Walt Disney once said, “We allow no geniuses around our studio.” He inspired his coworkers to dream, and he believed that everyone was creative.
Our favorite way to capture some “Disney magic” from an entire organization by championing a Dream Room.
You can begin by selecting a vacant office or small conference room that may be used for this special purpose, hopefully for the long-term. The walls should be suitable for displaying creative idea cards, photos, and/or drawings. Many of our clients use magnetic white boards with small magnets, corked walls with pins, and Post-it Notes. We, however, favor the “old fashioned” way of storyboarding – hanging vertical strips of painters tape, sticky side out, and anchoring them at the top and bottom with masking tape (see Chapter 10 of The Disney Way for complete details on Storyboarding).
Once your Dream Room is ready for launch, communicate to all coworkers that their ideas and comments are welcomed at any time, but encourage them to stop by at least once a week to contribute. We also suggest that you seek out an employee who would be a Dream Room “Idea” facilitator – someone who is trusted throughout the organization and will be dedicated to regularly reviewing all the ideas, cluster similar thoughts and recommend improvement teams to implement or further investigate ideas.
Now, here’s the most critical part of this entire initiative – management buy-in! Management must act on all appropriate ideas and explain to employees why some other popular ideas cannot be acted upon. Without top-down direction and support, a Dream Room will likely become the topic of bad jokes and a promise of “change” that was broken.
Good luck…and please send us photos of your Dream Room to post! If you are successful, you will realize countless fantastic ideas, and will also engage employees in an ongoing “dream” experience!
Next Week – If “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” Can Work in Government, it Can Work Anywhere!
