Duncan Wardle

How Disney Re-Engineers, Re-Imagines, Re-Invents and Re-Expresses the Customer Experience to consistently innovate, surprising and delighting their guests at every touchpoint.

Disney’s ability to redefine and dominate nearly every industry it has ever entered is no coincidence. The continued success of Disney has been driven by a foundational trait of the company that goes all the way back to its founder, Walt Disney, who was merciless in his pursuit of innovating the customer experience.

By viewing all major business decisions as a customer experience decision, The Walt Disney Company continues to find innovative ways to engage consumers around the world, both old and new. And these innovative experiences have created one of the most passionate, loyal fanbases of all time.

So, how does Disney Think Different and leverage creativity to innovate the customer experience? Through several specific tools and examples, I’ll share this information with your teams during my Delivering Customer Experience Magic keynote.

You’ll learn from the following examples:

- By simply re-expressing the industry challenge Walt Disney created a level of hospitality that has never
been replicated.
- How Walt Disney challenged the rules of the industry, coming up with the biggest creative solution of the
twentieth century.
- Learn how Disney Parks turned a very product-centric culture into a consumer-centric one.
- How Disney leverages High Tech to enable High Touch, delivering record guest satisfaction.
- Instead of asking “What do we need to do to make greater profits?”, learn how Disney created record revenues by focusing on their consumer's biggest pain points.

Takes participants through a unique creative problem-solving process, including a series of practical “Lateral Thinking” tools to help build confidence, take smart risks and try something new on challenges big and small.

How do you create a culture that embraces risk and entrepreneurialism, allowing everyone to innovate? Duncan shares how he infused a culture of innovation across the world’s most creative company, Disney.

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. CEOs everywhere would look to us - The World’s Most Creative Company - for guidance on d 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 tangible. 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 Embedding 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 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 Design Thinking for Innovation 1-day 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 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 - ones honed during his tenure at Disney as Head of Innovation and Creativity. It’s the same tool kit he uses today to teach innovation at companies like Apple, Amazon, and universities like Yale and Harvard.

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.

In a world of increasingly disruptive technology, innovation must become part of everyone’s DNA. This workshop helps uncover insights in new and unusual ways, delivering breakthrough ideas.

Creativity is now a huge competitive advantage. This workshop provides participants with a series of Creative tools and behaviours to help foster a culture that embraces innovation and creativity.