DISNEY U

How Disney University Develops the World’s Most Engaged, Loyal,

and Customer-Centric Employees

By Doug Lipp

In helping Walt Disney create The Happiest Place on Earth, Van France was responsible for a breakthrough in employee training. In 1955, he created a singular Disney approach and attitude between employee and customer: The Show and The Cast, backstage and on-stage. These are the very essentials of the program still used today among thousands of Disney employees and at all Disney properties worldwide.

France has been described as “a strange combination of three of Disney’s most famous characters – Jiminy Cricket, Mary Poppins, and Donald Duck,” and his program also combined key elements: Training, management, human resources, innovation, engagement, smiles, laughter, and a lot of fun.

DISNEY U (March 25, 2013; HC. $27.00) by long-time Disney insider Doug Lipp, offers anecdotes of France’s timeless company values and leadership lessons in both conception and action. Together they created a training and development dynasty; Lipp unpacks how any company can create a similar level of hands-on care that keeps customers coming back.

Disney University continues to turn out some of the most engaged, loyal, wildly passionate and customer-centered employees the business world has ever seen. Maintaining that high level of sustained enthusiasm – through crises, slumps, and crashes – is a testament to Disney’s investment in people and positive psychology.

The concepts of Disney U can bring the “Imagineer” mentality to your own company – by always putting people first.