Page 290 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

The Magic Continues 271

able to exploit it in every other potential market or product. This notion of
cross-pollination has become a major driver of the company’s profitability.

Lessons in Leadership
It has been our pleasure to get to know the leaders and staffs of our featured
organizations and discover their own Dream, Believe, Dare, Do magic.
All are industry icons that set a standard by which others in their fields
should be judged. For example, the dramatic results of the Downtown School
illustrate the need for a dramatic paradigm shift in the American educational
system. Why is it that over the past 20 years, with the countless reports citing
the failure of our schools, few school districts have made an effort to rectify the
situation? It has often been said of education, “If this was a profit and loss busi-
ness, it would either change or die.” As Des Moines Business Alliance board
president, Art Wittmack, said, “Businesses have long said, ‘Leave education to
the educators; we’ll just take the product.’ Clearly the laissez-faire mentality
of ‘We’ll let the legislature or the school board to address these issues’ has not
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been successful in the past.” Then it hit us—the trouble with U.S. education
is not unlike the trouble with typical U.S. customer service: both are rooted in
apathy and a “that’s someone else’s problem” mentality.
The University of Michigan business school’s National Quality Research
Center compiles and analyzes the American Customer Service Index (ASCI).
This study began in 1994 when the index for the retail sector was close to
75 percent, then 11 years later at 73.5 percent. Over the past 20 years, many
other authors have revealed their disdain for the state of customer service
in America. It still amazes us that even though Disney has been the “poster
child” for “be our guest” service since the opening of Disneyland in 1955,
painfully few companies have been inspired to emulate Disney’s culture.
Yet, when Dell introduces the latest and greatest new feature on one of its
computers, within 60 days, the HP engineers are able to incorporate their
version of the feature into their own products. They are able to take apart
a Dell computer and discover the secret. Yet, every day, The Walt Disney
Company is wide open, and thousands of people around the world can actu-
ally see the “secret”—treat customers like guests in their own homes. They
do this in front of the whole world, but few get it!
Our featured organizations masterfully apply Walt Disney’s definition of
leadership to grow and nurture their cultures: “The ability to establish and man-
age a creative climate in which individuals and teams are self-motivated to the