Best career advice: From Disney

Hi Everyone, thanks for joining me!

Today I’m going to talk about a life changing piece of career advice that I got from Disney! Yes, you heard that correctly, Disney! My career has been at the intersection of life science and technology – something you’d NEVER associate with Disney – but I’ve never forgotten this advice as I find it critical for career success. I’ll talk about why this advice is SO important and I’ll share an example of how I applied it in my career to drive a successful outcome. I hope it inspires you to do the same.

So, the first role I had after finishing my PhD studies was as a postdoctoral researcher in oncology, and I was working at a large, famous hospital. As you can imagine, at any given time there were thousands of patients from around the world visiting the hospital, usually with very serious ailments. For this reason, the hospital leadership was committed to instilling a culture of sensitivity, empathy, and service in the entire staff. 

Even people like me, who were not physicians or nurses interacting with patients directly, were expected to carry these values. This is because when you’re working on the campus of the hospital, you’re still passing the patients and their families in the corridors, standing in the elevators with them, eating next to them in the cafeteria, etc. And there are certain behaviors you should have as hospital staff  to make sure they feel included and comfortable in the space.  

Toward these ends, one day, all hospital employees were required to take what was called “the Disney training”. A Disney employee visited us and talked to us about the philosophies and practices behind Disney’s successful amusement parks and cruise line. The Disney employee behaved exactly how you would expect a Disney employee to behave. He was very joyful, smiling, high energy, and you felt happy in his presence. He shared many amazing insights on how Disney approaches customer service and satisfaction in their amusement parks and cruise line, many of which were highly transferable to creating a welcoming environment for patients and their families at the hospital.

Of all the things he said, by far the most important thing was the following: “ANY INTERACTION YOU HAVE WITH A CUSTOMER OR COLLEAGUE CAN BE MAGIC OR TRAGIC”.

Again, I’m going to repeat it, because I think it’s so necessary to remember it: “ANY INTERACTION YOU HAVE WITH A CUSTOMER OR COLLEAGUE CAN BE MAGIC OR TRAGIC”.

This comment is a game-changer, because the main takeaway is that making something magic or tragic is a CHOICE. YOU have the power to create a magic outcome instead of a tragic one.

I think there are two EASY ways to drive so-called “magical” outcomes with our customers and colleagues so we advance our careers toward success.

(1) Make the effort to be pleasant to be around. Similar to all the people playing Disney characters at Disney World, when you go to work you are playing a part. It helps to be smiling, cheerful, and high energy. Obviously people prefer to be around someone they find pleasant instead of unpleasant, as that makes them feel good. This is necessary for your career so that you can build positive relationships and drive productive outcomes for your clients or with your colleagues and teammates. Even in the science and technology world, where technical excellence is paramount, you will only go so far if you cannot cultivate and leverage relationships. Being pleasant is the first step in that direction.

(2) Assume your colleagues and customers are well-intentioned. Assume they want to do a good job until you have reason to believe otherwise. Make the effort to talk to them to understand what’s required of them to be successful in their roles, who their stakeholders are, and what their incentives are. That way, you can engage and collaborate with them effectively. Many times in my career, colleagues and customers that often seemed grumpy, standoffish, and hard to work with was because of misconceptions on how to align objectives and engage with each other to achieve them.

This leads exactly to an example from my career where I used these ways to create a quote-unquote “magical” outcome with a seemingly difficult colleague. 

At one point in my career, years after my Disney training, I worked for a large pharmaceutical company. My role was to work with innovative technology start-ups, mainly in the artificial intelligence space, and develop strategies for the pharmaceutical company to adopt them. Because artificial intelligence is data intensive, I had to work heavily with IT managers for evaluating and implementing these new technologies. One IT manager I had to work with seemed very difficult. He was grumpy, standoffish, and avoided talking to me.

So, instead of getting angry with him, I thought in terms of making my interaction with him magic instead of tragic. I kept all of my emails, calls, and in-person meetings with him positive and energetic. He continued being distant, so finally I organized a face-to-face meeting with him to discuss our working relationship. It turned out that he felt my teammates and I were working on a lot of projects and advancing them without keeping him up to date about our activities. He was annoyed because he worried that he’d have to work with us on implementing these technologies on short notice. He didn’t want to be caught unprepared and not deliver what was required of him. 

So, it turned out that he wasn’t acting difficult to be mean, he wanted to do a good job and was not sure how to go about it. That’s why it’s important to assume your colleagues are well-intentioned and not to get angry with them.

Once we had this conversation, the solution was simple – we organized regular catch-ups to discuss each other’s activities and make long term project plans. Our working relationship went from cold and tense to warm and collaborative. It was a very productive resolution, since we became all that much more effective at meeting our respective deliverables!

Well, that’s all I have for today! I hope you find a way to apply this amazing career advice from Disney.

Thanks again so much for joining me, and ‘til next time! Bye for now!