Keys to the Kingdom, Part I: Disney Delivers Quality Training
July 28, 2008
Your employees probably don't carry Pixie Dust in their briefcase, or need to take their head off to enjoy a coffee break, but the Disney Institute still may have tips to offer your company on how to deliver quality service.
By Margery Weinstein
If I were a little more like Tinker Bell, and a little less like
Goofy, I'd be a better journalist, I've surmised. I'd get to the scene of the most interesting stories fast and with no travel expenses. Once there, I could take notes dangling in the air, with little chance of being spotted. Despite the advances of the digital age, that doesn't appear to be possible just yet. So as a second option, I accepted an exclusive offer to attend Disney Institute, a management training program operated by The Walt Disney Company. I opted for the "Disney Approach to Quality Service" curriculum track.
Disney Institute operates primarily out of the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL, and the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, CA (Disney Institute also conducts programs upon request at other Disney destinations around the world and recently started traveling to client headquarters and branch locations). So on a Sunday at the end of April, I left chilly, rainy New York for a cushy ground-level room in Disney's Contemporary Resort on the shores of Bay Lake, a natural lake Disney enhanced when it moved onto the property in the late 1960s. Reluctantly leaving my sun-drenched patio and the PC included in the room with free Internet access, I donned my learning ears for the three- and-a-half-day course.
New Door
Most participants come to Disney Institute with a group of employees from their company, but since I was one of the dozen or so taking the course on my own, I sat down at random at a table toward the front of the room that had two people sitting there already. They were from Washington State University. Vicki Pleska, the assistant director of recreation facilities, and John Cory, associate director of the student union, said they were excited about learning at the altar of Mickey. I asked what they thought they'd learn from the whole thing. "All the answers," Cory joked. Then he reflected more carefully: "How to improve the customer service experience, student staff development, and [gauging] learning outcomes."
While we chatted, the table filled up. Sue Fredericks, president of One Purpose Performance Consulting, joined us along with four of her clients, three from Children's Hospital Boston, the other from Bethpage Federal Credit Union. The group from Children's Hospital Boston was there to get pointers for their organization's initiative, Exceptional Care, Exceptional Service. The learner from Bethpage hoped to improve her company's overall focus on service quality. As their consultant, Fredericks said she was there to share the experience with them. "We're all learning together," she said. That an employee from a credit union sat side by side with staff from a children's hospital was typical of the diversity of those in the room, who varied from a Santa Monica, CA, police officer to employees from a European financial institution and a management employee of the Buffalo Bills professional football team.
Fully assembled, our motley crew came to 57 participants, excluding a few Disney employees and me. Eager to begin our packed schedule, facilitators Austin Brock and Susan Pearsall introduced themselves. Pearsall, who started her professional life in the financial services industry, is the former business manager of the Contemporary Resort. Brock, who began her career as a radio DJ, was previously merchandise manager at Disney's nightlife hub, Pleasure Island. Though just Brock and Pearsall led our course, along with another facilitator, Alicia Matheson, acting as an operations assistant, there are 30 facilitators on staff at Disney Institute. On its Website, it describes these instructors as successful trainers who worked their way up the ranks at Disney. Matheson, who left a career as an international business consultant with the United Nations after vacationing at the Contemporary Resort in the early 1990s, said it was Disney's friendly environment that drew her in. She was so impressed with the upbeat corporate culture, she signed on to become an employee herself.
Meet-and-greets dispensed with, we were presented with the words, "New Door." Our instructors asked us how the letters could be reorganized into an anagram. Only one of us (not me) got it after a minute or two: One Word. It was a mental exercise designed to get our brains moving, but there was also a message in it. "There's not going to be one word that's going solve all this," Brock said of the challenges learners came to the Institute with. While most of us don't have workplaces that include castles, "I bet every one of you has a princess and a pirate," she said, as we laughed in recognition of the difficult personalities in our own organizations. Other similarities? Global customers with high expectations and the need to keep up with market changes, engage multiple generations of customers, and make money topped the list participants shouted out to Brock as Pearsall jotted them down on a sheet of paper on an easel. That's not all us participants had in common with each other and Disney. The pivotal role played by sustaining an engaged, satisfied workforce, or "cast," as Disney calls its employees, also is crucial. Pearsall and Brock likened the balance between employee, customer needs, and quality service to a stool. One stool leg represents quality employee experience; another is quality customer experience; and the third is quality business experience. They're inextricably linked, Brock stressed. "If you can keep your cast members happy," she pointed out, "they're going to provide great service for your guests."
We then were asked to briefly introduce ourselves to fellow participants we hadn't met yet. The first one I met was the director for sales strategy and communication for a Toronto-based company that owns retail stores. She said her organization would like to change the sales-oriented focus of its stores to encourage more concentration on customer service. When the course resumed, we shared our top performance goals with Pearsall, who jotted them down, noting a common thread: We all would like to exceed customer expectations. At Disney, this is done through paying attention to every detail of service delivery, Pearsall explained. "We're trained to want to exceed your expectations," she said. "We try to get all the little things during your day 1 percent better," she noted. "Sometimes we make something 10 percent better, but it's more likely it's just a little 'wow.''"
That night, as we did throughout the program, we saw Disney service in action. We were taken to "Norway" in Epcot, followed by a viewing of the Illuminations fireworks display. Luckily, we were back to our hotel fairly early since we were expected back in the Grand Republic Ballroom by 7:30 the next morning.
After breakfast, we reviewed the multifaceted nature of customer service, which Brock compared to snowflakes. We each have individualized service needs, or our own customer service snowflake. For that reason, Disney empowers its employees to use their judgment to deliver what they perceive as the right service for each guest. The company also listens to what they have to say. In addition to customer surveys and regular viewing of Disney blogs, the company asks supervisors to hold meetings before every shift to review the day's schedule, award recognition to deserving workers, and ask if there are any thoughts or ideas any would like to share. This process is formalized on a much more extensive scale through an annual employee attitude survey.
With that in mind, we were given headsets to transmit the sound of our tour guide's voice, boarded shuttle buses, and headed to the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World's primary park. As we walked the grounds, past famed rides such as Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain, Matheson, my tour group's guide, gave us an example of a frontline employee-driven initiative. Hating to turn children away from rides because they don't make the 40-inch height requirement, employees working one such safety checkpoint pitched the idea of an alternative ride, playground-like, and filled with small tunnels that only children under 40 inches would be allowed to use. In addition to access to this alternative ride, these children would be given a certificate autographed by Mickey that when they reach 40 inches, they will be allowed to go to the front of the line of the ride they're now too small to be given access to. The feelings of small children are spared, and when they reach the required height, they remind their parents it's time to go to Disney to use their special certificate. Successfully implemented, Matheson said that's just one example of the innovation of frontline workers generating "repeat business" at the park.
We made our way down "Main Street, USA," an area of the park designed to recreate the look and feel of an idealized 1800s-era American street, with Matheson saying hello to fellow employees, whose titles she's as likely as not to forget. This, like everything at Disney—such as the trashcans placed precisely 26 paces apart (research indicating that's how long guests are willing to carry garbage)—is by design. "All of us are leaders," she said, "so we're not much concerned with titles."
From the bright cleanliness of Main Street, we headed "backstage" into an underground area for employees only. Since more than 102 languages are spoken among Disney's workforce, symbols and color coding are used along with words to give guidance. That coding ranges from sections of the park denoted by color to hammers crossed with double-sided wrenches encased in circles that are stamped along the floor. A tube running along the ceiling sucks trash from all garbage cans in the park, transporting it to a point beyond the park's borders, and guests' eyes, for disposal. We passed an employee information center kiosk with an LED screen featuring ID/password-triggered personalized messages for the workforce, along with hard copy materials such as paper bulletins and the employee newspaper, Eyes & Ears, written for Disney World's 60,000-member workforce.
Passing out of this backstage area, and back into the sunlight, even workers carrying a large table down the stairs paused to say hello to us, which was no coincidence, said Brock. "We hire based on attitude," she said, "rather than aptitude." In fact, the corporate culture at Disney is so distinct, many find themselves marrying fellow employees (as Matheson did).
We lunched that day at Disney's Wilderness Lodge, a hotel with a Northwestern motif and filled with a large totem pole and other Native American paraphernalia. We dined at the hotel's Whispering Canyon Café. In contrast to the usual Disney cheerfulness mantra, the staff there is taught to be cheerfully grumpy. Not that they're not happy—the playful "tough love" demeanor just suits the rough-and-tumble theme of the restaurant. After we finished eating, the manager of the restaurant, John Amato, explained how staff is trained to "theme," as he called it. "It takes a lot of training to put together, a lot of training to read a table to make sure we don't cross a line," said Amato. He wasn't joking. Staff members have 60 hours of training under their belt before they're given a table of their own. Learning includes three days with a certified trainer followed by an assessment they must pass. "We slowly build up the server's responsibility," he explained, based on feedback from guests and servers themselves on whether they feel comfortable taking on additional tables. Like the frontline workers at the Magic Kingdom, wait staff are encouraged to bring their own initiatives to the table—literally.
Back in the "classroom" at the Contemporary Resort, we learned Disney applies the same philosophy to how both guests and employees are treated. "Research shows cast and guests have the same expectations," said Brock. "Make me feel special, treat me as an individual, respect me, and make me knowledgeable." For that reason, the company sometimes offers employees the same promotional programs it presents to guests. With 2008 anointed the "Year of a Million Dreams," in which guests are approached at random and offered special gifts, some employees also have been surprised with gifts varying from free cruises to restaurant gift cards. In addition to feeling appreciated, employees are given a boost of confidence with the company's 90-day no harm/no fail policy for new hires. Once on board, workers are given the benefit of the doubt for the first three months as they try their hand at being a new Disney employee. If their first assignment turns out not to be a good fit, they are given others during the first three months until their best competency is found. Landing in precisely the right job role is essential at Disney, given its belief in allowing employees leeway to make their own decisions. "We transfer decision-making authority down to the lowest level possible," said Pearsall.
With that, we're given our marching orders for the next day (the program kept the agenda a surprise, so we didn't know until the night before where we would be spending the next day): 7:30 a.m. in the ballroom for classes, followed by breakfast and a tour at Disney's Animal Kingdom Park. Stay tuned for the remainder of my Disney Institute experience in the September issue.
Sidebar: Inside the Disney Insitute
Doling out advice to other companies isn't something Disney takes lightly, says Bruce Jones, program director for the Disney Institute... (more…)
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