The Law of Thinking Inside the Box

If you want to generate creative ideas to solve your business challenges, you should think _______   ___   ___.

Business professionals unanimously answer, “outside the box.”

(Insert game show buzzer sound for the wrong answer.)

The challenge with out of the box thinking is that there are no parameters, and because of this, ideas may be wonderfully creative, but:

• Can they be implemented quickly and inexpensively?
• Are they scalable?
• Once implemented, do they enhance your business objectives in remarkable ways?

Organizational creativity requires parameters.

You can ‘organize to maximize’ your idea generation, selection, and implementation.

Let’s face it, the need for creative solutions to challenges is never-ending. From small, daily issues, to weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and beyond – it never stops.

The most admired companies in the world reach that level of distinction in large part because they have mastered a simple and scalable method for problem-solving.

As this book unfolds, you’ll learn how to build your box and how to think inside it.

It’s also worth noting that the road to excellence has no finish line. Great organizations are never satisfied.

Never.

Satisfied.

As soon as something remarkable is launched, fixed, or enhanced, the next day people are (without prompting) asking, “How can we make this even better?”

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Become the Creativity and Innovation Category

Lead the category or be the category?

Striving to lead your industry isn’t entirely bad if you’re ok with waiting for someone else to beat you to the next breakthrough.

Why does that sound ridiculous?

Why is it important?

Because some ridiculously important (some would say game-changing) events have happened, are happening now, and will continue to happen.

It’s called disruption for a reason.

Waiting for it to happen can destroy an organization (and sometimes an industry).

Making it happen can launch competitive immunity and have your competition scrambling to recover.

Remember how the music industry let Napster reinvent music file sharing?

Music executives got blind-sided.

As if that wasn’t enough, the music industry never saw a computer company coming either.

Apple, iPod, iTunes, and now, Apple Music.

Apple is a category of one.

The music industry had their chance to become the category.

Kodak had their chance too, but they held so tightly to film, they suffocated themselves.

How does this train of thought affect Disney Creativity and Innovation?

Walt Disney wasn’t the brightest kid in his class. So how did he build a Company world-famous for being creative?

Survival.

You didn’t see that one coming did you?

Like any entrepreneur, from 100 years ago to last year, taking an idea from conception to a viable business is a long and uncertain road.

Walt wanted to be a cartoonist. He did draw, but only when he was young.

Why?

Because there were better artists available. He also assumed the role of business co-owner in 1923, with his older brother Roy. Those two facts made it clear, Walt’s drawing days were over.

As the Compay grew there were economic, world, and technology disruptions (all as intense, relatively speaking, as current events).

Literally at every turn, Walt had to fight to survive.

Walt led many of the cartoon industry’s landmark innovations: first cartoon with synchronized sound, first cartoon in color, first full-length animated feature film, as well as the vertical, multiplane camera which introduced remarkable depth of field to a one-dimensional industry.

The Great Depression, World World II, increasing investments in physical assets, and competition from rivals who were catching up, and so on. Walt had to continuously reinvent himself and try to stand out because if he didn’t, he wasn’t going to meet payroll.

His creativity was born out of necessity, not from a God-given natural gift.

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jeff noel Deconstructed Disney to reconstruct Creativity and Innovation, for your future enjoyment

If you’ve visited a Disney Theme Park, the odds are high you’ve seen at least one sign like this:

Please pardon our appearance while we refurbish this attraction for your future enjoyment.

Walt Disney Company

Why are the odds high?

The odds are great because Disney is always working to improve the Guest Experience.

Consider the effort, though. Every Attraction is unique, and each one comes with a different set of issues, opportunities, and strengths.

Closer inspection then will yield you a quick, and much deeper, appreciation.

Now imagine the difference between one closer inspection versus a lifetime of seeing it under a microscope.

When you see the actual DNA, the smallest pieces that hold the Disney Culture together, everything you believe in, and why, changes.

When i saw the Disney Institute participants struggle with our Creativity and Innovation content, which focused on what we do and how we do it, i set out to find a breakthrough for those struggling business professionals.

i was on a mission to crystallize why, and how, we do what we do.

The why took me to the microscope, which led to brilliantly simplistic discoveries.

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The Creativity and Innovation Gospel According To Walt Disney

Gospel: gos·pel, noun: Something regarded as true and implicitly believed: to take his report for gospel. A doctrine regarded as of prime importance: political gospel.

The good news, Disney’s Approach to Creativity and Innovation is simple and serves as the world’s business gospel.

The bad news is it’s not easy.

When i first discovered i had high cholesterol, the doctor recommended two simple steps to lower the risk of heart disease.

Diet and exercise.

Simple.

Not easy.

Disney’s Approach to Creativity and Innovation, you’ll see in a moment, is ridiculously simple.

And yet finding an organizational culture of overwhelming leadership excellence is roughly as statistically similar as finding a large number of vibrantly healthy American adults.

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This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.

The second greatest human fear

Most people know this, the second greatest human fear is the fear of death.

What’s the top human fear?

The only thing scarier than dying is public speaking.

So yeah, no, i never wanted to be a public speaker.

No dream.

No wish.

Not even a remote thought that just randomly came and went.

No desire nor interest ever happened before the day Carol called.

After that, the idea of being a Disney professional speaker consumed my thinking.

Like a broken record, i kept repeating the same question over and over, “Why me?”

Never thought about becoming a Disney Creativity and Innovation expert.

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This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.