On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Duncan Wardle, former head of Innovation and creativity at Disney, and author of the new book The Imagination Emporium. Duncan and I talk about his recipes for innovation and common tactics you can use to make your life and work more creative and inventive. Let's get started. 

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Interview Transcript with Duncan Wardle, Former head of Innovation and creativity at Disney and author of The Imagination Emporium

Brian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Duncan Wardle. He has spent 30 years as the head of innovation and creativity at Disney and is releasing a new book on December 10th called The Imagination Emporium: Creative Recipes for Innovation. Welcome Duncan. 

Duncan Wardle: Thank you very much for having me actually straight, I wasn't head of innovation and creativity for 30 years, but I actually started as a coffee boy in the London office. 

Brian Ardinger: Let's start there. Obviously, you spent a lot of time at Disney and that. Let's talk a little bit about the journey of how you learned everything about innovation and creativity.

Duncan Wardle: Very first assignment. Basically, I, I was taught persistence. I called that office every day for 27 days to a lovely lady by the name of Julie who was on the reception desk. There were only 16 people at Disney in, back in 1986, and now there's 3000. She got so fed up with taking my phone calls, they made me coffee boy. So, I used to go get cappuccinos from my boss down the road. About three weeks into the role, I was told I would be the character coordinator. That's the person that looks after the walk around characters at the Royal Premier of Who Framed Roger Rabbit at the Odeon Leicester Square, in the presence of the Princess of Wales, Diana. I was like, oh, what do I do? They said, well, you just down at the bottom of the stairs, Roger Rabbit will come down the staircase. The princess will come in along the receiving line. You either greet him, or she'll blow him off and move into the auditorium.

How could you possibly screw that up? Well, that's the day I found out what a contingency plan was because I did not have one. A contingency plan would tell you if you're going to bring a very tall rabbit with spectacularly long feet down a giant staircase towards the Princess Wales, one might want to measure the width of the steps, before the rabbit trips on the top step, it's now hurtling like a bullet at torpedo speed, head over feet, directly down the stairs towards Diana's head, where upon he was taken out in midair by two Royal Protection officers who just flattened him. This very famous picture on Reuters of Roger going back like this.

Two secret service heavies, dude's diving towards him in a suit and a 21-year-old PR guy in Disney at the back. Going, ah, shit, I'm fired. So, I got a call the next day from a person called a CMO from LA. I didn't even, you know, I was like, well, what's a CMO? I thought he was going to tell me I'm fired. And all I heard was that was great publicity.

I was like, wow, who knew? And so, I built a career on having mad audacious, outrageous ideas. But I got 'em done. So, I convinced NASA to take my son's Buzz Lightyear doll into space for the opening of Toy Story. He served 18 months on the International Space Station, the longest consecutive astronaut in space. I'll have, you know. I stole a Turkey from the White House on Thanksgiving Day, took it to Disneyland, happiest Turkey on Earth. 

So I got to do some of the crazy, just mad ideas with Pixar for new storylines and Lucas films and, and Marvel and. One of the biggest challenges is when you are on the outside looking in, oh, they're so creative, it's still a corporation, right? It still has processes and everything else. So I was tapped 10 years ago, and the boss said, right, you are going to be in charge of innovation and creativity. To which my exact response was, what the hell is that? He said, well, I don't know exactly. We just want to embed a culture of innovation and creativity. Everybody's DNA. 

So, I tried three models. Number one, I hired somebody who knew what they were doing and said, make me look good. Number two, I thought I'll create an innovation team. What could possibly go wrong? I'll be in charge of it. Well, no. Nobody outside of legal does legal work. Nobody outside of sales does sales work.

So, if you have an innovation team, you've subliminally said to the rest of the organization, Hey, you're off the hook. These people have it. Number three, we did an accelerator program, which worked to a certain extent, but we only were touching 0.02% of our population. So, I said, right. What if I create a toolkit that has three principles, takes the BS out of innovation and makes it less intimidating for normal, hardworking, busy people.

Makes creativity tangible, for 50% of the people who don't like ambiguity or gray, but far more input, make it fun. Give people tools they enjoy using, then they'll use and when we're not around. So yeah, 

Brian Ardinger: Love the stories. One of the things that. You think of Disney, and most people out in the real world think of Disney as one of the most creative, innovative companies out there, and yet even they said, we need somebody to take care and help us figure out creativity and innovation within our rank-and-file folks that are at Disney. How did that process come about? Why did Disney think, well, we need to be more creative or innovative when everybody looks at them as one of the key people that does it well. 

Duncan Wardle: Think about the theme park division, right? I was with theme parks for a relative, some of my career. And you've got third generation cast members. Their moms and dads work there, the grandparents work there, and this is the way we do it here. And trying to change that culture was like trying to move the Titanic. So, we did, we created this toolkit. Eventually we were training it. We made it so impactful. We had a three and a half year wait list for a voluntary two-day training course.

So, I thought, and then they gave me the Jiminy Cricket, bronze, thank you for 30 magical years of service statue. And I looked at it, I thought, shit, I'm nearly dead. So, I thought I better go do something else. So I left. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. I went home to Colmore and sat in the pub for six months and felt sorry for myself and thought, what the hell have I just done?

I thought, you know what? I got to write a book. And the reason I love doing things I don't know how to do. And I thought, okay. And I said to the publisher, I said, it's not a book. He said, well, why is it not a book? And I said, well, because nobody reads books. They're always on the bookshelf. We don't have time. We are busy people. 

So, I thought, okay, how do I create an innovation toolkit, but make it accessible to normal, hardworking, busy people who have deadlines and everything else? Well, nobody has time to read a book. That's why it's on the bookshelf. So, I thought, right. My mom's cookbook. You want shepherd's pie? You go to page 67. So, I thought, right, I'm going to do the book the same way. So, the contents page, you've got the contents page for the logical people and then the contents for busy people. And it says, have you ever been to a brainstorm where nothing ever happened? Go to page 67, fed up your boss shoot your ideas down. Go to page 12. 

So, make it accessible for people, but also we learn different ways and I'll, I'll prove my point. So, close your eyes. How many days are there in September 

Brian Ardinger: 30. 

Duncan Wardle: Keep your eyes closed. How did you know? How did you learn? How did you remember, or what can you see with your eyes closed. 

Brian Ardinger: The calendar.

Duncan Wardle: Okay. 

Brian Ardinger: With boxes and, 

Duncan Wardle: Got it. Okay. So, you can open your eyes. 30% of the audience will do this. 30 days has September, blah, blah, blah. They just told me they're auditory. Yeah, because they learned that when they were six. But how did they remember it? 'cause they'd heard it. You ever seen anybody count their knuckles?

They put their fists together and they go January, February, March, April, May, June. Well, actually you learned both of those, but that's not your preferred learning style. They are kinesthetic learners. You are a visual learner. How? Because that's how you saw the answer. There's QR codes on each chapter.

Again, because I want to make it entertaining as well as fun, but also practical. There's a Spotify playlist in each chapter for auditory learners. There are animated videos, with animated Duncan. I have never been an animated character before, but I thought, wow. Give it a go. So, I pop out of each chapter with a bunch of characters and teach you how to use the tools and the behaviors.

And then on the back I thought, oh, how the hell do I make it kinesthetic? I thought, I know I'm going to create the first fully integrated artificial intelligence book in the United States of America. That QR code at the moment, the one you've got 'cause in advanced copy, only sends you to one of the animated videos.

But on December the 10th, you will ask it questions through WhatsApp, through Chat GPT the book will tell you how to use the tools. So, and the reason I'm doing it's 'cause I don’t know how to do it.

Brian Ardinger: Well, I think that's a, an important process. People often ask creative people how do you do it? And I think a lot of times it's just you take that leap; you realize that failure is not always a bad thing.

And you know that taking a step in a direction that you may not have gone before opens up new ideas and, and new opportunities that you're gonna have to navigate. And I think, you know, you mentioned this in the book quite a bit about we need to build that fundamental muscle within our bodies and, and our minds and our corporations.

The idea that we have to be more adaptable, more open to change, open to risk, because that's the world we're living in. And if you're not building those types of muscles now when those changes hit you, you're not gonna be as prepared as others. So, I appreciate that about the book as well. 

Duncan Wardle: Yeah. I also think, look, the last four years we all did pretty well for most of our careers.

And then in four years we had a global pandemic, climate change square in the face, your dad in Sarata and me in central Florida and have fish in my back garden. They're not supposed to be there. Generation Z entering the workplace, but they believe in purpose, not profit, so they don't want to work for anybody.

And then here comes AI. So those four changes in four years, mm-Hmm. We don't get. Think the way we always have. So, the toolkit is designed to help people stop thinking the way they always have and help them think differently. 

Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk about some of the fundamentals. Why is it so hard for corporations specifically to be creative or go in different directions than they're normally marching?

Duncan Wardle: Actually, let me ask you, 'cause we asked 5,000 people when I started creating the toolkit. What were the biggest barriers to be more innovative and creative at work? What would you tell me? What would you say is the biggest barrier for you to be more creative and innovative where you work? 

Brian Ardinger: I think one of the biggest challenges, and when I work with corporates in the innovation space, it's a fundamental difference when you are in execution mode and you have a plan and you're paid and designed, and you're focused on optimizing and executing that particular plan and failure when you know the plan is bad.

Duncan Wardle: Yeah. It's 

Brian Ardinger: actually, the challenge is, is the. Exploration side where most of us don't play. And in that particular realm, you have to fail because you don't know the exact path. You don't know exactly the model you're supposed to be building. And those two oftentimes rub up against each other. And if you are in an environment where you're designed to execute versus, an environment where you're designed to explore, they often clash.

Duncan Wardle: Yeah, I think one of the biggest barriers that I hear people say is, I don't have time to think. You always hear that. I don't have time to think. Yeah. And then you look at their diaries and they're completely full. Well, duh, but, and here's the challenge. Time to think. Actually, let's try this. Close your eyes. Where are you usually? And what are you doing when you get your best ideas? 

Brian Ardinger: Either when I'm on a run or in the shower. 

Duncan Wardle: Right? So I've done this. The biggest group I did it was with 20,000 people and I get 'em to write it down. And do you know how many people write down the words at work? Nobody writes down the words at work, so why not?

Well, 'cause when we're at work, we're very, very, very busy. So, but why do we never have our best ideas at work? Close your, close your eyes again. Picture the last verbal argument you had with somebody. Perhaps a loved one, a work colleague and voices were raised. You're angry at each other now, and you are shouting each other.

Now you turn to walk away from the argument. Now you are 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds away from the argument, less than a minute, and what just popped into your head totally spontaneously. The second you turn to walk away from the argument. Hit the killer one liner. The one perfect beautiful line. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

Exactly, but you never delivered it during the argument, did you? No. Why? Because when we're in argument, our brain is moving at a thousand miles an hour. When we're at the office, we've got emails, presentations, meetings, and I hear myself say. I don't have time to think. And when you don't have time to think, it's called a reticular activating system. Nobody remembers it. 

Call it a door between your conscious and subconscious brain is firmly closed. When that door is closed, you're only working with your conscious brain. Only 13% of your brain is conscious. 87% of your brain is subconscious. Every meeting you've ever attended, innovation you've seen, created problem you've ever solved is back there to help you solve the challenge you're working on.

But when the door is shut, you don't have access to it. What do I do? I run energizers. They're in the book. There's a group of 'em. What are they designed to do? They're designed to make you laugh. Why? Why laughter? Because the moment I hear laughter, I've opened the door between your conscious and subconscious brain and metaphorically placed you back in the shower where you can still make an informed decision, but still have a big idea.

I don't expect people to be playful every minute of every day. I do expect people to be playful when they're trying to develop big ideas. It's really important. The other biggest barrier, I think, for all of us is we say it's time to think. It's not. It's our own experience. And the more expertise and the more experience we have, the more reasons we know why the new idea won't work.

So we constantly shoot it down. So I want to try an experiment. We're going to brainstorm an idea for a birthday party. We're going to do it one way, then we're going to do it another way. And then I want you to tell me what this difference was. The first way will be how we brainstorm today. So I'm going to come at you. Are we going to do a Star Wars party or a Harry Potter party? What do you want? 

Brian Ardinger: Star Wars. 

Duncan Wardle: I'll come at you with some Star Wars ideas for a birthday party. We've got a hundred thousand dollars reasonable budget. I want you to start each and every response with the words no because, and tell me why we shouldn't do that idea.

So I was thinking of coming to your house, right, and turning your kitchen into the Death Star canteen. And we could have an international food and wine festival from Hoff and Boon, Tatooine. We can The Cantina Band. It'll be huge. 

Brian Ardinger: No, because my house isn't that big. 

Duncan Wardle: Alright, I'll tell you what. What if we had glow in the dark lightsabers full of our favorite alcoholic liquid?

Brian Ardinger: No, because there'll be kids at the party, 

Duncan Wardle: Right? Oh, we'll do a cosplay party. Right? All the tall people could come as Vader and all the little people would come as Ewoks. 

Brian Ardinger: No, because I'm allergic to Ewoks. 

Duncan Wardle: Oh, alright. What if we just showed a couple of the movies and some popcorn and Coca-Cola? 

Brian Ardinger: No, I'm a Pepsi guy, 

Duncan Wardle: So, we'll stop there. When somebody's constantly shooting your ideas down, how does that make you feel? 

Brian Ardinger: Oh yeah, obviously it's like why bother coming up with the next one? 

Duncan Wardle: Exactly. Now, as we were going there, was our party idea getting bigger or was it getting smaller? Which direction was it headed? 

Brian Ardinger: Oh yeah, definitely getting smaller.

Duncan Wardle: Okay, so let's do it a different way. I'm gonna come at you with some ideas. Can we do Harry Potter? Is that okay? 

Brian Ardinger: Sure.

Duncan Wardle: Okay. I'll come at you with some ideas for Harry Potter party instead of starting with the words No, because I'd like you to start with the words. Yes. And, and then just give me back an idea. So, I was coming, you know, I thought we could come over to your house again, right? Put a sorting hat outside the front door and all the good people get the Gryffindor party and all the dark people get the mysterious Slytherin party. 

Brian Ardinger: Yes, we could have a variety of different characters that, that greet them and, and take them to the, the new place. 

Duncan Wardle: Oh, yes. And we could have a magic potion’s room full of our favorite alcoholic liquid that turns us into something totally freaky.

Brian Ardinger: Yes. And we could also have interesting foods that fly around the room. 

Duncan Wardle: Ooh, yes. And we could have holograms of Dumbledore and Professor McGonigle. We could have wands, we could make, make magic tricks. 

Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. Yes. And we can also maybe bring the actors from the Harry Potter Movie to the, to the party.

Duncan Wardle: Oh, alright. So, we'll stop there. Couple of things I noticed you laughed a lot more this time around you. You waved your arms, you became Italian for the first time this afternoon, this time around. What's the idea of getting bigger or smaller? 

Brian Ardinger: Obviously bigger. Yeah. 

Duncan Wardle: But we are inside big organizations, small organizations. We have colleagues, constituencies, bosses, governments to bring on board with our ideas. By the time we just finished building that idea together, who was it by the time we finished? 

Brian Ardinger: You know, a group collaborative, more effort that where everybody can have buy into it. Yeah. 

Duncan Wardle: Ours... Two simple words that have the power to transfer the, we can always take a big idea and value engineer it down, right, but you can't reverse it.

But far more importantly, it's a tool that allows you to transfer the power of my idea, which never goes anywhere inside an organization to our idea and accelerate its opportunity to get done. I know people have responsibilities. I know they have deadlines. Just remind yourself when you start saying no, because when somebody comes at you with an idea, we are not green lighting.

This idea for execution today. We're merely green housing it using yes and. As leaders, if somebody walks into your office with an idea you are not thinking of, that's a really good place to start. If the first two words out of your mouth are no, because they may have genius two days from now, two weeks from now, you'll never know.

Brian Ardinger: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's one of the major issues and, and I think a lot of it also does, where I've seen it, like middle management for example, where they'll say no because they think their boss will say no, and so they don't want to even, you know, take that idea to the next level because they're afraid of what their boss will say. Rather than providing that air cover and saying, Hey yes, let's figure that out together and let's take it up the up the chain or something. 

Duncan Wardle: Virgin is a very elastic brand, right? They've done, you know, Disney is a very non elastic brand. It's family magical experiences. Virgin, he's done condoms and space travel and everything in between.

So how does Virgin decide what products and services to bring to market? They can bring anything to market. So, they've got this tool that I started to use as well called Star. I call it Star Gazer. And it's simple. You literally draw what looks like a starfish, I suppose, on a piece of paper. And you put three little points along each of the legs, if you will.

And then you evaluate the idea together. So, let's say our five criteria are, I'm making it up, must be a strategic brand fit, must be embedded in consumer truth, must be able to execute it in the next 12 to 24 months. Must make us lots of money, whatever our fiscal goal is, and has to be socially engaging.

And what you do is you take each of your final ideas and you go around and score it. On that starfish, so to speak, and, and then you start to join the dots and suddenly, and you do them in different colors, suddenly one idea will rise to the top as to meeting your criteria the best, not the one you like the most.

'Cause we're all very passionate about our own ideas. You like pink? I like blue. Our boss likes yellow. Oh, we're doing the yellow idea. Well, hang on a minute. Is it relevant to the consumer? And so, I get people at the end of a brainstorm, I put all of the ideas up on the wall. I don't allow people to talk because people will influence each other.

What normally happens is what I call the paycheck parade. We all look to see where the most senior person in the room is. We line up behind them, they put their red dot on idea number 17, and we tell them how much we liked it. Mm-Hmm. But guess what? We are the execution team, and when it comes to us and we've got other things on our plate, this idea will get stuck, diluted, or killed because we weren't passionate about it in the first place.

So I allow people to vote anonymously. We're using passion on it which again is in the book. Then they walk back into the room and they see there's an instant visual read of which idea has the most passion around it. So I could get down from 54 ideas to eight like that. So that's voting with your heart.

Then I use the Star Gazer tool that I start to vote with your head. When we were bringing two new Disney cruise ships to market, we had to decide where to put the old ships. Now we know that 75% of the revenue of the cruise market is in the Caribbean, so you knew the big ships would go in there.

We had to decide where the old ships would go, and usually inside a big corporation that comes down to the senior vice president, sit in a room, go, do you know what we went to the Mediterranean last year, had a fantastic time, and somebody else go, oh, I did the Alaska cruise. Oh, I don't give a toss. So one of the criteria that we had on the stargazer was can we get this ship a birth in the particular port that we're looking for in the next 18 months?

And if the answer is no, I don't care how much you like the idea and what used to take anywhere from six weeks to six months to make a corporation make a decision. 'cause we know we are like molasses. We took 16 senior vice presidents into a room. And in 59 minutes they made a decision. Again, make the tools simple, powerful and fun, and people will use them.

Brian Ardinger: What I like about that particular instance too is that it looked at, making it more objective. So again, rather than the person's idea, it's taking the evidence that you have around the room, the criteria, et cetera, and using that as a way to, to help make that decision and not make somebody feel bad or put you in the wrong position just because somebody, you know, leans one way or the other.

Duncan Wardle: The CMO at Disneyland Paris had to kill his own idea. 

Brian Ardinger: Yeah, exactly. 

Duncan Wardle: Yeah, no. 'cause his idea was to have a big cowboy festival for Disneyland Paris', 25th anniversary. And when you looked at our, is it embedded in consumer truth? Well, the target audience is a mom who's 32 years of age with toddlers. She doesn't even know what a cowboy is, so he had to kill his own idea. So, it's quite powerful. Again, they're meant to be simple, powerful, and fun. Why fun? 'cause I want people to use them. That's why. 

Brian Ardinger: Well, this has been fun. Thank you for coming on Inside Outside Innovation and, and just spilling over with a ton of different things. I encourage everybody to pick up the book, the Imagination Emporium coming out December 10th. I guess one last question, the world is changing quite a bit. What are some of the trends and the things that you're excited about and how do you see the world happening in the next 24 months? 

Duncan Wardle: Don't be afraid of AI. It saved your life. It created a vaccine in six months that used to take 10 years. And here's the thing. We say the number one barrier to innovation is I don't have time to think. What do you think AI is about to do? It's going to do your weekly reports, your expense reports, all this, and it's going to give you time to think. I think the next 24 months AR is going to dominate the marketplace. Now, Apple Vision Pro, too expensive, too big, but we know it's going to get smaller. We know it's going to get cheaper. Are you familiar with 19 Crimes? The red wine? 

Brian Ardinger: Yes. Yeah. With the QR code and the different stories around each wine. Yep. 

Duncan Wardle: So, did you buy the wine or did you buy the experience? 

Brian Ardinger: Oh, definitely the experience. 

Duncan Wardle: Now look at the case study. Fastest growing number one selling red wine in the United States America.

Why? 'cause they turn a product into an experience. Yeah, augmented reality. I'm currently working with two of the biggest, football teams in Britain and baseball teams in the United States of America, because you know what? Within five years as this gets cheaper and smaller, I did a test. I sat in the Apple store in London, but no, no, no, I was in the dugout next to the players. The Boston Red Sox live during the game now. 

Fast forward when these products get cheaper, Johnny and Caro can pay a dollar to sit on the backs of the stadium. $2. He'll sit halfway behind home plate and $5 he'll be in the dugout. Augmented reality, I think, will dominate virtual reality until VR gets better, but it also allows a shared experience.

Right, because I can see the outside world, I can see the people alongside me. I think augmented reality is going to really blow away the marketplace. But I'll finish on this one last thought 'cause people say, well, how am I going to compete with artificial intelligence? I was doing some work with Google on their Deep Mind project, which is their AI robot.

 And I asked the lead engineer what she believes will be the most employable skill sets for the next decade. 'cause I said, how am I going to compete with this? Otherwise, I should retire and get a small pub in Scotland and don't bother. she said, well, the most employable skill sets the next five to 10 years will be the ones that will be the hardest for her to program into ai.

And I said, well, what are those? She said, well, you were born with all of 'em. Creativity, imagination, curiosity, empathy and intuition. She said, will I program them one day? She said, yeah, I probably will. But, so, but here's the thing. We go to school and the teacher tells us, don't forget to color in between the lines so there goes your imagination.

We are told, we played with the box. We didn't play with the toy at Christmas time. But then we go to school, and they tell you to color in between the lines and stop asking why. 'cause there weren't right answer. I do believe whilst these weren't the most employable skill sets of our careers; they will be for the next 10 years.

Brian Ardinger: Duncan, this has been fantastic. Great journey. Thank you for bringing us along on that. If people want to find out more about yourself or the book, what's the best way to do that? 

Duncan Wardle: Usually at a pub, at the bar, and you are buying. Otherwise, it's Duncan Wardle.com. 

Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Duncan, thanks for being on Inside Outside Innovation. Look forward to chatting with you again in the future. 

Duncan Wardle: Lovely to meet you. Thank you so much. 

Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.

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