Reading Share: 'Disney's Way of Teaching: How Even 90% Part-Timers Become the Best Staff' [Part 96]

Introduction

This time, I am sharing insights from Bunjiro Fukushima's 'Disney's Way of Teaching: How Even 90% Part-Timers Become the Best Staff' (Chukei Publishing, 2010).

The author joined Oriental Land as a first-generation full-time employee in 1983, the year Tokyo Disneyland opened, and developed over 100 Disney training programs until his retirement in 2007. Alongside this, he was tireless in his self-improvement, such as studying psychology at the Open University of Japan to enhance his training capabilities, making him truly a pioneer of Disney education.

In this book, while introducing 'a portion of Disney's philosophy and teaching methods focused on supervisors and seniors,' the author also touches upon 'customer satisfaction,' the 'human resource education' that provides it, and how to create a workplace 'climate' and 'culture' that nurtures talent.

Among these, I will be sharing the theme of 'making staff recognize the importance of their work.'

Making Staff Recognize the Importance of Their Work

As some of you may know, Custodial, which was the least popular job at Disney at the time, became a very popular job a few years later. But how did that happen? Regarding Custodial, the author recalls that time as follows:

He says this situation was the same even for full-time employees. However, a few years later, the situation turned around, and Custodial suddenly became a popular job. According to the author, 'The biggest driving force was that supervisors and seniors repeatedly told their juniors about the importance of Custodial,' and that importance can be summarized in the following words:

It is believed that this is how the true significance of the Custodial job was conveyed to the staff, and the fact that the company as a whole thoroughly communicated that significance and importance is what pushed Custodial to become a popular job.

This can be said to be a perfect example of how staff motivation improves dramatically once the importance of their work is recognized. I believe this is a perspective that can be applied to any job.

Also, if we interpret "work" broadly as a "role," I think that not only in the workplace but also at home, school, and in the local community, people can fulfill their roles more proactively by realizing the importance of their own roles.

If you do not feel the importance of your current job and cannot find motivation, I think it is important to re-assign meaning and importance to that work yourself, and to explore the possibilities of other roles concretely by taking a broader perspective.

So, let's look at concrete examples of Custodial regarding "making staff recognize the importance of their work."

Concrete Examples of Making Staff Recognize the Importance of Their Work

Specifically, it seems that one month of new employee training is dedicated to Custodial practice, and on the annual "Part-Timer Appreciation Day," the president serves part-timers as a Custodial staff member.

According to the author, 'Through this appearance of the president, the importance of the Custodial job, and the fact that as president, he is grateful to the cast members who are taking on that work, was conveyed to the part-timers.'

In this way, Custodial successfully became a popular job, the number of staff who take pride in their work increased, and it seems that ingenuity is also being used to expand the scope of the work.

For example, 'To entertain guests, they try to "show up" the work, such as making Mickey Mouse faces out of fallen leaves or cleaning on rollerblades. They also come up with and implement ideas to improve motivation, such as setting "ranks" based on work skills.'

And surprisingly, these ideas and practices were 'mostly thought up by the part-timers themselves,' and 'such custodial performances have been picked up by the media, further increasing the popularity of the custodial staff.'

While the information in this book may be old, it seems that this wonderful culture is still maintained in recent Disney affairs as well. It can be said that the greatness of Disney lies in the fact that there is no shortage of such examples, including in other Disney-related books.

As mentioned above, once staff members begin to 'recognize the importance of their work,' it is thought that they start to infuse meaning into their work in a self-responsible and proactive manner.

Also, as seen in the previous example, considering that 'most of the ideas were thought up by part-timers' and are widely practiced on the front lines, it can be said that the certain degree of freedom granted to part-timers leads to the creation of wonderful ideas. It is also thought that psychological safety plays an important role here.

The importance of work for a personal trainer

There are many different tasks for a personal trainer, but ultimately, it is we trainers ourselves who give importance to each and every one of those tasks.

As a trainer, it is of course important to accumulate specialized knowledge related to body makeup and improve one's skills. On the other hand, if body makeup is merely a means to improve one's life and not the purpose of life itself, one will realize that a trainer does not just have to be a body makeup expert.

I believe that while providing the means of body makeup, not sparing understanding and support for its purpose is what enhances the 'importance of work' for a personal trainer. To that end, I think it is important to be well-versed not only in body makeup but also in 'people.' I believe it is important not so much to know 'people' in general, but to have an attitude of acknowledging and respecting the diversity of 'people.'

From this perspective, it may have been inevitable that the combination of 'personal trainer x reading' was born within me. Also, as I accumulated such reading experiences, it was a valuable realization that the theme of 'physical and mental health, self-actualization, and happiness through body makeup' became clear.

This can be said to have given me an opportunity to think about the 'importance of work' for a personal trainer from a broader perspective. If body makeup itself is merely a means and the purpose is to support the client's 'physical and mental health, self-actualization, and happiness,' then I feel I have become able to take an interest in anything related to those.

Ultimately, this was also about redefining my own work. There is no need to narrow the scope or importance of one's work according to common sense, such as saying that because you are a personal trainer, your work content is XX. While common sense is important, I believe that it is in going beyond common sense that services that create excitement are born. In an era of rapid change, I believe it is important to change along with the changes yourself, or to be on the side that creates the changes themselves, so as not to be left behind. And, to constantly redefine your own work in line with the changes. To redefine it so much that you break through to the point where you no longer know what your job is.

The last part might be a bit of an exaggeration, but as the perception of the 'importance of work' changes in line with the changes of the times, attempting to change one's attitude to work flexibly and adaptably seems to be useful in gaining new meaning in work while breaking through common sense.

If the recognition of the 'importance of work' is achieved at a deep level, then perhaps work performance commensurate with that depth will be demonstrated.

I would like to continue to pursue this in the field as a personal trainer.

Conclusion

Thank you very much for reading to the end this time as well.
I am very happy that the number of views, reactions, and followers is increasing little by little every day. I will continue to do my best, aiming to update at least once a week.

I have intentionally not made book summaries the main focus, but have limited the content to sharing parts that I found interesting from my own perspective. I hope that if it remains in your memory even a little, it will lead to deepening your daily reading experience and to concrete actions and practices.

I look forward to your continued support.