This is the Digital Strategy Call with host Brent Lollis and special guest Lee Cockerell, former executive vice president of operations for Walt Disney World Resort, creator of Disney's Great Leader Strategy, speaker, consultant, and best-selling author.
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Announcer:
This is the Digital Strategy Call with your host Brent Lollis, an award winning digital strategist to fortune 500 CEO's and superstars like Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, and American Idol mentor and Big Machine Records founder, Scott Borchetta. Our mission is simple to help you navigate the warp speed changes in the digital world and make you the undeniable leader in your industry. Today's guest is Lee Cockerell, former executive vice president of operations for Walt Disney World Resort, creator of Disney's Great Leader Strategy, speaker, consultant, and best-selling author. The Digital Strategy Call is made possible by Creative State, helping you conquer your competition with world-class responsive websites, video production, branding, search engine optimization, and social media. Go to creativestate.com or call 866-658-7423.
Brent:
Lee Cockerell, welcome to the Digital Strategy Call.
Lee:
Hey there, good to be with ya.
Brent:
You grew up in a town called Ardmore, Oklahoma. How do you think growing up in a relatively small town impacted you and ultimately impacted your leadership style?
Lee:
Well I think growing up in Oklahoma had a lot to do, actually I was born in Bartlesville and lived there until I was in sixth grade, right down the street from you almost and then we moved to Ardmore. You know I think back about that. The work ethic is one thing I learned growing up in Oklahoma and I grew up on a little farm the first several years and you know on a farm, you work. You don't realize it's work but everybody has a job and you have to do it and I think brother and I both got a strong work ethic out of on the farm and my mother made sure we had jobs every summer, doing something and workin' in lumberyards, driving delivery cars when I was 16 for prescriptions and you name it, we worked. I'm so glad we did and we made sure our son did that after you know, he didn't have to. We were in good enough shape that he didn't have to work but we made sure he did work and in fact we sent him to Oklahoma to work on a longhorn ranch every summer so he could get a little taste of that 100 degrees.
Brent:
Makes you appreciate the jobs later down the road when you're outside in 100 degrees in the Oklahoma summer.
Lee:
Yeah, he was sure he was goin' to college after that. Those kinds of experiences, he worked for the National Park Service up in Colorado one summer when he was 15. He worked in a book store you know? And then our grandson, my son's been very successful in his career. His kid doesn't have to work but we made the same thing. They had to work in horticulture pulling weeds in the summer from six in the morning til two in the afternoon and we, I see the difference. They're so proud to get their paycheck every week and it makes them independent and so I think that Oklahoma values and the culture in Oklahoma had a lot to do with it and people are quite friendly there and quite nice. So small town everybody knows ya. If you do somethin' the police call your dad. They don't take ya to jail and your dad takes care of ya. So you can't get away with much.
Brent:
So you attended Oklahoma State here in Oklahoma and then also served in the military and you managed to achieve some pretty high levels of success without a college degree. How do you think that lack of a college degree impacted your career either positively or negatively?
I have a good attitude and I think those two things, having discipline, being reliable and credible, and having a good, positive attitude.
Lee:
Yeah you know it's somethin' I worried about every day when I didn't have a degree and I always worried about the employer would be askin' about it or I would get turned down for a job because I didn't have it, but this was the 60s when I started working, '64, '65 after I got out of the army and back in those days, you could still do it. I would not recommend it today. I mean I think it's much more difficult. The problem with today is a lot of companies won't even give you an interview if you don't have a degree which is, you don't even get a chance to show them what you can do or talk through there and make your point. But, I was good and I think I tell people, the reason I was so successful is first, I'm very disciplined. I really have, I get things done. I'm kind of compulsive. I mean if your give me somethin' to do, it'll be done, it'll be done on time, and it'll be done right. And I think the other thing, you know, is I get along with people very well. I have a good attitude and I think those two things, having discipline, being reliable and credible, and having a good, positive attitude. You can get ahead 'cause you're gonna be recognized. A lot of people are not enjoying their jobs. They don't like to go to work. They don't like their boss. They don't like a lot of things and I just kind of bit my lip and smiled and told my boss I'll be there at six in the morning and again back up into the night and the next think I know I got in a manager training program and that's when it really took off and so I would say, everybody oughta check their attitude and check how organized you are and disciplined. I wrote a book on time management recently, how to get more done everyday because this is one of the biggest problems people have. It's all comin' at us so fast now. Technology, you know, everything. We're on 24/7. We're getting notes and calls and more work and every employer wants you to do more and they wanna have less employees and they wanna save costs and so it's pretty stressful out there these days and I tell people, you've got to get more organized. You gotta get more disciplined because if you don't you won't be doin' the right things. You'll mess up your family life and your health and a lot of things can go wrong when you're under high stress and don't know how to handle it so yeah.
Brent:
So you talked about from the very beginning that you were kind of compulsive and that if somebody gave you something to do, you were gonna do it on time or before the deadline. Why do you think that was part of who you were from such a young age and it's not part of who other people are?
Lee:
I think it is how you're raised. You know my mother was, I always tell people, my mother was, she taught us a lot about discipline. You did what you were supposed to do. She was very firm about that. Actually I tell people, my mother was a terrorist before they started talkin' about 'em We did what we were supposed to do and we didn't mess with her. She was only five foot two. And she taught us discipline. You gotta do, you gotta clean your room, you gotta make your bed, I mean, a lot of parents today, they you know, they wanna be friends with their kids and my brother I laugh sometimes. We say, we're pretty sure she didn't love us from 13 to 18because she wouldn't let us do anything we wanted. But I was lucky on the other side too. I had a grandmother who really taught me about empathy. She was the nicest person I've every known in my whole life and never heard her say a bad word about anybody. And I think between discipline and empathy, if you can get that early in your life, it's kind of hard to learn later on. You gotta, it's kinda gotta be embedded in ya as you grow up and you see it and you experience it and you have good role models. And you become, I think you pretty much become who you are from your parents and family and the way you're raised and if you're lucky enough to have somebody that has the long view. My mother had the long view. I always tell people she had a strategy. She wanted us to leave home when we were 18 so the only way we could do that is how you gonna be able to get a job and she made sure we were highly qualified and reliable and had a good attitude so people would hire us. I just think, I really worry about families that don't have their kids workin and learning that the reality of life, because when you get out in the work place, your mom's not gonna be there. And she's not gonna give you a break. You're gonna have to meet some boss that wants it done and wants it done now and doesn't wanna hear any excuses. In fact, I asked my grandson, what he learned his first day at work at Disney. He was workin' in horticulture pullin' weeds. And he said, well my boss said if you're one minute late, go home. And I said wow, that's pretty clear. So you know clarity around expectations, kids need to learn that. It's not like you're at home, you don't make your bed, your mother yells at ya. In real life, you get fired.
Brent:
That's right.
It's always, I think it's always the environment and culture you grow up in that makes you who you are.
Lee:
It's always, I think it's always the environment and culture you grow up in that makes you who you are.
Brent:
I like that combination of discipline and empathy. Both of those two things work together and one without the other is less impactful. So I think that's great. So, on another note, Governor Jeb Bush appointed you to his board of trustees of the Governor's Commission on Volunteerism and Public Service. Why was that important to you? Why is giving back to the community so important to you?
Lee:
Well you know it's kind of like what I do now. I do a lot of teaching and the most satisfaction you get is when somebody calls you and says thank you for you what you did for me or thanks for that tough discussion you had with me 10 years ago, thanks for tellin' me the truth. And there are so many people in need that I, first I'm organized and I have enough time to do those things and so I signed up. I toured all the boys and girls clubs and YMCAs and these poor kids get out of school and they you know walkin' on the streets, their mother's still at work. There's no father in their home and I'd go to these places to visit them. Those kids would just, well they wanted to hug and they wanted to, they were so excited to see somebody there to help them and to get them. And we were about to get programs for them that really probly changed their lives because you know, every kid needs to know they matter and a lot of times in a lot of families, they don't know they matter because they're barely surviving and livin' on the edge. I just get a lot of satisfaction out of it. I say we need more teachers and people like that than we do, and less bosses that wanna boss everybody around And when you can get with kids early on when they're in kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade, make sure they're getting good reading programs, you really change people's lives. I mean you literally could be responsible for changing people's lives 20 years from now. So I don't know if enough people think about that because if you can't read, you're in big trouble. I mean, these days, you can't get a basic job if you can't read. You know everything's going to technology and if you can't handle the technology, you're not gonna be able to get a job even flippin' burgers. It's pretty satisfying, I'd say that I guess. And I probly learned that from my grandmother. She was, when she was 80 she was, she said she was helpin' the old people at the hospital. And she didn't have any money. She didn't have nothing but she had her time and I was always impressed by that. She was so good and so nice about that.
Brent:
You prefaced all that by saying that you were organized and so you had the time to do that. It's interesting how some people are always seemingly very busy and don't get anything accomplished and people who accomplish great things partly because they organize themselves. They make time to do things that have an impact. How does time management play into leadership and what you talk with businesses about.
Lee:
Well that's when I wrote that last book, Time Management Magic: How to get More Done Every Day. I've really come to the conclusion working all these years and having people report to me and having lots of projects to get done and deadlines that most people are not overworked in my opinion. Most people are just highly disorganized. They're not focused on the right things. They waste a lot of time. Even technology today as we're talkin' about that. You can waste a lot of time on technology or you can use it to your benefit and you gotta really, it's like every tool. If you use a hammer for a delicate job, that's not probly the right tool so, I really think that people need to really take, I took a course in 1980 to learn more about time management. I was already disciplined but I learned a system. And I think one thing we say in time management is, make sure you're scheduling the priorities in your life right in your calendar. If you wanna, if your kids are your priorities, schedule it. 10 a.m. Saturday to take them to the park. Start scheduling the priorities in your life. If you need to back and get a degree, two nights a week, go to college and work, get that scheduled. If you don't schedule the priorities in your life, they won't happen because other stuff will just take over. It just runs after you. I think you gotta think about what's most important to you and where you spend your time. I always tell people you gotta think about where you spend your time and where you shouldn't spend it. And if you clearly sit down and be honest with yourself and think about people who waste your time, people who don't do what they're supposed to do, and employees that aren't doin' their job, there's a million things that waste your time every week. And you need to try to get, find a way to get rid of those. I think it's just a concept. Most people don't know about time management. They didn't get that course in high school and they didn't get it in college. And then they get out in real life and there's a thousand things comin' at 'em and they can't manage 'em. So it's very important. I think it's probly the key to success is having good organizational skills. I've said everybody go plan their vacation right? Everybody is an expert at that. But they don't plan their life. They have a nice vacation but they don't have a nice life. If you don't have a plan, you're not gonna get where you wanna go. You might end up wishing you were in Alaska and you're down in the islands somewhere because you didn't have the right plan. And that's what happens in life. You thought you were gonna have this big wonderful life and next thing your turn around, you're 58-years-old and things didn't work out because you let it get out of control. And I hear these people all the time. You know what they say? They say, well that's just the way it is. And I says, you know, nothing's the way it is. Things are the way you let them be. And maybe it's hard to turn it around. Absolutely, and if you do hard things life gets easier. If you do easy things, life gets harder. And you gotta tackle those hard things every week. And that's about time management, putting in your planner, day-planner, what hard things am I avoiding right now in my personal life in my business life, and I'm gonna fix 'em by next Friday. When people start thinkin' that way, you'll start using your time much more wisely.
Brent:
And you spent 15 years or more as a leader within the Disney organization implementing some of those same principles. How do you think Walt Disney himself was able to create a vision and a culture that people are still committed to and inspired by 50 years after his death.
Lee:
Yeah, he's a pretty special guy. I would say there was a whole bunch of people in that era, Bill Marriott, you know 1927 started Walt Disney around the same time and Conrad Hilton around the same time. All those brands are still around. And these are extraordinary people that had huge work ethic. They were risk-takers and they had a clear vision of what they wanted things to be and it's kind of like, I ask people sometimes, when you have a clear vision, things work out better. They're like, they say what do you mean? I say, well if you have children, do you have a vision of how you want them to turn out? Of course you do. Man, you're all over their safety and education. You go see the teachers. You do everything you have to do. Get 'em a tutor to make sure that at the end that you, your vision has been fulfilled. And I think in any business or any work, you've gotta have a strong vision of where you wanna be in two, three, four, five years. And a lot of that is ground leadership you know? Hiring the right people, training people, and creating a culture where people feel like they matter and they know they matter. And that's what those guys did. They, all three of 'em. They just, you know, excellence is a state of mind. If you want it, you get it. If you want average, that's what you get Getting excellence is hard. You gotta work hard.
Brent:
I read a quote where you said Bill Marriott once told you that if you have flies in your operation it's because you like flies. Why did that make an impression on you?
Lee:
Well we were walkin' the hotel one day with him. He'd come, they only had 36 hotels when I joined 'em back in the 70s and now they have four or five thousand. But we were walking down in the back dock where the dumpster is for the trash and there was flies all over the place and they were getting in the back loading dock and eventually they had made their way up to the restaurant. And he just looked at me and said, Lee, if you have flies in your restaurant that's because you like 'em. I says, what do you mean? He said, get rid of 'em, kill 'em He said, put screens on there. Get fans so they can't get in. Give every employee a fly swatter and have a quota. Whatever you gotta do, you can't have flies. And when you think about it really, when you have a fly in your house, what do you do? I mean, you go nuts. You close the doors, you get 'em in the bathroom eventually with a towel, and kill 'em. And I think if you, to me, flies in the restaurant was unacceptable. If you have rude children, it's unacceptable. If you, you know, if you're not taking care of your health it must be because you like it, if you don't find time to get your check-ups and exercise and eat right and get enough sleep. He just, that was everlasting. I quit blaming other people for my problems after he told me that. I started thinkin', I guess that's my problem. Why do I put up with this? Why do I want this? And I don't want it, so I'm gonna do somethin' about it. And today, we got a lot of people blamin' everybody, the government, trade, jobs goin' overseas. Everybody's got a big excuse and they wanna blame somebody for their own predicament that they put themselves in. I've been fired in my life. I've been passed over. I've been unemployed. I had to get a job. I had to scramble. I had to move 11 times over my career. There's a lot of things you gotta do to get out of the mess you often put yourself in. Actually I finally figured out, I'd screwed up enough to make those things happen. It wasn't my boss's fault. It wasn't the government's fault.
Brent:
Yeah when you're the common denominator, you gotta take a good hard look.
Lee:
Yeah, that's the hardest thing for people to self, to reflect on their own self, their own behaviors and dilemmas. People don't like to admit that they got all these problems. But I have a good wife. She really points those things out to me.
Brent:
Helps you focus on your problems
Lee:
Yeah, she doesn't care if I'm happy. She just tells me, Lee you shouldn't be doin' that.
Brent:
Right. So you also created a program called, Disney Great Leader Strategy, which was used to train over 7000 leaders. Tell us a little bit about that program and why it made an impact on those leaders and on the Disney organization..
Lee:
Well when I got to Disney I became concerned that all of the 7000 managers weren't on the same page, that they didn't have clarity about what we expected of them to be as leaders, as managers, focus on customer service, how they treated people. So I got a consultant and I worked with her every Sunday. She'd come to my house and I'd talk about what I wanted our managers to do, what I'd wished they'd done, and mistake I made in my own career, the way I should have done it, the way I shouldn't have done it. And when we finally put that together and at that time it was 12 strategies. The first one was remember everyone is important. It's how to make sure that you're treating people respectfully, inclusive and listening and their opinion counts. The next one was, create magic through training. Another one was about organizational structure. Another one was about policies, procedures, operating guidelines in your business, if they're not creating a hassle for the customers. Another one was around professionalism, what it looks like. Because where people worked before, it doesn't really matter 'cause they come into Disney, we want everybody, we want our guests to have the same experience no matter who they come in contact with at Disney. And so I wrote that development and I rolled it out over several weeks and then across the whole organization. In fact that Great Leader Strategy became the basis for my book, Creating Magic: Ten Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney. In fact, it was so successful it's being used in universities and colleges all over. Actually, the University of Oklahoma just wrote to us and asked for the teacher's guide. They're gonna implement it. And Texas Tech and Texas A&M and schools here in Florida. Because, I think one thing today, students are tired of theory. Students want reality. Tell us how you really do this. How do you really deal with somebody who's not performing. They want stories. They want to know, how do you deal. Some, a lot of these professors haven't been out in the work place for so long, they're still teaching these old theories that kids today wanna know different. How do you use your technology? How do you use the softer skills? How do you get people inspired? So that's why that book I think took off. In fact, it's mandatory reading for many military officers around the world now. In fact, I'm going to Venice in November to speak to the U.S. Army garrison there and I just came back from Fort Bragg. I went to Iraq in 2011, did 13 seminars for the military all across Iraq. I went to Fort Bragg. I went to Fort Benning, Fort Drum, I've been to all of 'em. The Army like everybody is trying to improve their leadership and leadership skills and how to, they get the same problem we do. You know, hire good people, train 'em, and keep 'em in so they don't get out of the army after four years, they stay in. So everything is kind of the same and that was fun to prepare that and it really put Disney on a really solid footing that we all were Disney leaders, not just leaders from wherever ewe had worked in the past. It was a pretty interesting project.
Brent:
That's great. So to shift a little bit to the focus of the show, which is helping leaders navigate the fast-changing, technology world, the digital world. Obviously, technology had changed almost every industry over the last 20 years. How important is it for leaders to stay on top of technology trends?
Lee:
Well, in my speeches and in my seminars I tell them, there's four competencies you need. The first one is technical competence. You know, if you're gonna be in merchandise or food and beverage or a lawyer or a doctor or a surgeon, you gotta have technical skill. We go to school, we learn math, we get experience. You do a residency, you get experience. So your technical skills are probly the ones, the easiest. Over time, the more experience, you get better at whatever you do. So that's that's the first one. The 2nd is management competency. How to get get organized, disciplined, this whole concept of how to organize yourself every day and focus on priorities. And the third one is technological competence, keeping up. I talk about that with everybody and at Disney we had classes for people because most people can't use 10% of the their computer power and the technology. We want our leaders to be out looking for opportunities when they're shopping or at the mall or they see some technology being used in a retail store or in a production or in inventory control to bring it back to Disney and so, I tell them, you gotta really, it's hard to keep up you know? I'm an old guy now and I have a full, I got a technical guy from Disney who I pay on the side and he takes care of me and he comes over to my house and teaches me how to do things and how to use this and how to use that and how to, you know. I use all the social sites for most of my business. Facebook, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter, all of 'em. All my work goes on there. Without the technology and my website, you know, I get people can share it around the world today. And my website is something I really treasure because I can really it says who Lee Cockerell is and if you wanna know more about me or what I do, you go to that website and it's all there. In the old days, you'd have had to print a brochure or something and it would have been out of date, the first week after you got something new. So I think just keepin' up, is it hard? Yeah, it's hard for people my age but young kids today, man they scoop it up like and it's gonna put some people out of business if you don't keep up and I think the problem is going to be your boss is gonna look and say, wow, this guy can't really keep up. He doesn't have any new ideas around technology. He's still doin' it with pencil and paper. So there's those three. And then the last competency is leadership. How are you gonna be that kind of leader people, even though you're tough, you're hard, you push hard that people like to work for you because they trust you. So we talk a lot about those four competencies that you can't just be a technical expert anymore. It's not enough. You gotta be organized. You gotta understand technology and how to apply it to your business and last, you gotta be a good leader so the people wanna work for ya, not have to work for ya. So I think it's a lot of, and I wish the schools would start talking about this stuff more. You need to be more broad today. You can't just be isolated in one little area of your life or you will not, you won't make it. There's people coming up fast. They're gonna be better than you if you don't keep up. And actually one of the strategies in my book, how do you stay ahead of the pack? And it's something that I work on every day. I have some websites I read and study and look for leadership ideas and opportunities and what other companies are doing and my grandkids teach me how to use my phone Yeah, it's great. I love it. But you gotta make sure you're not misusing it also. So it's not, you're not sittin' there on Facebook for three hours when you oughta be exercising or learning about something you need to know to be better in your job and well tryna help Kim Kardashian solve her problems. So people waste so much time it's just incredible. Then they complain that they can't get it all done with a bunch of stuff they shouldn't be doing in the first place.
Brent:
Well one of the things people can do to be online but not be wasting time is learn skills that will help them in their business. And to that end we'll kind of move to our last area. You're currently a mentor on the thrive15 website. For our listeners who aren't familiar with that, tell them about thrive15 and your involvement.
Lee:
Well, that was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was contacted once by that group up there and asked me if I'd like to get involved. I didn't ven know what they were talkin' about and they were gonna make 15-minute videos on different subjects and the plan was that you would pay a subscription fee and you could watch these videos and learn from them. I think I have 40 on there. I have a class about time management, about how to discipline people, how to hire, how to, all kinds of subjects. But there are real estate agents on there. There are how to get a bank loan, how to write a business plan, I mean it just goes on and on and on. So I did it and I loved it. And I really, I just got a note from somebody the other day. Oh the guy who does my podcasts, he said if you put the code in magic, when you go to the thrive15 site, you can get thirty days free to try it out. He told me this has changed his whole outlook about so many things he didn't understand how to do. And he watches these videos. The videos stop every five minutes during the 15-minute course and give you a quiz. They give you a multiple-choice quiz. And you get points. And gaming you know, everybody likes points and so young people are all over this and you can win money by having the most points for the month. It's quite a very interesting way 'cause I think online like this is gonna be the future. Every kid can't afford to go to a college campus but if we can get it right and they can learn that'll be the key 'cause I think more and more it doesn't seem to sound right that probly in the future, you won't have to have a college degree in everything. If you can have a technical expertise in something that you can learn online and become really great at it, that you'll probly have a job out there in the world and so then every kid could get a degree. Or every kid could go online and learn. So I think it's the future for sure because who's gonna be able to go to a college campus if it doesn't get a lot cheaper. I mean some of these debts that kids have today is just terrible. It's interesting, your readers could go there or listeners could go there, thrive15.com. Put in the promotion code magic and try it our for a month. See if you like it.
Brent:
That's great.
Lee:
I would never have thought of it. It's video so you're gonna look and you'll be seein us on there on you know, while podcasts are most often audio. So they both have a big place in the marketplace.
Brent:
Great. And so you mentioned thrive15.com. But if listeners wanna find out more information about you specifically, where can they find it? Well, I just say the easiest place, go to leecockerell, c-o-c-k-e-r-e-l-l dot com and everything I do is on my web page. If you wanna see me speaking, there's four videos on there. There's my seminars are listed. What seminars I teach, public speaking, and it tells about my company, it tells about me, it tells about my family, everything you wanna know. That's where it is now so I always keep that updated.
Brent:
Lee Cockerell, thanks for joining us on the Digital Strategy Call.
Lee:
Yeah I enjoyed it. Thanks so much.
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