You’ve got the wrong Jeff

Note: Today’s posts have identical content, not even a few different words tweak on each. Why? Creating a benchmarkable template. The content will be unique to each book. However, the prelude and intro/outro will be similar. As always the photo-story is unique to each post.

It was a typical day at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa.

Busy.

Crazy busy, you could say.

In the Main Building, the Concierge Building, The Disney Company’s highest level of service, for any of our Resorts worldwide, was delivered exclusively here.

When it’s all you know, and all 1,400 Cast Members (including 100 leaders) have the same understanding of and commitment to the Disney Mission, you adapt and thrive in spite of the relentless pressure to be excellent with every breath you take.

So when the phone rang, i didn’t have time to answer it, and all the back office phones are internal numbers, so i knew it was a Cast Member.

i normally let internal calls go to voice mail on a super busy day, because if it’s urgent, they can page me – this was 1998, in the pre-mobile phone era.

“May I speak with Jeff please, this is Carol from Disney Institute.”

“This is Jeff?”

“I need to schedule a lunch meeting with Steve Heise.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve got the wrong Jeff.”

“You’re Jeff Noel, right?

“Yes. But i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Carol said she’d investigate and call me back.

Sometime later we spoke again, and she proceeded to share how my first Disney Supervisor, Neal McCord, had lunch with a Disney Institute (DI) hiring manager and Neal recommended me as a potential speaker because of my 15 years of Disney Operations experience. DI was looking for someone with those exact credentials.

Steve Heise was the DI Director and he wanted to meet me.

i was so confused.

“Why me?”

All i could think about after Carol’s phone call was, “God must want me to become a preacher or a comedian, and i’ll need this public speaking experience.”

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

rethink, reprioritize, recommit your Leadership beliefs

Where do we begin when we are fed up with the past and dissatisfied with our inability to break through the everyday leadership grind?

Cliche, but what about keeping it simple?

The ultimate sophistication is simplicity.

What’s first?

Three steps.

In prioritized order:

1. rethink
2. reprioritize
3. recommit

Great leaders never underestimate the power of being clear, concise, and compelling.

Life and work are too complex to try to lead without clarity around the most important issues.

Life and work are too complicated to achieve organizational vibrancy without irrefutable priorities.

Life and work are too intense to ever show up without world-class Leadership Excellence commitment.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

There’s no room for average leadership at Disney

None.

Zero.

It’s a crying shame, isn’t it?

Because you’ll never know.

Never know what might have been.

Never know how effective your impact could have been.

Never lived up to the hopes your leaders had for you.

Never lived up to the hopes you had for yourself.

Satisfaction is dangerous.

They say only the mediocre are at their best every day.

The antidote is obvious.

Seek out timeless Disney Leadership Excellence wisdom.

Embrace simple, profound, industry-neutral Leadership insights.

Begin today to rethink, reprioritize, and recommit your time and effort.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

Detouring to wonder why

To wonder why?

Detour.

A different route to get somewhere; usually unplanned, unexpected, often scary and inconvenient.

What if we detoured in our journey to understand, and practice, the world-class, Disney Leadership Excellence key drivers required to become and stay an excellent leader?

The “what if” usually has an ending sounding like this, “I’ll never know?”

Why?

Because it’s safer, more convenient, and easier to manage the unexpected and unplanned if we just get back to the job at hand, which is to maintain the operation we lead.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.

It’s Not The Leadership Magic That Makes It Work

It’s the hard Disney Leadership work that makes it Magic.

It comes down to being focused and disciplined.

1. Focused on the basics.
2. Disciplined to never take our focus off the basics.

Seems ridiculously simple right?

It is.

Remember, though; simple doesn’t mean easy.

If focus and discipline were easy, we’d all be amazing leaders.

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This website is about our MIND. To read today’s post about our BODY, click here.