Comparing Disney University and other aspects of the company's culture to terms discussed in organizational communication.

1. Disney Culture
By Emily Powell

2. Summary
“The Four Circumstances Driving Disney’s Organizational Culture”
Walt Disney Studios trains its employees in a program called “Disney
University” where all employees are taught the ropes of both their individual
position and of the company as a whole.
One of the main lessons taught during the training concerns Disney’s four core
values that are the foundation of Disney’s organizational culture: innovation,
organizational support, education, and entertainment.

3. Summary (cont.)
Innovation
Disney expects its employees to be willing to take risks and push the status quo in order to create
consistently original ideas and maintain the culture of “the happiest place on earth.”
Organizational Support
“No one is ‘too big’ to participate in Disney”
From the top down, everyone is expected to support and encourage employee training and
development. They believe that if everyone doesn’t do it, no one will.
Education
Lectures and seminars are provided to employees so that Disney is always improving

4. Deal and Kennedy’s “Strong Cultures”
“Deal and Kennedy argue that business success can be enhanced through the
development of a ‘strong’ culture.”(Miller 72)
Basically, if an organization has the components Deal and Kennedy deem
necessary for a strong culture, then their business will likely fare better than
those that do not.
There are 4 key components of a strong culture:
Values
Heroes
Rites and rituals

5. Disney has Strong Culture
The article spells out Disney’s cultural values plainly: They value innovation,
organizational support, education, and entertainment.
More details in summary slide
While Disney surely has many heroes, this particular article names Van France
as the hero of Disney University.
Founder of Disney University along with Walt Disney
Dedicated visionary who worked to incorporate these values into the employee training and
creating the “happiest place on earth.”
“Budgets, schedules, reports, more reports, union negotiations, training programs, meetings … more meetings, handbooks,
cover-your-ass memos and the endless things which take up your time are of no value unless they end up producing A

6. Disney has Strong Culture (cont.)
As far as rites and rituals go, Disney University itself is a powerful one. All
employees are trained there and have all been for the past 58 years now.
Disney University itself could also be Disney’s cultural network. When
employees are trained there, the values held by the company are instilled in
them right then and there. They are taught the ropes of their individual jobs,
sure, but they are also taught what it means to be employed at Disney
foremost.

7. Peters and Waterman’s “Excellent Cultures”
Similar to Deal and Kennedy’s “Strong Cultures”.
Studied 62 companies with “excellent cultures” and found common themes that
they shared.
Published in their book In Search of Excellence
Examples of themes:
Close relations to the customer
Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
Productivity through people

8. Disney has Excellent Cultures
Looking at these themes, it’s clear that Disney possesses them all.
Close relations to the customer
It’s known that Disney values their customers and wants to create a happy experience for them.
Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
“Excellent organizations encourage employees to take risks in the development of new ideas.”
(Miller 73)
One of Disney’s main 4 values is innovation, which is essentially the same thing.

9. Disney has Excellent Cultures (cont.)
Productivity through people
“Excellent organizations encourage positive and respectful relationships among management and
employees.” (Miller 73)
One of Disney’s core 4 values is organizational support, which means that all employees are
expected to support each other, especially in new employee training. You can’t create a happy
atmosphere for customers if employees aren’t happy.
Value-Driven
“Excellent organizations have employees and managers who share the same core value of
productivity and performance.
That’s what Disney University is all about- teaching all employees to strive for Disney’s goals and
a positive experience for all.

10. More about Culture
Along with Deal and Kennedy’s “Strong Cultures” and Peters and Waterman’s
“Excellent Cultures”, there’s one more approach to culture that is discussed in
the chapter.
“Rather than seeing culture as a thing that can and should be managed, these
researchers see culture as the emerging and sometimes fragmented values,
practices, narratives, and artifacts that make a particular organization what it
is.” (Miller 74)

11. More about Culture (cont.)
This approach incompasses four distinct characteristics that scholars believe
make successful organizational cultures what they are:
They’re complicated
They’re emergent
They are not unitary
And they are often ambiguous

12. Organizational Cultures are Complicated
This approach looks at a culture’s complexity like an onion
Onions in themselves are one thing, but they’re made up of many layers
The core, center layer of the onion model is the values of the company, which are the basis upon
which the outside layers are built on.
For Disney, the internal layers would be the four core values already discussed:
Innovation, organizational support, education, and entertainment.
From there, you could have Disney University training the cast members to work
with these values, resulting with the friendliness and magic of the Disney
experience as the outer layer.

13. Organizational Cultures are Emergent
While integrated values are important, they don’t mean much if they are not
acted upon as an organization and by the employees.
Organizational cultures are emergent because it is something that is developed
not only by a company’s communicative means but also by the everyday
interactions between employees and customers.
Disney shows this by mandating certain behaviors of their employees that
demonstrate both their values and their dedication to creating the magical
atmosphere in a Disney experience, like what’s taught in Disney University.

14. Organizational Cultures are not Unitary
With most organizations, it is pretty unreasonable to expect culture to be
completely uniform across the board.
“Rather, most scholars agree that organizations are characterized by a multitude of organizational
subcultures that ‘may coexist in harmony, conflict, or indifference to each other.’” (Miller 75)
This is especially true with Disney because it is one of the largest companies in
the world.
Disney Parks alone have
Disney World (Orlando)- with 4 different theme parks and 2 water parks
Disneyland (Anaheim)- with 2 different theme parks

15. Organizational Cultures are not Unitary (cont.)
That is only the theme parks. There is also the movie production part of Disney,
Disney University, etc.
With so many locations and so many employees performing different tasks for
Disney, how could one singular culture possibly incompass it all?
The subcultures derive from the overall established culture of Disney, but vary
based on circumstances such as location, employment position, and personal
contacts.

16. Organizational Cultures are Often Ambiguous
No matter how hard organizations may try, nothing is perfect. And with a
concept as large and as abstract as culture, it is understandably difficult (if not
impossible) to pin it down.
The text describes ambiguous cultures as “a normal, salient, and inescapable
part of organizational functioning in the contemporary world.” (Miller 78)
I see this as just another way that every organization, even one as well
established as Disney, always has room to improve.

17. Questions
I would be interested in knowing more about the different subcultures of Disney,
particularly between the different parks.
How are they different?
How are they similar?
How does geography affect them?
I’d also be interested in knowing more specifics about Disney University and the
activities that they do to train their employees
Where is it located?
Are there multiple locations?

18. Works Cited
Lipp, D. (2015, December 29). The Four Circumstances Driving Disney's
Organizational Culture. Retrieved October 07, 2016, from
http://www.commpro.biz/corporate-communications/internal-employee-
communications/the-four-circumstances-driving-disneys-organizational-
culture/
Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes.
7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1999. Print.