Apr 10, 2025
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6 min read
The most employable skillsets in the next decade will be creativity, intuition, curiosity, and imagination, predicted Duncan Wardle, the former Head of Innovation and Creativity at Disney.
Why? Because these skills are the hardest to program, and the most difficult for AI to replace.
Renowned speaker and best-selling author behind The 5 Second Rule, Mel Robbins, thinks it will be empathy.
Wardle and Robbins addressed some of the biggest challenges leaders face today in connecting with their teams and fostering a culture of innovation and creativity.
Sharing what he learnt from his decades with Disney, Wardle highlighted some of his best tools to foster design thinking and spark creativity by finding ways to make innovation less intimidating and more approachable.
Creativity is the ability to have an idea. Innovation is the ability to get it done.
Duncan Wardle
Let’s look at five useful takeaways from Duncan Wardle and Mel Robbins:
1. Be Consumer-led
One of the biggest barriers to innovation is that companies are led by quarterly results, instead of consumers and clients. This often leads to ideas getting stuck, diluted, or killed as they move through the approval process. If team leaders and decision-makers approach innovation with the mindset of satisfying only quarterly results, they set themselves up for disappointment.
Wardle notes that one way to foster innovation is to be consumer or client-led when problem-solving, troubleshooting, or brainstorming. Noting that this is the mindset that led Disney to introduce some of their highest revenue-generating ideas such as their MagicBands which guests can use to make purchases, reservations, orders, and move around seamlessly. This improved customer experience which, in turn, led to record revenue growth.
Wardle notes that a key to being consumer-led in mindset is to retain a child-like curiosity and to always ask ‘why?’
2. Engage in Creative Behaviors
Innovation relies on creativity. However, the current definition of creativity, which means to come up with big new ideas, can be limiting. Instead, Wardle recommends redefining ‘creativity’ to mean the habit of continually doing things in new ways to make a positive difference in our working lives.
As leaders, there are certain behaviors that can be adopted to create such an environment in a professional setting, starting by Signaling or creating physical signals that you are there to nurture ideas. Some examples include delivering a presentation outside of the boardroom instead of behind a conference table.
Another behavior leaders can adopt is to nurture ideas. Wardle emphasized the importance of nurturing contributions from team members during the ideation stage. The point is to grow the idea, not approve it. One way to do this is adopt the ‘Yes, and’ technique during brainstorming sessions to build upon ideas instead of judging them or shooting them down.
As for how leaders can set the stage for creative thinking among their team members, Wardle notes that playfulness and mindfulness go together. Usually at work, people are focused on accomplishing active tasks, or they are bogged down by urgent matters. Wardle calls this the river of thinking. It is when the conscious brain is in charge.
To tap into the subconscious part of the brain where creativity lies, he recommends starting a session with fun and energetic exercises. The goal is to bring out laughter. Creativity can flow better once a person is relaxed enough to access playfulness.
3. Use tools to foster innovative thinking
During his talk, Wardle presented several tools that leaders can use to get people out of their river of thinking and foster innovation. The chief among them is asking “What if?” This is especially useful for leaders in a heavily regulated industry or surrounded by people who are stuck with tradition and ‘how things are always done’. A simple way to practice this is to write down the rules of the challenge or issue that is being worked on without judgment. After that, simply pick one and propose solutions by asking “what if…”. The more audacious the solution, the better.
Wardle also suggests involving naïve experts in every brainstorming session. A naïve expert is someone who does not work in the same field but is an expert in their own field. The reason for this is that they tend to be more comfortable asking seemingly silly questions that others in the room may be too embarrassed to ask. A naïve expert is there to suggest audacious ideas ungoverned by your river of thinking and to move you out of your river entirely.
Noting that “diversity is innovation”, Wardle emphasized that if someone doesn’t look like you, they can help you think differently. After all, their silly questions and audacious suggestions may end up sparking a truly ingenious idea in someone else.
Some other useful tools to foster innovation according to Wardle is to re-express a challenge from a consumer’s perspective, to tap into empathy, to dig into data and challenge it while being guided by your intuition, and to ensure that team members have time to gather inspiration, stimulus, and fresh ideas.
4. Flip negatives into positives
Mel Robbins introduced her highly popular 5-second rule as a tool to help leaders turn thoughts into action. Explaining the mechanism of it, Robbins notes that counting backwards from 5 interrupts the autopilot loop of your subconscious mind and activates your prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is essential in creating behavioral changes and allowing you to think strategically. Leaders who tend to overthink may benefit most from this method.
Crucially, Robbins noted that once an old pattern of overthinking or old behavior is interrupted, it must be replaced with a new one. Here is where the negative ‘what ifs’ should be flipped into positives instead. Thinking about all the ways an idea might fail is a thought pattern led by anxiety and uncertainty. Flipping into a positive mindset paves the way for more fruitful and productive thought processes, which is essential in fostering creativity and innovation.
5. Leaders must be self-aware
Robbins also stressed that the most important skillset in a leader right now is empathy, according to a McKinsey study on leadership. This is critical given the current state of the workforce – as well as the Great Resignation and Great Reshuffle – in which most employees are burnt out, stressed out, and feeling the weight of uncertainty.
However, for leaders to be empathetic, they must first have a sense of self-awareness. Robbins defines this as a leader’s ability to remain clear about an organization’s direction, confident, and manage their own anxiety and stress. If leaders are not able to manage their own stress, they will not be able to empathize with their employee’s stressors in these uncertain times.
Your ability to be effective in leadership is directly impacted by whether you’re ok with yourself. Your own self-awareness.
Mel Robbins
Robbins also mentioned trickle-down appreciation and a leader’s ability to create a safe and encouraging space for people to speak up and feel like they belong. Here, she noted the importance of identifying the unique needs of different team members. Some may feel comfortable contributing in a big meeting, others may need to a smaller crowd to feel comfortable voicing their ideas.
Either way, it is up to the leader to find ways to model to their team that everyone is appreciated, heard, and welcomed. This then trickles down to the entire team, fostering an environment that is more motivating and inviting to new ideas.
