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An Irreverent Mike Vance Captures Spirit of Creativity
"By Dennis LaRueGIRARD, Ohio -- The man who in 1952 coined the phrase, "Think outsidethe box," urged the staff of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber andits members to rethink how they are working to meet the challenges thatMahoning Valley faces.Mike Vance, a former dean of Disney University, is a motivational speaker who tries to encourage his listeners to be, if not creative in their thinking, at least open to new approaches.As the keynote speaker at the chamber's annual meeting, held yesterday at the MetroPlex, Vance regaled 400 business leaders, educators, and elected officials with the direct and earthy language he used to illustrate his points.Example: What keeps businesses from raising the bar, he said to appreciative and knowing laughter, "is there's so much b------t flying around and we do nothing about it except have another meeting." Vance has little use for meetings.And he has little use for naysayers and complainers. A mother superior responsible for a vast hospital system, he said, called such individuals "pissers and moaners. I want to challenge you to go a half day without pissing and moaning," he said. "I know it doesn't sound cultural but it's biblical."Vance is the co-author of a small 111-page paperback called How to Stop Pissing and Moaning, which he dedicates "to those cool people who work to correct life's major problems and irritations." His appearance was sponsored by Youngstown State University and funded by its Thomas Colloquium on Free Enterprise. Vance also met yesterday with students at YSU.As co-founder of the Creative Thinking Association of America, Vance has worked for and with Walt Disney, Apple Computers' Steve Jobs and General Electric Corp.'s Jack Welch, among others. He shared the lessons he's learned, from not sucking up to authority to challenging the conventional wisdom, from not being afraid to call a bad idea a bad idea (he didn't put it quite that way) to trying to look at problems in a different light or with a different lens.The challenge, he allowed, is learning to adopt, to cultivate a mind set, so you can identify what's different and adapt and adopt it.Buckminster Fuller, the creator of the geodesic dome, he told students at Youngstown State University, denied credit for the design of one of the most versatile and strongest architectural shapes. In looking at the eye of a fly under a microscope, Fuller said, he achieved that insight. The moral, Vance said, "Look at nature and discover. Be sensitive to the universe. The universe is creative -- some people call it God -- and all people can be creative. The answers are always out there. You've got to find them."To Vance, creativity is "the making of the new and rearranging of the old in a new way."Walt Disney took the amusement park, a dying industry, and resurrected it, Vance said, with DisneyLand, Disney World and Epcot Center. For the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Orlando, Fla., Vance said, Disney interviewed children, not accountants. While visiting Orlando as he prepared to open Disney World, Disney asked a waitress what the Pirates exhibit should have. She said it should have frogs. "Children hear frogs, accountants don't," Vance commented. Later, the waitress told Disney, " 'You should have fireflies,' Vance recalled, "you know, lightning bugs."The moral: "Use what you already have." By adding frogs and fireflies, Disney made the amusement park more realistic and more attractive to children.Despite his impatience with complainers and people who refuse to try to improve the world, Vance declared himself an optimist: "I have never been so optimistic. Everybody knows how fouled up things are. What an opportunity!"The key to seizing the opportunity, he said, is understanding what motivates people and then motivating them. When he was running for president, John F. Kennedy asked Disney what motivated him. "A child's laughter," Disney answered.In meeting with students at YSU, Vance advised them to uncover what motivates people. It will differ from person to person. The promise of a new hospital motivated a skilled neurosurgeon to lend his talents to create a most lifelike Abraham Lincoln at the 1964 World's Fair in New York for the Disney exhibit.Disney had a philosophy all can benefit from, a philosophy that will save successful businesses from hubris, Vance said. Do the best work you can, knowing that you can always do better. It's a mistake to confuse success with being the best. That breeds arrogance and in arrogance are the seeds of decline and losing your way, he warned.At the chamber's annual meeting, the group's president and chief executive officer, Thomas Humphries, reported membership has doubled since 1993. In updating economic development efforts, Humphries emphasized that the chamber's mission statement has been modified to stress the importance of improving education in the Mahoning Valley. Honored at the annual meeting with the chamber's Spirit of the Valley Award was Walter J. Pishkur, president of Aqua Ohio Inc.; with the Donald Cagigas Spirit of the Chamber Award, David J. Kostolansky, president of Schaefer Equipment Inc.; and with the Chairman's Political Achievement Award, Charles Blasdel, R-1, East Liverpool, speaker pro tempore of the House of Representatives. Visit the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber at www.regionalchamber.comContact Dennis LaRue at [email protected]"