Customer Reviews

The Disney Way, Revised Edition: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you have ever wondered how Disney does it year-in and year-out, and why other companies are constantly competing with and comparing themselves to Disney, then you need to read this book and learn about Disney's magic.

The authors are a couple of Fortune 100 consultants who studied and now teach the management and leadership `secrets' that have kept the Disney name synonymous with organizational excellence for decades. The opening paragraph inside the front cover flap was all I needed to inspire me to read this book: "Walt Disney's dreams, beliefs, and daring gave birth to captivating characters, thrilling theme park attractions, and breathtaking tales that have inspired the imaginations of generations of children and adults. Disney also launched an entertainment and marketing empire whose influence is felt around the world, and whose success provides a model of business excellence that can guide any company."

The authors did a great job introducing and explaining Walt Disney's four pillars - Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. The authors then skillfully showed how upon those pillars were built the ten Disney principles of:

1- Give every member of your organization a chance to dream, and tap into the creativity those dreams embody.
2- Stand firm on your beliefs and principles.
3- Treat your customers like guests.
4- Support, empower, and reward employees.
5- Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners.
6- Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition.
7- Train extensively and constantly reinforce the company's culture.
8- Align long-term vision with short-term execution.
9- Use the storyboarding technique to solve planning and communication problems.
10- Pay close attention to detail.

The opening chapter gave the necessary background on Walt Disney's formative years. The next ten chapters each focused on a different principle. Each chapter used stories and case studies about big and small organizations that successfully applied that particular Disney principle. All chapters ended with reflective questions to ask and actions to take for yourself and your organization that reinforced that chapter's focus. The questions and actions were all clear and concise, and, probably more often than not, unpleasant for individuals and leadership to honestly answer and admit to.

I know that the Disney way is easy to understand, much more difficult to execute, much less frequently executed than it can and should be, and truly unforgettable when experienced firsthand. This book can be your most important first step on the journey into Disney magic for you and your organization if you have the courage to dream, believe, dare, and do - The Disney Way.

The authors explore the business philosophy of Disney, introduce its four key principles (dream, believe, dare, and do) and examine the ten key principles that are at the core of the organization's strategy which are: provide everyone a chance to dream; stand firm on your beliefs and principles; treat your customers like guests; support, empower and reward your employees; build long-term alliances with suppliers and partners; dare to take calculated risks; intensively train and reinforce culture; align long-term vision with execution; use storyboarding techniques for problem solving and communication; and pay close attention to detail.

Chapters explore each of these quintessential organizational qualities -reflecting core beliefs-with an abundance of illustrations from life in the real world of the 'magic kingdom'. Each chapter ends with a few key questions to ask yourself about your organization and some suggestions to ponder. A worthy contribution to understanding critical organizational qualities that make for success. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

This is by far one of the better books on how Disney uses management techniques to run and improve their business. This book does not present information on a bed of magic and fairy dust, but rather documents their findings in a very solid and objective manner.

The basic principles given in this book are Dream, Believe, Dare and Do. While these principles are certainly not new, they are a basic and effective way to get things done and get them done well. This book presents multiple case studies on how Disney has used these principles to further their business as well has how other companies have used these same principles. I was particularly interested in how the storyboarding technique can be used to generate solutions to complex problems.

I recommend this book to anyone studying or wanting to know more about business management techniques. It was a very enjoyable read.

In 30 words or less...vague. Not for those who want a real deep look inside the Disney company's way of doing business. This is a rock skipping across the water...

Many books are produced by firms to act as sales tools for their products. This book falls into that category. Capodagli and Jackson present many personal success stories to show how their firm has saved companies. However, aside from this bias, this is a very good book for the times.

They have researched, as outsiders, the inner workings of Disney to glean the principles that have made Disney great. Disney is a great choice for a business model. Its repeat business and low turnover is its industry's gold standard. It has constantly advanced on many fronts from its inception, till Walt's death in 1966. Then the company slowly started to fall apart for two decades until it was revived by Michael Eisner (CEO) and Frank Wells (President) who in 1984 re-established the fundamental principles Walt had set in place.

Walt Disney put it this way, "I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks and I execute my vision to make these dreams come true."

If you are desiring some extrapolation on the above statement and would like additional fresh observations of the authors, you will love this book. I especially enjoyed learning how Walt turned his whole company into a very-willing idea/dream machine, and how that he also realized that from the customer's perspective, every employee is the company.

May I also recommend The Experience Economy and Pour Your Heart Into It.

Five Stars

According to William Capodagli and Lynn Jackson, "This book tells the inside story of just how Disney's success was achieved -- not by epiphanic flashes of creative insight that produced a Pinocchio or a Dumbo, but by the force of a much-considered, carefully wrought process of managing innovation and creativity and by an adherence to a firmly established system of beliefs." In his biography of Walt Disney also published in 2006, Neal Gabler explains that the company's management evolved over time, gradually adjusting to the increasing complexity of its operations that began with shorts, developed into animated feature films, and then added the first theme park prior to Disney's death. Its subsequent growth helps to explain many of the management systems that Capodagli and Jackson describe but it is also worth noting four themes continue to serve as "pillars": Dream, Believe, Dare, Do.

The material is organized within 11 chapters, followed by an Epilogue in which the authors observe that the integration and interplay between and among the ten principles they have examined can be of substantial benefit to other companies. The "Dream, Believe, Dare, and Do Process" does indeed have all manner of potential applications for companies in industries wholly unrelated to entertainment. There must be dreams to believe in and courage to pursue those dreams. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman's Organizing Genius, one of whose chapters focuses on the Disney animation team that produced classic films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, and Pinocchio.

I realize that the Disney organization has become a vast global network of several "magic kingdoms" but the ten core principles continue to serve as its foundation:

1. Give every member of your organization a chance to dream, and to tap into the creativity those dreams evoke and nourish. '
2. Stand firm on your beliefs and principles. '
3. Treat your customers like guests. '
4. Support, empower, and reward employees. '
5. Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners. '
6- Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition. '
7. Train extensively and constantly to nurture and strengthen the company's culture. '
8. Align long-term vision with short-term execution of what achieves that vision. '
9. Take full advantage of storyboarding techniques during brainstorming sessions to generate ideas that answer questions and solve problems. '
10. Pay very close attention to every detail.

However vast and diversified the Disney organization is today, all of these core principles are relevant to almost any other organization, whatever its size and nature may be. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read the aforementioned biography of Walk Disney as well as Capodagli and Jackson's Innovate the Pixar Way.

Those four simple words are at the root of the Disney business philosophy, established by Walt himself and carried on by Michael Eisner. I found this book to be both entertaining and informative. The business principles outlined by Capodagli and Jackson seem like simple, common sense - but bear repeating numerous times until more businesses adopt them. Principles like encouraging innovation (and even failure, since you learn how *not* to do something) ... building on the strengths of your employees (development plans instead of demeaning performance appraisals) ... all will make any business work better. I found numerous ideas here that I will be applying in my workplace as well as to my personal life. This is a must-read for any manager who wants to motivate his or her team to really excel -- and for any employee who wants to be his or her personal best.

To succeed in business, you don't have to wish upon a star. Just pick up Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson's book describing the ten key success secrets of the Disney Company. The secrets derive from four basic tenets: dream, believe, dare and do. The authors show how these principles led to Walt Disney's success, and how other companies can use them. They include a Disney history to illustrate how the company has applied its principles from films to video to theme parks - including how Disney has learned from its problems and failures. They provide examples of how other companies have applied the Disney Way. We [...] recommend this excellent book to anyone with an interest in business strategy or marketing. While the principles it outlines may be familiar, Capodagli and Jackson demonstrate in an original way just how these principles can contribute to success beyond the Magic Kingdom.

If you have not already read and heard enough about the Disney management approach, you should definitely read this book. I think it is the best case history on Disney that bridges both the original management and the current team. However, do not be mislead into thinking that you now have a golden key to the kingdom (even if you are studying the Magic Kingdom). No one company does very many things well.

Actually, the Disney case history is primarily one of how to overcome Communications Stalls (the most common and pernicious form of behavior that delays human progress).

By the way, Disney still has room to improve [but] Disney at its best is wonderful!

It feels strange to read a book by authors trading on the Disney name who have no "Silver Pass" into Disney headquarters. These authors obviously gleaned their material from other Disney books and public sources, some of which are listed in the bibliography.

There is no insider insight, and the description of Disney managers is severely limited to old anecdotes about Walt Disney. There is no significant time spent describing the work of Michael Eisner and the "Dream Team." The management techniques described in the book owe a great deal to generic TQ and Continuous Improvement principles which have been taught for years in corporate seminars. Processes described as being Disney techniques are largely unattributed.

In short, this book's title seemed to me to represent more sizzle than steak and to imply the authors have more insight into Disney "Management Secrets" than their distant vantage point actually allows. While these authors are seasoned management consultants whose approach has had value for clients like Whirlpool Corp., one can't help feeling the choice of THE DISNEY WAY as a book title is a bit naiive.

Interesting trivia: This book is endorsed by Ken Blanchard, who also endorses Tony Robbins' books.