The Disney Way — Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company by Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson; McGraw Hill; Price Rs.299; 312 pp
.gif)
When a business idea succeeds, history writers go into overdrive to come up with a story which explains the magic that inspired it. And one business adventure, which has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its dreamer, is that of Walt Disney (1901-1966) the entertainment entrepreneur who invented Mickey Mouse, the Walt Disney film company and Disney World theme parks, besides a host of merchandised products.
It is pertinent to note that Walt Disney began his career as an artist and cartoonist without much formal schooling. In 1927 he registered Walt Disney Productions and the following year created the comic character Mickey Mouse in a synchronised film Steamboat Willie. Mickey Mouse, the animation became an instant global hit. Walt Disney was on his way to becoming one of the most famous — and successful — entertainment entrepreneurs of all time.
For writers Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson the Disney story is familiar territory. In 1998 they wrote the highly successful The Disney Way, which analysed and dissected Walt Disney’s success formula. According to them the four pillars on which Disney’s success rests were: dreaming, believing, daring and doing. Indeed since then they have become consultants, helping companies to adapt Disney’s spirit and philosophy to their business operations.
What this follow-up book purports to give readers is everything that Disney stood for in a simplified coda: dream, believe, dare, do. Together with this there are engaging vignettes from Disney’s life. As illustrative examples, they have drawn on their vast experience as consultants, and sought to find in each of their case studies a parallel that highlights Disney’s business model.
When Walt Disney started life with the grand vision to start a film studio, he had a high-voltage imagination, but no money to power it. He borrowed $500 from his uncle and grew it into a multi-million dollar empire — one, as the writers joke, would have yielded handsome returns to the uncle if he had demanded equity instead of just the principal back.
Disney was thoroughly creative, and instinctively understood that to turn his dreams into reality, he had to build an organisation staffed with strong teams. His Disney World theme park was a product of one such team, which was given full licence to fantasise. It was patented the Dream Retreat and it had something of a boot camp’s closed feel to it, without its control-and-command atmosphere. It taught the authors how to practice innovation. As business consultants they put the theory to work for companies like British Petroleum and Whirlpool.
Capodagli and Jackson use the lessons learnt from their analysis of the Disney business model as a jumping-off point to launch into Chicken Soup-style anecdotes of unique ways of running businesses. Often greater emphasis is laid on tales that have faded into lore, which are dusted off and aired for another generation of business managers to read and learn.
For instance, when Nordstrom, a department store in Seattle, proved too expensive for a middle class couple, the co-chairman, who overheard them complain, ordered his sales associates to give away what they wanted at a discount.
The authors also draw on Walt Disney’s real life experience to make the point that forming partnerships can rescue companies from bankruptcy. During the 1950s when work on Disneyland hit a wall, Walt Disney’s survival instincts prompted him to innovate corporate sponsorships — a revolutionary idea which gave him a new income stream. Disney signed agreements with Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay, and lured them with concessions. Another first for Disney was the concept of storyboarding, and latter day animation movie companies still follow this ritual. Likewise, the valuable technique of getting the next day’s work ready the previous night is another Disney innovation.
Perhaps nothing stands greater testimony to Disney’s ingenuity than photographs which have, over the years, immortalised it. For those memorable moments, millions of vacationers worldwide head for Disneyland. The writers’ insights into the workings of Disneyland are clearly first-hand reports of a success story — as if they were given the keys to its locker room and asked to make free with its secret files. The outcome is nothing short of a vivid and fascinating slice of business history which is still relevant today.
Karthik Krishnan