The Employee Engagement Gospel According To Walt Disney

Gospel: gos·pel, noun: Something regarded as true and implicitly believed: to take his report for gospel. A doctrine regarded as of prime importance: political gospel.

The good news, Disney’s Approach to Employee Engagement is simple and serves as the world’s business gospel.

The bad news is it’s not easy.

When i first discovered i had high cholesterol, the doctor recommended two simple steps to lower the risk of heart disease.

Diet and exercise.

Simple.

Not easy.

Disney’s Approach to Employee Engagement, you’ll see in a moment, is ridiculously simple.

And yet finding an organizational culture of overwhelming leadership excellence is roughly as statistically similar as finding a large number of vibrantly healthy American adults.

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.

The second greatest human fear

Most people know this, the second greatest human fear is the fear of death.

What’s the top human fear?

The only thing scarier than dying is public speaking.

So yeah, no, i never wanted to be a public speaker.

No dream.

No wish.

Not even a remote thought that just randomly came and went.

No desire nor interest ever happened before the day Carol called.

After that, the idea of being a Disney professional speaker consumed my thinking.

Like a broken record, i kept repeating the same question over and over, “Why me?”

Never thought about becoming a Disney Employee Culture expert.

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.

You’ve Got The Wrong Jeff

Note: Today’s posts have identical content, not even a few different words tweak on each. Why? Creating a benchmarkable template. The content will be unique to each book. However, the prelude and intro/outro will be similar.

It was a typical day at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa.

Busy.

Crazy busy, you could say.

In the Main Building, the Concierge Building, The Disney Company’s highest level of service, for any of our Resorts worldwide, was delivered exclusively here.

When it’s all you know, and all 1,400 Cast Members (including 100 leaders) have the same understanding of and commitment to the Disney Mission, you adapt and thrive in spite of the relentless pressure to be excellent with every breath you take.

So when the phone rang, i didn’t have time to answer it, and all the back office phones are internal numbers, so i knew it was a Cast Member.

i normally let internal calls go to voice mail on a super busy day, because if it’s urgent, they can page me – this was 1998, in the pre-mobile phone era.

“May I speak with Jeff please, this is Carol from Disney Institute.”

“This is Jeff?”

“I need to schedule a lunch meeting with Steve Heise.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve got the wrong Jeff.”

“You’re Jeff Noel, right?

“Yes. But i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Carol said she’d investigate and call me back.

Sometime later we spoke again, and she proceeded to share how my first Disney Supervisor, Neal McCord, had lunch with a Disney Institute (DI) hiring manager and Neal recommended me as a potential speaker because of my 15 years of Disney Operations experience. DI was looking for someone with those exact credentials.

Steve Heise was the DI Director and he wanted to meet me.

i was so confused.

“Why me?”

All i could think about after Carol’s phone call was, “God must want me to become a preacher or a comedian, and i’ll need this public speaking experience.”

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.

rethink, reprioritize, recommit your Employee Engagement beliefs

Where do we begin when we are fed up with the past and dissatisfied with our inability to break through the everyday employee cultural grind?

Cliche, but what about keeping it simple?

The ultimate sophistication is simplicity.

What’s first?

Three steps.

In prioritized order:

1. rethink
2. reprioritize
3. recommit

Great leaders never underestimate the power of being clear, concise, and compelling.

Life and work are too complex to try to lead without clarity around the most important issues.

Life and work are too complicated to achieve organizational vibrancy without irrefutable priorities.

Life and work are too intense to ever show up without world-class Employee Engagement commitment.

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.

There’s no room for average employee engagement at Disney

None.

Zero.

It’s a crying shame, isn’t it?

Because you’ll never know.

Never know what might have been.

Never know how effective your impact could have been.

Never lived up to the hopes your leaders had for you.

Never lived up to the hopes you had for yourself.

Satisfaction is dangerous.

They say only the mediocre are at their best every day.

The antidote is obvious.

Seek out timeless Disney Employee Culture wisdom.

Embrace simple, profound, industry-neutral Employee insights.

Begin today to rethink, reprioritize, and recommit your time and effort.

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This website is about our BODY. To read today’s post about our SPIRIT, click here.