| All the country was embroiled in a war to end all wars. Not only were international markets cut off, and most of his artists off to fight, but the U.S. Army took over the Walt Disney Studios to fix tanks in the soundstages during California blackouts (Soundstages have no windows). To make do, Walt started making cartoons for the government.
U.S. Secretary of Treasurer Henry Morgenthau sought Walt Disney out to make a picture about the patriotic duty of paying income tax, something many if not most Americans were still not doing. At a reasonable price, Walt offered his leading man, Donald Duck, to make the pitch. The short was shown everywhere, and created a higher level of compliance. But in a classic act of bureaucracy, Congress scoffed at paying for a cartoon in the middle of a war and Walt’s organization was audited. When the auditors took a look at Disney’s books, they found nothing inappropriate, but they did exclaim, “This sure is a Mickey Mouse operation!”
Walt took the comment as a compliment, as it was…sort of. You see Mickey Mouse is a simple character. It’s made of basic circles and lines. The expression meant that you have a very simple, easy approach to doing your books.
So ask yourself, when it comes to how you do business, would you like to be called a “Mickey Mouse Operation?” For that matter, how about an “Apple Operation?” A “Harley-Davidson Operation?” Or, a “Southwest Operation?” Any of those terms might express the thought that your organization was cool, or radical, or fun, respectively. What these and other great organizations have in common is that they are simply focused on their customers. In fact, they lead with their customer by galvanizing their organizations toward the following basics:
- They create a “chain reaction of excellence” where leadership drives employee engagement, which drives customer satisfaction, and ultimately operational and financial results.
- They understand their customers by walking in their shoes and understand their unique needs, expectations, and personal styles.
- They unify everyone with a shared vision and operational values
- They align all of the resources of the operation towards exceeding the promises they make, while making the experience worth the price
- They view their employees as internal customers - engaging all of them in being personal leaders of influence.
Lead With Your Customer represents not only what corporations can do to break out of the performance rut, but government as well. Imagine saying “the {state} Department of Human Services!” or the “City of ___” with the likes of Ritz Carleton?
Transforming public bureaucracies is hard, and far from simplistic. But it’s not because of the people. I can name many who went into public service years ago to make a difference, and they’ve been hindered by broken systems, systems designed a long time ago and not with customers in mind. Still, if you do it like great organizations and “simply” approach it, you too can create the "Mickey Mouse Operation.” Or Apple. Or Harley-Davidson. Or Federal Express.
Which public “Department” or “Agency” would you nominate as among these organizations that lead with their customer? Tell Us!
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