Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney

by Lee Cockerell

about a quarter of the twenty-five hundred certified sommeliers in America work at Walt Disney World, which sells more wine than any single site in the world.

The funny thing is, people spend thousands of precious dollars on food, lodging, transportation, and entertainment, but what they mostly remember, and write letters about, are things like the bus driver who made them laugh and the housekeeper who left little surprises in the room for their children.

Disney leaders are trained to make sure that every single Cast Member understands the difference between his or her specific role and the purpose that’s shared by everyone in the company. I boiled that purpose down to this statement: “Make sure that every Guest has the most fabulous time of his or her life.” That sentence tells Cast Members exactly what the ultimate outcome of their work must be.

How coujld i use tghis ide?

Become a COACH. I’ve found the acronym COACH—care, observe, act, communicate, help—to be a great guide for training and developing employees:

But remember, the best part is that these guidelines are only the beginning. Once your employees are trained in baseline service standards, they can be inspired to rise above them. At Disney, Cast Members are trained to fulfill not only conscious expectations but also the expectations that most Guests don’t even realize they have. That’s how good service becomes great service and great service becomes the kind of magical experience people never forget. 6.

Why are these individualized interactions called Take 5s? Because they blow the Guests’ minds in less than five minutes. Think of them as real-life versions of those random acts of kindness you read about on bumper stickers. At Disney they only seem random; the Cast Members are not only trained to look for Take 5 opportunities, but held accountable for making them happen.

Most Take 5s take closer to five seconds than five minutes, and from a business standpoint I can’t imagine a better use of time. All those seconds and minutes repeated thousands of times a day add up to better customer relations than you could buy with a big corporate PR budget.

Communicate constantly. Use every means available to teach new lessons, share promising ideas and effective practices, reinforce important principles, announce research and survey data, and keep everyone up-to-date on organizational developments.

Bill Marriott once told me something I never forgot: “Lee, the only way you get excellence in anything is with education and enforcement.” I would update Mr. Marriott’s statement to say, “The only way you achieve excellence is with education, enforcement, and large doses of recognition, appreciation, and encouragement” (the subject of Chapter Nine).

Remember, if you don’t train and develop your employees, you’ll lose them to a company that will.

Remember, great teachers usually make great leaders. So make it a priority to give everyone who works for you the tools, coaching, and sense of purpose he or she needs to be the very best.

So far we have discussed how to create an effective organizational structure, put the right people in the right roles, and train and develop them within the context of an inclusive, creative culture. But even well-trained people in a great environment can’t create magic if they don’t have sound processes for getting the work done right. Every business is run by processes.

If you really want to maximize the potential of your employees and the satisfaction of your customers, the last thing you want is to subject them to hassles caused by bad procedures. One of your responsibilities as a leader therefore is to identify process problems and act as quickly as possible to fix them.

Fortunately, I had already learned an important leadership lesson: When a mishap arises, instead of immediately looking for someone to blame, first see if a flawed procedure or policy is causing the problem.

Ruling out process snags first is a more efficient way to respond, and it makes a huge difference in morale. Discipline is necessary only when someone intentionally ignores procedures, but if the procedures themselves are flawed, blaming can be destructive. So when complaint patterns emerge, make it your default position to backtrack through the system to find out the causes—not the who but the what. More often than you might suspect the glitch will turn out to be procedural. 2.

When I became general manager of a Marriott hotel, I set up an advisory group of frontline employees from every department and met with them once a week for an hour. Also present were the director of human resources and the director of maintenance, since most of the problems that came up related to those two areas.

Remember, if you don’t follow up, your credibility is zero, and people will clam up. Some concerns might seem insignificant to you, but they can be very important to your employees.

the parks are amazingly spotless. When you consider how many kids tromp through the place and how much eating and snacking are done, the cleanliness is a remarkable achievement. How do we do it? It’s not just that the trash is removed like clockwork and that Cast Members are trained to pick up litter whenever they see it. Next time you walk up Main Street in the Magic Kingdom or some other thoroughfare in one of the parks, count off the number of steps between the trash containers. You’ll find that they’re spaced about twenty-five paces apart. This isn’t arbitrary; it was based on a study that determined both the length of time it takes to remove a candy wrapper and the average distance a Guest could walk in that time.

I once heard someone say, “Management is boring. If you want excitement become a race car driver.” His point was that good managers aren’t there to seek thrills; they are there to keep things under control, minimize the unexpected disruptions, and give their employees the consistency they need to do their best work. Good processes ensure that you attend to the routine, necessary, and predictable tasks, freeing your mind to respond creatively to unexpected events.

One important way to work through resistance is to get support for your ideas from frontline employees.

It is your responsibility as a leader to constantly look for and implement new and better processes in your business operations and to work hard to gain support for those initiatives.

Getting out and about regularly was a great investment of time. Not only did it allow me to see the operations up close, but it helped me get to know everyone on the staff better, and all of them in turn became more comfortable telling me what I needed to know.

Be visible in the work areas and in the break rooms, and talk to people as you make your rounds. Ask if anything is standing in the way of great performance, whether it’s sluggish procedures, unclear operating guidelines, obsolete equipment, inadequate training, etc. Then ask if there is something you can do to make their jobs easier. Listen intently, write down what they tell you, and follow up quickly by fixing the problem.

I have to emphasize one thing: Get out and about regularly. If your people see you only once a week or a couple of times a month, they may change their behavior just because they know they are being observed. Plus they won’t feel comfortable enough to tell you what you need to know. But when they see you often, they’ll act the same way whether you are there or not. They’ll know you really care and really listen, and will trust you enough to deliver the whole truth and nothing but.

I organized the conversations around what I called the Four Ps: people, processes, projects, and profit.

To encourage them to speak their minds, I phrased my questions in such a way that they knew I wanted to help them do their jobs better, not find fault with their performance. One of my favorite questions was: “What happens on your job that makes you want to quit?” Let’s be honest, even in the best of jobs there’s always something that makes people so frustrated that they think about walking out the door, and my question gave them permission to say so openly.

Still, the best way to make people feel safe enough to speak the truth is to establish a trusting, comfortable relationship with each person. Once you do, be sure to preserve that trust by making people feel appreciated for coming forward.

Remember, a leader’s job is not just to ask questions but to answer them as well. If you really want honesty, you’d better demonstrate that you’re willing to answer hard questions.

Appreciation, recognition, encouragement: ARE. Together they make up a cost-free, fully sustainable fuel, one that builds self-confidence and self-esteem, boosts individual and team performance, and keeps an organization running cleanly and smoothly.

The message I was sending was simple but profound: “You matter, and I know it. We couldn’t do it without you.”

In the business world, you’re not looking for votes, but you do want the equivalent: commitment. To get that commitment, you need to let your employees know that you are committed to them. Showing up says that they matter to you, and if that inspires even one person to do a better job, isn’t it worth the time?

As I said earlier, great leaders are environmentalists. If you want to attract and keep the best employees, you have to create a wonderful environment for them, and I assure you, recognition, appreciation, and encouragement are as important to a healthy workplace as clean air and water are to a healthy planet. So don’t be stingy. There is no excuse for not giving away copious amounts of ARE.

Just keep in mind the Four Expectations of All Employees as you interact with your people. Make them feel special. Treat them as individuals. Respect them. Make them knowledgeable.

Just last week I saw a study that said that people who read for pleasure tend to be more successful because their reading makes them more creative.

Don’t just learn things that relate to your current position. Acquire an understanding of your whole business and the industry it’s in.

When your reputation is tarnished, you lose your credibility, and when your credibility goes, you lose the one thing leaders need most: the trust of the people you lead. Remember also that you have a different reputation with every person who knows you. Work hard to make each one a good one.

Passion may contribute more to the greatness of a leader than any other trait. It is the driving force that enables people to attain far more than they ever imagined. Passion energizes your body, focuses your mind, and sets fire to your heart. And it’s contagious. People fall in line behind passionate leaders because they get ignited by the same sense of purpose.

Modeling a positive attitude doesn’t stop with just your facial expressions and your demeanor. You should also be upbeat and positive in your dialogue with others. Professionals simply do not speak in a negative way about their colleagues or companies, and they don’t succumb to petty gossip.

Always display passion and commitment. Be excited about coming to work every day, and share that enthusiasm with your employees. Spend the right amount of time on the job, doing the right things in the right ways. Maintain a positive attitude, and make it contagious. Create strong partnerships, and always be available when your partners need you. Set the bar high, and personally live up to every standard you set. Make a good impression through your demeanor, appearance, and environment. Find ways to break the monotony and routine for people. Work toward making partners out of your adversaries, and always take the first step. Focus on collaboration rather than conflict in problem solving. Know when to step back and let others lead. Be a role model for professionalism. And remember, you are always onstage!

Openness. We share information freely. By ensuring that everyone has access to information, you send the message that every person is important (remember Chapter Three) and that you want each and every one of them to participate.

If you do not set an example of openness, you will not be trusted; if you’re not trusted, you won’t have credibility; if you don’t have credibility, you will not have influence; and if you don’t have influence, you’ll be a leader in title only.

Create an environment in which a father can leave work to see his child in a school performance or a mother can get support in solving a day care problem, and you’ll be paid back a hundredfold. If you don’t get this right, you’ll lose good people, especially parents who know what their most important leadership responsibility is. Even if they don’t quit, you will lose their commitment.

As Albert Einstein once said, “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing another, it is the only means.” So don’t just talk your values; walk them, visibly and consistently, day in and day out.

Know what you stand for, and live by those values every minute of every day. Burn this fact into your brain: People will not be committed to you until they are certain you are committed to them.

Never humiliate anyone. You do not have the right to. Never do anything to hurt someone’s self-esteem or self-confidence. No one has the right to do that.

Remember the wise words of my wife, Priscilla: Be careful what you say and do; they’re always watching you and judging you.