Summary and Review of Creating Magic by Lee Cockerel

With 25,000 acres, 32 hotels, 31,000 rooms, hundreds of dining and retail locations, four major theme parks, a sports and recreation complex, and 167 miles of roads; Walt Disney World is one of the largest convention sites in the world.  With 59,000 cast members, Walt Disney World is also the world’s largest single site employer

Lee says it was his responsibility to ensure every single day to day operation was run as smoothly as possible. He emphasizes that his job would have been impossible without the dedication of each employee to that main principal preached to the cast members. As all great organizations do, Disney’s management style adapted to changes in the social environment. “My way or the highway.” Was replaced with “what do you think?”

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II.             Chapter 2: The journey from the farm to a Magic Kingdom

Lee points out that he was not an academic, and never attended business school. He learned everything he could about leadership throughout his career, and he learned it from his real life experiences. One of the important lessons Lee says he learned early in his management career was taught to him by his boss, head chef Peter Kleiser. After Lee made a mistake, Peter told him “Lee you can be a fool once or a fool all your life. When you don’t know something, ask questions. Then you’ll be a fool only once.

Lee explains that good leaders should be humble enough to look to others for answers to questions they do not know. Peter had positioned Lee’s office so that it faced the kitchen. This was done to encourage Lee to become intimately familiar with the kitchen staff, and to provide opportunities for Lee to learn from them.

After moving from job to job for several years, Lee took a job for Marriott. At the time Marriott was an upstart in the hotel industry with only 32 hotels total. Against the judgment of his friends, Lee took the job. Over the next 17 years he moved up the management chain and helped Marriott expand to be a giant in the industry. Over those 17 years Lee was continually improving himself, and learning everything he could about management. It was during this stretch of time that Lee began understanding one key factor in good leadership. Every person wants to be treated as an individual, and with respect. This was a constant for everyone he managed, no matter where his job for Marriott took him.

Lee now had to apply this lesson to his management style to avoid being stuck in his position at Marriott. He realized that taking a hard-nosed approach to managing yielded some short-term results, but was not successful in the long-term. He realized that taking that hard-nosed approach was not enough to make him an effect manager. In order to be an effective manager he realized he needed to learn how to lead, not just manage.

All of this paid off for Lee when he was approached by Disney to come work for them. At Disney World, Lee was able to foster a connectedness between ordinary cast members and the management. Using the approach that every individual wants to feel special, and to be treated with respect, Lee implemented several policies that had actually been suggested by those ordinary cast members. He says many of those policies are still in effect today.

Lee says that there is a saying used regularly around Disney, and that saying says that “in times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.” This speaks directly to what Lee has said from the beginning of the book that he has constantly been trying to better himself and his understanding of management.

III.           Chapter 3: Strategy #1 – Remember, everyone is important

Lee begins the chapter by describing the huge undertaking Disney World takes on every day, just to wash 240,000 lbs. of linens daily. Lee points out that many resorts, and hotels, contract out their laundry service. However, at Disney they are able to do all of this in-house, and with less expense, because of each manager’s ability to support and motivate all cast members to do their job to the best of their abilities.

Lee is quick to point out that the new policy of empowering the ordinary cast member was not received well by the cast members. The initial reaction of members was one of mistrust, and thought that if anything went wrong they would now be blamed. Management realized their mistake and held a brainstorming session in which cast members were invited to participate. The new plan of action was to teach each cast member about the values of the company, and the overall direction management was aiming for. In addition to these management type lessons, they also became involved in planning the new facilities to be built to handle the huge amounts of laundry. Management also setup a cross training program in which the cast members in charge of cleaning all of the laundry were trained and worked part-time in other areas of Walt Disney World where they could see first-hand the importance of the quality of their finished product, in this case clean linens.

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Lee uses the textile department example to illustrate his first, and most important, leadership principle. He calls this principle “inclusion”. Inclusion is a widely used term that most often refers to the practice of respecting diversity. However, Lee explains that to be effective this principle should be taken further. In his use of the term inclusion, he means actively engaging and involving employees to show them that every single one of them is important to the success of the department, and the company as a whole.

Disney uses the acronym RAVE. This stands for Respect, Appreciate, and Value Everyone. This acronym defines Disney’s approach to inclusion. This management approach resulted in the industry’s lowest turnover rate. Not only was turnover down, but there were more people interested in working for Disney because they had the reputation for treating employees with respect.

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IV.           Chapter 4: Strategy #2 – Break the mold

Lee begins the chapter with a story describing the difficulties of recruiting top chefs and restaurant managers. He often received the same response from chefs, that working for hotel restaurants restricted their freedoms to think outside the box and be creative.  He decided to remove the manager that chefs would normally report to in standard hotel restaurant structures. Now the chefs would report directly to the general manager of the hotel they worked in. This not only allowed Lee to recruit some of the best culinary artists, but allowed those culinary artists to think creatively and implement their ideas quicker. This change in company structure was new to the industry when Lee first implemented it, and although it is a small change, many competitors now use a similar approach.

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Lee continues the chapter by discussing what he feels are the best ingredients to a company’s structure. He recommends evaluating each position on the company’s management ladder, and examining whether that position is enhancing the flow of information, or hindering it. In essence to have as flat of a corporate structure as possible will allow information to flow where it is needed the quickest.

Lee warns not to flatten out the structure at the cost of your employees. In other words removing positions requires that those duties be divided up and added onto someone else’s list of responsibilities. If this addition of work risks over working employees, it will most often result in that employee becoming burnt out, and could result in a higher turnover rate at that position.

Evaluating the company structure is not a one-time thing. Lee points out that an involved and active leader should always be evaluating the company structure. As the environment the company operates in is constantly changing, so too must a company adapt to that changing environment

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V.             Chapter 5: Strategy #3 – Make your people your brand

In this chapter, Lee is sharing the lesson he learned about branding. Branding is not just the perceptions that you market about your company, but is based on real life experiences guests or customers have with your company. He suggests that whenever you are hiring for a position in your company you should define the “perfect” candidate for the job. In doing this before interviewing for a position you will know exactly what it is you are looking for. He suggests rating applicants on four main areas of know-how, technical competence, management competence, technological competence, and leadership competence.

VI.           Chapter 6: Strategy #4 – Create magic through training

Lee tells about a time when the executive of the insurance company that insures Disney World wrote to him to say how impressed he was with the employee’s preparedness for a natural disaster. The insurance executive was staying at a hotel on Disney property while the hotel’s cast members were preparing the hotel for Hurricane Charlie. Lee explains that without impeccable training, cast members would not have been as meticulous in their hurricane preparations.

Lee stresses that every manager should make their employee’s advancement their own responsibility. This should be done by providing all the resources necessary for the self-motivated employee to use for their betterment. He suggests becoming a “COACH”. In this case COACH is an acronym for Care, Observe, Act, Communicate, and Help. By doing these things you will be able to better your employees by all means available. 

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VII.         Chapter 7: Strategy #5 – Eliminate hassles

Lee explains that even with the steps previously mentioned to perfect an organizational structure, there is always work to do. Even with the right people, and the best training possible there are always things that can be done to improve the processes that are done routinely.

He gives an example of a time where he had to change a restaurant’s procedures for serving wine. A guest visited him, and relayed his frustration from dinner the night before. The guest and his wife were celebrating their wedding anniversary, and had ordered lobster tails and some very expensive chardonnay. To their disappointment they had finished their dinner before the wine arrived for them to toast. Lee asked them to come back that night and try again on the house. Before the night shift he found out from the restaurant manager that the current policy was for the server to ring up the wine on the check and then show it to the manager, so the manager can go get the bottle of wine out of the locked cabinet. Lee immediately changed the process, so that the server could ring up the bottle of wine on the check and then get the bottle themselves. And at the end of the night the manager would compare wine sales in the register to the actual inventory. This allowed for quicker service and an equally high level of control over alcohol.  Not only was the service quicker, but they found they had increased wine sales after the change because guests now had time to order a second bottle if they wished.

VIII.       Chapter 8: Strategy #6 – Learn the truth

Lee explains that when Walt Disney was running Disney Land in California, he used to stress the need for his management teams to regularly walk around the park to get a guest’s view of things. This was done so that managers would have as close to the same experience as guest’s would have; allowing them to observe issues that need to be resolved in order to make the guest’s stay as perfect as possible. Taking the time to walk around and gather facts may be time consuming, but Lee points out that a well-informed decisions are more effective then un-informed decisions. It also makes the people working for you understand that you care about the facilities that the guest’s stay in, as well as the employee areas.

IX.           Chapter 9: Strategy #7 – Burn the free fuel

Appreciation, Recognition, Encouragement make up the acronym ARE. Lee explains that these tools are extremely effective motivators, and are cost-free. These three tools are highly effective because they build self-confidence and self-motivation. Those two benefits together will also improve individual and team performances.

Everyone needs ARE whether they are on top of the chain or at the bottom. People who say they don’t need ARE simply want to be seen as humble. Lee shares a story about his first job at Marriott. Three weeks into managing a Marriott in Philadelphia, he was handling a lot of issues and had not gotten any feedback from the regional supervisors. He was stressed out and was starting to wonder whether taking the job was a good idea. Then the next day he received a letter from the regional supervisor thanking him for all the work he had done since arriving and apologizing for not having come by yet because he was still tied up with a project in D.C. As much as managers need to receive ARE, they often times forget to give their employees appreciation, recognition, and encouragement. Lee says it is critical for managers to give ARE to their employees so that they can “burn the free fuel”.

X.             Chapter 10: Strategy #8 – Stay ahead of the pack

Lee tells us that in the written version of Disney Great Leader Strategies, the first statement reads: “In times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” Lee lives this by never being content with what he knows, and continuously trying to learn something new.

This point is further explained by an example about Warren Buffet. When Warren Buffet was asked what he does at work, he said he spends most of his time reading. He doesn’t just read investment reports, but he reads newspapers, books, news articles. He explained that he does not make his investment decisions solely on company financials, but also based on what is going on in the world as a whole.

XI.           Chapter 11: Strategy #9 – Be careful what you say and do

Lee’s wife gave him some advice one morning early in his career. On his way out the door to work she told him to “Be careful what you say and do, they are watching and evaluating you.” Looking back Lee says that he took the advice to heart and preaches it to others to this day. He explains that there is a difference between being a professional and being professional. The difference is, you can be a professional such as a CPA, doctor, or architect but that does not mean you act like a professional. By his definition a true professional shows he is trust-worthy with his actions and words.

Some suggestions he gives for keeping in mind as you go through your career are to demonstrate a passionate commitment to your job, do whatever it takes to get the job done, and to set high standards. He also points out that a great leader will spend as much time as it takes at work to get the job done correctly, but not a minute more. Often times you hear professionals talk about their work life and home life. However the best leaders recognize that we only have one life, and there must be a balance in it between work and family.

XII.         Chapter 12: Strategy #10 – Develop character

This chapter is about knowing yourself, so you can be prepared when situations arise. In order to act quickly and appropriately we must know where we stand, what our values are, and know where we draw the proverbial line in the sand.

Lee explains that he was lucky to have developed his character early in his career, so he was prepared for the first situation that he faced. In his first job as a manager of a hotel in 1973, a local business man who owned a taxi-cab company came to his office. The business man handed him an envelope with one thousand dollars in it. Lee says he immediately began to sweat. The business man told him that he could keep the money if he made sure his taxi-cab company was the only one servicing his hotel. Lee quickly handed the envelope back, even though he could have used the money at this point in his life, because he knew that this deal was back-handed and did not match his core values.

Lee also explains that this character development is an important part of training employees. Not only should you be training your employees technical skills such as computer software, but you should communicate to them the ethical standards to which they are expected to exemplify as an employee of your company.

XIII.       Chapter 13: Leading into the future

Lee explains that your job as a manger is not to just improve your company’s bottom line, but also to improve the lives of those employees who make their living working for your company. Deploying all of the methods Lee discusses will help a manager to improve the well-being of their employees. Helping individuals  feel unique, valued, and encouraged will greatly improve their work performance.

Disney has a three-legged approach that is applied to all decisions they make; 1) The guest (customer) 2) The employees and 3) the company’s performance (or bottom line).