People who knew Walt Disney said that there were actually three Disneys: the dreamer, the realist and the critic. The problem was however, that you never knew who of those three you would see at the meeting.
Walt Disney’s strategy of creativity was developed by Robert Dilts, one of the co-authors of Neuro Linguistic Programming. Fallowing the methodology of NLP cold ‘modeling’ Dilts made a behavioral model of unconscious thought processes of the creator of Mickey Mouse.
To learn this model you need to find three different places in which you will be using a different mindset. Three different places and three different mindsets are the most important key factor of this process.
Instructions
1. Dreamer
If you want to try out Disney’s strategy of creativity, find some nice place where you can fully become a dreamer. Find that favorite chair, sofa, or a coffee shop. The place should have some open space that allows you to forget about work, responsibilities and obligations. Let this be a space reserved just for moving into a dream world, free from the rational and critical thinking, which you can do somewhere else. Great artists are often called visionaries. This is because they think using images, they see in their mind pictures of things they want to create. Likewise, create a big, colorful pictures and watch them closely. When you are done dreaming will move to a different place with a different emotional state.
2. Realist
Sit at your desk or a place in which you usually work and become a realist. Focus on how to put in action what you imagined in the previous step. This step deals with the practical issues, try to divide the project into simple steps and analyze how to perform them. When you have finished you can go to a different place to enter a different emotional state.
3. Critic
As before, you should find a suitable place, which will be different from previous steps. When you become a critic, you focus on how to avoid making a fool of yourself. Analyze if that idea, the investment is good for you. The critic state is necessary to prevent you from taking the wrong decision, your responsibility is to ensure your safety. When you change into a critic you should check everything from the beginning till the end, paying attention to the weak elements and predicting what could go wrong. Reviewing the consequences and side effects. When you criticize elements of the project, remember that you are making it better. When the critic is satisfied you can go to a different place to enter a different emotional state.
4. Dreamer
Return to the space reserved for the dreamer. See how the modifications made by the realist and the critic changed your original idea. Will you achieve what you wanted to achieve when you first thought about it? What do you think about it now? Test as it looks. If something you like is missing or needs to look another way, apply relevant amendments. When you are done, move to the place of a the realist.
5. Realist
Include the corrections made in the previous step of the way of their implementation. When finished, go to the place of a critic.
6. Critic
Is there anything still to be improved. Think it over, again pay attention to all possible eventualities.
Repeat steps 4, 5, 6 until the dreamer, the realist and the critic are satisfied.
7. Combine it all now. You worked as three different people. Now please combine it all together. This can be done going through these three places in which you worked.
Now, you can turn your dream into reality.
Whoh, although I was interested in Disney, because I love his films I never heard about this strategy. Surely I will try this but it looks hard. I believe it is also important to cooperate with others. Sometimes, after spending a lot of time on the project we loose distance to it and we can accidentally skip some important issues. While talking with friends we can get a new ideas and they can show us mistakes we couldn't see.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I can switch between this differend modes of personality.
It can be never ending story, but method seems to be very simple and allow the creator focus on each step, on the one aspect of idea and model it till it is most ballanced. I think that the most important point of view above all is unfortunately the realist, because it has to become a product in a real world. Point of view of the dreamer can be only on the horizon at the very beggining and can be accomplished on the advanced level of project. Lucky is that inventor who can realize his dream at a glance. Point of view of critic is very valuable part, on can observe maybe not every problem project can encounter but it allow eliminate many of them. What is important i think is to designate number of iterations of this process because to many rounds can destroy the idea: the precision of every point of view.
ReplyDeleteThat was a very interesting note. I have never heard about this type of planning before.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tomsi that it is possible to bump into loop without exit.
Does this model have any extensions? With more roles perhaps?
I’m curious if you used this method.
If so, was it hard to learn?
I know this strategy very well and I use it quite often. I believe that it allows look at the topic from many perspectives. I don't know any people who have ever mention about this strategy. I wonder why. I do not agree with the statements that you can get stuck in a loop. If so, it means that You do not yet have the final solution of the problem and You have to search for the solution again.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard about this strategy before. It seems to be correct and it seems to make a sens. But I can't tell anything more because I don't know it and my opinion will be not objective but only subjective. But motto at the picture makes that you really want to do something as well as possible. It is some kind of motivation to work better and more efficiently
ReplyDeleteMe too, I've never heard about Walt Disney’s strategy of creativity. I belive that depends of places where you will be using a different mindset. Probably I was using this model many times. A dreamer is the emotional state which I like the most.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if looking at your project from three different perspectives is so easy, especially when you are about to criticize your own work. I haven't heard about this strategy before and I will not propably use it because for me it looks hard. I prefer to do something, and show it to someone else who also is in this topic to look at my work and tell (critize) what should be improved (better)
ReplyDeleteWalt Disney is a famous person who everyone knows and saw one of his story. But I`ve never heard about his strategy. It is quite interesting and it seems that each of us do not use consciously daily. Sometimes it is good to use these three different perspectives when deciding to have versions of advantages and disadvantages. Certainly, this method is effective because was a lot of great stories and videos that are known worldwide.
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty obvious that using different perspectives will get better results. That is very known technic used by many people. Only one think is hard to imagine for me, one person cannot replace 3 persons with different point of view. It is hard to be first a dreamer and next criticise own ideas.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he used this strategy for designing and creating Disney movies?
This technique, for me, is similar to brainstorming, because in both techniques you think of an idea and are not supposed to criticise it at the beginning, you do it later on. The only difference is that in brainstorming ideas are developed by a group of people, and in Walt Disney Creativity Strategy you're doing it yourself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with kamyk, that looking at your own idea from 3 different points of view must be difficult. I don't know if I will ever use this technique but I think it is good, because it helps you think (dream) bigger and achieve more demanding goals.
BTW: typo in the title;)
Okay...
ReplyDeleteThis creativitt strategy involves using three different mindsets while working on a problem/project, right? The best way to do so is to find three different places accordingly to every single mindset, what should help achieving proper different emotional states. Looks pretty well!
I've always thought it's the best way to swap places while working on different problems. Changing the environment for a while helps to prevent weariness and keeps your mind fresh. In other words also taking one step back to look at the issue from different (maybe bigger) perspective definitely helps while dealing with a problem! Take a longer breath and think about it all once again - and you'll find the best way to do your job!
Sounds perfect? :) But why the Walt Disney's coworkers didn't know who of those three (dreamer, realist or critic) they would see at the meeting? Have Disney ever used this method?!:) What about the rule of different places for different mindsets?!
This Walt Disney strategy looks like good plan to think thru our ideas. We can define what we want (what our dream is) and look at it from a realistic side.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if I would be patient enough to do this three steps more than once ;)