I recently had the pleasure of taking a few days off, away from the hustle and bustle of my day to day corporate life and for the second time this year I visited a Disney Park. This time Disneyland Resort in California, having visited DisneyWorld in Orlando this past April.  These two experiences were the sum total of all of my Disney park experiences.  Seriously, WHAT was I waiting for?

As I do with many things in my life I marvelled at what I saw and experienced.  From a professional aspect I was left wondering, HOW exactly do they do it? Not just the creation of "magic", I am amazed at how they create such a deep brand experience and how they get their employees (cast members in Disney speak) to do, what they do.

As soon as you set foot on a Disney property, you feel different.  You realize at many levels that you are somewhere special.  There is a purpose for everything.  Cast members greet you warmly and consistently gesture directions with an open hand, always.  Pointing is forbidden and you will not see a Disney cast member do that.  Garbage Cans, YES, Garbage Cans have a science behind them.  You will notice on any Disney property that everything is impeccable, clean and always in working order.  Did you know that Disney figured out that the exact distance a guest will walk with rubbish in their hands is exactly 27 feet?  The rubbish bins are never full, always appear clean and are always specifically branded to the area of the park that they are in.  I actually did an experiment and purposely shifted a bin so that the two side by side looked askew.  Within minutes a cast member noticed and walked up, re-aligned the bins and carried on. 

"Details, Mean EVERYTHING" 

I noticed on this recent visit that park managers all carry little grabber arms.  No matter who you are in the organization, if you see rubbish, you pick it up.  Another element that many guests may not notice is that you will never find gum for sale on a Disney property, ever.  Why? Walt Disney abhorred the thought of gum staining the walkways throughout the park.  You would never see gum in the wild west, so you certainly won't see it in Disney's Adventure Land. 

You will not find a sad, surly, or un-happy cast member anywhere on a Disney property.  I am amazed at the true interest and passion that each cast member who I encountered treated me, guest number 7 trillion, to each of them I mattered.  Again I ask, how do they do it? 

"Disney starts with WHY"

I believe that Disney starts with why (Simon Sinek, Start With Why).  What I mean by this is that Disney knows clearly what it believes is its purpose, more importantly Disney recruits cast members that believe what they believe.  That Disneyland and DisneyWorld are not theme or amusement parks.  They are a feeling, an experience, a living movie as Walt Disney would say.

This starts from solid training.  Disney has an internal training department called Disney University and the Disney Institute, before cast members ever set foot in their new work space they enter a program called Traditions, which imparts the essential knowledge, behaviours and expectations of being a Disney cast member.  Does your organization do this by providing an orientation into the organizations values?  Perhaps that would cost too much, what is it costing NOT to provide this knowledge. 

Enjoy the magic,

Jeff

Have you ever heard someone say "it's clearly a training issue?"  I hear this often and if you have read my previous post we touched on the 70/20/10 philosophy and if we agree and follow that philosophy, which I do, we know that training cannot and will never fix "everything".  

But I see this in so many teams and organizations where something goes wrong, a mishap, close call, etc and some very insightful self proclaimed expert drops the "it must be a training issue".  The question I want to ask in those situations is "what exactly are you pretending NOT to know".  In truth, they usually don't know better, which is why these types of people may try to pigeon hole "training" as the issue.

What I take from this is that, if all goes well on a daily basis "they are trained correctly" yet when things don't go well, it is a training "issue".  I think before we declare an issue to be a training issue, or any departments issue for that matter, that we should stop and take stock of the situation, WHY did something go wrong, or WHY is something not working?

Back to our 70/20/10.  The conversation that could be taking place in these types of situations should include a discussion over the gaps that exist in the "20" and "70" realms. 

"What do we expect them to do after this training?"

If the people in the room cannot articulate an answer to the above question, then it is back to the drawing board...

Argue well,

Jeff 

The look on ones face when the latest office memorandum has landed (crash landed).  Susan Scott of fierce inc has stated that "anonymous feedback is faceless, nameless and without any distinguishing parts".  Is that what you want your team or employees to think of you?

What would the world look like if anyone that ever released a memo said to themselves that what they are about to issue will be received just like an e-mail or text message?  We would live in a world of great transparency if that were the case. 


Instead, many corporations choose to shame and blame the masses with spiteful drivel.  Why then, do memorandums get issued in the first place?  I would suggest this is because they are very easy to make and not much creativity is required to issue one.

If we look at the desired outcome from a 70/20/10 approach (Michael M. Lombardo and Robert W. Eichinger "The Career Architect Development Planner" 1996).  We know that 10% of an adults learning takes place in the classroom, the very best we can expect to accomplish in class using lecture, activities, demonstrations etc is 10%.  20% of an adults learning comes from Coaching & Feedback, you can blend this with formal learning or you can design a process where this happens after they leave the classroom.  The bulk though, in fact 70% of their learning comes from Operational Experience. 

I would argue then, that sending out a memo to clarify, coach or correct something would accomplish at the very most, 10%.  Given the delivery, I would further suggest that retention from a memo is in fact in the single digits. Don't do it! consider a more creative approach to communicating with your team.  Perhaps an infographic job aid? or a leadership touch point where leaders are present for their employee groups to answer questions and seek feedback.  If you work with absentee workers just-in-time interactive on-line training is another great way to share information.

More interest and attention will be paid if the delivery of the information is varied, positive, and useful.  I witnessed at another organization that management set up a private Facebook group for the employees, most of whom were remote or absentee teams.  This proved very successful as this was an avenue for two-way communication, employees posted questions and their leaders and peers could respond and take part in the discussion.  I highly recommend doing this at any type of organization, embrace social media instead of being fearful of it.  Trust me, it's not going away. 

The next time you start drafting a memorandum, consider how you can communicate your information a different way and see if you can break that 10%.

Communicate well, 

Jeff