In my previous article, “A Message of Trust from Your Local Emporium,” about trusting your employees, I mentioned that today’s article would follow Figaro around several Magic Kingdoms.
When Disneyland opened, there was no experience based on the journeys of Pinocchio. So with the creation of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, Imagineers developed a counter-service concept based on the Walt Disney’s second full-length feature film.
Known as Pinocchio’s Village Haus, this very large fast food facility is broken into smaller rooms, each themed to one of Pinocchio’s companions.
Perhaps the most serious architecture for what is simply a counter-service experience. Photo by Jeff Kober.
There’s the Jiminy Cricket room.
Jiminy Cricket room at Pinocchio’s Village Hause at the Magic Kingdom. Photo by Jeff Kober.
Monstro the whale has a room.
Monstro’s room is a favorite because it overlooks the landing for it’s a small world. Photo by Jeff Kober.
Cleo gets a stained glass treatment in her room.
A quiet corner in the restaurant. Photo by Jeff Kober.
And finally, there’s one centered around Figaro.
Images of Figaro are found all over this corner of the restaurant. Photo by Jeff Kober.
When Disneyland redeveloped Fantasyland in 1983, Imagineers sought to finally create an attraction based on the film. But they also brought the same successful food and beverage concept over as well. There was only one problem: When installing the exit sign, something got messed up along the way and fixture ended up being off-center from the doorway.
Figaro is set to correct the mistake at Disneyland. Photo by Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix.
While it still functioned appropriately as an exit light, it simply looked silly. No problem. Imagineers painted Figaro tugging on the exit sign. Suddenly it seemed like it fit just fine.
But Imagineers didn’t stop there. When they built the same style restaurant in Disneyland Paris, they remembered to get that exit sign right. And in celebrating that lesson learned, they painted Figaro giving a big thumb’s up. In Disney-speak, that’s a sign for “good show”.
If you learn only one French word while you are in Paris, it’s the word for exit.
And here, we see a message that is also found in Disney Feature Animation’s newest film Meet the Robinsons, and even at JetBlue —it’s a message about learning from your mistakes.
The message is about learning from one’s mistakes and moving forward (indeed, that is the central message in Pinocchio). When we say making mistakes, we don’t mean misconduct. Making mistakes is about incorrect, unwise, or unfortunate behavior caused by bad judgment or a lack of information. Misconduct is about immoral, unprofessional, or incompetent behavior centered around mal-intent.
It’s important that you understand several rules of the road as you learn from one’s mistakes:
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Rule # 1: Admit to it right away! Let your manager hear about it from you first. Be proactive and seek out everyone who needs to know. Take responsibility. Don’t create blame.
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Rule #2:Clean it up. Do whatever is necessary to make the situation whole again for those around you. Remember, making a tighter cycle will help you to not make a mess so big that you become bogged down cleaning up after your mistakes.
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Rule #3: Learn from the experience. This is at the heart of review. Focus on what worked, while addressing what did not work. Communicate what you have learned to others so they don’t make the same mistakes you did. Also, learn from your obstacles, but don’t make them so big that they drain power in your ability to move on.
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Rule #4: Do not do that one again. Go on with other possibilities. Keep the cycle moving. There is a whole world of new opportunities to examine.
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Rule #5: Keep Moving Forward Come back to your goal and continue to move forward. You can’t create results if you constantly sit on what has gone wrong. That doesn’t mean you don’t learn the lesson you need to learn. That’s part of the review.
We see this in other leaders and other organizations. For instance, it’s said that a key strategy for Tiger Woods is that he doesn’t dwell on how he got to where he is on the green, rather places his entire focus on what he needs to do to get the ball in the hole. That’s Tiger’s approach to moving forward.
Last week I had the opportunity to spend time with the great people from JetBlue. They have a wonderful training facility in Orlando. They made big mistakes on February 14 of this year when the weather pounded on New York. Rather than blaming the storm or ignoring the problem, they stepped up to the plate and admitted they made errors.
The quality of their training facility speaks volumes about how serious they are about being the best airline.
JetBlue admitted up to its failures and recognized something must be done. The result was that they were quicker when the next snowstorm came to cancel flights before passengers boarded them or even came out to the airport. And in my discussions with leaders from that organization, they are working hard to make certain that nothing like this ever occurs again at JetBlue. This involves overhauling information systems that track crew whereabouts, upgrading JetBlue’s Web site to allow online re-bookings, and training workers from corporate down the street to come over to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport and help out when needed. That’s a whole lot more effective than looking back and assigning blame to everyone.
All of which brings us back to Meet the Robinsons. Those of you who have seen the film (and I’m guessing that’s most of you) know that the film ends on this famous Walt Disney quote:
“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”
© Disney.
This quote not only captures the spirit of the film, it is essentially a statement of where Disney Feature Animation stands—and where it must turn. Disney must learn from its own experiences and move forward. It cannot dwell long on the past, nor can it be punitive as it learns what it needs to do in moving forward. Perhaps that is why John Lasseter is the right person for the right time. His reverence for the heritage of the organization only propels him to move in new directions going toward the future. And while the film is not perfect, it suggests that the studio is working hard to move forward.
That same spirit can be found in what Thomas Edison wrote: “I was glad I found 9000 ways not to invent the light bulb.” It should be the same way with all of us. So around the water cooler, discuss ways in which your own organizational culture could be more tolerant of learning from one’s mistakes. Take responsibility and learn from your own experiences. And most importantly…
Keep moving forward.
