Chuck Shields - The Disney Apprentice: Lessons Learned from Inside Disney

Lessons Learned from Inside Disney

Chuck Shields

Foreword by Marty Sklar
(Retired) President
Walt Disney Imagineering

THEME PARK PRESS

www.ThemeParkPress.com

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Chapter 5:

Chapter 6:

Chapter 7:

Chapter 8:

Chapter 9:

Even as I write this, I realize that there are readers whose first reaction will be: What can we learn from a mouse that applies to how we organize and run our companies?

Well for starters, its not any mouseits Mickey. And its not just any company that Mickey Mouse represents. Today, Disney is the largest entertainment company in the world, with leading business operations in motion pictures, television, theme parks, vacation resorts, cruise lines, sports enterprises, consumer products, and a wide variety of new business ventures.

These ventures did not grow without a set of principles that were established by Walt Disney and his brother-partner, Roy O. Disney. They were defined and implemented by people like Chuck Shields in the function we now call human resourcesHR in the vernacular.

Chuck was one of the Disney leaders in creating programs built around the idea that how you treat people is the key to creating leaders that understand what leadership is all about. He grew up in Disneyland, beginning as a submarine host and growing into the HR champion at the design company responsible for creating Walt Disney Imagineeringwhich is where Chuck and I worked most closely together.

My role was to create an original Disney park based not of fantasy, but on communicating subjects and stories from the real worldenergy, transportation, health, space, the oceans, and of course, imagination itself. Chucks task was to find my team the peoplethe talentto create that new kind of Disney park. In a few months time, with Chucks organization and leadership, we grew from 800 to 2500 Imagineers. That park, Epcot, opened at Walt Disney World on schedule, on October 1, 1982. More than 30 years later, it is still one of the ten most attended theme parks in the world.

The lessons you will learn from Chucks book are deeply rooted in Disney methods. But as he has proven in a quarter century of leadership after Disney, in the health care industry and his own consulting company, Chuck knows how to create a people culture by selecting the right talent and building great leaders. And he knows how to down size an organizationas we had to do after Epcot openedby treating people with dignity and respect.

As a storyteller, I know a good tale when I read one. In The Disney Apprentice, you will enjoy a good read full of anecdotes, advice, and know-how experiences by a top pro in the realm of human resources. Chuck Shields has been there, done that. Now, with a nod to that Mouse where it all started, hes sharing the lessons he learned at every stop in his incredible journey.

If you are in the people business, this book is for you. If youre not, better read it twice!

Marty Sklar
President, Walt Disney Imagineering (retired)

Marty Sklars career at The Walt Disney Company spanned 54 years, including 30 as vice-chairman and principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, which creates, designs, and builds the Disney parks and resorts around the world. He has been honored as a Disney Legend and has received all the top achievement awards from the amusement industry and his alma mater, UCLA. Marty has written two popular books published by Disney Editions: Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disneys Magic Kingdoms (2013); and One Little Spark!Mickeys Ten Commandments and The Road to Imagineering (2015).

What started as a part time summer job at Disneyland in 1965 driving submarines in Tomorrowland turned into a 22-year journey that allowed me work with both Disney dreamers and Disney doers. Along the way I had the opportunity to spend fifteen years in the theme park, spending time in Casting, Marketing, Hotel Operations, Disney University, and Human Resources.

While some positions at Disneyland, like manager of Disney University, required dreamers, the theme park side of the business was focused on execution, service, and attention to detail (the doers). I also spent eight years at Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative design, engineering, and proto-type manufacturing side of the business (clearly the dreamers). What most leaders fail to understand is how important both of these distinct profiles are to the success of Disney and, for that matter, other businesses. Very few leaders or individual contributors are great at both sides of this equation. People prefer repetitive, routine, low-change work (the doers) or they relish in high-change, creative work that requires resourcefulness, adaptability, and the ability to learn from their experiences. Not only do different businesses require different levels of learning agility, but different jobs do as well.

It is my observation that a certain amount of tension between dreamers and doers is healthy for the business. What many observers fail to recognize is that even our top management at Disney was organized around this concept. For example, Walt Disney was the dreamer and Roy Disney was the doer. In an attempt to get back to our foundations and revitalize the company, the Disney board elected Michael Eisner (the dreamer) and Frank Wells (the doer). Interestingly, the theme park leaders who were great at what they did often suggested that the Imagineers should report to theme park leadership to ensure their ideas worked with the operational side. Even at Imagineering we had a business head, Carl Bongirno, and a creative head, Marty Sklar. Seldom do we see a leader who is balanced between these two extremes. The theme parks generally felt that the creative side should report to them, while the creative side had no interest in managing park operations. Ultimately, you may want to create a dual career path for each side of the business.

I decided early that I did not want to write another boring business book, but rather take what Van France, the founder of the Disney University, spent the time to teach me. Van taught me that we need to constantly reflect on what is working and what is not, and then ask the tough questions. We need to constantly be asking; what did we learn. So the book talks about my key experiences and stories and lessons learned. I can assure you that much of what you learn in this book can apply to either your personal or professional life. To keep things interesting, the book includes some fun Disney stories and facts. I felt confident this goal had been accomplished when I received the following unsolicited note from my editor: