Lee Cockerell - Creating Magic

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CREATING MAGIC

CONTENTS

FOR
Jullian Charles Cockerell, 13
Margot Sunshine Cockerell, 10
Tristan Lee Cockerell, 7
You are the leaders of tomorrow.
You continually inspire me
to be a better leader and role model.
I love youPapi

FOREWORD

C reating Magic, Lee Cockerells new book, does just that! As the Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World Resort, for ten years Lee led a team of 40,000 cast members whose daily challenge was to create magic for the millions of people who visited the parks and resorts. With this book, Lee takes us on a leadership adventurenot just in theory, but an actual real-life journey along which you will learn how to build a passionate team whose members believe: Its not the magic that makes it work; its the way we work that makes it magic. Creating Magic is not about the theory of magic, but the live, on-the-ground experience of an icon in the magic businessLee Cockerell.

This remarkable story of a leadership journey is filled with common sense lessons about making magic that we can translate into our own careers, business cultures, or visions of the desired future. Lee shows how, at Disney, leadership starts with respect for all peopleGuests and Cast Members (not employees) alike. Lees approach helps us remember Peter Drucker and his philosophy: They are not your employees, they are your people. Lee has distilled his lessons learned into short, powerful messages that connect, illuminate, and motivate.

The Disney Great Leader Strategies that Lee developed are the basis for this handbook for leaders of the future. As Lees story shows, fostering participation, engagement, and a sense of ownership at every level across the Disney world brought high morale, high productivity, and real results. Lees story is about moving from the old hierarchy to an inclusive, flexible, fluid, inclusive structurefrom telling to asking. These missions, values, and strategies have made Disney a great learning organization, and at the Disney Institute, they have helped bring people from all over the world together to learn to be better leaders.

Lee Cockerells journey began on a dusty Oklahoma farm, and the lessons he learned along the wayfrom the farm, to college, to the United States Army, and in the hospitality and entertainment industriesprovided the lessons indispensable to the future leader he would become.

He learned the power of inclusion that later became RAVE: respect, appreciate, and value everyone. His thirteen steps to creating a culture of inclusion give clear and powerful direction. All the way through the book, you will learn the value of peopleand how to redefine the future by infusing quality, character, truth, communication, learning, courage, and integrity in all you do.

Even in his acknowledgments, Lee thanks all the Cast Members at Disney World for all youve taught me over the years. You are the magic. Lees leadership is never about him, but always about the people. Leading into an uncertain future, there is a call for principled, ethical, effective leadersnot repeating the strategies and philosophies of the past, but redefining the futurethe opportunities, the challenges, the ambiguities. Lee Cockerells lessons from his own life provide a road map, a handbook, for us all on our journey to leadership. The leaders of tomorrow, called to lead in uncertain times, will translate Creating Magic into their own guidebook for the future.

The lessons in this book apply to leaders at every level in every type of organization and in every country on this earth. Lees common sense leadership strategies can help all people understand that leadership is not a title or a position, it is a personal responsibility.

I guarantee you that this book will help you create magic in your business life, your community life, and your personal life.

Today, Lee travels, speaks, writes, engages, and shares as generously in person as he does in this great book.

Frances Hesselbein
Chairman and Founding President
Leader to Leader Institute

Frances Hesselbein is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management) and served as its Founding President. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America's highest civilian honor, in 1998. The award recognized her leadership as Chief Executive Officer of Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. from 1976 to 1990, and her role as the founding President of the Drucker Foundation. President Clinton, in his opening citation, said, Mrs. Hesselbein is a pioneer for women, diversity, and inclusion. Her contributions were also recognized by former president George H. W. Bush, who appointed her to two Presidential Commissions on National and Community Service.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful and indebted to the following people for their contributions to this book and to my life. Everyone matters, and I want everyone to know he or she matters.

First and foremost, to my wife, Priscilla: You taught me the ultimate leadership lesson when you told me so many years ago, Lee, be careful what you say and do, they are watching you and judging you. Thank you for that, for your unwavering faith and support, and for forty wonderful years together through thick and thin.

To the rest of my family: our son, Daniel, and his wife, Valerie, who are both great leaders at home and at work; our perfect grandchildren, Jullian, Margot, and Tristan, who teach me valuable lessons every day; my mother-in-law, Sunshine Payne, whose first name describes what she brings to our lives; and all my extended family members, near and farthe Cockerells, the Paynes, the Kenagas, the Cooks, the Howards, and the Vettards.

To Philip Goldberg: Thank you for taking the original manu-script I wrote, plus everything else I have written over the years, plus my thoughts and concepts on leadership, and then taking this book to a new level. You and I went from acquaintances to friends as we wrote this book together. (Phil in turn wants to thank his wife, Lori Deutsch, for encouraging him to take on this project and for supporting it enthusiastically throughout.)

To my agent, Lynn Franklin: Thank you for forty years of friendship; for urging me to write this book, for bringing Phil Goldberg and me together, and for your professional expertise in getting the book published around the world.

To my New York attorney, Stephen Sheppard: Thank you for keeping me out of trouble and getting all of those contracts straight.

To my Disney partners: Bob Gall, for your guidance, and for keeping us all on track and moving forward; George Aguel, for your support for having this book written; Thomas Katheder, for your great legal reviews, your advice, and your excellent editing and content recommendations; Chris Ambrose, Amy Groff, Bruce Jones, Sara Jones, Cynthia Michalos-Baker, Ken Miratsky, Rob Morton, Tom Nabbe, Jeff Noel, Joanne Recek, Mary Ellen Starnes, Beth Stevens, and Chris Szydlo, for your advice and direction on content and marketing.

To all the Cast Members at Walt Disney World Resort: Thank you for all youve taught me over the years. You are the magic!