Tag: Disney

2024’s final week, work

two boys with Mickey Mouse at dining experience
Mickey and Minnie remind me of jeff and Cheryl. Always trying to create happiness.

When you strike out on your own, you either own your company or your company owns you.

Even when you don’t strike out on your own, you must face the ownership conundrum. Who owns you?

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

We work while others play

man in baseball cap and Mickey Mouse tee shirt
Babb is the gateway to Many Glacier Valley, Swiftcurrent Valley and Waterton Lakes (Canada). Santa put it under our tree last night. Thank you Santa.

You know my Christmas Story.

Worked at Disney 13 years before asking for Christmas week off.

Didn’t get it.

Asked again (only the second time ever) after 14 years at Disney.

Got it.

Only took 14 years. But the kicker is i knew not to ask for the first 12 years.

‘We work while others play‘ is learned on Day One in Disney Traditions (new hire orientation).

Note: It’s fun to know i can tell that story from personal experience, not some legendary Cast Member folklore.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

We need one at the top

Bob Iger with Disney expert Jeff Noel
Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort. Took this “selfie” with a Sony Cyber Shot camera. Circa, maybe, 2005-2008.

Micheal Eisner (Disney’s brand new CEO), my wife Cheryl, and i were hired on the same day in 1984 as full-time, permanent Disney Cast Members.

Then in 2005, Michael retires after 21 years.

Cheryl and i stayed on.

Me for another nine years.

Cheryl for another 15 years.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

Disney Customer Service 101

disney customer service speaker
Questions are a labor of love. Questions sustain an insatiable desire to learn.
child in wildflowers
The vision. Photo: $3.00 poster from Walmart. Displayed in our home for years before we became long-shot parents.
child in wildflowers
The reality. Photo: Our young son in our yard.

i don’t have the answers, i have the experience.

Astonishing find from my customer service research. Two options…

Organizations where the majority of employees know a simple, singular customer service goal outperform all other organizations.

Organizations where no one is focused on a collective, singular organizational goal always underperform.

The other research finding is that all human beings instinctively know what do do.

The pervasive organizational customer service opportunity is to know the three world-class basics.

The goal, the tools, and the reason.

Once the three are linked, Magic happens.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.

The need to grow, work

Disney Keynote Speaker Jeff Noel in the magic Kingdom tunnel
My final day as an active Walt Disney World Cast Member, October 31, 2014. The absence of a smile is because i was not expecting to retire after 32 years.

The 10th anniversary of my Disney retirement is October 31, 2024.

The original plan was to retire in 2024 after 40 years of Disney service.

But the compelling, transformational growth opportunity in 2014, after 30 years of Disney service, proves to have played out better than hoped.

Growth opportunities only guarantee the opportunity. They do not guarantee the results. That is on me.

Accepting this 100% is growth. For me. For anyone.

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This website is about our WORK. To ponder today’s post about our HOME, click here.