James Songster is a magician and an educator who worked for Walt Disney World Resort® for 30 years. In 1997 he founded James Songster Emerging Leader Training.

Sue Schank had a career in public education as an exceptional education teacher and department chair, and then a longer career at Walt Disney World Resort®, mostly involved with the education department.

Barbara Blake started at The Walt Disney Company® in 1978 and ended up working there for 42 years. The majority of that time was in educational opportunities.

Together they operate James Songster Emerging Leader Training (https://BetterLeadershipSkills.com), a company devoted to unlocking the best of leadership, teamwork, creativity and organizational culture.

Doug: How did the three of you meet?

Barbara: In the education department at The Walt Disney Resort®, which started in 1979 with children’s educational programs. The same department then created business programs, educator programs for teachers, and knowledge-based programs for adults visiting the Parks. Eventually all of that came under the same umbrella of the Disney Institute®. Sue and I taught educator programs. James joined the team soon afterwards, and I came back to the Disney Institute to lead that department after four years in public relations for the town of Celebration.

James: I was a direct report to Sue, and Sue was a direct report to Barbara in the Education Department.

Doug: What inspired you all to stick together post Disney to create a training company?

James: I had joined the Disney Institute as an adult educator teaching Disney culture. They also needed somebody who could talk to youth. My background bridged both sides, so I was useful in that regard. I do not come from an education field, so I learned everything from them. Sue, Barbara and I had agreed that none of us was allowed to retire before anybody else – and then we all did.

Sue: One of the other reasons we are together after retirement is that we loved what we did together at Disney. We had the opportunity to continue doing that and making it our own.

James: We all know that if you’re the smartest person in the room you’re in the wrong room. So, when I started my own workshops the very first thing that I did was reach back out to these two incredible people and said I need all the help I can get. Sue and Barbara agreed to come back and work with me and that’s what we’re doing now.

Doug: What would you say are the key components that Disney taught each of you about leadership?

James: We all had different responsibilities. Barbara was a department head, Sue was a front line direct leader, and I was what we defined as an “untitled” leader. We each have a different way of relating to leadership because of the different positions that we held.

Barbara: Based on the Disney philosophy both for the Studio and the Theme Parks, we recognized the need to support the employees, known as cast members. We wanted to create the best experience by putting processes and procedures in place that would support them and allow them to be successful. That support system would allow the Cast Members to create a great guest experience for everybody that came to Walt Disney World or explored their products. We still needed logical and efficient business practices because Disney is a business. Our leaders were not only trained in whatever department they led, but we also had a lot of training from our Traditions, our origin story, our values and the Company’s mission, to whatever we can do as leaders to support our Cast.

James: I think a big element of the Disney leader philosophy is that I saw that my leaders walked and talked exactly the way they said we should, so there was consistency of message. There is a mutual respect across the lines of seniority and responsibility when everybody has the same value system, the same decision-making process and the same shared purpose. That is one of the biggest keys to the Disney leader philosophy. Nobody is better than anybody else; we are all part of the magic.

Sue: The training for leaders is very intensive. You have a whole lot of other jobs as a leader but taking care of your people is absolutely the number one responsibility. The other thing I liked about leadership at Disney is that you’re not alone as a leader. There are always people to help. Rather than being afraid of making the wrong decision there were always people who would help you think it through to come to the right decision for your team.

James: Our team was perfectly suited to what we were doing. We would get new Cast Members coming into the department each year, and we encouraged them to gain all the skills and knowledge, and learn all the lessons they could from training and working with our team. Then they were ready to look elsewhere for more opportunities, while sharing what they had learned across our company.

Doug: What were the key aspects for a successful teamwork and how you trained other people on how to build those key aspects of successful teamwork?

James:  My leaders were able to bring in people that were already in the right mindset. A big part of our philosophy was to choose for the mindset that complements our team and then teach skills, as opposed to somebody’s who’s got this great skill set and now we have to shape their mindset.

I think another huge key factor was the way we benefited from being in an environment where we had an amazing collection of differences. We valued and craved diversity because we want as many different ideas, backgrounds and thoughts as we can. It’s a strategic advantage that is complementary to our mission. It gave us a greater ability to serve the clients.

Barbara:  In order to serve our education audience, we created a unique and diverse labor strategy.  In the 8-month season in which we offered our educational programs, we led close to 200 facilitators.  We utilized college interns for a semester experience, part-time staff and we “borrowed” staff from around Walt Disney World to teach our programs.  In this way, we were able to gain an immense range of diversity in our facilitation team.  To manage all these diverse cast members, we needed them to buy into our mission and vision.  They needed to know how to best represent The Disney Company to our audience!  The key to having a staff attuned to the same mission is on-going, effective communication.  All our staff were aware of our mission and values before joining the team, and were then given training to insure they also exemplified those values with every guest group they led.

Sue: I would have our trainer team instill to our trainees that everyone was there because they showed such enormous potential. Every single one was deserving of respect all the way around. It was vitally important that we respected each other. We knew everybody was different as we purposely hired a diverse team, but we respected those differences and respected those people. The talents and the gifts they brought to us were critical for me.

Doug: Beyond communication, what else helped your team function at a high level? As a group that was together for a long time were there other factors that helped you reach success?

Barbara: We had lines of communication up and down the ladder so that people weren’t afraid to come and talk to whoever was on the team no matter their title. Somebody could come into my office and talk to me. They didn’t have to go through James or Sue. We valued people who took initiative as well. In our training, we provided them with the tools to be able to make decisions on the spot, to experiment, or even come up with new ideas. We provided a safe space to make decisions. If they were good decisions, we applauded. If they were poor decisions, we would coach them to make better or more creative decisions in the future.

Doug: Disney is known for its amazing creativity. How do you teach others how to tap into the creative spirit?

Sue: People won’t let the creativity fly if they feel unsafe. We created a safe environment where it’s okay to take a flying leap. It might be fabulously successful, or it might not. Either way we learn from it and apply that moving forward. Creating a safe space is what makes creativity possible. It is absolutely essential that people feel comfortable and safe being creative

James: Creating a safe environment where people are willing to take risks was the biggest challenge. Most people are afraid of being seen as unsuccessful or afraid of failure. Without taking a chance you’re only going to do exactly what you’re doing right now. For me, that was a revelation because, as a magician and entrepreneur, my whole life is about experimenting. The work became how to create an environment where people felt safe taking chances. We created the leader mindset that  acknowledged not everything that we try is going to work, but if we don’t learn in the process, we’re never going to get better.

There’s a big thick coffee table book that Cast Members love called Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. It’s written by two of Walt’s favorite guys, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas. There’s one page in the book about how at any given time one of three Walts might walk into the office. There was Walt the creative dreamer with new ideas to share. There was Walt the realist who could marshal the existing resources. There was also Walt the critic who could look at a process and ask if this was really our best work.

When I started teaching the creativity program that we now offer as Unlocking Creativity Magic, we established that creativity is a strategic approach to problem solving. The mindset is: here’s the opportunity, here’s the risk in taking that opportunity, and here’s what we can learn if we seize that opportunity. But to be successful, we need to have that safe environment. We recognize that everybody has a place in this process: dreamer, realist, and critic. The way to get best efforts is when we value each person’s role in that process and understand the thinking behind why we go through this process. We define creativity as the point where imagination collides with opportunity. You have to be willing to take the chance, but you also have to do brainstorming and skill assessment and resource gathering in order to take advantage of the opportunity.

Barbara: In our Disney programs, we were always aware that some participants didn’t want to make a mistake or try something that might fail. We were asked to put on education programs in our new park in Hong Kong. We were dealing with a different education system in Asia. Over there the students want to please their professors. Everything in our programs had been written to be very experiential. As we developed those programs in Hong Kong we had to figure out how to make that safe space for the students.

Sue: The Hong Kong system is very didactic. A second grade teacher is viewed like a “professor” in the front of the classroom, and the students are “bobble heads”. Students don’t question, challenge or argue. They accept and repeat it back. We had meetings in advance with local teachers from the Hong Kong area. It was a fascinating experience because there was a desire to see change in the education structure so that students were more participatory rather than just memorizing. But there were also “old school” teachers who felt that students could only learn the way they always had.

One of my favorite visuals of the difference in the systems and discovery of a new way of doing things was testing with kindergarten and first grade students. We had a small test group of a dozen students and their teachers. One of my co-workers, Michael, was doing the program. At one point they were walking down Main Street in the Park. I was in the back of the group watching and all the little ones were lined up in a straight line behind him. All the students were quiet and walking in a straight line behind Michael because he was the leader. Michael saw what was going on and he started doing a serpentine walk down the street. He went side to side around the lamp posts and trash cans, weaving and wandering around. At first the kids literally stopped and looked at him like he had sprouted a second head. Then one by one they started a kind of giggle and followed him. By the time we got to the end of Main Street they were laughing, clapping and holding hands. They came out of the constraints that their educational structure put on them. It was an eye-opening experience for their teachers. At first the teachers thought the students were being bad. Then it was a realization that they were being children and having fun learning. They saw it was possible to change the mindset. When you set the right atmosphere to support self-confidence and know it’s safe to experiment, amazing things happen.

Doug: One of your Emerging Leader Training workshops is about creating purposeful cultures. Please define what a purposeful culture is and share how it is created.

James: Every organization has an existing culture. It’s the environment in which we all work and live, but when you ask somebody how it came to be, they usually don’t know. It’s what they do, and they can’t tell you why. As a magician, I have to begin from a very purposeful point of view. Everything that I do as a performer has a motivation. If I do anything randomly I’ll lose my audience. If they’re going to stay with me there has to be a connection to my actions. Even at Disney, there wasn’t a single thing that was arbitrary. Everything Disney did was chosen for a reason. That came all the way down to the training and how people engage with each other. I came to the realization that there is a shared value system for making decisions.

Culture is created by accident or by purposeful choices. To create and sustain a purposefully created culture, people must understand how their choices and actions impact that culture. You have to create a defined set of values for decision making that says “we do what we do because it’s important our culture”. If two people work in the same environment but have different rules and values, it will create a culture where one side wins and one side loses. It becomes a power struggle where the environment turns toxic. When everybody has the same value system and the same guidelines for making those decisions, then there is consistency. It’s accepting the idea that those choices are for strategic reason – to support the culture.

Sue: When you have common values, and everyone understands the mission and the purpose, an organization can accomplish so much more. In our Unlocking a Purposefully Created Culture program, we give people an understanding of the processes and tools to make purposeful choices about the direction they want their organization to go, and how to travel in that direction. People feel more empowered and engaged in the culture.

Barbara: In my position as a Disney Area Manager, it was essential that everyone on our team understood our culture and knew our mission and vision. It’s much easier to lead a team when they all know where they’re going instead of trying to herd cats.

Doug: For the record Disney has five keys to their culture or leadership. Please list them.

James:  Originally, there were four keys to be used as a decision-making process:  Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency. All Disney Cast Members, no matter their specific role, were taught these same 4 Keys, and learned to prioritize them in the same exact order. When making decisions, whether it is staffing, buying trash cans, landscaping, or any ride operation, the first choice is always safety. Secondly, cast members are courteous in all actions with each other and guests. Next is creating what Disney calls “good show”, and that is everything the Guest experiences. Finally, Cast Members look for efficiency. The order of these Keys meant you can’t focus on efficiency if it sacrifices safety or courtesy. It allows people to prioritize decisions.

The vision of the company is to create magic for each and every Guest, and for all Cast Members as well. So, a few years ago they added a fifth key and that was Inclusion. When they added this new key, they built it in as a component of each of the original Keys. Decisions are made with inclusivity in mind. What’s remarkable is it made the cast members feel more valued. They felt seen, heard, and accepted. The Guests also responded to it because they saw that people like them worked here. We were talking about teamwork, the idea that a mindset of inclusion isn’t just a good policy, it’s a business advantage. Whether you’re a for-profit, not-for-profit or educational institution, it’s a strategic advantage when everybody feels like they belong here.

Doug: How did you end up founding your training company and start working with libraries?

James: Growing up, I was the library kid that went to all the programs. I was also a volunteer in high school in the library. Libraries were safe places that I could explore. As a magician, I wanted to be in places that I knew, so I naturally performed for summer reading programs. As my Emerging Leader Training programs were expanding, it became a natural thing for me to offer them to the same clients I was already supporting. I had existing programs, and the librarians were open to them. Eventually I was given the opportunity to facilitate our Unlocking Creativity Magic workshop for the 2022 Florida Library Association conference. That was the big kick starter of how we got started supporting libraries across the state.

Doug: Having worked with librarians, what are you hearing from library workers are the biggest leadership and cultural challenges they’re facing?

James: In our workshops, we run an exercise where we ask participants specifically what their teams are struggling with. The first thing that comes up on their list every single time is communication. They believe they don’t communicate with each other effectively or efficiently. Every organization we have ever worked with has this as the first answer. Another thing we hear is that they don’t like working in an environment where different points of view or input are not being supported or heard.

Sue: When we do our Culture program, we talk about the idea of purposely created culture and having input over where the culture is going. It is a common theme for our participants that “No one’s listening to us”. They have all these ideas that don’t go anywhere. The more they talk about the issues they face, the more it becomes obvious that they don’t understand the culture of their organization. They don’t know if it’s there by choice or by chance. When asked to describe their culture, it is a difficult challenge for them to articulate it. A lack of understanding of what the culture really is and what drives it, I think is a source of great frustration for our groups.

Doug: Please share a book that had an impact on your development.

Barbara: When I started at Disney in 1978 they didn’t do a lot of explanation about the philosophy of Disney beyond the Four Keys. So I read Bob Thomas’s book Walt Disney: An American Original and reread it several times. It’s an incredible biography because he knew Walt and got the interviews directly from him. It was a valuable tool for me to understand the company on a personal level.

Another book that I impacted me when I was in high school was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I was raised in South Florida so most of my friends were from the North or Northeast but both sides of my family come from the Deep South. I had no understanding of the issues that were going on until I read that book. It really affected my view of the world at that time. It was 1968 and the Civil Rights organizations were impacting the world. It was an impactful book for me.

Sue: I also have two and neither one are about leadership. One is the Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley. It taught me the incredible value and richness of carefully selected language. He was a brilliant writer whose style of writing was artistic and opened my eyes to the importance of using language purposely. It’s inspiring, motivating and powerful.

The other book I’ve read a million times is Earl Kelly’s Education for What is Real©. It was written post World War II and explored the education system when the nation is coming out of the war and into a golden future. He looks at why people are the way they are and why they make the choices they make. He noticed that people tend to respect and be kind to others. However, we’ve built a competitive society where people want to win and someone has to lose. His insights into nature and what that means to the learning journey are fascinating. They anchored my decision to become an educator. When I got into training with Disney, Education for What is Real was a mental guideline for me in terms of the need to share knowledge and the skills for students to be a successful version of themselves. It’s part of my job to help them see that journey.

James: I would say the first book that I remember having a profound effect on me was Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach. The philosophy behind it is that excellence is a personal choice. Nobody can stop you from excellence if you have a mindset for it. It is a choice that you have to make for yourself. It may come at great risk and pain but you have to set your wings at the right position to do the things that you want. That was really important to me when I was young because I was going against the trends and the wishes of my college and my high school counselors. I was determined to chart my own course.

Another book that was very impactful to me was Who Moved My Cheese, by Spencer Johnson. During the pandemic the entire world shut down. As a performer I had never imagined that every single revenue stream would suddenly stop. I had a moment of panic and looked over at my bookshelf. I picked up my copy that I had for so long the pages were yellowed. I re-read that book and it was the exact mindset I needed to go forward. If there’s a thread that ties everything together it’s that you are what you put into your own brain. We have a responsibility to make sure we put values and nurturing ideas into the brains of the people that we’re working to support. We’re trying to guide them and that’s a thread that goes through all of the workshops.

Doug: How are your workshops structured?

James: Our programs flow as a conversation that starts with “I”: Unlocking Leader Magic, all about self-reflection and awareness. That takes us to “We”: Unlocking Teamwork Magic, about methods for embracing our collective skills, and reaching our goals and becoming successful. Then we have “How”: Unlocking Creativity Magic, developing a strategic approach to problem solving. And lastly, we have “Why”: Unlocking a Purposefully Created Culture, answering the critical questions.  Why does this matter to our organization? Why do we want this?  It’s the leadership, teamwork, creativity and culture, all working together that makes the difference. It was true at Disney and it’s true in all of our individual careers. No matter your career path, you still have to answer those four things: Who am I? Who are we? How do we create the culture and the environment that will support us? And why does it matter in the first place?

Doug: James, you’re known for doing your magic tricks in workshops and even teaching students a magic trick. How did this training approach come around?

James: We say they’re workshops and not seminars because a seminar implies I’m just going to talk at you. A workshop says it’s hands-on. The old saying is: Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember. Involve me, I understand. For me a huge resource that I have in my toolbox is that I can perform magic. So, I use magic to engage their imagination, to keep them curious and excited. I love it whenever the students are all participating and performing the magic. I don’t do a magic trick in the middle of a seminar or a workshop only for a brain break. The reason we do this magic is to build the connection between the content and the fun experience of the workshop. There is a great Walt Disney quote that says: Laughter is no enemy to learning. If you’re having fun you’re more likely to engage. If you’re engaged, the outcomes are going to be more impactful. I want us to do this together so that the students can walk out of the room knowing they can start doing it tomorrow.

Doug: To wrap up, please share a favorite Walt Disney quote that’s kind of stuck with you.

James: I’m going to take as my favorite Walt quote: “I would rather have entertained them and hoped that they learned something than to have educated them and hoped that they were entertained.” I’ve found that to be good solid advice.

Barbara: My favorite is: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Sue: Mine is a little longer but I love the sequence of it. “First think, second believe, third dream and finally dare.” I love that approach to tackling the world.