One strategic underpinning of that magical visit is an employee orientation experience Disney calls Traditions. Every employee from a top manager to a food service vendor is required to attend Traditions-on the first day on the job! The course is designed to immerse each employee into the Disney vision, mission, and service principles. Our experience, as a customer, occurs in part due to this disciplined transfer of the traditions of customer service excellence.
My partner, David Osborne, describes organizational culture as "a social reality that signals to employees what they should feel, do, and think." Simply put, culture represents "the way we do things around here." Culture is perpetuated - often unconsciously. Disney's Traditions experience represents a powerful tool for consciously perpetuating an organization's culture. Its very purpose is to build and continue a desired organizational culture.
One of our clients, a federal agency responsible for distributing student financial aid and collecting its repayment, recently saw the great possibilities inherent in Traditions. Their overall change strategy is to become a performance-based organization where excellence in serving their ultimate customer - the student - is paramount. Their leader conceived of creating their own Traditions experience patterned after Disney's to help with his organization's cultural transformation.
He challenged his agency's corporate university and PSG to create "the best training experience that our employees have ever had." This will ultimately evolve to a new employee orientation, but he first wanted every employee to be steeped in the Traditions experience.
The course objectives were for participants to:
- See how the agency's programs help people reach their dreams and how millions of people reaching their dreams strengthens America;
- Understand the student aid experience from the student's perspective; and
- Be energized by their agency's mission and standards -- understanding better how they guide all that they do.
What happened?
During a five-week period between November 14th and December 15th, over one thousand employees across the nation participated in their agency's Traditions experience. Participants rated Traditions as very effectively accomplishing all three of the objectives. Agency leadership believes that Traditions reinvigorated employee pride, focus, and energy to do their best for millions of students across America. They also believe that Traditions was a critical turning point in the agency's transformation.
The 'cool ideas' I take away from this are: large-scale cultural interventions are possible! And, I love that this experience helps participants both hear and voice their own traditions of excellence -- traditions they can be anchored in as they go through organizational change.
Lorraine Chang is the PSG partner most responsible for ensuring the development and delivery of the Traditions experience. She summed it up this way: "Traditions is much more an affective experience than it is cognitive. Its success reinforces my belief that transformation in an organization happens one person at a time. You have to touch each individual's heart as well as his or her mind." Bob Stone, another PSG colleague, similarly observed, "The power of emotion is greater than the power of intellect. To create a significant movement, one has to stir the blood!"
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