Unlocking creativity and imagination at work with Duncan Wardle

Executive overview

Most adults don't believe they're creative — but that belief was taught, not innate. Every child is born imaginative; school and work systematically suppress it. Duncan Wardle, former head of innovation at Disney, shares a toolkit to reverse that.

The core insight: creativity isn't a personality trait — it's a set of learnable behaviors and tools that anyone can apply to get ideas they couldn't reach alone.

Why adults stop being creative

• Six-year-olds unanimously raise their hands when asked "who's creative"; university students don't.
• School teaches two creativity-killers: colour inside the lines, and there's only one right answer.
• Best ideas never happen at work — shower, walking, falling asleep — because work keeps the brain in high-speed beta state.
• 87% of the brain is subconscious; when stressed or busy, that door stays shut.
• AI will automate reports and admin — giving back the one thing people say they lack: time to think.
• Human imagination, curiosity, empathy, and intuition are the hardest things to program into AI — making them the most employable skills of the next decade.

Energizers: opening the door to the subconscious

• Energizers are 60-second exercises designed to make you laugh — laughter signals the subconscious door has opened.
• Laughter shifts the brain from busy beta into alpha, where the subconscious becomes accessible.
• Example: drawing a face without looking down forces playful engagement and breaks self-limiting beliefs about creativity.
• Use energizers at the start of any session where you need big ideas, not every minute of every day.

The "yes, and" vs "no, because" tool

• "No, because" responses shrink ideas — each objection constricts the solution space.
• "Yes, and" responses expand ideas — ownership shifts from "my idea" to "our idea."
• Greenhouse rule: designate one room where no one is allowed to kill ideas during expansive sessions; reductive sessions happen separately.
• Be explicit: declare whether a session is expansive or reductive — never mix modes.
• Ideas don't need to be greenlighted for execution today; they're being "green-housed."

Rivers of thinking and the naive expert

• River of thinking: your expertise and experience create a fast, deep current that's hard to exit.
• The naive expert is someone outside your industry, chosen specifically to say something that stops your default thinking.
• Disney example: a young Chinese female chef in a room of American male architects drew dim sum architecture instead of a standard house — that sketch became "distinctly Disney, authentically Chinese," the strategic brand position for Shanghai Disneyland.
• Diversity of perspective (gender, age, culture, discipline) is the mechanism, not a courtesy.

The "what if" tool

• Step 1: list the rules of your challenge — don't analyse them or you'll talk yourself out of breaking them.
• Step 2: pick one rule and ask the most audacious, provocative "what if" statement possible.
• If you know the answer, you're iterating. If it scares you, you're innovating.
• Walt Disney example: "What if I take movies out of the theater?" → three-dimensional → different lands → Disneyland.
• Small company example: glass manufacturer asked "what if we poked their eyes out?" → hired blind workers → production up 26%, breakage down 42%, plus a 50% government salary subsidy.

Reframing the challenge

• Walt Disney reframed "customers and employees" as "guests and cast members" — that single language shift created a hospitality standard rarely matched.
• Disney 2011: instead of "how might we make more money?" asked "how might we solve the biggest consumer pain point?" (queuing) → led to the Magic Band.
• Magic Band result: two free hours per day per guest → record intent to recommend, return, and revenues.
• "Director of first impressions" vs "receptionist" — re-expression changes behaviour without any structural change.

Embedding a culture of innovation

• An innovation team subliminally tells everyone else they're off the hook — avoid siloing creativity.
• The toolkit Duncan built at Disney has three principles: remove intimidation, make creativity tangible, make it fun.
• Tools work only when people choose to use them without being told — that's when culture is actually changing.
• Practical start: monthly 60-minute brown bag breakfast, no PowerPoint, everyone shares one innovative thing they've seen in the past 30 days.
• Unplanned collaboration (Pixar seating philosophy, Google's 20% time) surfaces ideas that planned meetings never reach.
• Ask five whys, not two — data stops at the first or second why; the child's insight lives at the fifth or sixth.

Bravery: the turkey story

• Disney needed Thanksgiving media coverage after Disneyland's 50th anniversary hype had faded.
• Insight: the president pardons a turkey each Thanksgiving — that turkey is "the happiest turkey on earth."
• Duncan cold-called the White House, acquired the turkey, staged a "Turkey 1" flight (United Airlines changed the flight number), and got the president to announce — unprompted — that the turkeys would be grand marshals in Disneyland's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
• There was no Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was created in two days for $750,000 with no budget.
• Henry Ford's principle applied: whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right.