june-2010

54
JUNE 2010 | UNITED.COM
in Pirates of the Caribbean than the
park’s staggeringly effi cient operations
and dedicated staff . However one might
feel about Disney’s cultural off erings—
from Mickey to Miley—the company
knows how to keep the monorails
running on time.
So while the institute off ers a range
of business courses, lectures and
consulting arrangements, the most
compelling off ering is the chance
to peer behind the Disney illusion.
The experience is a bit like watching
Penn and Teller reveal the secrets
behind famous tricks and coming
away amazed anyway. Somehow, the
transparency only makes the feats look
that much cleverer.
“The attention to detail backstage is
as important as the attention to detail
onstage,” Milligan says as he walks me
through the tunnels. Called “utilidors,”
there are 1.5 miles of them—all with
pipes, fi ber optic cables and God-knows-
what snaking overhead. “A lot of our
clients say, ‘Well, it’s easy for you guys—
everything is magic at Disney!’ But it
takes a lot of hard work. We keep our
challenges backstage so you don’t have
to see them.”
It’s an eye-opening tour. From
computerized “hubs” where employees
can get their assignments to boxes in
which leaders can place notes praising
employees for moments of outstanding
service, the whole place is bevy of ideas
and effi ciencies.
For instance, Disney’s frontline
workers—cast members, as
they’re called—all wear name tags
identifying their hometowns. “Once
we added that, guest perception of
cast member friendliness went up
appreciably,” Milligan says. And
the bit of personal information
creates an opening for conversation,
which can be just the thing to help a
line move faster—or seem to.
And about those lines (one of the
biggest challenges for any theme
park): Disney’s key strategy has
been to provide guests with accurate
estimates of how long they might wait.
The method for doing so is a model
of simplicity. Every so often, a cast
member hands a time-stamped tag
to a guest entering the line; when he
or she gets on, another cast member
notes how much time has elapsed. The
number goes on a sign at the entrance.
Not only is it an eff ective means of
calming frayed nerves and preventing
logjams, but most guests, especially
the younger ones, seem thrilled by the
chance to help out.
One of Disney’s great strengths is
The experience of the Disney Institute is a bit like
watching Penn and Teller reveal the secrets behind
their tricks and still coming away amazed.
the way it challenges and empowers
employees to cook up such ideas.
There’s even an in-house newsletter,
Eyes and Ears, that documents ideas
from employees that have been
implemented successfully. For
example, a few years ago guests began
complaining that they couldn’t fi t their
rented strollers onto the little train that
goes around the park. So the company
tasked its employees with fi nding a
solution. Redesigns of the trains or the
strollers were rejected as too expensive,
but then one employee hit upon a
brainstorm: Let guests turn their
strollers in as they board the train and
pick up new ones as they disembark
at another station. Removable stroller
name cards were created, and the
problem was solved.
Most of this practical, operational
magic was developed long after the
company’s famous founder left the
scene in the 1960s. By the 1990s,
Disney representatives admit, the
parks were experiencing something
of a crisis. The fruit of Walt’s original
genius was going a bit stale, and a host
of competitors had begun developing
themed experiences of their own to
rival Disney’s.
The company hired a seasoned
businessman, Judson Green, to
reinvigorate the parks. Green fi gured
the best way to do that was to employ
some very basic, commonsense
procedures to allow cast members to
feel more personal responsibility for
the guest experience.
Another key to Disney’s success is
the “quality service matrix,” which
prioritizes customer service in the
following order: safety, courtesy, show
and effi ciency. Out of context, that
may sound as ho-hum as most other
management schemes. But Milligan,
who experienced Disney’s frontline
operations himself, serving as a safari
driver at the Animal Kingdom for four
years, sees it diff erently, and he invites
me to try out the Kilimanjaro Safari as a
way of bringing the point home.
We watch our young driver navigate
the acres of re-created African range
and pass a few grazing beasts. “See the
way she’s slowing down now?” Milligan
explains as our driver turns a corner
through a muddy puddle. “That keeps
the rhino from charging the vehicle.”
Charging?
Milligan remembers a close call he
had a decade or so ago, when the driver
before him had accidentally irritated
one of the massive animals and it was
Milligan’s turn to ferry his passengers
through the rhino’s area.
“When the rhino started to come at
us, I had to think fast about exactly
what to do,” he explains as our van
rounds the very same curve. “I mean,
the van is made to withstand just such
an impact, but someone could have
thought it was a Disney illusion and
hung their kid over the side to take a
picture—‘Look at baby with the rhino
at Animal Kingdom!’”