Reporter: Disney comes out with at least two products a week, from new rides at the theme parks, to TV shows and movies, to CDs, to Little Mermaid makeup kits. How does all that innovation happen?
记者：迪士尼每个星期都推出至少两件 产品，从主题公园里的新马车到电视节 目和电影，再到游戏光盘，或者小美人 鱼化妆包。你们怎样找到这些创意的？
Eisner: This whole business starts with ideas, and we’re convinced that ideas come out of an environment of supportive conflict, which is synonymous with appropriate friction. We create a very loose environment where people are not afraid to speak their minds or be irreverent They say what they think, and they are urged to advocate strongly for ideas. That can be very noisy. It can be hard, too, because when you‘re loose, you say a lot of things, you challenge, you cajole, you provoke. Uninhibited discussion gets ideas out there so that we can look at them and make them better or just get rid of them if they don’t work.
艾斯纳：整个商业始于创意，我们相信 创意来自鼓励冲突的环境。也可以说， 是来自适当的摩擦。我们的工作环境非 常宽松，在这里人们不用担心说出自己 的想法或不被尊重。他们想什么就说什 么，我们要求他们强烈地拥护创意。这 种环境可能很热闹，也可能让人很难 受，因为只有当你身处宽松的环境中才 会产生很多的想法，才会挑战、游说或者激怒他人。无拘无束的讨 论会激发创意，而后我们可 以发现创意并使他们更为完 善，如果我们觉得这些创意 不好就可以拋弃。
Reporter: How do you create the environment for supportive conflict?
记者：你怎样创造这种鼓励 冲突的环境的？
Eisner: A bunch of ways. First, like to think we have fun here. loosey-goosey.I started my career as an usher at NBC, which had a very heavy atmosphere of reverence The ushers had to memorize the names of all the executives, and when they came in, you greeted them in a very formal way. Then I worked for a year and a half at CBS, where everything was also very serious and conservative Everybody wore very nice advertising-agency suits. And I thought, “Is this what business really is? Am I back in prep school ?”Finally，I found ABC, quite by accident, at a time when it was really struggling. People used to say, “Hey, put the Vietnam War on ABC; it will be over in 13 weeks.” I was at a rather low level in the company in the beginning，but I saw how the executives got through the bad times—the same way I imagined doctors do in wartime—with humor, perhaps even gallows humor at some points. Even though times were hard, work was fun and exciting, and so I’ve taken that as part of my management style. I mean, we weren’t curing cancer during my career at ABC，or during my eight years at Paramount, and we are not curing cancer at Disney. We're entertaining people, so we don’t whistle while we work, but we do smile and tell jokes.Of course, that kind of culture doesn’t just happen—you have to make it happen. That’s one of the reasons we started doing our own internal “gong show” back in the 1970s. We started it at ABC, then it went to Paramount with me, and it’s still at Disney, in some divisions, it started as a concept where, once a week, we，d invite everybody to come to a conference room, and anyone could offer up an idea or two and, tight on the spot, people would react. We loved the idea of big, unruly, disruptive meetings; that’s what the gong show was all about. The Little Mermaid came out of a gong show, and so did Pocahontas. Lots of ideas came out of those meetings, and people had a great time. Gong shows still go on in the animation business, but they’ve sort of faded off in other parts of the company. That’s part of getting big and successful. Suddenly, very, very important people don’t want to put themselves into the position of getting “gonged”. Not everybody likes having his or her ideas dismissed .Another way we get creative juices going and ideas flowing is with “charettes.” These are meetings with our architects and theme park designers. I love them because they are so brutally honest. Because everybody has a different opinion about color and style and size and look and landscaping and all the rest, these meetings take on event stature. Eventually resolution arrives, but not before every possible idea is put on the table. Developing a movie or television show is a little different. I grew up at Paramount, and then in my early years at Disney, putting everybody in the same room for ten or 12hours. Or it could be two days. The longer, the better. The more excruciating, the better. The first several hours can be a complete waste of time. The younger executives want to impress the older executives. The shy executives want to be shy. The loquacious executives dominate the room. Nothing happens. Eventually everybody gets hungry, and tired, and angry, and eager to leave. But everybody also becomes equal. There is no pecking order. All of a sudden it gets really creative. You may have a ten-hour meeting, but it’s during the last half hour that the best ideas come out. Everybody starts driving each other crazy with ideas, and then somebody says something and it all comes together.
艾斯纳：方法有许多。首先是公司文化 方面。我们都认为在公司充满乐趣，我 们经常大笑，我们很随意。我是从当美 国全国广播公司（NBC)的招待员开始 我的职业生涯的，在NBC有一种非常 庄重的氛围。招待员必须记住所有经理 的名字。当他们进来时，你要以一种非 常正式的方式欢迎他们。后来我在哥伦 比亚广播公司（CBS)工作了一年半， 那里的一切也都十分严肃和保守。每个 人都穿着非常漂亮的广告公司的套装。 我想：“是否这就是真正的企业？我是 否回到了预备学校？”最后我十分偶然 地发现了美国广播公司（ABC )，那时 它正处于奋斗阶段。人们经常说：“嗨， 让我们在ABC播放越南战争的消息， 它将在13个星期内结束。”刚开始我在 公司处于一个很低的位置，但是我看到 了公司的经理们是如何渡过难关的。我 想这就是类似于医生在战争期间的所作 所为带着幽默感，有时甚至是黑色的幽 默。即使在最艰难的时刻，工作还是充 满乐趣并且令人兴奋的，所以我把这些 当作我管理风格的一部分。我的意思 是，我在ABC工作的时候，或我在派 拉蒙的8年中，我们并不是在治疗癌 症，现在我们在迪士尼也不是在治疗癌 症。我们在为人们带来快乐。当我们工作的时候不会吹□哨，但是我们确实在 微笑并说着笑话。当然，这种文化并不 会自己出现，你必须使它出现。这就是 我们从20世纪70年代开始开展我们内 部的“铜锣秀”的原因之_。这项活动 最早是在ABC开展的，后来我把它带 到了派拉蒙，现在它一直在迪士尼的一 些分部里开展。一开始，我们是这样设 想的，一周一次，我们邀请所有人到一 间会议室里，任何人都可以提出一两个 想法，其他人可以当场作出反应。我们 喜欢举办大型的不受约束有分歧 的会议。这就是“铜锣秀”。《小 美人鱼》的创意产生于“铜锣 秀”，《风中奇缘》也一样。许多 很好的创意来自于这些会议，并 且人们过得很愉快。“铜锣秀”还 在动画部门继续，但在公司的其 他部门已经逐渐消失了。企业成 长和成功后自然会这样。突然， 非常非常重要的人不希望自己为 大家“鸣锣”，不是所有人都喜欢 自己的想法被人否定。我们还有 另一个途径获得创造力并使创意涌现， 这就是我们的设计师和主题公园的设计 者的“charettes”会议。我喜欢他们， 因为这些人诚实得近乎残忍。每个人对 颜色、风格、尺寸、外貌与景观等都有 不同的想法。这些会议一般就事论事。 最终，在所有的创意都摆在了桌面上之 后，解决方案也就达成了。拍摄一部电 影或拍摄一档电视节目是有些不同的。 我在派拉蒙长大，在我刚到迪士尼的那 几年，我把所有人放在同一间屋子里待 10或12个小时，甚至可能是两天。时间越长越好，越痛苦越好。头几个小时 可能完全是在浪费时间。年轻的经理们 想给老经理们留下印象，害羞的经理们 很害羞，善于言辞的经理们支配着整个 房间，结果什么也没得到。最终，每个人都又饿又累又生气，都渴望离开。但每个人也都变得平等了，他们已经没有 了论资排辈的等级观念，就在这 时，他们会变得极富创造性。你 可能开了 10个小时的会，但富有 创造力的想法往往是在最后半小 时产生的。每个人都开始用自己 的创意去剌激别人，然后每个人 都说出自己的意见，最后汇集到 一起。
Reporter: So, there has to be a certain letdown of pretense before the creativity flows?
记者：要想激励出创意就不得不 经历撕掉虚伪的特定过程吗？
Eisner: Basically, yes. And you get that when you’ve been in the same clothes, in the same room, with the same turkey sandwiches getting dry in the same comer for a long time. I’m told even the Beatles had to play and play and play before they found their real creativity, their own style. Back in the early 1960s, even before they had Ringo Starr, when Pete Best was on drums, they would go to Hamburg, Germany, to make a living at little waterfront bars, and they would play every day, 18 hours straight to exhaustion. They were the Cast at a lot of little places. They started out imitating Elvis; then they’d imitate someone else and someone else. Eventually, they were so exhausted, they became the Beatles. Sometimes you have to be worn out and burnt out to become authentic and original.So, our long meetings-our charettes and gong shows and movie development meetings—they’re like playing music at a crummy little bar for 18 hours. It’s a way to force ideas out and then edit them. Because essentially we’re editors in this business. The executives and managers at creative companies are editors of other people’s work. In fact, we consider that our job. We’re editors of sports shows. We don’t just come up with ideas. We listen to other people’s ideas, and we tweak them, change them, refine them, and hopefully improve them. By the way, the creative process doesn’t stop when we talk about strategy of finance. Our culture of supportive conflict has became institutionalized. When we sit in business meetings, we stay and talk until we figure out how to increase cash flow, or reduce corporate duplication, or rethink our hurdle rates. It may not be as much fun as the creative process around movies or TVshows, but it works.
艾斯纳：基本上是这样的。长时 间以来，大家穿着同样的衣服， 待在同样的房间里，在同一个房间角落 里吃着已开始变硬的火鸡三明治。有人 告诉我，即使是披头士乐队在找到真正 的创造力和他们自己的风格之前也不得 不演奏，演奏，不停地演奏。早在20 世纪60年代初，林格斯塔尔那时还 没有加入，皮特拜斯特是鼓手，他们 来到德国的汉堡，在海滨小酒吧里谋 生，他们每天都要演奏18个小时直到 精疲力尽。在许多小地方他们是二流歌 手。他们开始模仿埃尔维斯，后来还不 断模仿其他人。最终，他们非常疲劳， 他们成为了披头士乐队。有时你必须是 在精疲力尽之后才会是最真实的，最独 创的。所以，我们的铜锡秀， 电影制作这些长时间的会议，就像在一家寒酸的小酒吧里演奏18个小 时。这是强行创意然后对它们进 行编辑的方法。因为从本质上说 我们是这项业务的编辑。在一个 拥有创造力的公司里，经营者和 管理者是他人作品的编辑者。事 实上，我们认为这就是我们的工 作。我们是娱乐节目的编辑。我 们并不仅仅产生创意，我们还倾 听别人的创意，并对这些创意进 行调整，改变并完善，加以改 进。顺便说一句，当我们讨论财 务战略时这一创造过程并未停 止。我们“鼓励争执”的企业文化已经 制度化了。当大家坐下开业务会议时， 就会不停地说，不停地辩论，直到在如 何提高企业现金流、如何降低工作重复 或反思我们的最低回报率等问题上达成 共识。也许这没有像讨论电影或电视节 目那样有趣，但它很有效。
Reporter: Are there any other ways that Disney institutionalizes an environment for creativity?
记者：迪士尼是否有其他的方法营造鼓 励创造的环境？
Eisner: Diversity is a great force toward creativity. For many, many years, we have made a huge effort to make our cast members, as we call our employees, a diverse group of people. We don’t believe in a diverse workforce to mirror society solely because it’s right. We also believe in diversity because the more diverse you are as an organization, the more diverse are the opinions that get expressed, which sometimes crates friction, and friction slows down the machine. When the machine slows down, good things can happen. If it is just sliding along with no friction, you get the easy solution; you get mediocrity. We work very hard on getting diversity at the top of the organization, and like many organizations we still have room to improve. That will make us more creative. And I，m not just talking about diversity in skin color or ethnic background. I’m talking about diversity in point of view. That’s why, as a company, we encourage individualism more than any place I know. We want people who work here to look at from one another. They can be white, they can be African-American, they can be Indian or Chinese or Latino—it doesn’t really matter. The important thing is that they look at the same problem and bring their own individuality to the solution.
艾斯纳：多样化是产生创造力的巨大动 力。很多年以来，我们作出了巨大的努 力以使我们的角色成员，即我们的员工 成为一个由多样化的人群组成的团体。 我们相信，多样化的员工可以独自地反 映社会，不仅因为这是正确的。我们也 相信多样化，因为作为一个组织，越 具有多样性，产生的想法就越具有多样 性。这样有时会产生磨擦，而摩擦减慢 了机器的速度。当机器速度减慢时，好 的东西就产生了。如果只是没有任何摩擦的滚动，你就会得到简单的解决办法，你获得平庸之材。我们正努力地使 公司最高层产生多样化，并且像许多组 织一样，我们还有改进的空间。改进后 会使我们更具有创造力。我们不仅仅是 讨论皮肤颜色或种族背景的多样化，也 讨论观点的多样化。这就是为什么作为 一家企业，我们比我所知道的任何企业更鼓励个性。我们希望在这里工作的 人看到世界的方式彼此不同。 他们可以是白人、非裔美国人、印度人、中国人或拉美 人，这都不重要，重要的是， 他们面临同样的问题提出各 自不同的解决方法。
Reporter: Do costs ever come into the creative process? Should they?
记者：具有创造力的过程是 否要花钱？是否应该花钱？
Eisner:Absolutely. We are always looking onto the solutions to problems—and solutions that cost less money. Remember we still run a business; art and commerce go together. I often quote Woody Allen saying, “If show business wasn’t a business, it would be called show show.” Everything we do must not only be creatively responsible but also fiscally responsible, whether we’re talking about an acquisition or a corporate financing or a scene in a movie. And in the end, the most creative and sound solutions will emerge. Finding a solution is, by definition, a creative act.
艾斯纳：绝对应该。我们一 直在寻找具有创造性且花费 更少的解决问题的方案。牢 记我们在管理一个企业，艺术与商业要 相辅相成。我经常引用伍迪艾伦的话，“如果电影公司不是一家公司的话，它 应该被叫做作秀”。无论我们讨论的是 兼并、融资或者电影里的一个场景，我 们所做的任何事情不仅要对创造力负 责，还要对财政负责。最终，最有创造 力且最合理的解决方案将会产生。从本 质上讲，寻找解决方案的过程就是创造 性的行为。