Insight – Disney Creativity and Innovation Keynote Speaker

Theory is easy

Theory is easy.

But theory alone is worthless.

Application is all that matters.

Note: Talk less. Say more. (a work in progress)

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This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.

Only you

Bob Iger with Jeff Noel from Disney Institute, circa 2005 — When you are part of a company, you follow orders. When you own the company, you call the shots.

It took me nearly six decades to realize that i should only being doing what only i can do.

It’s a common ‘leadership text book’ theory.

Yet until you are in charge of your fate, you’ll never know what it means.

i’m in a place where if i now get asked (by someone who’s paying me) to do something someone else can do, i have the rare option to offer them their money back.

Why?

Because i refuse to do something that others can do.

i recently renamed my line of work from Executive Coach to Executive Resource. Why?

Because i bring something to the table no one else brings. Disney experience, Disney wisdom, Disney insight and Disney mastery. This is my super-power. This is what i get paid for.

Note: Undoubtedly, with everything else, there’s someone far more expert than me.

Writing today’s blogs has been therapeutic and cathartic. Today’s blogs have also been strategic. They’ve reframed that i need to move from verbal explanations to a one-page (if possible) written summary. Why? To scale the onslaught of requests, from previous clients, for this type of work (resource).

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The need to grow, home

Three ski jump ramps in Lahti, Finland. — Never dreamed of being a Senior Olympian. Yet in 2009, here i was. Lahti, Finland. Representing Team USA at the 2009 Masters Track and Field World Championships.

two black frames with personal items — From the office wall where i blog most days, these two photos are a few feet away. Photo: My ‘racing bib’ from 2009 and a newspaper article photo from 1977.

My greatest “personal-life” growth opportunity surfaced while teaching Disney Institute (DI) business principles for 15 years.

Disney has, since 1955’s Disneyland opening, operated with four foundational Quality Standards.

They are, in alphabetical order:

Courtesy
Efficiency
Safety
Show

The key however is putting these in an operational priority order.

While teaching this nebulous business wisdom to outsiders, the time-tested DI curriculum never (literally never) rallied outsiders to work through the pain, and risk, that comes from committing to a ‘carved-in-stone’ holy-grail operational imperative.

To help solve this i created a heretofore undiscovered prioritization filter:

Non-negotiable
Famous-for
#1 Business-need

Watch how this becomes easy to put the four alphabetized quality standards into an operational-priority order.

Non-negotiable = Safety

Famous-for = Courtesy and Show (in that order)

#1 Business-need = Efficiency

This business wisdom is context neutral and can be applied in any domain. So, long ago i applied this (and still apply it) to create our family quality standards.

Note: Quality standards are simply a prioritized decision-making matrix. It’s applied by everyone, everywhere at Disney. Your work scope and department NEVER alters the order. Consistency is the hallmark of world-class organizations. This is how we do it at Disney. It’s also how i run my personal life. Safety, Service, Simplicity.

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The real leadership job

post it note with leadership insight — From a Keynote speech slide deck.

The real job of leadership is to inspire staff to willingly and exceptionally deliver on their higher purpose, not your tangible product or service. Your higher purpose is your emotional product. Your consistent emotional product delivery is your key to customer and employee loyalty.

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Be careful believing where society claims you can find joy

joy insight — Yesterday, these words came out of my mouth on a phone call.

Hurricane Michael 2018 — Hurricane Michael made landfall about 15 hours ago.

ATT billing error — Yesterday;’s ATT bill charged me more than twice the normal monthly fee. Two charges are legit because of two new iPhones. The rest? No idea why they appear.

Be careful believing where society claims you can find joy.

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