Well that was exciting! My biggest audience to date! It is going to be a while before I present to a crowd that big again.
A couple months ago, the United Kingdom’s railway “Network Rail” asked me to do a presentation about the marriage of service and safety. Their two key driving standards in their business.
On our first call, I told them that service & safety need to get a divorce.
Why?
They cannot be equals. One has to take precedence over the other. Network Rail now had a choice, grant the divorce or find a new speaker.
After explaining it to them, any judge in the world would grant this divorce.
You see, employees need to know what the most important thing is, in order to make their decisions every day while on the job.
At Disney, there are 5 standards. They are, in order of importance:
- Safety
- Courtesy
- Inclusivity
- Show
- Efficiency
This is how Disney cast members make their decisions. First, is it safe? Safety is the first priority. For example:
As you know, it is really hot in Orlando. Which is not good news for small children and their ice cream cones. 50% of the time, they have gotten two licks and “PLOP!” on the ground it goes. Then magically, a custodian appears out of nowhere with a fresh cone. Screaming meltdown averted! Ice cream on the ground = ‘bad show’. Screaming tantrum from child = unhappy child and parents.
Unhappy guests come before melted cream. Courtesy before Show.
But, had the child vomited because he had 13 cones in a row (a common occurrence) the custodian would clean up the puke first, then get a new cone.
Puke comes before happy guest. Safety before Courtesy.
Network Rail had to admit, I was right.
And thus agreed to my terms.
How about you and your business? What are the standards you and your employees use to make decisions?
You MUST have them. How else do you expect an employee to make a decision without you constantly being there?
