The Disney Experience

There was litter on the floor.  The motor car was broken down.  A life-size elephant  statue  had a cobweb with a leaf caught in it near its right eye.  There was sooty exhaust or smog scum on more than one pillar...

These were all part of my Disney experience a few years ago.  It was not perfect in other ways too.  

Last week I encouraged you to consider the consistent experience of some great companies.  THIS WEEK I want to remind you that even great companies fail daily.

"Perfect" means complete, as in thorough, rather than flawless when describing our "perfect client experience."  Mistakes happen, but our processes should respond to them in such a way that clients (and employees) remember our recovery more than our failure.

So if your June is not getting off to a great start, do not give up or blow up at employees or clients.  These problems are temporary and will pass.

Disney employees make mistakes and so will yours.  Consider the process in Meeting Notes to prioritize the way you respond to problems and improve your processes.

Meeting Ideas

Whether you are the CEO, running sales, managing the service group, or leading in some other way, at times the amount of work we have to do or problems we want to solve can seem overwhelming.

Here is a simple method to getting work done:

1. On your own or with your team make a list of the work that needs to be done.  You can call this your parking lot, dump, priority list, or whatever you want.
2. Prioritize the list based on importance.
3. Take the first 1-3 items on the list and focus on them.  These can be your 3strands for one week.  Only take on what you can complete in one week.
   • Assign them to yourself and/or others on your calendar.
   • Your work time on these issues should be uninterruptible time.  Let your people know you are not to be bothered unless the building is burning down.
   • Look at these 3strands daily to hold yourself accountable.
   • If you are missing your self-made deadlines, then immediately engage someone else in your process for accountability.
   • Complete the first item.  Then complete the second item...  Do you understand the pattern?
4. Do not look at your parking lot items except momentarily when you need to add more things to the parking lot.
5. After you solve the 1-3 most urgent problems then celebrate.  Get a power size Jamba Juice or a nice cup of coffee.  Take a 15-20 minute break to read something or think about your favorite project.  If this is a team effort, then buy non-alcoholic drinks or lunch for the team.
6. Return to your parking lot list.  Confirm it is prioritized correctly.
7. Choose the next 1-3 items from the top of your list and repeat this process.

Have fun!