Published on: February 27, 2020
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I reported on MNB yesterday about a presentation that Duncan Wardle - who was with the Walt Disney Company for 25 years, most recently as head of Innovation & Creativity - and how he talked about keys to unleashing creativity.
There was one thing that he mentioned that I wanted to follow up on, because I thought it was telling. (Let's be clear. I am stealing this from him.)
Duncan looked at the audience and said, "Fold your arms."
So I did.
You do it, too. Go ahead. I'll wait.
Then, he said to the audience, "Now, fold them the other way."
So I tried. You try, too.
Go ahead. I'll wait.
If you are anything like me, you found doing it the other way to be uncomfortable. I was so used to doing it one way that it actually was sort of hard to do it the other way.
And that's a really good lesson.
We talk here all the time about how the worst thing one can say is, "We do it that way because we've always done it that way."
It is critical to put ourselves and our businesses in the situation where we feel a little uncomfortable. If we don't feel that way from time to time, we aren't working hard enough, and we certainly aren't working smart enough.
So here's a suggestion. Gather your folks around you, and ask them to cross their arms. Then ask them to do it the other way … and from there, engage in a discussion about what you could do in your business that is a) totally customer-centric, and b) would force the business to operate outside its typical and traditional boundaries.
We can learn this by crossing our arms. But in the end, what we really have to do is extend our arms - to new ideas.
That's what is on my mind this morning and, as always, I want to hear what is on your mind.
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