Aspiring to Create A New Future

5 years ago this week Disney Aspire was launched. Today, it is a high performing program that has helped thousands of people build new futures for their lives. What became #DisneyAspire actually started just over 6 months before this anniversary. And, it started as simply a memo outlining an investment. The investment had one clear goal: use education to develop the broad hourly workforce at Disney.?

Aside from this, it was a blank canvas. Nothing else existed.?

As the leader tasked with creating it, I got to work - defining strategy, finding and building a team, creating a brand, plus plans to execute and more. There was much to do and a short time to get it done. I knew how important it was to build partnerships, internally and externally. Through all of this, a thought occurred to me “I know she is out there!” I stated that phrase in meetings, and as I stated it, I’d make up a story of an imaginary person working in an hourly job with dreams of a career. I made up lots of stories of women, men, careers, at Disney, outside of Disney. I made up the stories as inspiration and focus for myself and for everyone as to why we were creating this program for and the impact we were looking to make.?

Inspiration is a good way to get at a problem and rally others toward solving it. The problem here is that we are nearly one quarter of the way into the new century and yet much of the approaches to building and developing employees are still from the mid to late 20th Century.

The frontline workforce in America is estimated to be 95 million people. The #AspenInstitute has written for years about the impact of upskilling through education and the positive effects it can have on productivity, retention, and boosts to brand and culture. And yet a recent #HarvardBusinessSchool study hit on the problem succinctly by stating “The real problem lies in the way organizations mismanage their hourly workers”. This is so interesting to me because we talk so much about disruption in business, game changing ideas that shake up markets and industries.?

How about disrupting and creating more game changers on the people side?!?

It begins with not thinking about people in the business as costs to be contained. Instead, start with a view and approach of the workforce as talented human beings with dreams and aspirations that can make your business better. We benefit today from the knowledge that our minds keep growing, growth doesn’t stop with age or circumstance. When we lean in and provide an environment that cultivates learning, powerful things can take place. Leaders have the incredible ability to shape and grow people everyday through building a genuine connection and seeing their potential.

That is what we set out to do 5 and a half years ago. We got inspired to help begin to solve it. I wanted to make sure that we took a creative approach. Follow an image of what we were after, get to know all we could about the problem, the barriers and constraints, and make it happen. As we did, it became clear to me that whatever we were creating would never be done. It would need to be constantly changing and adapting to help the business grow amidst change and uncertainty.

In the 5 years since, over 14000 employees have participated, thousands of graduates, and 3100+ individual promotions! We created a stronger acquisition lever to come and work at Disney, plus those that came and participated had lower turnover, and stronger perception of their future career potential. All these results and more speak to higher employee engagement which translates into better performance. And those promotions - they’ve led to life altering impact in tangible things like personal income increases, which turns into the ability to spend in communities. This is the flip side of all the direct and indirect costs which the outdated approaches continues to focus on. The efforts have also led to equally powerful impacts around mindset, believing in oneself and showing the world all one can be! Every single participant worked hard to perform their job while also studying, caring for themselves and those important to them.

I am so incredibly proud of the team that was a part of this. I am proud of the what is now the Disney Aspire team, plus countless partners throughout Disney, and great partners like #GuildEducation.?

Oh and by the way, she was definitely out there. I can now share a real story, one of a single mom who came to America from Venezuela. She worked in a front line hourly role and wanted a career in Finance. So, while working and raising her daughter, she earned a degree! Then she went after putting her new skills to work, and with coaching from a leader/mentor, she was able achieve her dream. She is now promoted as a Financial Analyst with sites set on even more!

We found her and so many others!

I believe companies can do well and do good at the same time.?And you know what, when you think creatively and bring new approaches, your business can actually get better too.

The night Disney Aspire launched, I stayed up late to follow what was happening. I could see people literally signing up, and my team would send me updates. As it was all happening I took a moment to sit back and appreciate it all. We’d covered so much ground in such a short amount of time and it was working! I made a commitment that night that I would never stop until the impact was made. Impact for people, for the business, for communities. And I still haven't stopped. Though I am no longer a part of Disney, I still hold that commitment to find more. I know more are out there. This time I am in search of business leaders who really want to bring novel thinking and approaches to how they can make an impact for the future.?

P.s. - If you’re with me on helping create change and bring more new ways to develop workforce, please repost this and share it!

P.p.s - The picture is sample of just some of the stories from participants, beginning to fill in that canvas!