I worked for Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL for just about a year as an Industrial Engineer intern when I was in college. In that time I was able to learn a lot about industrial engineering, but as I reflect back on that experience I also learned some good lessons in company culture. The topic of purpose has been on my mind this week and I've found a lot of recent articles that hit on a lot of good points around purpose. This one from the Harvard Business Review's July-August 2018 issue (https://hbr.org/2018/07/creating-a-purpose-driven-organization) really hits home with the idea of purpose using USAA as an example. For me, I thought back to my time at Disney and how their purpose "To create happiness for others" was ingrained in almost everything I experienced there.
In the story, Peter Pan, we are transported to a world where you never have to grow up, Neverneverland. In order to get there a boy named Peter helps Wendy and her brothers to learn to fly.
"Close your eyes, think a happy thought, and with a little pixie dust..."
I remember when I was a kid my parents had bought a VHS tape of the Peter Pan on Broadway starring Mary Martin. I remember the feeling when Wendy and her brothers stood on their bunk beds (which my brothers, sister, and I had) and took that leap and started to fly. I felt their happiness, and I felt the wonder of never growing up. I swore to myself that I would never grow up. In my heart I would always be young, but as we actually do have to grow up, that wonder and excitement fades. Walt Disney never wanted to grow up, and he made an entire universe of wonderment surrounding this feeling. When you see a Disney movie, or have a Disney experience, whether it's on an Adventure, on a cruise, or in one of their parks, you get the feeling of being a kid again. There's something about the experience that Disney, as a company, creates that transports you to a "whole new world" of happiness.
Having worked there for just about a year, I was able to experience a lot about what makes this happen with Disney. As an employee you are actually considered a "cast member" starting to solidify the whole idea that we are all part of the cast of a show where people join to be a "part of this world." As a company, the purpose of existence is to create happiness for others. They have let this purpose drive their business, their decisions, and especially their culture.
To start to build this culture, when you join the cast, you go through training. In every training that I remember, people spoke about their "Pixie Dust Moments." A Pixie Dust Moment is just as you would remember in Peter Pan. You transport someone to a happy thought in a particular moment. These stories really stick in your mind as well, and they exemplify the values of the culture Disney is trying to create. Some examples I remember from others was a manager of one of our higher end restaurants staying late one night and receiving an email from one of the hotels.
"One of our guests seems to have left their Stitch doll at the restaurant. I know it's late, but they are leaving tomorrow. If you could get someone to look for it and send it over, we would greatly appreciate it."
Delegating responsibility to create happiness for others doesn't usually happen, most cast members will take it upon themselves to do what is right for the Guest. So this manager goes down into the restaurant and searches all over for Stitch. She ends up finding it after midnight that night. She sends an email back saying she's got it and will have it over there by morning. Instead of just sending it over to the hotel, this manager wakes up early the next morning, Stitch doll in hand, and stands there waiting behind the counter waiting for the family to check out. As they come down the hall, the front desk assistant whispers "that's the family." This manager is now giddy with excitement, although she has only had just a few hours of sleep.
"Hello Robinson family! Good morning!" The family looked at her with a surprise that she knew their name. "I found Stitch last night sneaking around the park riding some rides. He was going down Splash Mountain when I saw his photo pop up on the monitor. But, I took him home and fed him, and brought him back to his Ohana." The little girl, who Stitch belonged to, had a smile that went from ear to ear, ran over and hugged that Stitch doll as tight as she could.
There are so many of these moments that happen at Disney. In my time there we were all encouraged to make these moments happen, and share them with each other. For me this moment occurred when I was going to do a time study at Space Mountain. Going on stage, I am dressed like a manager, button down shirt and nice slacks, with a Disney lanyard and pins. As I made my way toward Space Mountain I was stopped by a family that looked distressed.
"I think someone has taken our stroller." This happens from time to time. I asked where they had left it, as sometimes a Cast Member might rearrange the strollers in the parking areas to create more room. They showed me the area, and as we looked around for a final check, we still did not see it.
"Did you happen to have any valuables left in the stroller?" I asked, in case I needed to contact Security. They didn't, fortunately. I asked them to wait where they were and ran in to the closest gift shop and got a couple ice cream bars. I ran back and handed them to their kids and turned to the parents. "Can one of you join me to get you another stroller? We won't be long." The mother joined me and we walked to the nearest stroller rental area. When I arrived there was a short line, but we all knew when another cast member comes in with a Guest, we know there is an issue to be resolved. The supervisor came right over and asked what she could do to help. I explained the situation, and she responded "well let's get your family a new stroller then!" She quickly retrieved a new stroller and name tag. In less than a minute we were out the door with a new stroller. The mother thanked me for taking the time to help her. As we returned to her family, the kids were just about done with their ice cream bars.
"Have a magical rest of the day!" I said as I made my way back to work, and the kids waved to me as I left.
This moment for me took some time from the task I was doing, but the purpose of Disney is to create happiness for others. In my role, I could've done a few things in that moment. I could have called over someone else to take care of it, I could've told the family that they ought to take care of their belongings more, I could've accused the family of lying about even having a stroller, or I could've owned the situation and used it as a moment to create happiness for them. As a culture, we were strongly encouraged to do the latter. Everything around us was made for these moments. As a company, Disney knows that return visitors create more and more profits. As we create these moments for families, as the children grow up they remember these moments as well and so they bring their families. This purpose drives the entire business to be successful, and you can feel it in how people are generally treated. There are of course a few exceptions to this, but it is much better to have a few exceptions than have it as the rule. When I go to other amusement or theme parks, I use Disney as the standard. You can easily feel the difference in mood at a park where there either is no purpose, or the culture isn't built around it.
I think now to my organization's purpose and how we have created a culture around it. I think this is a major opportunity for us as an organization. Looking at our reviews and the general sentiment around our company, I can see that our culture has not ingrained any particular purpose. How we manage, how we train, how we communicate does not uphold any particular purpose either.
When I think of what we do, we deliver. When I think about why we do it, we do it to connect people in happiness, sympathy, love, congratulations, condolences, hope, and wonder. Some of us see this purpose, but we need to work much harder making this purpose the cornerstone of our existence, encourage moments for these connections between each other as employees, and between employee and customer. This requires a major re-think of how we do things, but so is Operational Excellence. In fact, a key principle of Operational Excellence is to Create Constancy of Purpose. This must be our drive, a drive toward upholding our purpose of connecting people for the betterment of society.
Transformations require purpose, engaged employment requires knowing and doing what is right by that purpose. As a business, we use this purpose to create value for our customers, and make experiences such that they want us more. Deming once said "it is unknown the cost of poor quality. You cannot measure it, it is not measurable." This is something Disney knows, by having poor quality you cannot know how many people decide not to come back, you cannot know how many future generations will look negatively upon you, and you will never be able to know it until it is too late and your business dies. Often organizations wait too long to discover their purpose, but I hope we are not too late with it. If anything, we have a lot of people working hard in the background trying to make this happen, and so for me, I have hope for our future.