Cinderella and Cigarettes

About two years back, I attended a training put on by the Disney Institute called “Building a Culture of Healthcare Excellence.” I found the training to be fascinating, and so much of what was discussed was relevant to the system of funding and delivering services to individuals with developmental disabilities in Colorado, as well as to Imagine! and the way we work.

For example, one of the things the trainer discussed was how Disney had an overall vision of providing “entertainment experiences for all generations to share.” That vision permeates the company from top to bottom, and all actions are undertaken to meet that vision. The trainer gave an example of how nobody visiting one of Disney’s theme parks wants to have an encounter with a Cinderella with cigarette smoke on her breath – it would ruin the magical experience that the Disney company strives to provide all of its visitors.

But what was interesting about the discussion about the smoking Cinderella example was that the trainer didn’t say “and therefore we have a policy that our Cinderella’s can’t smoke.” While that may indeed be the policy, instead Disney emphasizes the idea that every employee at Disney is responsible for making a visit to Disneyland or Disneyworld a magical experience. They are encouraged to take ownership of what they do and be an active part of that experience. That helps it become more natural and obvious for the employee to realize that smoking and cigarette breath might make the experience for guests much less enjoyable.

Instead of taking the big picture approach, it seems to me that in our world we focus strictly on the policies without offering a bigger vision for what we do and way.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. We have to file incident reports whenever an individual gets injured. This makes sense, and I don’t argue with that idea. But we never file incidents reports when someone we serve does something good or positive.

Imagine!’s mission is about providing opportunities for those we serve, but nothing we are regulated on has any relation to, or measure of, opportunities provided. If you run down the list of all the regulations we have to meet, and all the things we are trained on, (and both lists are substantial) you will see that they are all related to what to do when things go wrong – not about providing opportunities. Consequently, a substantial majority of our time, energy, and resources are spent on avoiding doing the wrong thing, instead of doing the right things – providing opportunities for those we serve.

In other words, all we ever do is tell Cinderella not to smoke. We fail to encourage Cinderella to look and act her best, stay fit, and treat people with kindness. This constant focus on the negative produces employees (from the Direct Service Professionals on up to the executive level) who are uninspired and frustrated.

I get it. Cinderella shouldn’t smoke. But it is time to get past that smokescreen (pun intended) created by that simplistic approach to what we do and start paying attention to the bigger picture of how we can facilitate the positive growth of the individuals we serve.

Then again, what do I know?