In October 2004, our family went on a
Disney cruise. We took an airline to Orlando and then
drove to the Cape
Canaveral port for
embarking on the cruise ship the Disney Magic. On the flight
there, the person checking us in at the airport managed to lose Nancy’s
driver's license. The flight attendants
were ugly and surly, the light above me flickered and then burned out, the seat
in front of me collapsed, and we were fed what barnyard animals generally
reject. What a pleasure by contrast it was to be on the Disney ship where
everything, from the way they made the beds to the polish of the waiters, the
spa, and the lobster tails was first rate. I was so impressed with the
quality of the experience from beginning to end, perhaps because I've gotten
use to such mediocrity from other companies. It is now a catch phrase I use when I’m
checking my boys’ homework. “Is this
Disney quality?” I ask, and they understand what I mean.
Perhaps the reason why customer
service is bad and getting worse in the United
States is
because the Walt Disney Company employs the majority of people who are capable
of providing good customer service. Every cast member is trained to be
helpful and friendly to the guests, and it shows. There's something about
the philosophy Walt instituted, and they've managed to keep it going four
decades after his death. On another
ship, I could have gone to Mexico and the Bahamas for half
the price, but it is clear that if companies are willing to demonstrate quality,
the customers will come. So, while I was lounging on the port deck
overlooking the sun-dappled sea and jumping dolphins, I mused as to
why our government cannot run as well as Disney. In fact, would it
be possible for any state to run like a Disney organization? Disney's
root insight is that there are no snowflakes-- no uniqueness of any kind when
it comes to creating work products.
Everything is done to such a refined degree through sheer process that
excellence is inevitable although predictable. There isn't five different Donald Ducks. There is just one Donald Duck, and woe to the
cartoonist who deviates Disney's Donald Duck's
Platonic ideal. In my life of work of
commuter programming, it is rare to see this kind of process. Almost everything depends on the
craftsmanship of the individual programmer, not unlike the stone masons in the
guilds who used to chip stones in the Middle
Ages. A customer driver process oriented
company will stand out in the market place.
To be sure, there are some disadvantages. The quality of cruise
rested largely on the existence of a large tightly managed, well-trained
servant class. I know several people who
used to work for Disney, and all I can say is that there's a reason they all
secretly called it "Mousewitz."
There were no libraries and life in
this artificial bubble would get insufferably tedious after awhile, turning the
Disney Magic into the voyage of the damned.
But, as an enlightened for-profit dictatorship, I couldn't conceive
of a better system of government that that which was run by Mickey and Minnie
and Donald. Of course, unlike the
government, Disney knows that if we don’t like the way they do things, we can
go elsewhere. A Mickey Mouse administration
would therefore be an administration that is accountable and
customer-driven. Perhaps Alexander Pope
had it right when he said
For Forms of Government let fools contest;
whatever is best administered is best.
