Bill Capodagli

Walt Disney was indeed a creative genius, even though he often said, “we don’t allow geniuses around here.” His true genius was his ability to focus on being the best by creating something new or reinventing the old. Great leaders don’t just meet customer needs; they create unique experiences. They don’t simply provide a product or service that meets specifications; they solve customer problems; they fulfill customer dreams; and they create “magical moments.”

In this presentation, Bill Capodagli introduces Storyboarding, a tool that Walt Disney created in the 1930s and continued to use in all of his creative projects for the remainder of his life.
Storyboarding is a structured exercise that quickly captures the thoughts and creative ideas from a group of participants. These thoughts and ideas are recorded on cards and then displayed on a board or a wall. The result is what Bill calls an “idea landscape.” Storyboarding is an ideal tool for generating solutions to problems and enhancing communications. Bill teaches audiences how storyboards can be adapted to a variety of problem-solving situations in which the introduction of the visual element makes interconnections of ideas, creative thoughts and activities readily apparent.

Bill will present how Disney creates an environment that is conducive to creativity and innovation. Bill also explains how to apply the “nine-step” process to move a “blue sky” dream to a unique guest experience.

Walt Disney once said, “Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest natural resource - the minds of our children.” According to an ACT college entrance exam study, three-fourths of students who recently took the exam lacked the skills to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses in reading, math, social studies and science, even though they had taken a high school curriculum designed to prepare them for higher education. School systems need to reinvent the educational process just like Walt reinvented the amusement parks and created Disneyland. In this presentation, Bill Capodagli provides the framework for transforming the learning experience using Walt Disney’s credo for success…Dream, Believe, Dare, Do:

Dream – Walt Disney made a practice of envisioning the untried and impossible. School systems need to create a vision that motivates teachers, students and parents to succeed in a true learning environment.

Believe – Walt understood that success comes from an entire team sharing a unique set of values. Creating an organization where teachers, staff and students are motivated to achieve long-term goals in an environment of mutual respect and trust is paramount to reinventing the learning experience.

Dare – Walt did not follow in the footsteps of others, sit on the sidelines, or take the safe and unimaginative approach to providing “magical moments” for his guests. School systems must dare to make a difference by breaking out of the traditional “teacher-centered” classroom teaching and embrace “student-centric” learning experiences where the teacher serves as a facilitator.

Do – Walt was a master at creating plans that inspired an entire team to act. The result: a legendary organization with guests who return year after year to relive the magic that Disney created. School systems must also plan for long-term change. Let’s not waste, as Walt said, “our greatest natural resource…our children.”

Success in today’s health care industry comes from inspired leadership and focusing on the holistic patient experience. There are great lessons to be learned from Walt Disney who believed in creating a “magical” experience for guests. . . the same paradigm that is alive and well in the best of the best health care environments today.

Walt Disney was once asked what made him so successful. He said that he would often Dream of new techniques that had not been attempted in the past; Believe in the power of his own values; Dare to take risks; and then just Do something to accomplish the dream.

In this presentation, Bill Capodagli translates the Dream, Believe, Dare, Do model for the health care setting. He provides a variety of examples, most notably Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut, owner of the famed Planetree approach to hospital management. Bill also recounts the inside story of how the Disney leadership and service standards were achieved – not by sudden flashes of creative insight, but by a much considered and carefully wrought system for constantly raising the bar of excellence. Bill provides solid techniques for adapting The Disney Way model to the health care environment.

Walt Disney created an organization that has become the quintessential model for customer service, perhaps in the entire world. In Customer Service: The Disney Way, Bill Capodagli leads his participants to apply Walt’s Dream, Believe, Dare, Do principles to achieve a Disney Way service culture. Walt Disney once said. “You don’t build the product for yourself. You need to know what people want and build it for them.” Bill provides a solid roadmap required to become a customer-centric organization, based upon Walt’s success credo – Dream, Believe, Dare, Do

Storyboarding Workshop:

Nearly a century ago, the Storyboard made it possible for Walt Disney to experiment, to move drawings around, to change direction, to insert something he thought was missing, or to discard a sequence that wasn’t working. Decades later, in the 1960's, Disney expanded the Storyboarding technique from simply a story depiction to a visual technique for generating solutions to problems and enhancing communications.

Storyboarding takes a simple technique—visual display—and uses it in a unique way to help participants unleash their collective creative energy to produce ideas and solve problems.

Key Benefits of Storyboarding:

1. High level of participation. No forced discussion. Everyone’s ideas are protected due to anonymity.

2. Heightens concentration. Everyone is immersed in working on the topic, idea and/or problem at hand.

3. More organized than the output from brainstorming, yet retains the flexibility that individuals and teams need as they work their way through the various stages of idea generation and/or problem-solving.

4. Barriers between functional areas begin to crumble…everyone is working together for the common good of a team or collaborative teams.