by Tom Hoobyar
To set the framework for the exploration we’re about to make, here’s a story. This happened during a year I was traveling a lot—I was in lots of hotel rooms, lots of restaurants, lots of airports—in lots of different towns. And, because I was expecting to see something, I didn’t see what was right in front of me.
After a while, when you’re moving around that much, you just expect certain things—like the paper towel dispensers in the men’s restroom—to work in a particular way. In public restrooms, there are these black plastic contraptions on the wall by the sink, right? Some have little seeing eyes and when you wave your hands in front of them in just the right way, they burp out a stingy little towel. Other times, there’s a button on the front or on the side—and that’s really messy because everyone with wet hands has to press the same button.
Anyway, I was at the sink with wet hands in this men’s room. When I waved my hands and nothing happened, I waved them again, closer. Nothing! Then I waved them under the place where the towels come out. Still nothing. So I waved my hands right in front of the thing. Again, nothing! I’m thinking, “Is this damn thing blind?”
Then I saw a little silver round thing on the side. Thinking it was a button, I pushed it. It was a rivet. Next, I pushed on a plate with the trademark and another thing that turned out to be another rivet. Nothing.
Then, being a hotshot engineer and an experienced traveler, I looked at the slot where the towels come out and wondered, “Can I just pull one out even if the machine’s busted?” I saw the edge of a towel sticking out so I pulled it and it popped right out.
It worked just like a towel dispenser did in the good old days—turns out, that’s exactly what it was. It was an old-fashioned dispenser that looked like one of the new ones—no buttons, no seeing eye, just a slot where you reach up and pull out a paper towel.
What really struck me is that the simplest thing was the last thing that occurred to me, not the first. Because I was on autopilot, I was expecting something and I didn’t see what I might have been able to see if I had just tried the simplest thing first, or if I’d just been curious.
After this experience, I found myself wondering, “How often am I on autopilot? How often do I assume that I know how something, or someone, works? How often do I assume that I know what I’m doing or what the right way is?” A lot, it turns out. With this awareness, I began looking at my behaviors, as well as how other people were communicating and acting. I set my filters to notice unspecified expectations and challenges, and be curious about what I observed.
I found no shortage of examples! But rather than tell you about all the bumps and bruises I witnessed, I’d like to share a contrasting example.
Moving in the Same Direction: Effective Collaboration Using the Well-Formed Outcome Model
An NLP classmate of mine was a senior manager at Hewlett-Packard when we learned how to create Well-Formed Outcomes. At that time, he was leading a $500 million business unit and often fantasized about how much more his team could accomplish if everyone were really on the same page. He said that sometimes he felt that work was like white-water rafting. He explained that because they weren’t paddling together, the trip had unnecessary lulls, dangerous vertical drops, and difficult points of navigation. And, he said, they were missing a lot of the camaraderie and fun of mastering the big water.
Even though his people were knowledgeable and motivated, he was often surprised by how folks were out of sync when it came to the vision for a project, product, division, or even the whole company. They didn’t always see the big picture. And from his vantage point in the organization, he didn’t always see or understand the challenges that inhibited progress toward specific goals.
By using the Well-Formed Outcome questions with his direct reports (and theirs), he was able to make the elements of and obstacles to success more visible. In the context of a specific opportunity at Hewlett-Packard, he and his team answered:
• What specifically do we want?
• How will we know when we’ve achieved that—and when we achieve this, what else will improve?
• Under what circumstances, where, when, and with whom, do we want to have this result?
• What stops us from having our desired outcome already?
• What resources (our existing ones and perhaps additional ones) do we need to help us create what we want?
• How are we going to get there—and what’s the first step to begin to achieve this result?
The process of exploring the opportunity together helped him foster honest communication about objectives and issues; clarify key initiatives, philosophy, and company goals; encourage creativity; reward collaboration; and come up with useful solutions.
Because employees were reenergized and results were outstanding, he and his team got noticed. Other managers called to find out what he was doing differently. In a very short time, many HP managers throughout the United States adopted this model. Whenever they started a new initiative or found themselves face-to-face with a challenge, they applied the Well-Formed Outcome questions. Not only did this model provide them with a productive track to run on, it also helped to create a common language of leadership within the company—even internationally!
As you know from Chapter 2, the Well-Formed Outcome model works well when you use it on your own issues—and it works well in team or group situations. In fact, it beautifully illustrates Henry Ford’s philosophy that “if everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”
Creativity: How Imagination Expands Possibilities
The Well-Formed Outcome model invites you and others to be creative, doesn’t it? It requires you to envision what you want, anticipate issues, communicate with others, and reach a shared solution. This kind of creativity multiplies your options.
There’s that word—creativity. I’ve noticed that some of my clients associate creativity with unpleasant school experiences. If that’s true for you, you might be thinking, “No, wait, I’m not creative. I can’t draw. I can’t perform. I’m not the funniest person in the room.” Fortunately, those old yardsticks are gone. As an adult, if you’re not an artist by trade, creativity is usually about using imagination, just playing with different elements and possibilities.
A CASE IN POINT: UNTAPPED CREATIVITY
Let’s revisit the towel dispenser situation for a minute. Just picture me standing there with my wet hands—waving my hands and waving my hands and waving my hands. But, as you know, that didn’t work to turn on this particular machine. There I was talking to myself, “Well, it must be a button,” which led me to push everything on the machine that looked like it might be a button. But just by pulling on the towel that was sticking out, I got what I wanted. It was the easiest thing in the world, right? But not for me—because I had assumed I knew what I was doing. I had assumed I knew the nature of this thing.
Even though this experience was enlightening, it was also kind of embarrassing. After all, I’m a trained engineer. I’m fairly creative. I’ve got patents on some complex, innovative, and in-demand products. But because I was not in the lab or my writing studio, I wasn’t telling myself, “Oh, turn on the creative, Tom.” This was different. Because I was in a men’s restroom and I wasn’t really thinking much at all. In fact, I was barely present—let alone bringing all of myself to the task.
FREEING UP INNER RESOURCES
So part of being creative is reminding yourself of all the things that you are, all the resources you have, and all the possibilities that you have. As you know, inner work comes first. When you want to access your creativity, use the same process of calming yourself that you would if you were preparing to enter a room of strangers, participate in a negotiation, or facilitate a conflict resolution between family members or colleagues. Loosening yourself up and dropping your filters will help you get into a more creative state of mind.
The next thing to do when you decide you want or need to be creative is to get yourself unstuck. To d
o this, start by realizing that whatever issue you’re considering, it is not part of you. It’s not you; it’s not even about you. It’s out there somewhere. So place it out there. By using disassociation to separate yourself from it, you can easily see it at a slight distance. Now you can turn it sideways, upside down, add things to it, pull things apart, and see it in different colors. You can start to play with the issue, whatever it is.
To get your creative juices and confidence flowing, it’s also useful to recall other times you were creative, times when you found effective solutions to a challenge. If accessing such memories is difficult, think of situations when you’ve been part of a creative team and how the powerful synergy of working together helped you find innovative answers.
Expert Advice: The Disney Creativity Strategy
In a moment, I’ll share one approach that was identified by NLP leader Robert Dilts. In his book Strategies of Genius, he explored the unique creative processes of different geniuses. Using the principles of NLP modeling, he was successful at getting inside their heads and finding out what really goes on with them. What are they saying to themselves? What are they thinking? What are they seeing?
Robert got so good at this, he not only did it with people that he knew or interviewed, but he did it with creative legends in history. In his three-book series, he modeled Einstein, Aristotle, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus, Tesla, and Disney.
As you know, Walt Disney was one of the most creative people to live in the twentieth century. Disney was a gifted film producer, director, screenwriter, animator, voice actor, and entrepreneur. Not only did he create Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Pluto, but he also animated the German fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and brought us many other movies. In addition to making films, in the 1950s he got into TV and created Disneyland—the first-ever theme park. Because of his genius for entertaining, Disney was even selected as the head of pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics. Today the Walt Disney Company has its own TV channel, musical artists, ice-skating productions, cruise lines—and who knows what they’ll create next!
Several years ago, I had the privilege of spending several hours with the Disney Company’s number three and four guys. I got to talk with Mike Vance, who designed Disney World in Florida, and then Ken Carr, who designed nearby Epcot Center. They both shared a lot of stories about Walt Disney that perfectly match up with Robert Dilts’s take on the man. It’s just another way of validating Disney’s creativity process—which you’ll find amazing. So here it is.
Although Disney’s creativity was initially intuitive, over time he developed a process for tapping into his special genius. When he was trying to conceive something new, he would assume three roles that he isolated: the roles of the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic. The reason his system works so well is this: he took on these roles one at a time. He kept the Realist and the Critic in their places until he fulfilled the Dreamer role.
THE DREAMER
First, he became the Dreamer. He said he had a special chair in the room and the Dreamer would appear and sit in that chair—and then the Dreamer would dream. The Dreamer would come up with this crazy ride, let’s say Pirates of the Caribbean. While he was dreaming, he’d imagine everything he wanted to be part of that experience.
The ride would go through the bayous. There’d be crawfish. There’d be banjos. There’d be snakes and alligators and dim lights and pirates and “Ho, ho, ho!” and buried treasure and sabers and gold coins and sand—all the things he wanted.
In this role, he would only make notes about everything he could think of that he wanted in that dream, because that’s the Dreamer’s job. The Dreamer’s job is to dream. The Dreamer’s job is not to go, “Yeah but . . .” So that was it, just the Dreamer.
THE REALIST
Then the Dreamer would leave the stage and in would come the Realist, who would sit in a different chair. The Realist didn’t say, “Yeah but . . .” either. The realist would say, “Oh, I see—and I know how you could make that happen. And we could use this over here. No, you probably can’t go to the Caribbean and bring that over to Anaheim then stick that in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, but here are some things we could do.”
“We could have recorded insect sounds, and we could actually have misters to raise the humidity level. We could have heated air blasted in so if we enclosed the ride, we could actually make it feel just like it was down in the tropics.” The Realist is the person who takes the concepts and makes them real.
Now, of course, some limits would apply, right? For example, the Dreamer may dream up antigravity and the Realist can’t do antigravity, but maybe the Realist can do a ride where it feels like the bottom drops out from under you. So the Realist is the person who realizes the dream.
THE CRITIC
Then the Realist steps aside, and the next person who comes in is the Critic. Again, no “Yeah but . . .” The Critic just says, “Hmm, that’s an interesting process. Let’s see, do we have liability insurance? Is there any way that that moisture coming out of that humidifier would short the electrical circuits?” The Critic considers ecological factors, things that might be a concern if the Dreamer and Realist got what they envisioned.
So again there is no killer in this process—and there never needs to be. I’ve been in a lot of market research and product development brainstorming sessions that turned into slingshot fights because folks were just shooting each other down. That’s not creativity at all.
Creativity in Disney’s strategy is kind of loving, isn’t it? It’s all positive. It’s completely focused on getting the biggest dream possible—which means the Dreamer can’t be afraid of anything. The Dreamer needs to be fully supported.
Innovation:
How to Use the Disney Strategy with Groups
Even though the “Disney Strategy” was initially conceived and used by an individual, it later became an essential part of how the company operates. Not only has this strategy been a critical factor that’s enabled the Disney Company to hold its position as an entertainment innovator, but it’s also a foundational piece of the award-winning leadership training offered at the Disney Institute. Today, many individuals, teams, and companies use this approach to create new products and services, improve existing ones, and solve problems.
If you’d like to use this strategy with a group to create something new or resolve a problem, here are a few recommendations.
THE SETUP
At Disney, they facilitated this activity using three different rooms: one for the Dreamer step, one for the Realist step, and one for the Critic step. If you don’t have adequate facilities to use separate rooms, you could designate three distinct areas in a room—one for each role.
THE ROLES
Because each role in this strategy is critical, most companies choose to have all participants play all three roles—while other organizations sometimes choose to break their participants into three teams and have them assume a single role. Although this second method is manageable and takes less time, having everyone moving sequentially through the different roles and associated mental states is much preferred because it provides a more robust and collaborative experience—and produces even better results.
Having an understanding of the different roles is essential to effectively playing each role and to facilitating this strategy as a team activity. On the following page is an outline excerpted from instructions created by Keith V. Trickey, who developed an in-depth outline for using the Disney Strategy with groups. (If you’d like to review his complete step-by-step summary, go to the Bonus Activities link at the end of this chapter.)
Role Guidelines for the Disney Strategy
The Dreamer: The one for whom all things are possible
The Approach: Want to do it
Questions to Consider:
• Why are you doing this? What is the purpose?
• What are the payoffs?
• How will you know you have them?
• Where do you want to be in the future?
• Who do you want to be or be like?
• What range of topics do you want to consider?
• What elements of those topics do you want to explore?
Physiology: Head and eyes looking up, posture symmetrical and relaxed
The Realist: The one who sorts things out
The Approach: How to do it
Questions to Consider:
• What will I be doing?
• How specifically will the idea be implemented?
• How will I know if the goal has been achieved?
• Who besides me is involved (time constraints)?
• When will each phase be implemented?
• When will the overall goal be completed?
• Where will each phase be carried out?
Physiology: Head and eyes looking straight ahead, posture symmetrical and centered
The Critic: The one who picks up the pieces that don’t fit
The Approach: Chance to enhance
Questions to Consider:
• How do all the elements fit together?
• What elements appear unbalanced?
• What parts do not fit with the overall objective of the project?
• What parts of the project are underdeveloped?
• How possible is this within the time frame?
• Why is each step necessary?
Physiology: Eyes down, head down and tilted, posture angular
Discovery Activity:
Applying the Disney Strategy to One of Your Opportunities
Let’s apply the Disney Strategy to your life. Think of a problem you’ve been trying to solve—or something new you’ve been trying to create.
What’s the opportunity?
In a moment, you’ll have a chance to explore this opportunity from the point of view of the Dreamer, the Realist, and the Critic. You can do this imagining all at once and make your notes after the whole thing—or image it a step at a time and make your notes after each step.