Business901 Features The Disney Way

http://business901.podbean.com/e/making-the-disney-way-your-way/

IF YOU ARE IMPLEMENTING THE DISNEY WAY PRINCIPLES - CONTACT US

We are working on the 3rd edition of The Disney Way.  We are interested in examples of organizations that embrace the Dream, Believe, Dare, Do principles.

We want to know...

1.  Why Disney?  Why The Disney Way is right for your culture
2.  How have you been implementing The Disney Way?  How long?
3.  What results can you claim from your implementation?

CONTACT US AT DREAMOVATIONS@AOL.COM

THANK YOU!

Ottawa County, Michigan Learning The Disney Way

http://impact.mlive.com/jenison/print.html?entry=/2013/05/the_disney_way.html

Bill Capodagli–Caring for Employees

http://o.canada.com/2012/10/02/1003-disney-fakery/

Bill brings The Disney Way to the “Mountaintop” this Friday–join in!

http://www.mountaintopuniversity.com/eBlast/08_15_12/event.htm

Disney Way Dream Retreat Sample Reviews–ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions

“I worked for the Dominion Virginia Power for 29 years with most of that in management. This retreat was by far one of the best ones I have attended! Thanks!!!”

“Mr. Capodagli provided a lot of insight and he gave a different view on how to look at things. Also, the stories of what made/makes some of the companies referenced from the book (The Disney Way) successful, gives me something to aspire to within our own company. I want all of our clients to know CFS as the greatest in the business just like the Four Seasons is known in their industry.”

“I enjoyed the storyboards.  Although this was a similar activity to the Affinity Diagram, I think the storyboards work better because there is discussion allowed amongst the group.  It was amazing to see how we all identified the same issues/barriers within the organization.”

The Disney Way Webinar Happening in May

Event Details:

Who: Disney management expert, Bill Capodagli

What: Creating Magical Customer Service - The Disney Way Webinar

Where: On-line

When: Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 from 2:00 - 3:30 PM EDT

Cost: $49.00

Sign up: http://tinyurl.com/7b75oco - Learn how to implement The Disney Way Customer Service Model in the comfort of your own office or conference room.

For additional information: Contact Lynn Jackson, Producer, dreamovations@aol.com

The Disney Way in the New York Times

The Disney Way has the distinction of being the only book on Disney to have been cited in this week’s New York Times article: “In Customer Service Consulting, Disney’s Small World is Growing.” http://tinyurl.com/c729kfp

Clearly, The Disney Way is changing lives. From Fortune 500 companies such as Volvo to small organizations such as YMCA’s Camp Kern, the Disney Way’s culture of excellence in service is coveted by those who want to be the best in their fields.

You, too, can learn how to offer Disney-style hospitality, attract new customers and gain their loyalty…and you won’t even have to leave your office!

Join us for the “Creating Magical Customer Service – The Disney Way” Webinar on May16th for only $49.00: http://tinyurl.com/7b75oco.

We are proud of our competitive advantage…a proven track record of implementing Walt Disney’s Dream, Believe, Dare, Do principles with organizations; 30+ years of experience in delivering excellent consulting, training and keynote presentations; an expert unbiased account of the development of both the cultures of Disney and Pixar; and affordable training for all.

Spring Fever in January is Contagious!

The leaders of The Disney Way implementation in Dowagiac understood very well the integration and interplay of Dream, Believe, Dare, Do in their cultural change efforts.  And, now, after a year, they are on DO!!!

As you envision a Dream, Believe, Dare, Do implementation in your own organization, think in terms of a holistic approach and never give up.  Dowagiac is a great role model for any community who aspires to live The Disney Way.

http://www.dowagiacnews.com/2012/01/11/spring-fever-in-january/

Make a New Year’s Resolution to Reinvent your Company’s Policy Manual

1. Remove any policy that does not add value to the customer, supplier or team member. Replace old verbiage with "work hard and be clever."
2. Review the manual for "rules" that hinder the delivery of exceptional customer service. If you ever hear, "We cannot help you because it is against our policy," send up a red flag. Change this verbiage to "Use good judgment."
3. Identify any policy that infers that you do not trust team members. Specifically, examine your expense reimbursement policy. One company decided to allow employees to issue their own expense checks. They had guidelines for tax documentation that were followed by all. The result was the elimination of most of the accounting approvals and a reduction in overall travel expense. We have worked with companies in which senior managers have multi-million dollar budgets and are responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of product production, yet they need numerous approvals to spend $500 to attend a workshop. Why? That’s the policy!
4. Use the words "have fun" in your policy manual. Pixar’s John Lasseter said, ““We worked really hard, but we also had so much fun, and it showed up in our work. We’d goof off,
   we’d laugh, we’d work together, and we’d look at
   and give feedback on each other’s stuff. And the
   creativity just sort of overflowed.”

Disney Way Changes Dowagiac Michigan–Review of 2011

Schools top local story

Published 8:49pm Tuesday, December 27, 2011

 

Dowagiac will remember 2011 as the year devoted to devising a five-point educational dream to reinvent the school system.
The goal since February has been to build a “one in 100” district for the 21st century that will drive a Dowagiac renaissance.

Months in the making, since “Disney Way” author Bill Capodagli immersed Dowagiac Union Schools, City Hall, Southwestern Michigan College and Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital in the customer service principles of “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do,” Superintendent Dr. Mark Daniel Aug. 31 unveiled the Dowagiac Educational Dream.

The vision, which could take until 2015 to fully realize, started Oct. 17 with the administration move from the Wolverine Building into City Hall. The solution is to create three buildings housing five separate schools — a pre-kindergarten to first grade school housed in the same building as a separate school for grades 2-3, each led by an instructional leader/principal, an early education specialist and a math and reading development specialist. The two schools would share the gym, cafeteria, art and music rooms and support staff.
A second building would house fourth and fifth grades.

The Dowagiac Middle School campus, opened in 2005, would support sixth, seventh and eighth grades with a separate high school for grades 9-12, again sharing common areas such as the gym, cafeteria and Performing Arts Center.

Three buildings, Patrick Hamilton, Sister Lakes and Kincheloe, would join the Wolverine Building to jettison overhead and invest in energy conservation that would make the undertaking financially feasible when voters weigh in early in 2012.

The five points that, thanks to Disney storyboarding with focus groups, reflect beliefs of the school board, administration, faculty/staff, parents and community, include collaboration, differentiated instruction (students grouped by interests and their level of understanding to build upon their accomplishments and to engage them in learning), literacy and early childhood initiatives so 100-percent of third graders read at grade level), technology and Smart Boards and grade levels grouped together through all building transitions to encourage long-term relationships with faculty, continuity in extra-curricular activities (sports, clubs, arts) and student (opportunities for college credit at SMC).

Dowagiac’s new fall festival, Under the Harvest Moon, is well-received and coincides with the opening of Foodies Fresh Cafe.

Springsteen Realty merged with Cressy and Everett in February.
Cass County hired its third administrator, Charles Cleaver, after interviewing five candidates at the Council on Aging Feb. 12.

Chuck Clarke served in the interim when Terry Proctor left after two decades.

The “round house” on M-51 South was torn down.
Firefighters from area departments spent all day Jan. 23 batting a blaze which devastated Edward Lowe Foundation headquarters near Cassopolis. Fire March 3 destroyed the Glenwood landmark Drake’s Little Super northeast of Dowagiac.

Union High launched the 10th Interact club in Rotary’s 57-club District 6360 led by charter President Lauren Krueger Oct. 23.

Marissa Tidey was crowned Michigan Apple Queen for 2012.

Pokagon Band’s Four Winds Casino bet its second location, on Red Arrow Highway in Hartford, will hit the jackpot.

“Little Four Winds” opened Aug. 29, adding 400 jobs to Van Buren County from 12,000 applicants.

The New Buffalo location is expanding with another 250 hotel rooms in a nine-story tower, a multi-use event center and a Hard Rock Cafe opening this summer.

Dr. Nathan Ivey, Southwestern Michigan College’s first president from 1965-68, addresses graduates during the 44th commencement ceremony May 7.

Jimmy Keys, 31, was unanimous selection as Dowagiac Firefighter of the Year after losing his life in a Valentine’s Day crash in South Haven.

Deputy Fire Chief Dale Hutchings retired in June after 34 years with the city and was succeeded by Guy Evans.

Classic boat museum opens in Cassopolis. Cassopolis June 15 debuted a “destination” boat museum. Mahogany Outfitters Classic Boat and Auto Museum, 980 E. State St., contains room after room of vintage boats often trailered behind classic cars from the same year and fills the former Hayden-Beardslee Ford dealership.
It is a companion piece to the 1948 Sinclair gas station replica overlooking Stone Lake downtown which also grew out of Dr. Roger Pecina of Afdent dental clinics and his hobby.

Premier Tool and Die Cast Corp. plans a $3.2 million expansion in Dowagiac expected to create 179 jobs by resurrecting the former ICG plant across Paul Street as a new zinc and aluminum die cast and assembly operation, it was announced July 5.

Cass County Council on Aging conducted a $350,000 campaign for a Dowagiac Senior Center adjacent to City Hall.

Russom Park garnered $600,000 in state grants in December thanks to a cooperative effort between Dowagiac and Silver Creek Township.

Three of five Keeler Township board members, 26-year Supervisor Bill Kays and Trustees Don Blackmond and Patrick Daly were recalled Aug. 2 in a close election precipitated by their decision at the annual meeting to contract for five years with Coloma

Emergency Ambulance, which spelled the end of Sister Lakes’ service.

Dowagiac welcomed Belgium’s 58-member Maasmechelen Concert Band, which performed Aug. 9 in the Performing Arts Center.

SMC hosted a movie premiere Oct. 28 for Debra Tolchinsky’s “Fast Talk,” which makes debate a metaphor for the hectic pace of our lives.

Dailey Church in LaGrange Township turned 125 years old in August.

Leah Sovine is installed as Dowagiac postmaster Sept. 16.

Dowagiac author Michael Collins March 26 publishes his seventh novel, “Of Uncertain Significance,” and Sept. 8 receives the grand prize at the Deauville American Film Festival in France.

Eighty National Guard soldiers with “Charlie Company” (C Troop, 126th Cavalry) deploy to Afghanistan Sept. 24 after a farewell at Union High School.

Junior Chamber International–Manila–Using The Disney Way in Training

Excerpts from a letter from Brian Balagot – 2011 Director for Individual Development, Junior Chamber International Manila (www.jcimanila.org); Certified National Trainer, Junior Chamber International Philippines (www.jci.cc)

“Greetings:  I am a Certified National Trainer for Junior Chamber International (JCI) – Manila, and a man whose life was changed by your book. I learned so much from reading it, and it has helped me to grow my business because of the way I applied the skills you mentioned there. From The Disney Way, storyboarding has helped me bring the members of my project team together so that we can solve complicated issues by painting a picture of the current situation together. It’s helped me to bring people on the same page because even the silent members get to participate in discussions, and we get to hear their great ideas. At the same time, I was able to personally apply them in Junior Chamber International, and lead the organization to become more efficient in what we do.

Junior Chamber International is an international organization of citizens who simply want to make where we live a better place to live in by training ourselves to actively take care of our community. We learn about the problems in the city where we live, and then we work with the Local Government Units or the Private Sector to create projects and raise funds that will solve the problems in society. We do this because we want a better future for the people who we love – especially our progeny. We recognize that sufficient training in management and leadership skills can help us become more effective active citizens. When we are more effective in active citizenry, then our projects will have a greater impact in society; and the safe and prosperous future of our loved ones becomes something more certain.

Storyboarding helps a lot here. I am certain that many people will benefit from your ideas – especially if they choose to let themselves become empowered with these skills by applying them in the work that they do.”

Bill Capodagli presents Customer Service - The Disney Way; Live Web & Audio Webinar Item No. 1838303; $179.00; Date: Web Conference 09/09/2011 Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM CDT;www.nationalseminarstraining.com/RockhurstConferences

 

Description:

At Disney, every contact with a customer offers a chance to shine. Disney calls these contacts “Moments of Truth” ... the opportunities to create everlasting positive impressions! And, because the company demands excellence as an organizational absolute, even its fiercest competitors acknowledge that Disney is simply the best customer-centric company on the planet!

Now you can learn how to inspire that level of customer service passion in your own organization by joining us for Customer Service – “The Disney Way”!

Learn the Keys to Dazzling Customer Service in Just One Hour!
Attend this one-hour training session and learn Disney’s formula for customer service brilliance. You’ll gain invaluable ideas that your company can immediately implement to amazing effect.

You’ll also learn insider secrets about how Disney requires – and receives – customer-focused behavior from every employee … from top executives to part-time staff. You won’t want to miss that!

Produce a "Show" for Your Customers and They'll Thank You for It Forever!
Walt Disney knew that every aspect of his business was “show” business, and every moment spent with a customer meant that the employee was “onstage.” By perfecting the art of customer relations, Disney built a record of customer loyalty, satisfaction, and repeat business that became legendary.

Join us and you’ll learn how to capture this enthusiasm for customer service throughout your organization. Your team will learn how to put on a “show” that brings customers back again and again and again!
Disney's Success Can Be Your Success — Don't Miss This Training
So what are you waiting for? Learn how to support your business and your customers with the same level of excellence — join us for Customer Service — “The Disney Way” now!

What You'll Learn When You Attend ...

• Disney’s No.1 unbreakable rule for providing the ultimate customer service
• How Walt Disney’s version of “show” business is the perfect tonic for what ails your business
• Identifying the “Moments of Truth” in your organization and ensuring nobody ever misses one again!
• The hidden – and not-so-hidden – costs for your company of even a single poor customer service experience
• How to use a little bit of Disney’s “pixie dust” to create your own customer-centric organization
• Are you overlooking the first step in creating great service? Find out here.
• How to gain complete buy-in for your new customer service vision and values from everyone up and down the corporate ladder
• 5 keys to creating “magical” moments for your customers

Meet Your Speaker — Bill Capodagli

A serious student of excellence, Bill Capodagli has a thriving success story of his own. The original edition of The Disney Way, which Capodagli co-authored, was awarded the coveted “Best Business Book of the Year” by Fortune magazine and published in eight languages. He is also the co-author of The Disney Way Fieldbook, which provides action plans for instilling Disney's vision into any company, complete with diagnostic exercises, practice sessions, proven advice, and insightful questionnaires. Capodagli also co-authored the popular book, Leading at the Speed of Change: Using New Economy Rules to Invigorate Old Economy Companies.

The prolific best-selling author has nearly three decades of expertise in management consulting and corporate research. As managing partner of Capodagli Jackson Consulting, he brings dynamic managerial experience and graduate-level teaching experience to the firm.

Ever practical, Capodagli's style is also passionate and hard hitting. He is currently the most requested speaker in the United States on Walt Disney's original success and leadership principles. This webinar is a rare opportunity to hear directly from Capodagli.

“This book is about the real magic: Stimulating and harmonizing the collective energy of your people.” — Ken Blanchard, best-selling author of The One Minute Manager.

DISNEY WAY COMMUNITY TURNING DREAMS INTO REALITY!

We are delighted to announce the first Disney Way community in the State of Michigan! Congratulations to Larry, Mark, Kevin and the entire team in Dowagiac!

LETTER TO BILL – AUGUST 31^st
“Hello from Dowagiac…Last night Mark laid out the Educational Dream for Dowagiac…
In short, you laid the groundwork for exciting alliances heretofore unknown. Imagine, the School Administration is moving into City Hall to share space and services----the potential is unknown but vast. Here is a link to the Daily News. Enjoy, you are at the root of it all.”
http://www.dowagiacnews.com/2011/08/31/%E2%80%98dream%E2%80%99-would-remake-dowagiac/
Kind Regards,
Larry Seurynck, President

Board of Education

Dowagiac Union Schools,

Dowagiac, Michigan

Dr. Fred L. Mathews, chairman of the SMC Board of Trustees and a member of the Disney Way community committee, congratulates Supt. Dr. Mark Daniel on his presentation.

By John Eby

‘Dream’ would remake Dowagiac

Published 11:56pm Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Months in the making, since “Disney Way” author Bill Capodagli immersed Dowagiac Union Schools, City Hall, Southwestern Michigan College and Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital in the customer service principles of Dream, Believe, Dare, Do, Superintendent Dr. Mark Daniel Wednesday night unveiled the “Dowagiac Educational Dream.”

The vision crafted since February is to create a “one in 100” district for the 21st century and a Dowagiac renaissance.

Daniel, his remarks prefaced by “When You Wish Upon a Star,” delivered a multi-media presentation brimming with engaging video elements about which he spoke.

The vision, which could take until 2015 to be fully realized, starts this fall with the administration leaving the Wolverine Building and moving into City Hall and follows a path that will definitely blaze a new trail, including moving high school students to the middle school, with construction of a two-floor addition in back to separate juniors and seniors from younger students; converting Union High into a districtwide grades 1-5 building offering consistent reading recovery to all students; and saving only Justus Gage as a districtwide Great Start center for kindergarten and preschoolers.

Patrick Hamilton, Sister Lakes and Kincheloe would join the Wolverine Building in jettisoning overhead and investing in energy conservation that would make the undertaking financially feasible to swing.

Voters will be asked to consider a bond issue in the spring of 2012, school board President Larry Seurynck said afterward.

Of course, the revelations studding the end of Daniel’s presentation came after a careful, comprehensive hour of aligning Dowagiac with best practices in modern education, such as Project-Based Learning designed to engage students, interspersed with Gov. Rick Snyder explaining the directions in which Michigan, poised for a pent-up recovery after years of shrinking, is moving.

For months district leaders have been consumed with creating an education culture, from bringing in new Steelcase furniture to show how classrooms have evolved from teachers as sages on the stage at the front of the room who are listened to to pods which move quickly into different configurations so students face each other and can interact, with teachers more guides and mentors who decide how to weave in such elements as video and social media.

Traditional classrooms discourage the engagement central to preparing for jobs in the workplace which stress collaboration, communication and problem-solving rather than memorizing facts gleaned from old-style lectures.

“Smart” classrooms like Dowagiac desires are only “a three-iron shot” away at partner SMC, Daniel noted in the DMS Performing Arts Center, completed in 2005.

A third of traditional classrooms are occupied by teacher space, Daniel said, which is opened up to avoid distraction from learning in modern new tech facilities.

Daniel, starting his second year with Dowagiac, said we live in a market-driven system and need to match the quality of living here with a top-notch educational system which will attract employers and investment and “will take all of us to make happen.”

“This building (DMS) itself, there’s so much value here,” Seurynck said after the meeting. “The resources here we can share — the auditorium, the gym, the common spaces, science and music labs. Those are all spaces we don’t have to build. Instead of having hallways, you open those up to 30 feet wide and each hallway becomes a technologically-rich media center. Classrooms have glass walls teachers can open to become part of the common area. Students migrate from a classroom out into the media center where they have fiber optics.”

Even Aug. 31 a Dowagiac delegation toured Rochester, Ind., Community High School.

“It’s really exciting,” Seurynck said, “and we could do these things (financially) because we’re not building a new library. (The added high school wing) would be, if you were standing back at the soccer field, at the left side of the building. The addition would have a second floor, built onto this building. Busing wouldn’t change a lot. Right now, we bus kids from behind Hale’s out to Kincheloe and from the south end of the school district, out past California Road at Indian Lake all the way up to Sister Lakes. Society has changed and gone away from the neighborhood school. Justus Gage isn’t a neighborhood school anymore. We don’t have huge clusters of students who can walk to school. All that was done when we redistricted to balance the number of kids.

“The problem with that is you’ve got two first grades out at Kincheloe, two first grades at J Gage, two first grades at Pat Ham and one first grade at Sister Lakes. Some have 19, some have 27 students. Not optimal class sizes” like could be accomplished in a central DUHS location. “We’ve got bubbles coming through the district all the time,” fluctuating from 105 to 125 or 150. “It’s very inefficient. And when students come to high school there’s a lot of variation in their preparedness because each building has a different strength.

“With all the kids in one building, you could have best practices for each grade and align your curriculum so that all are learning the same thing and hitting the same benchmarks at the same time in the same year. Right now, for our special needs students, we lose a day a week for travel. By consolidating, we can have higher quality people in touch with our kids for a greater period of time. The benefits just go on and on. The high school, built in the Sixties, is pushing 60 years old” and needs major upgrading. “It would be $3 million to $4 million just to put in a new boiler and it has only 900 amps. We’d take the efficiencies and using those to pay some of the freight. We’ve been working intensely with architects for four to six weeks. We’re analyzing putting a high-efficiency system in the high school, be it geothermal,” which would also provide air conditioning.

“How much do we save on energy? Then we take that money to pay back what we borrow in low-interest money from the state. It’s making improvements to the district now,” including lighting, “that will save energy, and earmark those savings to pay off debt. Dowagiac’s board leadership the last 10 years has been forward-looking, which puts us in a position to survive. We made a conscious decision between hunkering down, hanging on and hoping things get better or spending some of our fund equity in a calculated risk to make improvements that will bring more people to the community and jobs. When we hired Mark, the community fathers sat me down and said in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t recruit business because the schools were not performing, so we hired (Daniel), a guy with a vision who knows what it looks like. (Former president) Randy Cuthbert said he was the only guy who knows what it looks like and he had national model schools (in Indiana). There’s so much potential.”

“Classrooms should look very different today than when you and I were in school to create an educational culture and environment,” Daniel said. “We have some buildings that have been well-maintained,” but due to their age, “have some major needs. We are at a crossroads.

“Central office will be shared services with City Hall. We have to start thinking in that mentality and start finding ways to reduce expenses and costs, but still expand learning. I’m excited about going to City Hall and I’ll tell you why. Because it’s about community. We all share in this, so why shouldn’t city government be sharing education and technology. We already share fuel. We don’t even know” what other possibilities there might be, “and that’s exciting. I’m looking forward to working with City Manager Kevin Anderson and talking about what we can share — software, computers, copiers and on and on. One elementary center channels all resources into that facility. A 6-12 building? Do students who walk out of this pristine building, do they really want to go over to 9-12” at DUHS?

Chris Taylor-Alumni Field would be retained, the superintendent indicated.

“At the same time, we’re going to have to put dollars into some of our structures. Union High needs a whole new HVAC system. Why is that not AC yet? The boiler and pipes are at their life expectancy after serving their purpose well. That needs to be revamped. The new design would add on (to DMS) on the west with a second floor for 11th and 12th graders. I come from a national model school where we had seventh through 12th graders. There is extreme power when you have 11th and 12th graders for your younger students to model. Maturity in the building, you can just see it rise. Respect. Trust. Responsibility. It ramps up in a healthy way. At the same time, you need to make sure you don’t have a constant interaction with your younger students. Architects — (DUHS graduate) Scott Winchester — looked at a flow” which segregates students as they enter and exit.

“We’re going to have to expand the cafeteria,” Daniel explained. “This building was designed to expand and the governor said be smart in the way you spend your funding because you’re probably not going to get more unless you’re achieving, and you need to figure out shared services. I salute the fiscal management of this district. Most districts are talking about how to weather the storm rather than growth or opportunity. That’s not a way to be ready for the prosperity that’s going to happen in Michigan. Michigan is among the major states in the country primed for economic growth. It’s going to be different, but it’s going to come back. Advanced manufacturing with technology, which we get from SMC and our Van Buren vocational school.”

DOWAGIAC STUDENTS APPLYING DISNEY WAY STORYBOARDING

Scores head in right direction

http://www.dowagiacnews.com/2011/04/19/scores-head-in-right-direction/

April 26, 2011

Published 8:39pm Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The assessment test glass appears half full instead of half empty to thirsty Dowagiac educators.

Where district third graders lagged four percent on third grade math scores in 2009, for 2010 Dowagiac closed that gap with state average by 2 percent.

“In elementary grades 3-5, we have three increases in comparison to state averages, we have two that remain even and we have two (third grade reading and fifth grade math) where we are 1 percent off the state average.

“We just need to continue what we’re doing and tweak it,” Assistant Superintendent Patti Brallier reported to the Board of Education Monday night in the middle school Performing Arts Center because of the new dinner for Top 10 graduates in the cafeteria.

“We increased from state average 10 percent” for sixth grade math, Brallier said. “We’re even in reading, we increased in social studies, we increased in math and reading at the seventh grade level. We increased in math at the eighth grade level, we’re even in reading, we increased in science and we increased in social studies.”

Brallier, who has been assistant superintendent for four years, said the middle school “strategy is working.”

“It’s really exciting,” she added, “because there is growth and positive achievement happening, and we look forward to continuing that with this next school year. We will focus on literacy in the areas of reading and writing, so that at the end of third grade all students will be at grade level. That is our goal.”

“I congratulate the staff and administration for the gains and trends,” President Larry Seurynck said.

Seurynck called Gov. Rick Snyder’s budget proposal “very cynical” because “it’s not the School Aid Fund that’s in trouble, it’s the General Fund. The state has chosen to raid the School Aid Fund. For the state to jeopardize kids’ one fair chance at an education to improve their lives is a cynical way to balance the budget when there are obvious other ways” to meet the May 31 deadline legislators are working toward.

Superintendent Dr. Mark Daniel reported that high school students experienced storyboarding The Disney Way the Friday before spring break.

“We’re now looking to move into the six buildings” to share the experience with parents.

“Hopefully, we’ll finish that by May. Mr. (Bill) Capodagli has been contacted and he’s going to help us sort through the numerous storyboards and find some commonalities, so we’re appreciative of that,” Daniel said.

DISNEY WAY STORYBOARDING FEEDBACK FROM CAAP’S ANNUAL CONFERENCE

On March 24th, Bill conducted a storyboading session for the Community Action Association of Pennsylvania.  The focus was on how the individual agencies could provide Disney Way service to their audiences despite the inevitable federal funding threats to their network.  The feedback on the session was overwhelmingly positive.  Here are the written comments provided by the participants (original typos were not corrected):

Great

Excellent this type of presentation & workshop is needed.

This was fabilous workshop. The presenter was great. I feel like I can apply what I learned.

Fantastic

Wonderful training will use this extensivley.

Excellent presenter with great hands on tips!

Excellent workshop

Great workshop-I will use this immediately.

Story Board…something the Board of Directors should use.

Dowagiac City Manager Kevin Anderson Reports on The Disney Way Initiative

March 4, 2011 Report to Mayor Lyons and City Council Members: “This past week, I was pleased to be able to participate with over a dozen City employees during the intensive training on The Disney Way that was shared with the Dowagiac Union Schools and Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital at Southwestern Michigan College.  It was especially good to have workers from all departments and all levels of the City jointly practicing problem-solving techniques and identifying ways in which our services to the community can be enhanced. Now the challenge for us will be implementing practices that help us better understand and respond to the customers we serve each day.”

Editorial: Dowagiac Develops its vision with Disney Way Opportunity

 

Published 12:24am in the Dowagiac Daily News, Thursday, March 3, 2011

Rare moments like this don’t materialize every day.

There was that Gwen Brooks poetry reading 20 years ago which spawned a week-long fine arts festival featuring world-class authors, musicians, dancers, storytellers and now culinary artists.

A generation of students grew up believing the way to read a book includes conversing with its creator about where he or she came up with the idea and characters.

Another moment that comes to mind is the new middle school with a Performing Arts Center opened in 2005 by an orchestra.

The Disney Way dangles a different kind of symphony, a complex collection of voices to blend together in a pleasing vision that will be like music in its ability to tell diverse Dowagiac’s inspiring story.

It’s one thing to live here and to know it’s special, but another to try to articulate that across the spectrum of an entire town, from its public schools and community college to service providers at City Hall and our hospital.

Just to look around Wednesday and to see five large tables unleashing and trying to mesh their visions inspires passion for the possibilities and underscores Bill Capodagli’s disclaimer that there’s no instant pudding, just hard work, when it comes to battering down barriers and reimagining entrenched cultures.

Certainly solving customer problems sparks innovation and it was interesting that in the first exercise about identifying examples of exceptional or awful service, 80 percent extolled exemplary examples.

Local imagineers will do well to remember how we got to this point since this initiative was conceived last November in an unprecedented show of cooperation.

This remarkable week can actually be traced to last March with a business and community leaders forum for Dr. W. Craig Misner of Michigan Leadership Institute, gathering information for the Union School District superintendent search which delivered Dr. Mark Daniel to succeed retiring Peg Stowers.

A Daily News column March 29, 2010, headlined, “We need to tell our story to create a climate for success” called for a school chief with exceptional skills and fresh ideas to tell Dowagiac’s story, good and bad, so we define ourselves rather than someone else.

A sense of urgency came from the fact that for the first time ever, Dowagiac finished below state average in 14 test categories. We came across as a mediocre also-ran and the business community knew how hard it would be to recruit for economic development or to sell homes with a school system that across the board ranked consistently in the bottom half of area districts and last in Cass County.

Fair or not, that was reality, even if it’s not the Dowagiac we know, which doesn’t take a back seat to anyone.

The durable storyline that the district is scrappy and squeezes every dollar from limited resources served it well for a long time, but it doesn’t aim high enough for graduates expected to compete in a global economy.

Dogwood is a great example of the power of the possible, ignoring naysayers and creating its own climate for success by expectations it defined.

If its visionaries had wallowed in defeatism or flinched in self-doubt at the prospect of inviting a Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike or Norman Mailer here, there wouldn’t be a new generation writing its own books and pursuing fine arts careers in college or an enviable public art collection.

So this may not prove to be instant pudding or low-hanging fruit, but branches will not be out of reach harnessing so much positive energy and maybe a little pixie dust magic in a mutual direction for the greater good. Just getting all these folks in the same room, their hats checked at the door, was no small feat. Isn’t every small town like this?

Capodagli knows better than most they are not.

The Grand Old City, with a strong identity and rich heritage, is different in a good way and has a story that someday will make a sensational book, The Dowagiac Way.

It All Starts with a Dream

Last week, I had one of the most gratifying experiences of my professional career. During a time when everything you hear on the news is so negative…government fighting with unions; unions fighting with school districts; school districts fighting with teachers, I felt like I had been transported to another world. What a breath of fresh air to work with a community that is not playing blame games and not paying lip service to problems. No, they are actually doing something as a unified community to institute change!

A few months ago, I received an email from Dr. Mark Daniel, superintendent of the Dowagiac Union Schools in Dowagiac, Michigan. He had a “dream” for his school district – a way of teaching that was student-centered and had the values of Disney. Soon, I was engaged in a conference call with a team of four leaders from the Dowagiac community: Mark Daniel; Joy Strand, CEO of Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital; Larry Seurynck, President of the Board of Education; and Kevin Anderson, City Manager. This unlikely team that became a steering team all shared the “dream” of improving customer service in their respective organizations, but most importantly, of becoming a customer-centric community. I was amazed at their commitment to one another, and their passion for embarking upon a journey with so many unknowns.

We discussed a way to bring these uniquely diverse entities together to introduce and begin the process of adopting “The Disney Way” principles. In my 30+ years of consulting, the approach I proposed for a community-wide cultural change might have seemed daunting to the team. I know how difficult it is for even one organization to change their culture, so at first, I was thinking that the chances of several organizations coming to consensus on a culture was slim and none. But, as I came to discover…the Dowagiac steering team was more unified than some teams after years and years of development! When Mark Daniel called to schedule dates for our engagement, I felt a rush of enthusiasm about being involved in what was to be the launch of something very special in our great state of Michigan.

We began the week-long kickoff with my 90 minute keynote – “If Walt Ran Your Organization” – that was open to the entire community (650 attended, 10% of the Dowagiac population). The subsequent three days were filled with staff interviews and workshop training in which teams from four entities (school, hospital, city government and the Dowagiac community) worked hard, played hard and discovered many “ah has” together. The energy, passion and spirit exhibited by each of these teams is hard to describe…I wish all communities had a “dream” that touched so many members. Each of the Dowagiac teams is now in full swing developing their own “dreams” with great gusto.

I believe that the change that is taking place in the Dowagiac Union Schools will be the most challenging, the most dramatic, and perhaps the most exciting for the community. You’d have to live under a rock to not know that our nation’s educational process is failing our students…our future! For every TEN high school freshmen entering school this year, only SEVEN will graduate in four years. Of those seven, FOUR will go continue on to college, but TWO will need to take a remedial reading, writing or mathematics class. I don’t know of any business that can survive with an 80% defect rate!

Nationally, the finger pointing continues regarding ways to improve our educational system…blame the unions; blame the teachers; blame the administration; blame the parents; too much spending; too little spending. The truth of the matter is that for over twenty-five years, we have thrown money at the problems, drugged students who have behavioral issues and labeled them as ADHD. But the way we teach – the process – has not had any measurable positive change in the past 100 years. We must attack the process not the people.

The leaders of the Dowagiac Union School District have decided to take a stand for real educational change. Revamping a tired, ineffective process begins with a “dream”...and I applaud what they have crafted:

“Imagine a place where Students have a passion for learning

….a place where the focus is student-centered

…a place where students achieve personal goals

…a place where our whole community is valued

…a place where children work together and learn from each other

The Dowagiac Dream for Education”

This week, I had the opportunity to be part of the Dowagiac Union School District’s presentation of their “dream” to all their employees. I also felt privileged to assist in facilitating customer service feedback storyboard sessions with middle school and high school students. When the students identified the “ideal” classroom as: 1. exploration and discovery; 2. interaction with the teacher and fellow students; and 3. fun, I knew they were beginning to build a great future together…a feat worth celebrating. It reminded me of the Millennium Celebration at World Disney World whose theme was Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand. Certainly, being with those students reinforced my passion for student-centered experiential learning, and gave me cause to celebrate!

My personal “dream” is that other communities will look to Dowagiac as a model of what is possible when fellow citizens from diverse organizations come together to “Dream, Believe, Dare, and Do.” Witnessing an entire community collaborate, break down barriers, and embrace change is what made my week so very special. The three-day workshop experience at Southwestern Michigan College (SMC) was frosting on the cake. Dr. Fred Mathews, SMC founder and CEO of 46 years, was our host and a member of what is now known as the “community team.” SMC is a great example of student-centered education and Fred is an advocate and resource for change in Dowagiac’s educational system. What a delight it was to get to know Fred and share ideas with him!

Keep up the good work Dowagiac! It is really an honor to be a small part of your exciting journey!

Bill Capodagli

Dowagiac Officials Learn ‘Disney Way’

Article published in the South Bend Tribune, Mar 6, 2011
Dowagiac officials learn 'Disney Way'
Hospital, government officials seek to improve customer service.
By TOM MOOR Tribune Staff Writer
DOWAGIAC -- It's apparent community leaders in the Dowagiac area are impressed with the way Walt Disney Corp. relates to its customers.

So much so, in fact, a consultant from "The Disney Way Fieldbook" was in town last week to teach Dowagiac city leaders, Dowagiac Union School officials and staff at Borgess-Lee Memorial Hospital about how Disney operates as a corporation. The goal, according to city manager Kevin Anderson, is to improve customer service in the Dowagiac area. "It's a way for us to better effectively respond to various constituents," Anderson said.

 

Bill Capodagli, co-author of "The Disney Way" and "Innovate the Pixar Way," was in Dowagiac Monday through Thursday holding seminars about how and why Disney Corp. has been so successful and how others, like those in Dowagiac, can achieve that success. Capodagli describes Disney as the "best customer-centric company on the planet.""We're trying to look at ways they can be more successful as an organization," he said.

The overall goal of the training was to teach the three entities about what customer service truly means.  "It's all about how we can better service our customers," said Mark Daniels, superintendent of Dowagiac Union Schools. "How do we improve?"  For Daniels, the school district's customers would be the students and parents. The city government, meanwhile, would consist of better serving city residents, while the hospital would focus on its patients and community. 

 

Daniels said what is unique about the training last week was it was attended by all three entities, instead of just one. Southwestern Michigan College also had had a hand in the events as a host and helper, Daniels said."People are catching the spirit of this," Daniels said. "People that aren't even part of the training. That's the beauty of having the city and hospital come together with the education system, bouncing things off of each other."

Daniels said the district is looking down its entire line of employees, from custodians to administrators, to try to improve overall service: "Coming together and agreeing regarding the way you see the delivery of services and your outcomes," he said.
Daniels said the next step is to go from the story-building stage to the story board and putting the plan in place. "We're very excited to be able to work with other people in the community and pick each other's brains," Anderson said.

 

Capodagli said he was impressed with the leaders in Dowagiac.
"I'm impressed with their enthusiasm and energy and commitment," he said. "There's a lot of hard work that has to be done developing a customer-centric culture. For any organization, it's hard work. Anyone from the board room to the storage room needs to embrace the message and that commitment."

Staff writer Tom Moor:
tmoor@sbtinfo.com
574-235-6234