Disney Institute speaker Mark Matheis proved that it’s a small world after all in the Friday session “The Disney Experience: From Inspiration to Innovation,” sponsored by Chiron, a Novartis Company.

Matheis showed that Disney and the blood community share a common thread and purpose, despite being in different industries.

“Whenever we approach an industry like health care for the first time, they look at us and say ‘you’re Mickey Mouse, Tinkerbell and pixie dust. How can you help us?’” said Matheis, from the Disney Institute, an arm of Walt Disney. “Our job is to inspire first, and because we are a benchmarking industry, whether it is government, health care or retail, these organizations look at the Disney experience and want that for their organization.”

That Disney experience is a culture of seeking new ideas, measuring and communicating results, acting on those ideas, and celebrating the success of the project and all of the people involved.

“People often ask us how we pay minimum wage and have people stand outside in 100-degree weather wearing 100 percent polyester, still smiling,” said Matheis. “What is the Disney difference?”

He evoked an answer by first asking attendees to turn to their neighbor and name one thing similar between AABB and Disney.  The responses topping the list were safety, customer service, and a wide range of clients having a broad range of clients. But the most important similarity is the leadership and the ability to adapt and initiate change to improve service by involving even the smallest positions in the organization.

“Leaders initiate change for three reasons. They have to, they need to or they want to. The ones that want to are the ones that are pushing the envelope so that with each change they out-distance the competition,” said Matheis.

The Life of a Visionary

Walt Disney was the perfect example. Going bankrupt in 1923, Disney abandoned his dream of being an animator to become a movie star. When that backfired he created the most popular cartoon character of the 1920s, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Unfortunately, Oswald was stolen by a man who distributed the Oswald films. Disney decided that would never happen again and turned his misfortune into success when he created Mickey Mouse.

At the end of the presentation, Matheis played a sound bite of Disney telling a story about a boy who asked him if he was the man who drew Mickey Mouse. Disney said he had to admit to the child that he doesn’t draw anymore. So the little boy asked if he wrote all of the jokes. Disney said he didn’t do that either. Then the boy looked at him and asked “Well, then what do you do?” Disney responded, “Sometimes I think of myself as a little bee. I go from one area of the studio to another and gather pollen and sort of stimulate everybody.”

Matheis said Disney was famous for talking to employees who cleaned up the park or played characters on the stage because these were the people who had first-hand knowledge of what customers wanted. “I hope you all think of yourselves as little bees, because you never know what inspiration you could walk away with,” he said.

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