Anaheim, Calif. — March 21
The Disneyland Resort in Southern California is home to a new resource for business professionals looking for innovative ways to improve their organizations and to enhance their own leadership skills.
The Disney Approach to Leadership Excellence is a 3.5-day professional development program that takes participants inside the Disney operation to discover best practices that are easily adaptable to other organizations.
The newest offering from the Disney Institute, The Disney Approach to Leadership Excellence is regularly scheduled throughout the year.
It will be joined in June by another 3.5-day program called The Disney Approach to Quality Service.
Other programs in development will focus on people management, loyalty and organizational creativity.
Each new seminar represents the next generation of Disney Institute programs that have been popular at the Walt Disney World in Florida.
Simultaneous to their California premieres, the programs are being reintroduced in Florida with refreshed content, case studies and field experiences.
“For more than two decades, we’ve offered professional development programs to others interested in studying the Disney approach,” said George Aguel, senior vice president for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and leader of the Disney Institute. “Since that time, more than a million business leaders from around the world have experienced ‘the business behind the magic.’
“Bringing these programs to the Disneyland Resort is a response to the growing demand from businesses looking to take Disney practices back to their organizations. In addition to greater overall program capacity, the Disneyland series makes content more easily accessible to participants from the West Coast and the Pacific Rim.”
Participants in the premiere of The Disney Approach to Leadership Excellence included leaders from Apartment Investment and Management Company (Aimco).
The Denver-based company is the nation’s largest owner and operator of apartment communities, as well as one of thousands of organizations that have turned to Disney for inspiration and new ideas.
“Our company is in the process of building a service culture that ensures we offer the highest levels of service to all residents, said Jeff Adler, Aimco Operations executive vice president. “We are creating this new culture that in many ways is inspired by Disney’s and saw a strategic advantage in having our team take part in the Disney leadership program.
“This is also part of a much broader relationship between Aimco and the Disney Institute. About 360 team members have participated in customized Disney Institute programs at both the Disneyland Resort and the Walt Disney World Resort during the past year. Based on the positive responses from our team, we plan to expand our participation in these programs in the future.”
The Disney Approach to Leadership Excellence takes participants on a journey through 70 years of Disney leadership history.
Style and substance take center stage as participants learn how to develop and communicate a vision, to design organizational structure for success, to actively involve employees and other stakeholders and to demonstrate passionate, professional commitment.
Visits to onstage and behind-the-scenes locations showcase how vision and management theory become standard operating procedure.
Participants also meet with a broad cross-section of Disney leaders for firsthand perspectives on leadership functions such as building relationships, cross-functional collaboration, accountability, feedback and more.
Continuing education credit is available to program participants through a variety of accrediting bodies, including the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Annenberg School for Health Sciences at Eisenhower, the Human Resource Certification Institute and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy.
