Creating Disney Magic

If you have a student in your life, this episode of Creating Disney Magic will provide insight to help them interview and prepare for their first job. Lee offers ideas to prepare for an interview, how to conduct yourself during an interview and focusing on the basics to stand out from other interview candidates.  Lee also discusses ways teachers can create magic in the classroom.  If you are a tea...

"If you want your time to count, you must count your time." - Kary Oberbrunner If you want to do the most important work and have the most impact, you need to have a difficult conversation with yourself. You need to understand what you are doing that your shouldn't be doing anymore. You need to come clean about the hard thing you need to do that you are trying to avoid.  You need to examine the ha...

Should companies be involved in community service? At Disney, there is a culture of helping the community. Cast members work hard and put in long hours and then give their time and money to improving the community.  Whether it is the company as a whole or you as an individual, you can improve one life or an entire community by contributing time or money to a worthy cause.   In this episode of Crea...

If you have met Lee Cockerell in person, there is a good chance he handed you a bookmark. The bookmark is a promotion piece that includes information on all of his books.  The bookmark also includes Disney's Seven Service Guidelines. Lee explains the guidelines and the idea behind each one.  These guidelines can be used in any organization to create magic. You can also create specific guidelines f...

If you have a bully in the workplace, it is going to have a negative impact on productivity and employee morale.  As a leader, if you have a bully in the workplace you have to address it promptly and directly. Nobody has the right to intimidate another person.  Even if you are the boss, you have no right to damage the self-esteem of another person. You have to stay on top of the situation until yo...

In this episode of Creating Disney Magic Lee answers a listener question about leading a discouraged team.  If you take on a leadership role with a team that has had a tough time with the previous leader or feel discouraged, you have to be deliberate about how you leadership tenure begins.  Spend time listening. Spend time with each member of your team. Discover what the problems are, what has dis...

It is not uncommon for someone to leading people who are older than they are.  This situation can cause pushback; people may feel the boss selected the wrong person, you could now be supervising someone who didn't get the job, or people are skeptical about your age.  Address the situation early and directly. Be open and available to answer questions. Help people understand performance is what matt...

At your organization, you are putting on a show every day. Everygreat show has two performances going on simultaneously; onstageand backstage. Consider seeing a play at the theater. The onstage show isobvious. You watch the actors, see the props, and hear the music. Backstage, though, there is a crew working just as hard to makesure everything goes right with the performance. You may notdirectly w...

It is common to wonder how to motivate employees and maintain high morale. But the truth is, you don't motivate people. People motivate themselves. Your job is to create a culture where people are excited. When people are excited about the work they do, they inspire themselves. Your job is to create a culture where people are excited. When people are excited about the work they do, they inspire th...

Whether you are in government, a religious organization, or running a corner gas station, customer service issues are all the same.  No team will work unless the group is flexible, professional, and willing to work together.  Be willing to compromise, be patient, and build relationships.  Always keep in mind, your job is to take care of the constituents. Focus on what is best for the citizens.  Th...

At Disney World, metrics and measurement are crucial to the operation. Cast Members are aware of what is being measured and understand how they can contribute to improvement.  If you don't measure, you don't know if you are doing a good job or a bad job. And you won't know how to improve performance or guest satisfaction. Without knowing the numbers, you can not make clear decisions.  Disney measu...

Customers want the person in front of them to have the authority to solve their problem. If front line staff can't solve a customer's problem, it is either a training issue or you have not empowered them to solve problems.  Reputation and customer service are linked together. When front line staff can't solve a problem, it erodes your reputation one customer at a time. If you want a reputation for...

The three legs of a successful business are; Taking Care of the Customer Taking Care of the Employees Taking Care of the Profit In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee Cockerell explains what you can do to create a culture of customer service when your organization currently does not focus on the customer.  Remember, employees are the company. Customers will view your company based on the ex...

Many organizations lump training and development into one category.  You need to understand the difference and the impact each will have on your organization.  Training is basic and unemotional. Development is emotional and helps people correct their mistakes or move from good to great.  You can follow along with Creating Disney Magic podcast on Facebook .  Is there a question you would like to as...

Too many people feel you have to be a fear motivated boss, but it is not true. No one wants to work with that kind of boss.  But is it possible to be too nice? The main job of a leader is to focus on performance.  At Disney, Lee Cockerell had a reputation for being nice and respectful, but he got results and so did the people who worked for him.  Be professional, treat people respectfully and focu...

In January, Lee explained that he was dealing with anxiety. Now, Lee gives an update on how he is feeling.  In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee gives an update on his anxiety. Lee shares what he has done over the past two months to help improve.  If you did not hear the original episode about Lee's struggle with anxiety, you can listen to it here .  One app Lee has is  Headspace .  Lee c...

All of us will work with a difficult coworker at some point in our career.  Communication and patience are the best options when working with a difficult coworker. You can create an environment to communicate with the coworker about your working relationship. Communication can possibly help you create a better working environment. If not, you need patience until the situation changes. Or, you can...

Nearly 10 years ago, Lee Cockerell retired from his role as Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World. Rather than retire to the couch and golf course, Lee made a career pivot into his own business as a consultant and keynote speaker.  In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, we look into what it takes to make a successful career pivot.  All of the questions about making a career pivot come f...

In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee explains how you can create magic in the classroom.  A listener asks Lee how he would use his business principles to manage a middle school classroom. Lee offers his perspective on how you can create magic in the classroom.  Lee also tells the questions he most often hears from students.  Jody Maberry, the host of Creating Disney Magic, has launched a...

No matter how you plan your day you have to know you will get interrupted.  If you struggle with not getting enough done because you get interrupted, look at your schedule and consider if you are doing work you should not be doing. Also, consider if you are overplanning.  Time Management is the key to getting work done, even when you struggle with interruptions.  Follow the Creating Disney Magic P...

Everybody is different, so how do you motivate employees? You have to get to know the people you work with and learn how to motivate them individually. Your job as a leader is to build self-confidence in other people.  In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee explores ways to motivate high performers, mid-performers, and low performers.  Use Twitter? Connect with Lee Cockerell or Jody Maberry...

There are two ways to get better in life; look back and fix the things you didn't do well yesterday and look forward and consider what could happen if you don't do things in the future.  Take a few minutes each morning and reflect on the past and anticipate the future to make today better than yesterday.  Join Lee on the Creating Disney Magic Facebook Page . 

In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee Cockerell talks about his recent battle with Anxiety.  After years of pushing himself for success and holding back his feelings about stress, Lee is now dealing with Anxiety. Lee discusses his experience and offers suggestions on how others can deal with the problem. 

Brainstorming is a good way to solve a problem, but how do you brainstorm effectively?  In this episode of Creating Disney Magic, Lee Cockerell examines how to use brainstorming to solve a problem. Lee explains how to decide who to invite to a brainstorming session and what the dialog should be. Make sure everyone understand all ideas are good ideas. What may seem like a silly idea today could be...

This week on Creating Disney Magic, Lee Cockerell answers a listener question about evaluating risk.  Join us on the new Creating Disney Magic Podcast Facebook page here . You can also Lee Cockerell on Twitter here and Jody Maberry on Twitter here .