NEW YORK–It has been hailed as one of the most revolutionary and successful transitions ever by an iconic American brand.
But the “Happiest Place on Earth” was only able to continue to fulfill that motto by having some difficult internal revelations, painful conversations, and frank reassessments.
But the result has included a list of “Ten Lessons Learned” that were shared with credit unions attending CO-OP’s THINK 17 Conference here by Meg Crofton, the former president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts in the U.S. and France who spent 35 years at the company. During that time, she also helped to oversee and manage the transition at Disney’s properties to what are known as the “magic band,” a wristband that can be used to enter the parks, unlock hotel rooms, make payments and more. The bands have been widely hailed and now duplicated elsewhere.
At Disney, said Crofton, there are two fundamental principles:
* “Our customers need to be at center of everything we do.”
* “No matter how good we were at it yesterday, we can’t rest on our laurels.”
Implementing the wristbands, which are formally known as “My Magic Plus,” involved all aspects of the sprawling company and uncovered internal “silos” that were often unintentional and required lots of work to uncover that had to be resolved. The wristbands are now at the core of what Crofton called the “guest experience transformation” at Disney.
No Magic Formula at Magic Kingdom
“I am often asked, ‘How does Disney do it?’ and I sense people are disappointed and surprised that there is no magic formula,” said Crofton. “Most of what Disney does is within the power of any group to create.”
Crofton shared a quote from Walt Disney: “You can dream, create, design and build the most beautiful place in the world, but it takes people to make the dream a reality.”
That remains true, she said, and it’s a lesson applicable to credit unions. “
“The bricks and mortar and films and Disney products are all wonderful and are what the world expects from the company,” she said. “But what truly delights guests and establishes the Disney difference is all about their interactions with people. The true secret sauce of Disney is what happens when culture, brand, leadership and employees come together with a clear focus on the guests.”
According to Crofton, “Optimism and positivity are the keys to all kinds of success stories. Leaders need to be authentically positive and to achieve that outer positivity, leaders need to have an internal positivity. The successful leaders I’ve seen at Disney are positive with their people and with themselves. Optimism is contagious and leaders should try to create epidemics of optimism. Employees make magic even when leaders are not looking.”
But the magic at main Disney parks was often tarnished by long lines at its most popular attractions, or by time consumed by otherwise routine activities. In response, it launched the My Magic Plus initiative, a several-years-long effort to change the experience of every Disney guest.
“We knew that while our guests love our rides and attractions, they do not love standing in line,” Crofton said. “They wanted to be able to reserve and plan at least a few of their treasured experiences.”
She said the company was also aware of broader cultural changes that technology was driving among consumers, who increasingly wanted customized experiences.
Four Guiding Principles
Crofton said the four “guiding principles” to the My Magic Plus transition were:
- Eliminate friction and remove barriers
- Holistic approach to the end-to-end experience
- Utilize technology and focus on the guest by freeing up cast members.
- New platform for future growth
“There was literally not a department or team not affected by the review of our systems and guest interfaces, and this not for the faint of heart.”
After going through the process of implementing My Magic Plus, Crofton said she came away with 10 Lessons Learned:
10 Lessons Learned
- Be Your Own Guest. “I found there was no substitute for frequently experiencing our company’s products and services exactly as our guests do. No skipping steps or coming in the back doors. I needed to collect my own stories and combine them with the quantitative and qualitative listening posts.”
- Our Guests Don’t have Our Organization Charts. “There are unintentional silos and guests can fall through the cracks. Our guests don’t care what each department does; they only know what they expect of their relationship with our brand.”
- It is not a technology project. “It was enabled by technology, but it would have been a massive error to be thought of as a technology project. It is in every sense a transformation of the guest experience. Transformation is often seen as the responsibility of the CIO or CTO, and that’s dangerous. It’s the responsibility of every leader.”
- The integration of existing and new systems is major work. “Let me hasten to add that dealing with integration of systems was more challenging than we initially envisioned. We had to face the reality that many old systems had to change before new vision could be implemented.”
- Fly low. “I spent way more time than I was accustomed to getting into the details, both to lead by example and to truly understand the situation.”
- Transformation involves leadership though influence–on Steroids. “There as virtually no department untouched by the impact, but some were not under my span of control. I was thankful I always believed leadership by influence is the most powerful, albeit the most challenging. It took enormous effort to communicate with peers.”
- The ‘Change Management’ is about us. “There were worries about how much change could be accepted by cast members and guests. But from the first tests it was clear our cast members and guests got it. The change management challenges were with the leaders. That was surmountable, but it involved holding the mirror up to ourselves.”
- Iterate. It’s not perfect at rollout. “For every great strength, there is a shadow side of it. It was a different experience for me to get comfortable with releasing a first version of My Magic Plus that wasn’t perfect.”
- Keep telling stories. “Change is hard. People can get discouraged. But I’ve seen time and again the power of stories to inspire teams and re-ground them in the mission.”
- “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible—Walt Disney. “There were times when I would feel, but didn’t say, that we had literally taken on an impossible task. Looking back, I could not be more proud of what was accomplished.”