And then this article by Errol Morris in the New York Times came across the network this morning, the hook being a quote from Walt Disney (”I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing — that It Was All Started By A Mouse.“) as its headline. I’d already seen the link a couple of times when Howard Green from Disney Studios called to invite me to a tribute for Walt’s recently-departed nephew, Roy Disney, on Sunday at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood.   Suddenly the universe was in my ear bigtime, whispering that I had to click on the link to the Morris article. Something was there to be discovered….

The article itself is a photo essay and dialogue with photojournalist Ben Curtis about the forensics of war photography, the context of image vs. imagemaker, the technological challenges and dangers that come with altering photos to create propaganda or enhance a certain point of view. The kind of stuff in which Morris specializes. After I got the context, I began skimming. But I kept coming back to a photo by Curtis that led off the article:

In seeing the photo, I found what had been missing over the holidays. I might have decided to be resolute, I was still waffling on a theme, what, exactly I’d be resolute about. This photo resolved that. I wrote the following Comment on the Morris piece:

Errol

As our old friend Onosko, who worked at the House of Mouse for many years, might have said, you’re making it more complicated than it is. Focusing on the cosmetic level of communication–the toy itself, the shards of glass, the smoke, the interaction between imagemaker and image–is a fascinating narrative, and yields neverending complexity, but this complexity obscures meaning instead of bringing it to light. How Mickey got there is not nearly as important as the meta and emotional levels of the communication: War’s awfulest tragedies are its children.

Until we begin thinking of children first–begin with the Mice!, that what Walt would’ve done–War will be an adult theme park where children get crippled, grow old and perish before their time.

And so, finally, thanks to Howard and Errol and Ben, I have it — my New Year’s theme — the thing I can be Resolute about:  Be Nice to the Mice.

Hit it, Kid!

Exhibit A: In 1920, Father Julius Nieuwland creates the polymers that make synthetic rubber possible when he accidentally leaves a pot boiling on a stove.

Exhibit B: In 1928, Walt Disney creates Mickey Mouse when his partner in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon series double-crosses him. Mickey gets his name because Walt’s wife, Lily, hates the name ‘Mortimer’ that Walt had given him.

Exhibit C: In 1975, Post-It Notes originate when one of its inventors, Art Fry, needs a bookmark for a church hymnal.

Exhibit D: In 1998, Dr. Taryn Rose begins designing shoes because her feet hurt when she wears other designers’ shoes.

The point here is that none of these 20th-century success stories, nor tens of thousands of others just like them, had a script, they were spontaneous, productive responses to the situations that life presented. Father Nieuwland made an apparent mistake and recognized that it moved the scene forward. To an improviser, mistakes are pure opportunity. As the flamenco guitarist Kai Narezo (who’s married to one of my teachers at I. O. West, Shulie Cowen,) says, “The good news about bad notes is that there’s always a good one right next to them.”

Walt Disney wasn’t aiming to create an iconic character that would launch an entertainment empire. He was a resilient businessman who’d gotten his franchise brand yanked by an unscrupulous distributor. His company needed a new product in the pipeline just to keep the doors open. He did what was needed in that particular situation. An improviser plays the scene, not the story.

To an improviser, turning the little things into big ones (and big ones into little ones) is part of the art. The Post-It dude simply wanted a better bookmark for his hymnal. Dude remembered a strange kind of adhesive that a buddy of his at 3M had invented. Dude stuck a bit of it on the back of some slips of paper. Yahtzee!

Taryn Rose’s family was aghast when she told them she was leaving medicine to go into fashion design. It was not a rational move, but it was a good one. An improviser doesn’t judge a scene while it’s in progress. She acts on instinct informed by knowledge, not governed by it. Knowledge (what Dr. Rose knew about the practice of medicine) will always be there, but the moment of opportunity (what Dr. Rose felt was possible) is fleeting and must be promptly and spontaneously acted upon. If you overthink it, the moment is gone.

When their scenes took an unexpected, unscripted turn, these players were prepared, and turned the ‘bad notes’ of: a) accident, b) setback, c) triviality and d) discomfort into the sweet music of success. This is the alchemy that’s possible with improvisation.

Today — with the vast opportunities and the commensurate challenges presented by the Networked World — the ability to improvise will be even more important to business success than it has been in the past. Moments of opportunity will come and go in much greater abundance, but they’ll be way more fleeting, too, and it’ll take more openness, trust and spontaneity on the part of players and especially organizations to take advantage of them.