Duncan Wardle

Ignite a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Nancy's Note:

“Duncan is an incredible authority on the creativity behind Disney. He teaches how companies can use innovative strategies to create their own corporate “magic.” Duncan’s talks are enlightening, powerful and invigorating. A very special presenter, indeed.”

Duncan Wardle

Ignite a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Nancy’s Note
“Duncan is an incredible authority on the creativity behind Disney. He teaches how companies can use innovative strategies to create their own corporate “magic.” Duncan’s talks are enlightening, powerful and invigorating. A very special presenter, indeed.”

Duncan Wardle

Ignite a Culture of Innovation and Creativity

Nancy’s Note
“Duncan is an incredible authority on the creativity behind Disney. He teaches how companies can use innovative strategies to create their own corporate “magic.” Duncan’s talks are enlightening, powerful and invigorating. A very special presenter, indeed.”

Expertise

Innovation, Creativity, Curiosity, Customer Experience

Travels From

Orlando, Florida

Speaking Style

Engaging, Energetic, Inspirational

About Duncan...

Former Head of Innovation and Creativity at the Walt Disney Company for over 25 years, empowering companies to create innovative solutions to immediately drive positive growth.

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Presentation Topics

C=ME2 (creativity = me empowered)

The ability to think creatively is the one core human truth that will remain relevant in the brave new world of Artificial Intelligence. Everyone has the power to be creative!

But wait, do you believe that you are not the “creative type”? That we should leave the creativity to the “Creatives”? For most, this has happened so many times that we end up actually believing it. For adults, not being creative is an accepted fate.

With an education and corporate structure that encourages finding the single “right answer” to every question, we are trained to fall in line, and shut down that creative portion of our brain.

But weren’t we kids once? Turning boxes into spaceships and pillows and blankets into forts and castles? What happened to that creativity?

Fortunately, that childhood creativity did not dissipate – it’s just lying dormant, waiting to be brought back to life!

During the Theory of Creativity™ Keynote, Duncan will share innovation tools developed from experience with thousands of global Fortune 500 companies and 30 years of experience with the Walt Disney Company, most recently as Head of Innovation & Creativity.

By the end, your audience will walk away with a series of unique Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools to leverage their creative minds, deliver revolutionary thinking and drive substantial results in all areas of your business.

Keynote Takeaways:

  • How to innovate by challenging the rules of your industry
  • Learn real-life examples of how to embed a sustainable culture of innovation and creativity throughout your organization
  • Learn tools on how to encourage every employee to think creatively

Give your customers exactly what they need!

The best brands in the world may have great products and service, but they thrive because of an unrelenting passion and focus on customer experience.

Through this engaging and interactive Keynote, Duncan will share how to transform your business from product-centric to customer-centric and reap the rewards that come when customers believe the work you do is truly magic.

Duncan will share with your team famous real-world examples from behind the scenes from his time as the Head of Innovation and Creativity at The Walt Disney Company.

Showcasing challenges brought on by direct and indirect competitors, Duncan will share real-life and timely examples of how ever-evolving organizations drastically changed consumer behaviors.

As he shares the exact steps Disney and other companies have taken to turn problems into massive opportunities, he will dig into the new revenue opportunities and enhanced customer experiences.

By the end of this interactive presentation, your audience will have developed a whole new understanding of customer experience, and you will be empowered with tools to reframe any challenges facing your organization, finding those unique opportunities to create some customer experience magic of your own!

Keynote Takeaways:

  • How to turn a product centric culture into a consumer centric one
  • How to leverage “high-tech” to enable “high-touch”, delivering record guest satisfaction
  • How to address the biggest consumer pain points and what that can mean for revenue

Leading A.I. expert Kai Fu Lee has suggested that upwards of 40% of current jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence within the next 15 years. 40%!

So, how we will compete in the next decade? What skills will we need to survive in a decade of total disruption and rise in A.I.? Simple. Businesses that will win will be those that leverage the most impactful human traits that A.I. won’t be able to replicate (at least not for the foreseeable future): Creativity, Intuition, Curiosity, & Imagination.

As Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney for the last decade I learned that there is a huge gap in the market. CEO’s everywhere would look to us – The World’s Most Creative Company – for guidance on how to create a culture of innovation, and provide their organization with the tools needed to leverage their most important asset: their people.

But here’s the challenge: until now, no one has made innovation tangi- ble. Many companies hire an Innovation consultancy or build an “Innovation Department,’ only to find that they have not truly driven cultural change and embedded innovation across the entire enterprise.

What if instead, there was a Design Thinking Innovation Toolkit? One that everyone could use that makes creativity tangible, innovation easy, and the process enjoyable? That’s exactly what I have built leaning on my years of experience at Disney, and exactly what I’ll share with you as part of Embed- ding a Culture of Innovation into Everyone’s DNA presentation.

Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower, during your commute, while falling asleep, or some other unexpected place? Have you ever pitched a new idea, only to watch it get diluted or killed as it moves through the processes? Ever wanted to know how Walt Disney came up with the idea for a Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie rental industry?

In his over 25-year career at the world’s most innovative organization – The Walt Disney Company – Duncan Wardle learned many important things about building a profitable business and winning creative culture. The most important? If you want to be different, you have to Think Different!

Leaning on his experience as the Head of Innovation & Creativity at Disney, Duncan’s Think Different keynote takes audiences on a journey. Throughout this journey, they’ll be given a unique set of Innovation Tools and Techniques . These include the breakthrough “What If” creative thinking tool, made famous by Walt Disney himself, who used it to pivot his company from simply an animation house to an entertainment and theme park pioneer.

After this immersive crash course from Duncan, your organization’s ability to mine for creativity and innovation will be drastically improved. In the end, your audience will leave with an actionable set of Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools that will immediately foster a culture of innovation and creativity in your company.

A Crash Course in Innovation!

The Workshop is an immersive program that teaches teams how to create an “innovation light switch” within their organization. One that can be turned on at any moment to access creative problem solving and innovative new ideas. Specifically designed to address the 5 biggest obstacles to innovation and creativity in the workplace, workshop participants aren’t just told what needs to be done… they are given the chance to actually do. People learn by doing not by listening! Participants take on a challenge using core Design Thinking principles to help them Think Different, and they then deliver innovative ideas that are embedded in core consumer truths, resulting in significant business results.

Can You Really Have Great Ideas “On-Demand”?

Do you ever wonder why most of your best ideas come to you in the shower, on the commute, while falling asleep, or some other such place? Have you ever pitched a new idea, only to watch it get diluted or killed as it moves through the processes? Have you ever wondered how Walt Disney came up with the idea for Disneyland or how Netflix completely revolutionized the movie industry?

Throughout the Innovation Workshop, Duncan will give each participant a unique set of Innovation Tools and Techniques – one’s honed during his tenure at Disney as Head of Innovation and Creativity. The same tool kit he uses today to teach innovation at companies like Apple, Amazon, and universities like Yale and UNC.

After this immersive course from Duncan, your organization’s ability to mine for creativity and innovation will be drastically improved. Each participant will leave with an actionable set of Creative Behaviors and Innovation Tools that will immediately foster a culture of innovation and creativity in your company

CREATIVE BEHAVIORS:

  • Nurturing – How to grow an idea collaboratively so it becomes “our idea” vs “my idea”
  • Playfulness – How to get into the right state of mind required for innovation and creativity at work
  • Signaling – How to set teams up for success by creating the right environment for ideation
  • Intuition – How to dial-up empathy for the consumer, ensuring all the ideas are embedded in “Consumer Truth”
  • Mindfulness – How to give yourself time to think, allowing you to move between your conscious and unconscious brain
  • Curiosity – How to leverage the importance of unplanned collaboration and find new stimulus to drive new ideas
  • Prototyping – How to bring an idea to life
  • Bravery – How to use tools to create a culture of smart risk-takers

INNOVATION TOOLS

  • What if? – A tool that challenges industry norms by asking “What If” those Sacred Cows no longer existed, to develop revolutionary ideas.
  • Where Else? – Innovation often comes from looking outside your industry for inspiration and borrowing back the underlying principles to develop innovative solutions to solve your own.
  • Who Else? – Leveraging different perspectives, you can view your challenge from a completely different viewpoint, creating new ideas.
  • How Else? – Simply re-expressing your challenge, learn how you can unlock a different part of your brain to come up with completely new ideas.
  • Storyboarding – Learn how to build a complete idea by engaging both introverts and extroverts.
  • Wheel of Wonder – Identifies the ideas that are deeply embedded in consumer insight and most likely to drive the business forward.
  • Naive Experts – leverages the brain power of the most unlikely sources to get you out of your “River of Expertise” to come up with new and unique ideas

Armed with these creative behaviors and innovation tools, your organization will see immediate changes in your culture, and will be empowered to develop innovative, disruptive new ideas and solutions that will provide lasting, tangible benefits to your business for years to come.

DELIVERABLES

  • Each participant will learn how to use the Creative Behaviors.
  • The team will learn how to transfer the power of “my idea” to “our idea”, accelerating the opportunity to actually get it done.
  • The workshop is designed to engage both introverts & extroverts, and the three styles of learning.
  • The participants will learn how to gather consumer insights for innovation by looking in new and unusual places (often where their competition isn’t looking).
  • The workshop will cover the 5 Lateral Thinking Tools that help get people out of their “River of Thinking” (their personal expertise) and allow them to innovate.
  • Everyone will have a common language around Innovation & Creativity.
  • The participants will learn how to use powerful storytelling techniques to convey ideas.