Today’s writing is from the Walt Disney World Disney Springs entrance.
Why would you settle when it’s not necessary?
The only limitations you have are those you impose upon yourself.
Struggling to achieve, sustain, and enhance a vibrant business excellence culture?
Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 80% of your leaders are rated by employees as very good or excellent at balancing the business chain of excellence?
Challenged to create a vibrant business excellence culture where at least 51% of your leaders are rated by employees as excellent at connecting all the dots – leaders-employees-customers-brand-innovation?
Do you have a personal conviction that good and very good aren’t good enough?
Do you understand the dramatic difference between an excellent business chain ripple effect and its ability to get excellent results, compared to a very good ripple effect getting very good results and a good ripple effect getting good results?
Can you articulate the difference between a good chain and an excellent chain; and the difference between a very good chain and an excellent chain?
If you can, and i’m assuming you can, why would you settle?
The Walt Disney Pavilion at Advent Health hospital, downtown Orlando.
Busy Doing Nothing
Being good at doing things well is often seen as success.
Really?
Think about it.
Yes, we are good at things.
But are we good at the right things?
Who’s coaching us about business excellence priorities?
Who’s holding us accountable?
And what if our boss is the same boat as us?
What if our boss has business excellence priorities that we are good at delivering on, but what if all of us are focused on lower level priorities?
What if we are the boss? What if we’re passing this on down to our direct reports?
The business excellence mission critical stuff, often the soft stuff, is left alone because it’s too hard to see and measure improvement.
It’s analogous to trying to lose weight instead of trying to lower our resting heart rate, our cholesterol, BMI, and triglycerides.
There are a lot of fake business excellence problems in our world. Fake problems are issues we spend time managing that have disproportionate value to more important priorities.
Fake problems are convenient for medicating our lack of a clear, concise, and compelling vision.
Organizational health (and personal health) is priority one.
Never get bored with the basics.
Spend time doing nothing.
Quiet time, void of distractions, void of deadlines, meetings, initiatives.
Spend time there and you’ll be astonished, if you really open your heart, at what you can accomplish when you’re busy doing nothing.
Today’s writing is from Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort.
An early writing start before the World awakes.
Aerial view.
Had this entire office to myself.
Disney’s Wilderness Lodge was built around this natural Hot Spring.
Business Excellence
Let’s review the suggested cultural blueprints implementation plan.
The Building owner is the CEO.
Deliverables from Leaders Champions are full set of blueprints.
Leaders: Vision (Yours, tiers up to company vision statement), Involvement (Training versus Development), Accountability (two 3-legged stools), Commitment (Internal Values).
Customers: The Bullseye (Wow), 360 Analysis (Needs, Wants, Stereotypes, Emotions), Unifying Goal (Common Purpose), Decision Tree (Non-Negotiable, Famous For, Business Need).
Reputation: Your Promise (Unifying Goal), Delivering Your Promise (Process Mapping), Emotional Connection (Behavioral Guidelines).
Improvement: Generate Ideas (Build your box), Select Ideas (Continuous Improvement Process), Implement Ideas (CIP), Leader’s Role (Environmentalist).
All collaborative efforts by executive leaders and the cross-functional teams should revolve around simple, focused, energetic, creative, visionary, and scalable outcomes – blueprints for an organizationally vibrant culture.
Writing at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park today.
A front line Cast Member came up with this idea. The other option is to lean them up against a pole or picnic table.
View from Mt. Mayday overlook.
Intentionally over-focused on theming.
Typhoon Tilley shipwrecked on Mt. Mayday.
How to execute next steps to convert theory into reality
Big picture involvement:
Five foundational ownership tracts; 19 total blueprints.
One owner of everything, the CEO.
Up to ten Champions selected from CEO Cabinet; two Champions for each of the five ownership tracts (Leaders, Employees, Customers, Reputation, Improve). Some Cabinet members may be responsible for two ownership tracts.
Ten assistant champions selected from your best, most passionate leaders in Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications. Assistant Champions should only focus on one ownership tract.
From 15-30 advocate teams selected from every employee, at every level, in every department. This is three to five team advocates per ownership tract.
• • • • •
Owner
CEO
Champions
C-Level Executive (always have two, to solve for unexpected absences)
Provides vision, inspiration, commitment
Assistant Champions
Cross-functional pair from Human Resources, Labor Relations, Employee Relations, Compliance, Employment, Marketing, Public Relations, Communications.
Always have two, to solve for unexpected absences
Provides involvement, accountability, commitment
For unexpected absences, always be grooming the replacement from the Advocate Team.
Advocate Teams
Created from any employee, at any level, in every department
3-6 total per team recommended
Cross-functional
Provides energy, enthusiasm, effort, commitment
Final blueprint
Create action steps
Review, organize notes
Create plan
Discuss
Summarize
Create final blueprint
Present to CEO and Cabinet
Develop and deliver campaign
Goals/deliverables
Assign roles
Timeline
Accountability
Misc
Manage project scope creep
Prepare contingency plans for project disruptions
Always be grooming replacement/succession
Continuous Improvement
Manage health of all teams
Grow team bench
Measure
Celebrate
Share
Historian documents growth, change, transformation
Notes: We started with senior leadership because you are the most connected and experienced with the organization’s strategy. You know things no other levels know.
Recommend creating a corporate Historian (including video/photo library) to work with and assist all other areas to make key links and connections to the founder’s story, heritage & traditions, traits and behaviors, language and symbols, and shared values.
The most natural things to feel about uncharted territory: doubt, fear, anxiety, confusion, excitement, joy, relief, hope, motivation.
Today’s writing is at Walt Disney World’s original preview center, now the AAU building. In 1988, i was in the DMDP (Disney’s Management Development Program). This was one of two Front Offices for Disney’s Village Resort.
Disney Springs is near the AAU building.
Envisioning seven Disney Business books, similar to this. When lined up, the spines will have an intentional image.
Who will publish seven Disney Business Books?
The 19 cultural blueprints for corporate architecture for business excellence
LEADERS (blueprints, site prep, foundation) 1. (Vision) a clear, concise, compelling vision 2. (Involvement) Create your tool box with at least 100 easy to implement developmental ideas 3. (Accountability) Develop your tool kit with your top three priorities for each: Employees, Customers, Business PLUS: Technical, Managerial, Behavioral. 4. (Commitment) Short list (7 or less) of internal leadership (and employee) values, with concise definition and sample behaviors.
EMPLOYEES (shell, walls, roof) 5. (History) Full-blown founder’s story capturing the organizational DNA (and an historian identified) 6. (Customs) Long list of company heritage as well as traditions (ongoing historical management) 7. (Icons) Comprehensive guide to corporate language, symbols, phrases, tag lines, etc (ongoing historical mgmt) 8. (Values) Categorize unique traits & behaviors your culture is famous for. EMPLOYEES: Deep and broad integration with your 4 HR practices: Hire, Train, Inspire, Value.
CUSTOMERS (floor plans, doors, windows, walls, stairs, closets, etc) 9. (Wow) Identify and define your quintessential service goal. Then embed it in your organization’s DNA 10. (360 Analysis) Exhaustive lists of Needs, Wants, Stereotypes (+-), Emotions (+-); this will fuel scalable ways to hit your bullseye all day, every day. 11. (Unifying goal) redress your vision statement in a pair of overalls and march it to the front line. This is your battle-cry, the reason you exist. This one blueprint is the most important tool for harvesting your work force’s discretionary effort. 12. (Decision Tree) Create your prioritized corporate decision making matrix based on your non-negotiable, famous for, and business need.
REPUTATION (Exterior style & landscaping) 13. (Your promise) This one’s easy, it’s your unifying goal. 14. (Delivering your promise) process map every customer (and employee) touch point and create exhaustive lists for delivering your quintessential service goal at every touchpoint, all day, every day. 15. (Connecting Emotionally) Create organizationally unique employee framework to allow for initial and ongoing training and development.
IMPROVE (functionality – plumbing, electric, hvac, lighting, etc) 16. (Generate Ideas) Build your corporate box and think inside it. 17. (Select ideas) Use process mapping, 360 analysis, financials, surveys, etc 18. (Implement ideas) Develop a corporate framework for Continuous improvement (CIP); a literal six sigma for dummies. 19. (Leader’s Role) Create environment where great ideas have no choice but to flourish. Everyone is creative, your ideas are separate from your identity, “yes, and”.
jeff noel’s Disney Business Excellence Basics Will Challenge You
Who pushes you and your organization to do your best work?
Does overwhelm and urgency drive most of your days?
Are you satisfied with your cultural and personal business excellence framework?
Do most days feel like you’re playing whack-a-mole on a corporate scale?
If you cleared your calendar from distraction for an entire day, what would you focus on and why?
If you could wave a Magic Wand, it would provide the corporate architecture for building better answers.
Jeff’s five world-class business excellence basics provide a brilliantly simple blueprint for better days, better outcomes, and better health – organizationally and personally.
Organizational Vibrancy Basics
What’s the business advantage to understanding and exploiting the service-profit chain?
What drives the service-profit chain? (Answer: Leadership.)
What are the six steps to Disney’s Continuous Improvement Process?
Why there are positive and negative ripple effects from leadership and how do you design organizational vibrancy?
Jeff’s business excellence architecture provides the transformational template for organizational and personal vibrancy.
Every employee, at every level, in every company will walk away equipped with catalytic business excellence DNA to solve their unsolvables.
Great Business Excellence Categorically Changes Everything
Do you want to lead the category or do you want to become the category?
After you read the next sentence, ask yourself what your organization (or you if you can’t influence an entire company) would have to do differently to have your customers and employees feeling it, talking about it, and loving it?
Be the category.
Imagine being a category of one.
No one else does what you do in the way you do it and your customers (and employees) love you for it.
Great business excellence categorically changes everything.
Yes or no?
Please remember we aren’t talking about good and very good business excellence. At Disney we have a saying, “Good and very good aren’t good enough.”
Today’s Disney writing from the Sun Trust Building. This building served as Walt Disney World Corporate Headquarters from 1971-1989. The Team Disney Building became WDW HQ in 1989.
Thousands and thousands of leadership books.
Leadership self-reflection.
Slow down to speed up.
Look at vibrancy from every angle.
How Does Disney Excel?
The harsh reality is that satisfaction is dangerous.
At Disney, we are never satisfied.
Every day, all day, we are focused on exceeding expectations at every customer and employee touch point.
Sound like your organization?
Never satisfied.
Never.
Satisfied.
World-class organizational vibrancy must set a standard so high, it literally guarantees competitive immunity.
Think about it and imagine your organizational vibrancy being intentional and relentless about clearly outdistancing your competition.
Now imagine aiming for decent organizational harmony.
Decent harmony is not the goal.
Organizational vibrancy, harnessed from the interconnectedness of the business chain of excellence, is the goal.
