Stop Killing Ideas! Use "Yes, And" Instead of "No, Because"

0:08Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Chance. My guest today is Duncan Wardle. He's the former head of innovation and creativity at Disney. Duncan played a pivotal role in fostering innovation across Imagineering, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and Disney Parks, crafting enchanting new storylines and experiences. He's also the author of a book we're going to talk about today, The Imagination Emporium, Creative Recipes for Innovation. So, Duncan, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks very much for having me. So one of my viewers, listeners, not viewers, won't be able to know this, but one of my favorite characters is Goofy.

0:49You've got him right there behind you. Yeah. So yes, these are hand-painted. It's not an illustration. Yeah, they were created a few years ago now. Very, very cool. So there was a book I read right when I was getting started, actually. It was very influential on me. It was written by Peter Drucker. And one of the comments in there was, the only two things in business that matter are marketing and innovation. Everything else is a cost. I think a lot of people quote that, and I've heard that phrase many times. But if we ask 10 people what innovation actually was at a company, I think we would get maybe 11 or 12 definitions.

1:24So how do you frame the idea of innovation? I mean, it's a very large concept. Crystal clear. Creativity is the ability to have an idea. We can all do that. We do it every day. Innovation is the ability to get it done. The challenge for most of us is the more experience, the more expertise we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won't work. So we constantly shoot it down. I call it our river of thinking. And it's very fast and very wide and very allowing you and me to make quick and informed decisions. But in the last four years, we've seen global pandemics. We've seen Generation Z entering the workplace, but doesn't want to work for corporate America.

1:58We've got artificial intelligence entering the marketplace. The world's changed, right? And it's changed irrevocably. We can't go back to thinking the way we thought four years ago. and so you know disney i tried four models of innovation model number one i hired somebody who knew what they would do i said make me look good that was an agency and to a certain extent they did uh they were never around for execution and they said it wasn't weren't going to show me how they did what they did or or they were worried i wouldn't hire them again model number two would create an innovation team duncan will be in charge what could possibly go wrong well outside of legal who does legal work outside of marketing who does marketing work nobody so when you create an innovation team, you subliminally just told everybody else, you're off the hook.

2:38We tried an accelerator program, which created some level of access, enabling us to partner with some young tech startups and bring some new technology to market. But we had failed in our overall goal, which was set by the CEO of Disney, was how might we embed a culture of innovation and creativity into everybody's DNA? So I set out to create a toolkit that has three principles. That takes the BS out of innovation and makes it less intimidating to normal, hardworking people. Make creativity tangible for those people who are uncomfortable with ambiguity and gray. But more importantly, make the process fun.

3:09Give people tools they choose to use when you and I are not around. All right. So, and I'm sure you hear this all the time. I know you'll have a great answer for this, but what do you do in those organizations or individuals who we know there are lots of them would say, I'm just not creative? Yeah, I disagree. I'm sorry. Let me ask you a question. When you were a small boy, what was your favorite toy? Probably a stick. why because this stick was your lightsaber that's why it was your wand it's anything you wanted it to be and we were all born creative with an amazing image when you were given a gift for a holiday and it came in an enormous box and it took you ages to take the toy out of the box what do you spend the rest of the week playing with the fork yeah the box right it was your rocket it was your cart it was anything you wanted it to be till you went to the number one killer of creativity education and the first thing your first grade teacher told you to do was don't forget to color in between the lines.

4:01Small children, they're very curious. They ask why, why, why, why, why again? Because they're seeking the core consumer truth. They're after the insight for innovation. If I were to survey 5 ,000 people and ask them why they go to Disney on holiday, the number one response I'll get is we go for the new attractions. But that's not strictly true, is it? So if I were to rely just on my data, I'd go spend$250 million on the capital investment strategy. But if I pause for a moment, that childlike not childish, and say, well, why do you go for the new attractions? Well, no, I like the classics. Why do you like the classics?

4:29Why I like It's a Small World. Why do you like It's a Small World? Why I remember music? Oh God, no, not the music. Why the music? What's my mum's favourite ride we used to go every summer? Why is that important to you 20 years later? I'll take my daughter now. Boom. There's your insight for innovation. Core consumer truth. It's got nothing to do with the capital investment strategy and everything to do with that person's personal memory and nostalgia. But then we go to the number one colour of curiosity, education. And the next thing we're taught to do is stop asking why because there's only one right answer.

4:55Here comes artificial intelligence, right? We used to laugh at the blue-collar workers. Well, guess what? They'll be laughing at the white-collar workers now. But I've been working with Google on their DeepMind project, which is their AI project. And I asked the lead engineer what, I said, how the hell am I going to compete with this? You know, what will be the most employable skill sets for the next five to 10 years? And she said, oh, that's easy. The ones that will be the hardest for her to program into AI. I said, well, what are those? She says, the ones with which you were born. Imagination, creativity, curiosity, empathy, and intuition.

5:23But they're drummed out of us by the time we're 18. That's the challenge. Of course, having some handy set of plumbing skills will become very necessary too, though, right? No, seriously, hands-on work is absolutely fine. So, look, I set out. Here's why. People say, why do you write a book? Yeah. Let me ask you an honest question here. When you see a business book in an office, physically, where is the book? Laying on a desk. Yeah, there you go. It's on the coffee table. It's on the bookshelf. I'm going to get to it tomorrow, but my boss needs this now, so I actually never read it. I have good intentions to read it, but I don't.

5:57So I thought, okay, how do I make it more accessible to people who've got other things to do? I thought, what nonfiction book have I ever read where I could read one page today and know exactly what I was going to do and not worry about the rest of the book today? My mom's cookbook. You want shepherd's pie? You go to page 67. So the contents page is designed for busy people. It says, have you ever been to a brainstorm where nothing ever happened? Go to page 67. I don't know how to find insights for innovation. Go to page 42. Work in a heavily regulated industry. who go to a pay victim. So it's designed to be very accessible, but it's also designed to appeal to what I call the three sensory learning styles.

6:32So let me ask you a question. May I ask you to close your eyes for just a moment? How many days are there in September? 30. I would ask you to keep your eyes closed and tell me how you knew, how you remembered, how you learned, or what you could see with your eyes closed right now. I can see a calendar. Bingo. You can open your eyes. 30 % of the people will recite the rhyme, 30 days has September, blah, blah, blah. No, it's true. And so they just told me they learn by listening. They probably read a lot. It's an auditory stuff. How do I know that? Because they were six when they learned it. How did they remember it?

7:02Because they heard it. Another 30 % put the knuckles together and start counting the knuckles. January, February, March, April, May, June, July. Those are kinesthetic learners. By the way, John, you were taught both, but you don't remember either because that's not your preferred learning stuff. You're the majority of the audience. You learn by seeing. You represent 40 % of the audience. So I thought, okay, how do I create a book that's not a book? I want it to be a toolkit. it. I want it to be fun, but I want it to be purposeful. I want it to appeal to all three learning stars. So it has QR codes embedded with each chapter with Spotify playlists for auditory learners.

7:33It has animated videos in each chapter where Duncan is now an animated character. I pop out of the book with a bunch of other characters I've created for the visual learners and teach you how to use the tools. And for our kinesthetic learners starting, I think today, but maybe at a couple of days from now, the QR code on the back of the book will actually take you directly to the very first ever fully integrated artificial intelligence book. Why? Because I've never done it before. That's why. So you will be able to ask the book questions and through JackTBT. It'll answer you through WhatsApp. So you might say, how do I use the tool on Pace 67?

8:07And it'll answer you. But you could also say, how do I use the tool on Pace 67 to develop a marketing campaign that's more of a mercies of experience for my brand? And the book will answer you. Who published this book? Amplified published the book. Amplified. So I've written several books with major publishers, and I'm envisioning the meeting where you described what this book was going to be like. I kept telling the publisher, we bought, he said it's a book. I said, hell no, it's not. By the way, I want to give it away for free. Needless to say, the publisher had other ideas. I still want to give it away for students because we are killing the most employable skill sets for the next decade.

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9:24That means if you spend$5 ,000 on TV ads, you'll get an additional$5 ,000 to spend. Head on over to adcritter.com. That's adcritter.com and get started. So if you're going to work with an organization that, and again, I don't know if that's a service you offer consulting, But if you were going to work with an organization, I mean, what are some of the mindsets they would have? You would try to get them to change the habits you would get them to change that would really make this come to life. Is the first one. And this is particularly for leaders, right? Because, again, the more experience we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won't work.

10:02So, John, you and I have been tasked with coming up with an idea for a birthday party or a Harry Potter birthday party. I'm going to cut. Are you familiar with Harry Potter? I'm not a... Yes, I'm familiar, but I'm not a junkie. No, but have you seen a couple of films? I have. Okay, good. So I'm going to come at you with some ideas for a Harry Potter party. I'd like you to start each and every response with the following two words, no because. They'll be the first two words you use, and you'll tell me why not. I was thinking of coming to your house, putting a sorting hat outside the front door, having all the good people get the Gryffindor party, but all the bad people get the Cithermen party.

10:36No, because everybody just wants to play Quidditch. Oh, right. I tell you what, then we'll give everybody a broomstick and they could go running around the back garden looking like idiots. And the snitch could be actually on a drone. No, because they can't really fly. All right. Fair point. I tell you what, then, let's have our, we'll bring them all indoors and we'll have a magic potions room where we could all drink something that turns us into something totally freaky. No, because there's actually a giant animal in the back closet that would probably eat everyone. All right. Fair point. I tell you what, then, what if we just showed the movies?

11:08We'll put them on your TV screen and we'll serve butterbeer and popcorn. Oh, that's perfect. No, because there might be somebody allergic to popcorn. Yeah. Let me ask you a question. When somebody's constantly no-becauseing you, how does that make you feel? Frustrated. Okay. I would call it business as usual. Let me ask you a question. Do you think our idea was getting bigger as we were going or was it getting smaller? Which way was it headed? It was, we were down to watching the movies. It was getting smaller. Let's start again. Are you familiar with Star Wars? Yes. Okay. So I'm going to come at you with some Star Wars ideas.

11:41Unlike Harry Potter, where you started the response every single time with no because, this time I'd like you to start every single response with the words yes and, and we'll just build on it together. I was thinking, right, of coming to your house, getting into the kitchen, painting it black, turning it into the Death Star canteen, and we could have a food and wine festival and half in the booms. How's it going? Oh, yeah. Yes. And let's add stormtroopers. Oh, yes. And, yeah, we could have a cosplay party. All the tall people could come as Darth Vader, and all the little people would come to us.

12:07Yeah. Yes, and we've got to have Yoda, don't we? Oh, yes. Yes, and we could have The Force. Everybody get a glow-in-the-dark lightsaber full of their favorite alcoholic liquid. Yes, and what about Darth Vader? Could he appear? Oh, yes, and we could have Harrison Ford. Or even the dead celebrities could come back via hologram, and we could take them all on your corporate, yeah, down to Disneyland to see the new Galaxy's Edge. Yes, and why not invite George Lucas? All right, so we'll stop there. So a lot more laughter, a lot more energy. Most of us became Italian for the first time today, waving our arms.

12:42This time around, bigger or smaller? Well, it kept getting much larger. You can always take a big idea and value engineer it down. Pretty hard to turn a small one into a big one. Far more importantly, we work inside big organizations. We work inside small organizations. We have colleagues and constituents and clients to bring on board with our idea. By the time you and I just finished building the idea together, whose idea was it by the time we finished? Oh, it was totally mine. I would argue powers, John. But here's the thing. Two little magical words. Yes, and have the power to turn a small idea into a big one really quickly.

13:17But far more importantly, have the power to transfer my idea, which never goes anywhere inside an organization, to our idea and accelerate its opportunity to get done. Just remind yourselves, I know you're leaders. I know you've got responsibilities and quarterly results and deadlines. Just remind ourselves, we're not greenlighting this idea for execution today. We are merely greenhousing it together using yes and. If you take nothing away from listening to today's podcast, don't let the words no because be the first two words out of your mouth when somebody comes at you with a new idea. They may have genius two days from now, two weeks from now.

13:49You'll never hear it. Your job as a leader is to say, you'll get to the no because, but don't start there. The other thing that I try to teach is playfulness, and I'll tell you for what. Can I ask you to close your eyes? Where are you and what are you doing when you get your best ideas? Definitely outside. Okay, Al, so you can open your eyes. I've done this with up to 20 ,000 people. You are here. Shower, bathroom, jogging, walking, driving, commuting, gym. Do you know how many people say at work? Nobody. Not one person ever writes down at work. Well, why not? Close your eyes again. Picture that last argument you were in.

14:22Bit of a shouting match. You're angry at them. They're angry at you. Now you turn to walk away from that argument. You're 10, 20, 30 seconds away. You're about a minute away from the argument. and what just popped into your brain totally spontaneously the second you turned to walk away from that argument. What was it? What I should have said. Well, you should have said the killer one-liner, that one perfect beautiful line. You wished you'd used to in the argument, but you didn't, did you? No, never did. Why not? Because when we're in an argument, our brain is moving at a thousand miles an hour defending ourselves.

14:49When we're at work, we're doing emails and presentations and reports and we hear ourselves say, the number one barrier to innovation, I don't have time to think. And when you say I don't have time to think, you're in the brain state science calls beta, where the door between conscious and subconscious brain is firmly closed. When that door is closed, you only have access to your conscious brain. That is 13 % of the capacity of your brain. 87 % of the capacity of your brain is your subconscious brain. Every creative problem you've ever solved, every innovation you've seen is back here to serve as unrelated stimulus.

15:17But when the door is shut, you don't have access to it. So how do I move you from there metaphorically and place you back in the shower where it is when you have your best ideas? You can still make an informed decision, but still have a big idea. That brain state is known as alpha. I call it amazing alpha, the best brain state for creativity at work. How do I get you there? By being playful. What do I do? I run an energizer. Well, what's that? It's a 60 second exercise. What am I doing? I'm making you laugh. Why am I making you laugh? Because the moment I hear laughter, I know that I just opened the door between your conscious and subconscious brain.

15:47When we ask who are the most creative people you've ever met, everybody always says children. And I always hear people say, oh, we don't have the resources. You say, oh, who are the most creative people, children? Oh, how much money they got? Oh, none. Now, I don't expect people to be playful every minute of every day. Life would be great fun, but we wouldn't get much work done. I do expect you, particularly as leaders, to be playful at the right time. Yeah, you know, I read something recently about this idea of why children, you know, are able to have just such rich imaginations and such creativity.

16:16And it... I haven't gone to school yet. Well, the person concluded that actually, you know, young children, particularly, are halfway in a fantasy world, you know, and we sort of, the school and everything sort of beats that out of them and says, no, this is reality. But it's an interesting thought that they're able to be so creative because they really live between reality and fantasy. Yeah, very true. Very true. No, it's true. Education is killing the most employable skill sets of the next decade. The future of education is gaming. Education will not exist as it exists today. Why? Because it deserves to die.

16:51Why? Because your children are learning the same thing I learned at school, but I went in the seventies. That's why. Yeah. Multiplication tables are not going to be really a necessary skill, are they? So I want to talk a little more about, you mentioned it briefly, but I think there's a lot more to it. This idea of river of thinking. Can you kind of talk about that metaphor and how it both informs and gets in the way? We all got stuck in it. You know, I worked at Disney for 30 years and I was helping Lucas, Lucas films, Marvel and Pixar have new ideas. But the challenge is when you're talking to anybody who's worked in one particular line of business for a long time is they become so entrenched in what I call their river of thinking.

17:26So let me explain how that or the danger of a river of thinking. You and I are going to go into business together and we're going to open a car wash. Tell me if you would three or four essential ingredients we must have in our car wash. Customers, water, employees. Employees. Oh, customers, employees, and water. Okay. You and I are actually, we are venture capitalists. We've been invited to open a brand new franchise of auto spas. Ooh, ah, a spa. Now, close your eyes. What have you seen in the spa? What would you like to see in your spa? What could we have in the spa? Great music. Okay. What else?

18:00Very, very comfortable, fancy chairs. Okay. What else? Aromas. Aromas. Therapy. There we go. So, you can open your eyes. I said car wash. Straight to your river of thinking, right? Auto brushes, so vacuum dryer. I said auto spa, which is about the same product. We've got masseuses. We've got mani-pedis. so this tool is brilliant right walt disney created it he said we will not have any customers in our park we will only have guests we will not have any employees we'll only have cast members and with that simple re-expression of the relationship between the customer and the employees the cast member the guest everybody got out of their river thinking created this culture of hospitality um our river of thinking is this how might we make more money how might we make our quarterly results if we continue to ask that question we'd put the gate price up on well, there's a new world by 3%, you'd have complained, and we'd have made our quality results.

18:47You don't get to iterate in a post-pandemic world. You innovate or you die. So instead of asking the question we ask ourselves every day, because that's our river of thinking, how might we make more money? We reversed the challenge and said, how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point? Everybody knew what it was. It was called standing line. And I said, what if there were no lines? Didn't know how to solve it at the time. And we looked outside of our industry for an insight for innovation. Most of the insights for innovation come from looking outside of your industry. It's called Where Else?

19:14It's in the book. And we noticed there was a very small pharmacy in Tokyo, Japan, using RFID technology to enable people not to stand in line. Bing! Welcome to the world of Disney's magic band. Does it come in red or gray in the mouth? Of course it does. Why? Because you're like, wait, the Star Wars edition. Does it come with matching merchandise? Of course it does. This is my room key today. I don't check in or check out of a Disney resort hotel. My theme park tickets, my reservations for my character meeting greets and my rides. Now it's morphing towards the phone. I can poe for merchandise and have it sent to my hotel or my house, depending on how many times I touch it.

19:44I can order my food through my smartphone, walk into the restaurant when I want to walk in, sit at the table I want to sit at and food comes fresh to me. Had we started by saying, how might we make more money? Yeah, we'd have made 3%. But by reversing the challenge and asking how might we solve and getting out of our river, I think he's saying, how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point? The average guest at Walters, you are today, has two hours free time they didn't have six years ago each and every day. What has that resulted in? record intent to recommend, record intent to return, and record revenues.

20:13What do people do with their free time in Disney parks? They spend a bucket load of money. Absolutely. Well, Duncan, this has been a fascinating interview. I'm not sure if you interviewed me or I interviewed you, but nonetheless, I think the listeners will be the better for it. I really appreciate you taking a moment to stop by. Is there someplace you'd invite people to find out more about your work and the Imagination Emporium? Well, they can normally find me in the Lamb and Flag Pub in Covent Garden. But if I'm not there, you could go to theimaginationemporium.com or DuncanWardwood.com. Awesome.

20:44Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment to share. And hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road. Cool. Nice to meet you. Likewise.