Page 40 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

Make Everyone’s Dreams Come True 21

standing of the company’s goals. “The Dream principle has been crucial for
the telecommunications industry as it grapples with disruptive technological
changes. Telecom executives need to have the vision and confidence to trans-
form their business models while keeping employees and customers happy at
the same time,” comments Scott Stevenson, Telecommunications Association
of Michigan president. 3

Dream Retreats Foster Participation

Walt Disney instinctively knew that participation by cast members in the devel-
opment of a new “show” gave them a sense of commitment, both to the project
in question and to the company itself. Judging from the extremely low turnover
rates at his namesake company, we can say that Walt’s instincts were, as always,
right on target. Whereas a 100 percent turnover rate is the norm at most theme
parks, rank-and-file turnover at Disney is less than 30 percent. And within the
company’s management ranks, turnover is less than 6 percent.
What’s more, everything we have learned in working with compa-
nies worldwide lends support to the validity of Walt’s inclusive approach.
Employees everywhere, whether in China or India or Italy, basically agree on
what is important and what is offensive in a corporate culture. They dislike
arrogance on the part of management, and they desperately want real two-way
communication that includes them in planning and resolving critical issues.
The employees of CMA Canada are of this mindset. CMA Canada
represents 37,000 certified management accountants (CMAs) and 10,000
students and candidates in Canada and around the world.
Since 2003, they have been involved in a journey to change the culture of
their organization. One of the exciting developments came out of a full-staff
Dream Retreat last summer on The Disney Way of customer service. At that
session, they were determined to dream how they could encourage an atmo-
sphere of mutual respect and trust. The result of this session was the creation
of a Mutual Respect and Trust (MRT) Committee—a cross-functional task
force with folks from the internal areas of accreditation, corporate services,
and IT.
Dream Retreat participants felt that there was a need to take the ideas
and thoughts expressed and to work toward resolving some of the issues
identified. The MRT Committee decided to focus on communication and
came up with four initial recommendations: establish a company newsletter,
create a virtual calendar of events, build an intranet site, and hold regular
interdepartmental meetings.