Kermit Weeks is the creator and founder of Fantasy of Flight; http://www.Fantasyofflight.com - a tourist attraction located in central Florida based on man’s fascination of flight. He is a world-renowned aerobatic pilot and collector of vintage aircraft. His dream for Fantasy of Flight is to combine his passion for flight and his passion for unleashing human potential with a product that is delivered through the medium of entertainment.


As the owner of a local tourist attraction here in the Central Florida area, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the Disney Institute at the Walt Disney World Resort to learn how they conduct their business and deliver the “magic”. Over the last several years I have had the chance to attend all five Seminars offered to the public through the Disney Institute.

The five seminars are:
The Disney Approach to -  Quality Service, Leadership Excellence, People Management, Organizational Creativity and Loyalty. The goal of each Seminar is to learn and understand the Disney Approach. Each participant then reflects in a workshop setting how he or she can apply the techniques to their own businesses. Seminars are offered to both large corporate groups as well as individuals.

The Disney Approach to Quality Service focuses on paying attention to detail and the processes of how to deliver your product with excellence. You will learn how to understand your customers wants and needs better, develop a unified “Service Theme”, or “Vision in work clothes” for your front-line employees and develop “Service Standards” they will use to deliver them. Participants then learn how Disney integrates all these components into a seamless Guest experience with the goal of exceeding their expectations.

In the Leadership Excellence seminar we learned the five areas Disney focuses on for leadership. These are Vision, Involvement, Organization, Change and Values and Behaviors. After hearing from several leaders within the organization, it is obvious how Disney works from within the organization to develop leadership at all levels. My favorite take home from this seminar was that, “We judge ourselves by our intentions, while others judge us by our behaviors”.

In People Management, we learned how Disney works to create the culture it wants, how they hire the right people for their organization and how they keep them motivated in a way that creates a great environment for both the employee as well as the customer. The most important take-away from this seminar was that if you don’t define your culture, it will define itself.

During Organizational Creativity we studied the four components Disney uses to maximize creativity from within their organization. We learned how important it is that everyone in the organization understands the organization's identity, then how to develop and utilize structural systems that nurture how ideas can be brought forth and developed. The final part of this process is, understanding how Disney has developed a creative culture and the importance of using their leaders to hold it all together. The buzz lines of this seminar were “organize to maximize” and that “everyone in the organization can help in the creative process”.

Loyalty was about gaining and retaining loyalty, not only from your customers but from your employees as well. We learned how to maximize loyalty by studying ways to maximize opportunities with your customers and employees with regards to - Brand alignment, the Employee/Customer experience, and ways your company can develop and nurture Employee/Customer relationships. Key insights from this seminar included learning that “emotion trumps all” and that “employees are customers, too”.

As you can imagine, a Disney Institute Seminar can be fun while you are learning. Part of each day’s session includes a visit to one of the Disney Parks and/or back-lot properties to observe the principals you learn in class. Participants get opportunities to observe Disney “cast members” and their procedures in action. Many of the tours include hearing from on-site leaders and managers and getting the opportunity to ask questions directly to these front-line people.

Disney has a good thing going and it’s taken a long time to get there. Are they perfect? No, and they freely admit it in the seminars. As with any dealings involving people, both guests and employees, there will be opportunities for things to slide through the cracks. Learning from our mistakes in a constantly changing environment is how we all learn and grow and Disney is no exception. By striving for perfection in measurable ways, companies like Disney transcend from just delivering a good product with good service to be able to deliver a great product with great service!

One would think that many of the other large Theme Parks would have taken advantage of this great opportunity and learn from a Master. I was more than surprised to learn that, to the knowledge of the facilitators I talked to, I am the first and only person ever to have attended the Disney Institute from the theme park industry! There have been attendees from museums and smaller venues but none from the major competitors. Go figure! You might then ask, who attends and why?

There are a variety of people attending from a cross-section of many industries. The seminars I attended included people from large industries such as the Armed Services, Government, Banking and Insurance. There were attendees from some smaller businesses you might not expect. In Leadership there was a gentleman who ran a Valet Parking business. In People Management there were people that ran housekeeping and laundry operations at a major University. In the first Seminar I attended, Quality Service, I was surprised to meet the owner and director of several Funeral Homes! He was in my last Seminar on Loyalty and has also attended all five Seminars. Attendees come from around the world. In my last class there were 6 Japanese attending with two translators.

While this may look like an advertisement for the Disney Institute, I can assure you, it is not. I wanted to write this article as a thank-you to the Disney Company, the Disney Institute, and all of its facilitators for sharing fifty years of Attraction experience with me. What they teach can be applied to any industry and anyone who attends has the potential of taking home some great ideas and information for their organizations and industries. For myself, being IN the attraction industry, it was an opportunity I could not afford to pass up.

The Disney Institute has certainly helped my cause by giving me tools to take my business, Fantasy of Flight, to the next level. It has also given me the encouragement to continue working towards my dream of taking the entire Attraction industry to the next level. To everyone that helped at the Disney Institute, I send a big Thank-You!

If you think you might gain from Disney’s 50-years of knowledge and experience, give them a try. By learning Disney’s techniques and how to apply them, you will find ways to improve how your company conducts its business and enhance your job skills as well. You never know, there may come a day when Disney just might be looking for another Visionary to lead their company! Tell them . . . Kermit sent ya!

Kermit Weeks

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