BRILLIANT VACATION – Disney

Brilliant Vacation, Disney of course.

I would like to take some time and tell you about our vacation to Disney.  I know, everyone talks about Disney, but if you go and pay attention to the little details, it makes a vacation even better for a young entrepreneur!

The best part about the trip was going with this hot lady!  My wife.  We love to travel together, and hope to travel all over the world. Our next stop, New York, LA, and then London.  My Wife is a Disney fanatic!  She has been many many times.  Me, not so much.  My idea of a vacation is a cruise, a nice cabin with friends.  Don’t get me wrong, I love going to Disney world, but for me, it is a trip of exercise, endurance, and appreciation for excellence.  So that is what I would love to talk about, excellence.

This week, I am going to talk about

• The Purpose
• Everyone Supports the Purpose
• Every Event Supports the Purpose
• Playful Ways to Meet Needs – The Little Things
• Point of Purchase Interaction (my personal favorite)

It is all about the purpose,

It is all about the purpose of Disney, that purpose is magic, the ability for everyone to be part of dreams coming true. From the moment you walk into Disney Land’s, Magic Kingdom, you embrace the purpose of Disney.  Of course the large castle pulls you into the park, but also the loving embrace from hundreds of employees welcoming you to share the experience.

Every detail is strategically thought out, challenged, and constantly improved.  For children, the results are magic, for adults, actually being part of a team who implements such business excellence is unheard of, this would be magic in my mind. The image above takes thousands of employees working together for the purpose.  It would be easy to sit back after this show and rejoice in accomplishments, but not Disney, directly after this event, the street vacuum cleaners, and concession stand employees rushed out to prepare for another amazing show, The Not So Scary Halloween Parade.   This is all for one purpose, to allow people to be part of dreams coming true.

One of the best moments while we were in the park, A little girl saw a man with a long white beard and asked, “did you move to Disney from the North Pole?”

Everything points to the purpose, so what is your purpose, and is it ingrained in every little detail of your company?  Is every detail strategically thought out, challenged, and constantly improved?  Can and do others interact with your purpose?

Geometric Progression

Geometric Progression is a sequence of numbers where each term after the first is found by multiplying the previous one.  This is what Malcolm Gladwell explains to be The Tipping Point.  This is a familiar book that sold millions.  I thought it was time to read about the tipping point.

He states in regards to Geometric Progression, “As human beings we have a hard time with this kind of progression, because the end result – the effect – seems far out of proportion to the cause.  We have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly.”

I just started the book, but this quote can be applied personally.  When talking about epidemics, social changes, economic changes, major big changes, we forget about the big changes in our life.  The Tipping Point, as Malcolm explains can be anything, fashion, culture, viruses, etc.

I am just starting the book so I am excited to see what the book reveals, but I also want to apply this revelation to my personal life.  What little events will happen in my life that will result in big changes? What comment will someone make that will make me change the way I think and process information? What book will I read that may cause my career to go in a direction I never could have imagined?  What small decisions will I make today that will have the biggest impact tomorrow?

All these questions are without answers, but very exciting to think about.

ANTI-FRIVOLOUS

anti-frivolous

According to webster, frivolous means of little weight or importance.  Life is fragile and short, and I want to be anti-frivolous.  Relationships, career, investments, opportunities; I want to be anti-frivolous.

At work, I love talking about work.  Ways we can challenge ourselves, improve and maximize our talents, share harsh realities, confront poor processes, celebrate victories, etc.  People come to work and bash their spouse and children to coworkers and then go home and fight with their spouse about work.  All this is frivolous.  Anti-Frivolous is working or creating an environment in which we can be honest, mature, and productive, and then go home and spend quality time with our family.

Time at work is valuable.  Most people could maximize their time drastically if they wanted to, the truth is, most people don’t want to.  People feel better about them self if they look busy; frivolous work.

I stubmbled upon an article from Entrepreneur that discusses some simple steps in increasing productivity.

• Have a clear, well-understood mission.
• Empower staff to individually do what is needed to”make the mission happen.”
• Measure results to determine how successfully the mission is being executed, or not.
• Adapt, constantly fine-tune, and improve.

The article continues with IT’S ABOUT THE MISSION. PERIOD.  When there is no mission, there is no focus of mission, there is no measure of mission, and there is no accountability of mission.  This makes productivity drastically decrease and frivolous behavior increases.

So what is the ingredient to anti-frivolous?

1. Have a clear well-understood mission.
2. Empower yourself and those around you to individually contribute to the collective mission.
3. Scrutinize the mission, what is being contributed, and those contributing to the mission.
4. Adapt, constantly fine-tune, and improve.

Participatory Consumption

BOOKS I Change by Design

I am finishing Change by Design by Tim Brown.  Tim is the CEO of IDEO, a global design consultancy.  If you are not familiar with IDEO, you have probably benefited from their work.  You can find a list of companies they have worked with here.

The book was incredible. Of course, I will share:

“What lies in the middle is an enhanced level of collaboration between creators and consumers, a blurring of the boundaries at the level of both companies and individuals.  Individuals, rather than allowing themselves to be stereotyped as “consumers,” “customers,” or “users,” can now think of themselves as active participants in the process of creation; organizations, by the same token, most become more comfortable with the erosion of the boundary between the proprietary and the public, between themselves and the people whose happiness, comfort, and welfare allow them to succeed.

As a consumer, I expect to control what I consume.  Young students, entrepreneurs, and leaders have been raised on such interaction through new mediums.  This means if companies do not embrace this way off approaching interaction with consumers, they will go out of business, and rightfully so.  Every business should scrutinize every point of interaction with their clients, and ask the question, are both parties active participants?

A few examples of how to approach consumer interaction:

Internal Focus. External Focus

• We have what you need. What do you need?
• We know who you are.  Tell me about yourself and your company.
• We know where you’re at.  Tell me whats going on these days.
• Here is what we have learned.  What have you learned?
• Here is where you are going.  Where do you see yourself in the future?
• What do we have to offer our clients? What has our clients expressed they need?
• Look at what we have done.  What can we do for you?

Success Brings Denial

Money is not the only success measure. Great perspective:

BOOK I Managing Your Career I HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at Stanford University, explains “people love success, and that success causes individuals to reconstruct, rethink, and remember things that aren’t true.” He goes on to tell a story we are all familiar with, Enron.  Enron began accounting fraud in 1985, and records suggest they were never profitable.  During their peak, Enron was at the top of Fortune’s list of most admired companies, executives flooded the press with their great contribution to economic success. Once their deception was revealed, everyone stood in line to confess their knowledge of criminal actions and take shots.

There is an interesting dynamic here, success brings denial.  We don’t question success until the appearance of success can no longer overshadow the truth.

You may not be committing fraud, but you may be overshadowing poor decisions with success.

You may be making poor decisions now because of past success.

You may be covering up little mistakes with big accomplishments.

In conclusion, Enron appeared profitable, and everyone concluded that they were successful, and any notion of criminal activity was denied.

Success should be a measure, not a conclusion.