Disney Institute Teaches the 'Business Behind the Magic'

Disney Institute Teaches the 'Business Behind the Magic'
	The very name Disney Institute tends to prompt the question:  What do the world’s most popular resort destinations have to do with an organization that trains individuals in leadership development and other soft skills?  The answer:  Absolutely everything.

A peek into the origins of the 20-year-old Disney Institute reveals all.  Practically since the opening day of the Walt Disney World® Resort in Central Florida, Disney executives began fielding requests from admiring business people seeking insights about eye-catching best practices they observed while on family vacations. Pioneering procedures in people management, customer service, leadership, creativity and customer loyalty drew notice even before Disney was profiled in the 1982 book, In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman.

Increasing demand for “behind the scenes” tours encouraged the company to create a separate training entity to provide the experiential learning opportunities those guests desired.  Indeed, it was a short leap for an organization that was already in the training business.  Disney University, the internal training arm of the company, was actively training employees (it calls them “Cast Members”) in leadership excellence, loyalty, teambuilding, people management and other core skills. 

In 1986, Disney launched its first series of professional development programs aimed at enabling executives to “experience the business behind the magic” of Disney’s business strengths.  Since then, it has hosted more than a million business people from virtually every industry worldwide to experience its unique brand of experiential learning. Combining the core competencies of the world’s most popular resort destinations with the founding principles of the world’s premier entertainment company, organizations can gain insights into over 100 years of best business practices.

The Disney Institute offers professional development and training programs in a variety of formats for groups and individuals, many of which can be highly customized to specifically suit the needs of any company or industry.  In addition, Disney Institute has expanded its offerings to the Disneyland® Resort in California. Programs are also available on request to groups meeting at other Disney resort destinations around the world. 

The Disney Institute provides clients with a unique learning environment that capitalizes on the diverse strengths of Disney’s world-class operations, insists Bruce Jones, the Institute’s Programming Director.  “Attendees come from many countries and industries, from companies of all sizes and from all levels within organizations. They are seeking knowledge and skills about Disney’s proven business practices,” he says. A special attraction, says Jones, is Disney’s ability to achieve consistency across a broad base of employees in the areas of HR practices, management philosophies, leadership development, customer loyalty, creativity and innovation.

Customized and group training programs range from 90-minute presentations to multiple day seminars with open enrollment classes in a three and a half day format. Taught by veteran Disney facilitators, they are typically accompanied by visits to behind-the-scenes operations in the Disney theme parks and resorts where they meet with Disney leaders to see how management theory becomes standard operating procedure. The Disney Institute also creates custom seminars that help client organizations on applying the Disney model of customer service or other topics to their specific business needs. Additionally, many organizations choose the Disney Institute for long-term engagements using their programs as a catalyst for culture change. Such custom solutions follow a multi-phase collaborative process with clients to ensure that they receive results that help to impact an organization’s bottom line through the most effective learning experience. 

What type of experience?  The Walt Disney World® Resort, twice the size of the island of Manhattan, is often described as a city unto itself, a living laboratory where best practices can be observed in a wide range of operations including hotels, restaurants, wastewater treatment, energy plants, transportation networks and more.  These facilities include the resort’s textile services facility, one of the world’s largest working laundry operations.  But the relevant best practices for visitors are not how Disney launders its sheets and towels.  It’s the dynamic leadership apparatus vividly on display there – a live case study that is available nowhere else in the world, says Jones.

Here’s another: Beneath the Magic Kingdom Park is the Utilidor, a labyrinth of service tunnels. They are part of the “backstage” area where Cast Members conduct the busy work of operating a theme park. They are also the arteries of Disney’s service oriented culture.  Learning how to harness and refashion that culture is of keen interest to service industries of all types, especially hospitals and other healthcare facilities that operate in a highly competitive environment in the delivery of patient care.

Just ask executives of Arkansas Children’s Hospital, who have learned at the Disney Institute how to replicate Disney’s entire concept of onstage and backstage performance for the hospital’s own patient environment.  The concept stresses the importance of separating public and private areas of a facility for operations, expense and marketing reasons. 

“Anything that does not support and enhance the Quality Service experience will, by definition, detract from it,” councils the Disney Institute in its book, Be Our Guest.  It’s a message that Arkansas Children’s Hospital has taken to heart. Patients and visitors to the hospital experience a warm and inviting hotel environment, not a harsh medical one.  Such practices learned at the Disney Institute have had a remarkable impact on the hospital’s fortunes through a dramatic decrease in turnover and rise in patient satisfaction, officials say. Operating margins rose from 3.5% to 9.3% and the hospital is ranked in the 99th percentile as an “Employer of Choice” nationally.

This breadth and depth of expertise demonstrate why the Disney Institute attracts such a broad constituency, explains Jones.  “Our facilitators come from diverse backgrounds including the food and beverage industry, manufacturing and transportation. They offer first person accounts from those perspectives, with real life examples and engaging stories that can easily be applied by the participants. In addition, attendees talk directly to our front line leaders in these fields.” 

The effectiveness of the Disney Institute’s approach is underscored every day by invigorated clients whose new skills and insights translate into improved processes and productivity increases. Says Jones: “By learning to think outside the box, they gain a renewed focus for their business units and organizations, which directly impacts the bottom line.”