Page 66 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

You Better Believe It 47

has to be committed to creating an atmosphere in which people and teams are
motivated to achieve team goals while still maintaining respect for one another’s
personal values.
And what exactly does an innovative environment look like? For one
thing, there is no such thing as “crazy.” Radical departure from the old ways
is often precisely what’s needed if you are going to come up with solutions
to customer problems. In 1937, Walt Disney sent Jake Day to the woods of
Maine to take hundreds of photos and make numerous drawings in prepara-
tion for the production of Bambi, which would be released in 1942. Crazy
is probably one of the kindest words that many of Walt’s contemporaries in
the animated film business used to describe such a radical and innovative
approach to capturing the magic of the forest. But Disney let his beliefs guide
his actions regardless of what the naysayers thought.
The message is: Go the extra mile yourself and encourage your people to
do the same. Let them know that it’s okay to take risks, to let their off-the-
wall ideas take flight. Above all, encourage everyone to have fun!
In our research into companies that are considered to be particularly inno-
vative, we found that certain core values repeatedly jumped out at us. One of
the most common of these was respecting individuality and encouraging indi-
vidual initiative. From service organizations such as Ernst & Young to manu-
facturing organizations such as the Whirlpool Corporation, top companies
in a variety of industries all make it a point to clearly state their faith in their
employees. They encourage everyone to contribute, or as Walt would say, they
encourage everyone to dream. And from those vast stores of knowledge and
creativity flow the innovative ideas that consistently keep them at the pinnacle
of business success.
Other oft-stated core values are honesty, integrity, and an insistence
on superior quality. Our featured organizations—Downtown School (Des
Moines), Ernst & Young, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Griffin Hospital,
John Robert’s Spa (Cleveland), Men’s Wearhouse, and The Cheesecake
Factory—all espouse these upright notions, and all are among the greatest of
American business success stories. It’s fair to assume that an adherence to these
basic beliefs has helped foster an atmosphere in which innovation can flourish.
And so it goes. Service to customers, hard work, continuous self-
improvement, responsibility to society: These, too, are values that frequently
carry great weight at many of the top companies. But don’t mistake this as a
laundry list from which you should choose your core values. While any or all
of these may be relevant to your personal situation, the point to be made is