Disney Creativity Strategy – an NLP Tool

Walt Disney was very successful at turning fantasies into reality. The technique Disney Creativity Strategy was modeled and developed as NLP tool by Robert Dilts, an NLP pioneer and the author of Strategies of Genius. One of the goals of NLP is to model the thinking strategies of successful people. Dilts defined this particular strategy after analyzing Disney's methods for turning his dreams into reality.

"Walt Disney's ability to connect his innovative creativity with successful business strategy and popular appeal certainly qualifies him as a genius in the field of entertainment. In a way, Disney's chosen medium of expression, the animated film, characterizes the fundamental process of all genius: the ability to take something that exists in the imagination only and forge it into a physical existence that directly influences the experience of others in a positive way."  writes Robert Dilts.

The Three Vital Roles

The Disney Creativity Strategy separates out three vital roles – dreamer, realist, and critic  – involved in the process of generating creating ideas and translating them into reality. The roles are explored separately for maximum clarity and effect.

• Dreamer:   Let your mind wander freely. Produce a visionary big picture with no boundaries, limitations or restraint. Ask yourself "What do I really want, in an ideal world?" Do not let reality come into your thoughts. This is daydreaming or brainstorming time. It will most likely engage your visual imagination. Establish the payoffs of the idea.

• Realist:  This is about organizing ideas to put your plan into practice. What would need to happen to make it real? How could you do it? Think constructively. Devise an action plan and evaluate it to determine what is realistic.   Ask Yourself "What will I do to make these plans a reality?" Establish time frames and milestones for progress. Make sure your plan can be initiated and maintained by the appropriate person or group.

• Critic: Test your plan, look for problems, difficulties and unintended consequences. Evaluate them. Ask yourself "What could go wrong?" Think of what is missing, what is surplus, what the spins-offs will be. Define the context in which your plan is workable and problematic

Strike the Right Balance Between the Three Roles

More important than the individual roles was Disney’s ability to strike the right balance between them. "Creativity as a total process involves the coordination of these three subprocesses: dreamer, realist and critic. A dreamer without a realist cannot turn ideas into tangible expressions. A critic and a dreamer without a realist just become stuck in a perpetual conflict. The dreamer and a realist might create things, but they might not achieve a high degree of quality without a critic. The critic helps to evaluate and refined the products of creativity," writes Robert Dilts.

Walt Disney didn’t just play the three roles in his head – he used them to counterbalance and direct the tendencies of his team. If he felt the team were too bogged down in detail, he would become the playful Dreamer; if they were in danger of getting lost in pie-in-the-sky fantasies, he switched roles to the Realist.³

Yin and Yang of Entrepreneurial Creativity

Creating Stories: The Perceptual Positions

When creating stories, Walt Disney used thee perceptual positions, Here is how Disney describes his creative process: "The story man must see clearly in his own mind how every piece of business in a story will be put. He should feel every expression, every reaction. He should get far enough away from his story to take a second look at it...to see whether there is any dead phase...to see whether the personalities are going to be interesting and appealing to the audience. He should also try to see that the things that his characters are doing are of an interesting nature."