Page 135 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

116 The Disney Way

Management’s reaction was incredulous: “You guys don’t know what
you’re talking about.” Dismissing the opinions of the very people who dealt
with would-be guests on a daily basis, the company hired a marketing firm,
which, lo and behold, came up with exactly the same answer. Red-faced and
apologetic, management went back to the reservations staff to get suggestions
for a new name. The name The Disney Inn was eventually selected as a suit-
ably neutral alternative to The Golf Resort and remained so until the change
in ownership.
As the above examples indicate, Disney has occasionally made the mis-
take of ignoring its standards for working in partnership. And every time,
management has had to backtrack when the mistake was recognized and
re-embrace its time-tested principles. No matter how big or how successful a
company becomes, partnership with other companies, employees, suppliers,
customers, or the community is a valuable asset that needs to be cultivated.
Partnerships are being cultivated and used in creative ways by a diverse
range of organizations. One of the most novel partnerships we ever partici-
pated in occurred some years back when we were working with the School of
Nursing at the University of Southern Indiana. A dispute arose over the amount
of continuing education that was available to the nursing faculty. The nurses
wanted more, but the administration said there was simply no money for such
a program.
Having already established a team at the school during a strategic plan-
ning retreat, we worked with team members to devise a simple but ingenious
solution to the dispute. The school approached a local hospital and offered
to staff a unit for one shift a week, using student nurses from the school. The
fee to the hospital was less than the hospital’s usual staffing cost for the hours
involved; the students got credit for practical experience; and the school used
the money from the hospital to fund courses in continuing education for the
faculty. It was a deal in which everyone came out a winner.
Another result of good partnerships is that they often lead to welcome
but perhaps unexpected outcomes. At Asea Brown Boveri of Canada, for
example, a partnership with customers helped turn around one of the elec-
trical engineering concern’s faltering regional operations. A new manager,
who was sent in by headquarters to boost revenues, eschewed the traditional
approaches of making changes in product and processes and of downsizing.
Instead, he asked staff members to find out the needs and problems of the
businesses in their marketing area. He also established partnerships with
local business people to explore potential areas of improvement. In only one