Page 163 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

144 The Disney Way

10,000 to 15,000 responses. Much to their surprise, they received 30,000.
A PPD will receive a report only if he or she has had five or more reviews.
Eighty percent of the almost 3,000 PPDs receive reports with an average
of 13 reviews. Partners with unfavorable reports are offered coaching to
help change undesirable behaviors, while partners with favorable reports
are interviewed to discover how desirable behaviors can best be communi-
cated to others.
“People Point” would be a risky endeavor for companies without solid
leadership. Even Jim Freer pondered the questions: Are we creating a situ-
ation were the only people that can win in this process are the nice people?
And, do we want to tell people they can’t deliver tough messages or their
“People Point” score will go down? “So we took a group of high-performing
partners, from virtually every role you can imagine: client service for big
clients; client service for small clients; area managing partners; administra-
tive staff. Then we compared those groups. We found that within each
group, there were high “People Point” reports and low “People Point”
reports, but between groups it did not vary much. What this proved to me
was that “People Point” scores are not dependent on whether you have a job
that requires you to deliver tough messages. They are much more depen-
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dant on the individual, not the job.” That is to say that people whose jobs
typically required delivering tough messages had the same percentage of low
and high “People Point” scores as those whose jobs did not require deliver-
ing the same number or degree of demanding communiqués.
So, is “People First” really working, or is it just a corporate slogan?
Deborah Holmes, director of Ernst & Young’s Center for the New
Workforce told us, “Here people talk about how smart the practice is.
One partner included her client in a conversation regarding her team’s
work calendar that includes personal commitments as well as business.
The nature of client relationships has changed; they have become much
closer, from both a business and personal perspective. We still have our
busy season, but everyone pulls together to make sure that important per-
sonal commitments are met.” Asked what makes Ernst & Young different
from the other Big Four, Deborah replied, “A culture of entrepreneurship
at E&Y makes it different. It allows people to innovate. No other firm
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puts people first.” Deborah reports directly to the chairman, sending the
message that this is an ongoing way of doing business.
The “People First” philosophy was put to an early test on September
11, 2001. Ernst & Young was fortunate not to lose any employees as a