October: Leadership Book Part 1

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

“It’s not the magic that makes it work, it’s the way we work that makes it magic.”

A book by Lee Cockerell

“STRATEGY #1 – REMEMBER, EVERYONE IS IMPORTANT

Lee begins the chapter by describing the huge undertaking Disney World takes on every day, just to wash 240,000 lbs. of linens daily. Lee points out that many resorts, and hotels, contract out their laundry service. However, at Disney they are able to do all of this in-house, and with less expense, because of each manager’s ability to support and motivate all cast members to do their job to the best of their abilities.

Lee is quick to point out that the new policy of empowering the ordinary cast member was not received well by the cast members. The initial reaction of members was one of mistrust, and thought that if anything went wrong they would now be blamed. Management realized their mistake and held a brainstorming session in which cast members were invited to participate. The new plan of action was to teach each cast member about the values of the company, and the overall direction management was aiming for. In addition to these management type lessons, they also became involved in planning the new facilities to be built to handle the huge amounts of laundry. Management also setup a cross training program in which the cast members in charge of cleaning all of the laundry were trained and worked part-time in other areas of Walt Disney World where they could see first-hand the importance of the quality of their finished product, in this case clean linens.

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Lee uses the textile department example to illustrate his first, and most important, leadership principle. He calls this principle “inclusion”. Inclusion is a widely used term that most often refers to the practice of respecting diversity. However, Lee explains that to be effective this principle should be taken further. In his use of the term inclusion, he means actively engaging and involving employees to show them that every single one of them is important to the success of the department, and the company as a whole.

Disney uses the acronym RAVE. This stands for Respect, Appreciate, and Value Everyone. This acronym defines Disney’s approach to inclusion. This management approach resulted in the industry’s lowest turnover rate. Not only was turnover down, but there were more people interested in working for Disney because they had the reputation for treating employees with respect.”

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EXERPT FROM:

Summary and Review of Creating Magic by Lee Cockerel

Published by David C. Wyld Southeastern Louisiana University, January 26, 2010

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