actually your expectation.

So, if you expect that you will keep having creative ideas, you do. If you expect you will cease having creative ideas, you do. And so, that to me is just totally fascinating.

Pete Mockaitis
Totally. And a favorite book?

Jeremy Utley
I love Mark Randolph’s book about the founding of Netflix called That Will Never Work. It’s a fascinating story about entrepreneurship, about grit and perseverance, and about ideas. And there’s a lot of very practical takeaways about the importance of experimentation in finding product market fit and succeeding.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Jeremy Utley
I’ve got an electric chainsaw, and I love tromping around the woods, just chainsaw in hand, like, just in case I need it. It’s just so fun.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. And a favorite habit?

Jeremy Utley
NSDR, non-sleep deep rest protocol, Andrew Huberman. It’s, basically, laying down and becoming totally still, not for the purpose of sleep, necessarily. It’s okay if you do sleep, but it’s not in order to sleep, but to facilitate neurological replenishment, connections between neurons, and codification of memory. And I try, if I can, to NSDR once a day.

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

Jeremy Utley
I talked earlier about the value of variation in one’s thinking. And the truth is ideas are naturally occurring phenomena, which is a nerdy way of saying they’re normally distributed. So, you got some really great ideas, very small, it’s a bell curve, right? You got a lot of ordinary ideas and you got some stupid ideas. Steve Jobs called them dopey ideas. He regularly shared dopey ideas with Sir Jony Ive.

Taylor Swift says, “It’s my hundreds or thousands of dumb ideas that have led me to my good ideas.” You got dopey or dumb on one side of the spectrum, you got delightful on the other side of the spectrum. The quote that I often say that people remember and resonates, and they take with them is, I tell people, “Dopey is the price of delight.”

The only way you get good ideas is by allowing yourself to have bad ideas. And the reason most people don’t have better ideas is because they won’t allow themselves to have worse ideas.

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

Jeremy Utley
JeremyUtley.design And LinkedIn, I’m happy to chat with folks on LinkedIn. My website, JeremyUtley.design, I’ve got a newsletter folks can subscribe to. I’ve also got an introductory AI drill course where you get two weeks of daily drills for, you know, they say you need 10 hours of practice with AI to start to become fluent. This gives you daily practice to get your first 10 hours under your belt.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a final challenge or call to action for folks who want to be awesome at their jobs? Sounds like we just got one.

Jeremy Utley
To me, it’s very simple. Do one thing you heard here.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Jeremy, this is fun. This is fascinating. Thank you. And keep up the awesome work.

Jeremy Utley
Thank you. My pleasure.