Entrepreneurship the Disney Way

Michael G. Goldsby, Rob Mathews, Michael Goldsby

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138737556
• eBook ISBN: 9780429679384
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book focuses on the business story of Walt Disney and the company he built. Combining a unique blend of entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation, and a relentless drive to bring out the best in his teams, Walt Disney created one of the most successful ventures in business history. Outlining the specific processes of the company, Goldsby and Mathews provide the reader with the tools they need to embrace their own entrepreneurial leadership style, to lead effectively, to be more innovative, and to build a successful organization.

Through the lens of Disney, the reader learns the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership. Beginning with a general introduction to the concepts relevant to the entrepreneurial organization today, the book examines how Disney built his empire and how the company remains an industry leader. The book also provides the opportunity to take the Entrepreneurial Leadership Instrument, which measures one's style in leading entrepreneurial ventures. The book is divided into two parts:

• Part I provides an overview of Disney's entrepreneurial journey, including the topics of vision, risk-taking, financing, and human resource management;
• Part II examines the company's transition from a family business into a global operation, including topics such as succession planning and strategy. Part II also explores Disney Parks and Resorts, the part of the company that interacts directly with customers, including topics such as culture, employee engagement, customer service, and customer experience.

Entrepreneurship the Disney Way brings entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership to life through the compelling story of one of the most recognizable businessmen and companies of our time. The authors' interviews with high-level executives provides the reader with a rare inside look into the way his company functions. Disney fans, executives, and students of entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership will find it a delightful and informing read.

Part 1
Walt Disney, Entrepreneur

1
The Artist Years

I had tremendous respect for my father. I worshipped him. Nothing but his family counted.

—Walt Disney¹

A Window Into Walt

If you happen to go to Disneyland, take a moment to stop in front of the Emporium store on Main Street, U.S.A. Look up and you’ll see a second floor window that reads “Elias Disney, Contractor.” Elias Disney was Walt Disney’s father. This tribute in the Happiest Place on Earth was given by the younger Disney to a man who by most accounts was not very happy. Harold Evans, the author of They Made America, describes him as “a disciplined man, a teetotaler and churchgoer, not very lucky in his enterprises. Elias was clearly not a bundle of laughs. He was straitlaced, puritanical, and humorless”;² and Bob Thomas, the authorized Disney biographer, describes his parenting as overly strict, writing that “he thought nothing of taking a switch to his son or the fat part of his belt. Walt would bury his head in the bend of (his brother) Roy’s elbow and ask if the man who beat him was really his father or just some mean old man who looked like him and wanted only to frighten or hurt him.”³

Walt’s charming and funny mother, Flora, on the other hand, kept the family home organized and ensured the children were educated and comfortable. She was also the peacemaker in the family, keeping the children and Elias’s tempers under control. During many of the challenging periods the Disney family would encounter through the early twentieth century, Flora held the family together and offered a caring approach that counterbalanced her husband’s sternness. By all accounts, she was adored by her husband and children.

So why would Walt Disney place a tribute to his stern father, instead of to his sensitive mother, front and center in the most heavily traveled area of Disneyland? After all, wouldn’t it be more fitting to recognize the happiest Disney in the Happiest Place on Earth? Understanding this irony gives us insight into how Walt Disney became the premier entertainment entrepreneur of the twentieth century. Since Walt was obsessive, passionate, and purposeful in everything he did—a combination of traits often attributed to a high achiever—he would have surely given it a lot of thought as to whether or not to pay homage to his father in his favorite place. We believe this was Walt’s way of telling us that if not for Elias Disney there would be no Disneyland. He recognized that Disneyland would not have happened if his father had not searched for a better life himself. Long before his son dreamed up the idea of the park, Elias started clearing the way for Main Street, U.S.A.

The Disneys serve as an example to us all how people from humble beginnings rise to great success. When you study the actual life of a “self-made man,” you actually find the popular account of their ascent is more myth than reality. As Malcolm Gladwell has written in Outliers: The Story of Success, “People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine.”⁴

So, to gain insight into how Walt Disney became a great entrepreneur, we must first examine his father and the legacy he provided his son.

Elias Disney, Contractor

Long before Walt Disney produced Snow White and built Sleeping Beauty Castle, his father was chasing his own dreams. Elias and Walt Disney had much in common. They both came from humble origins and wanted to build a successful life. They both pursued opportunities whenever possible. Likewise, they both had a strong gut feeling that the next idea would be a lot better than the last. The world often delivered different plans for them. Each lost everything they owned a few times, but they both endured to give another business idea a try each time. This strategy paid off for Walt. His dreams eventually came true. His father’s didn’t.

If Elias had been born a half-century later and closer to an urban area, he might have been successful. Instead, he was born on February 6, 1859, in the small Canadian village of Bluevale. Alas, his childhood was spent in a remote region of Ontario that offered few opportunities to a farmer’s son. The winters were brutal in Bluevale, and life was hard. When western expansion boomed just south of the Disney homestead, his father, Kepple, decided to move the family to Kansas in 1878, hoping for a better life. They bought three hundred acres from the Union Pacific Railroad and started a farm like many other immigrants who came to the region during that time. Although the conditions were better in Kansas, life was difficult for the Disneys. As immigrants, they were not afforded the same property deals as American citizens. The winters were still wicked, often bringing storms that caused ten-foot snow drifts on the barren plains. Even worse, money was tight. The family bootstrapped their existence with whatever resources were available to them, even resorting to building their house out of dirt and stone that they quarried from their land.⁵

Living off the land as a pioneer wore on Elias. He felt restless like his father, and, tiring of farm work, he decided to do something he would do many more times when life became difficult: he moved. His first job on his own was working as a machinist in a railroad machine shop. In an interesting twist of fate, he apprenticed alongside the future automobile tycoon Walter Chrysler. This would be the first of many Forrest Gump moments when a Disney unexpectedly crossed paths with a famous public figure or took part in a historic event. As the Disneys discovered, happy accidents seem to happen more when you move around. As we will see throughout this book, Walt’s journey will have him working with many of the most acclaimed artists, scientists, and businessmen of the twentieth century.

Moving off the farm was a good step for Elias to learn a trade. He gained mechanical knowledge in the machine shop, but the routine of the work eventually bored him. When an opportunity arose to join a crew building the Union Pacific railroad through Colorado, he jumped at the chance to work outside and learn the construction trade. Unfortunately, the job was only temporary. Once the track was completed, he was out of work. He searched for other construction jobs but couldn’t find any. With no other options available, he tried his luck as a fiddle player in saloons. Unfortunately, that occupation didn’t pay well, so he returned to the family farm in Kansas. What looked like a bad turn of events actually brought Elias his happiest accident: he met his future wife Flora Call upon his return to the family homestead. Flora lived next door to the Disney farm. Her father, Charles, had given up teaching in Ohio and moved the family to Kansas. He apparently had buyer’s remorse. He didn’t like the winter blizzards that came through the plains and soon decided to move his family to Florida. Kepple had tired of the winters too, and, with Elias in tow, joined the convoy to the warmer state. The move for Kepple was short-lived. He returned to Kansas within a few months, but Elias stayed to be near Flora. Tired of his fate being determined by his father and railroad companies, he bought a forty-acre farm and took his first shot at being his own boss. He continued to woo Flora, and, after a long courtship, they married in 1888.

The year 1888 marked a turning point for Elias. He no longer wandered solo looking for fortune. He now had a travel companion in Flora. Photos of the couple capture their devotion to each other. In one picture they resemble the husband and wife from the American Gothic painting. Elias appeared a lanky man with seriousness etched over his thin face while Flora, with dark, coiffed hair, and in the somber clothes of the nineteenth century, wore a slight look of bemusement on her strong face. They appeared comfortable with each other. Flora stood behind Elias in the picture, just as she would do countless times in their marriage over the years.

While marriage brought companionship, it did not quell Elias’s hunger for business success. By 1888, he already owned and sold a farm and a hotel, and turned to working as a mailman and owning an orange grove to make a living. Life became even busier on December 8, 1888, when their first son, Herbert, was born. As often happened to Elias, the family’s situation took a bad turn in Florida. The orange grove was wrecked by a cold spell, Elias contracted malaria, and Flora’s father died from injuries suffered in a farming accident. With new family responsibilities and a change in mood in the household, Elias determined it was time to move again. But where? The last move occurred because his father decided to move them to Florida. He didn’t want to return to Kansas, where his father was. Maybe this time he would try his luck living in Chicago, where Robert, his younger brother, was.⁶

Robert Disney proved to be a fairly successful businessman and had moved to Chicago a year before with fortune on his mind. Robert was a speculator and entered nascent markets he thought contained the potential for a big score. He apparently possessed better luck than his older brother. Robert already traded in gold mines, oil, and real estate, and now his instincts told him Chicago was about to become a prime location for making a fortune. In 1893, Chicago would host the World’s Columbian Exposition, which commemorated the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s founding of America.⁷ The city experienced rapid growth in the nineteenth century, growing from two hundred residents in 1833 to roughly two million by 1890.⁸ The world’s first skyscrapers provided metropolitan views like no other place in the world, and leading thinkers were moving to Chicago to be part of this midwestern renaissance. Civic leaders wanted to showcase the city’s merits, and the Columbian Exposition was to be Chicago’s world debutante ball.

The exposition was masterminded by genius architect Daniel Burnham, a Walt Disney-like figure of the nineteenth century. Burnham’s vision encompassed creating a model of what the ideal city should be, and Chicago would be his prototype of urban perfection. Majestic gardens, canals, lagoons, exhibits, and over two hundred classically styled buildings were built in the neighborhoods of South Shore, Jackson Park Highlands, Hyde Park, and Woodlawn. He imagined what Chicago could be, and by sheer will and salesmanship transformed the city. Burnham’s resolve was further bolstered after consulting with legendary showman P. T. Barnum, who told him, “Make it bigger and better than any that have preceded it. Make it the greatest show on earth—greater even than my own Great Moral Show.”⁹ And he did. As Frank Lloyd Wright remembered him, “Burnham made masterful use of the methods and men of his time … (as) an enthusiastic promoter of great construction enterprises … his powerful personality was supreme.”¹⁰

Burnham’s example transformed the way Chicagoans saw themselves. His advice to others chasing their dreams is amazingly reminiscent of Walt Disney’s approach to life. In an oft quoted rallying cry, he stated, “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big.”¹¹

Robert Disney decided to think big and built a hotel to prepare for the large influx of visitors who would come to see Burnham’s creation. His instincts proved right. Over thirty million came to the fair. Elias and Flora moved to Chicago in 1890 because of its promising economy as well, but they put their focus on building something smaller upon their arrival to the city: their house. Flora drew up the floor plans and Elias employed the construction skills he had learned on the railroad. Their cozy home on 1249 Tripp Avenue in the northwestern section of Chicago caught the eyes of passersby, and before long they were building and selling houses to other new residents around the city. They functioned as a good team, and the house business was perhaps Elias’s most successful venture during his life. Elias made the deals and built the homes while Flora handled the bookkeeping, supplies, and house designs. When needed, Walt said, “My mother would go out on construction jobs and hammer and saw planks with the men.”¹² The household was being run by two entrepreneurs, and life was finally good for the Disneys.

The good times wouldn’t last long. Business slowed a bit in 1893, so Elias turned to working seven days a week as a construction worker on the World’s Columbian Exposition. This moment in his life is often provided as a footnote in other books, but we think it had significant influence on who Walt Disney became many years later. Boys often look up to their father, and we can imagine Walt thinking about his dad working on the Chicago World’s Fair when he was building Disneyland. After all, a Disney theme park consists of half amusement park and half world’s fair, whereas most other theme parks are focused on roller coasters. This combination is what brings us back to Disneyland throughout our lives. When we’re younger we can’t wait to get on the rides, but as we age we stroll a little more, taking in the sights and exhibits spread throughout the park. Elias’s experience working on the exhibition and living in Chicago during that time may play as much a role in what Disneyland became as anything else that occurred in the family history.

Circumstantial evidence of this theory involves Walt’s reputation for totally immersing himself in his projects. When he became interested in a topic, he sought to learn every detail that pertained to it. As his wife Lillian recalled when asked about his favorite topic of conversation, “His work was. He read a lot of things. Researched. He knew something about everything. I don’t think he ever read a novel in his life but he was crazy about history. If he didn’t know something he would ask. Walt always remembered everything.”¹³ He talked to experts in their respective fields and visited museums and historic sites whenever possible. He was also very nostalgic. Walt Disney liked to look at the past while he created the future. We picture Walt thinking back to Elias telling him stories at the dinner table about his earlier work experiences from around the country. It is likely that one of those stories consisted of his involvement in the construction of the world’s fair, one of the largest entertainment projects of all time. When we retell stories, we often embellish them a bit. What we did becomes grander than it actually was. We emphasize the good parts, put ourselves in starring roles, and leave out the embarrassing moments. Erecting buildings for the most breathtaking showcase in history for a legendary architect would have given Elias ample material for entertaining h...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART 1 Walt Disney, Entrepreneur
• PART 2 Corporate Entrepreneurship at the Walt Disney Company
• Index