Feature: Making “Magic” is Hard Work: “Being” the Guest

At The Walt Disney Company, we’re in the business of creating entertaining, magical experiences for millions of guests, viewers, and consumers around the world. We’ve found that there is no better way to help our people understand the Disney experience than to “be” the guest. Our legacy depends on our ability to continually craft products and services that remain inherently and unmistakably Disney. One component in securing this legacy is ensuring that our employees and executives are in touch with our products and have the opportunity to experience them as consumers and guests.

From the day that employees join Disney, they receive a steady stream of opportunities to immerse themselves in our products and guest/consumer experiences. We screen releases of our movies, provide behind-the-scenes glimpses of new rides and attractions, offer discounts on our products, and provide complimentary tickets and annual passes to our theme parks, just to name a few.

To keep the Disney legacy alive, we provide heritage classes, guest speakers, and tours to give employees a chance to understand key milestones and decisions in our history that shaped our company. During lunch, our Disney Archives team regularly screens early Disney films and animated shorts.  [Read full article]

The Man with the Folding Chair

One day a few years ago, a top executive at Siemens AG was on his way to an internal sales meeting at one of the division offices when he encountered a sales manager carrying a folding chair with him into the meeting. Curiosity aroused, the exec asked what was going on. The manager replied that whenever he brought this chair into a meeting, the whole character of the discussion was different. “Just watch,” the manager said, as they both entered the conference room. Several people, including sales reps, were already gathered in the room when the manager brought his chair in, unfolded it, and set it down empty next to his own chair.

“Who are you expecting to join us?” asked several of the sales reps already gathered for the meeting. “Shouldn’t we just get some more chairs brought in here?” some others suggested.  [Read full article]