Disney: The Original Story Killer

As I read the news early this morning I encountered these words: “Disney expects $200-million loss on ‘John Carter’”

Are. You. Kidding. Me?!? It cost Disney $350 million to create the movie and it became a sales disaster. I wondered about this, because I have read bits and pieces of the original story and found the world of John Carter to be fascinating. I can see how it would have been an inspiration to George Lucas. How could they possibly ruin such a well-written adventure? It was then that I read how the film director was a gentleman who had never done a live-action movie before and the executives had limited experience in working with divisions.

Disney may claim to shrug this off as a minor setback, but they also claimed to have had a lot riding on this one. They wanted merchandise sales, theme park rides, and sequels. That would have generated plenty of revenue–so why trust such a pivotal project with such a lackluster leadership team?

I believe that Disney will continue to do this in the future with other classics as well. They are in the business of making money by making entertainment that others will pay for. This may work for super-giant Disney, but your burger joint on the corner is far from being able to shrug off a $200 million dollar loss. The truth of the matter is that most businesses cannot afford to make such enormous mistakes. Pick your leadership wisely before handing them the steering wheel to your organization. There isn’t anyone who can animate with the same finances and power as Disney. Unless your organization is in a market all alone you need to recruit leadership that can think progressively and avoid the pitfalls that Disney blows away but ultimately bankrupts and destroys the competition.

Please Be Your Sex

Women have a very unique quality that I do envy from time to time, and that is the gift of multitasking. I have watched women with multiple children push a shopping cart, compare prices, answer a cell phone, text, scan items to find at another store, ask the store manager about a rain check, and  talk to a friend.

Out of the last eight cars that have nearly hit me while driving, six of them have been men…on a cell phone…with no one else in the car. They could not drive and talk at the same time. One such gentleman nearly caused a three car accident in a intersection and had no idea that he was in the wrong. I even watched a guy text on TWO separate cell phones at a traffic light–and pull away from the light while he was still texting!!!

So what does this have to do with communication? Well, it is simple. Know your gender specific differences–both for yourself and your audience. Carefully tailor your proposal or plan to your audience. Pay close attention to the gender-specific differences that the gender openly and willingly acknowledges–like the number of words spoken per day, how they view relationships, and so on. Because when you fail to engage in such a simple precautionary task as knowing your audience and knowing yourself, you ultimately set yourself up for quite an accident.

The Best Day of My Life

I remember the day well. I was an upperclassman in college, and I had just finished my 10:00 am workout. Normally, I would just jog back to my apartment for a shower and head to lunch. This particular day, I chose to stop in on the basketball courts. When I poked my head through the large double doors, I heard a strong male voice call out.

“Hey you! Are you playing or what?!?”

I looked up and realized that there were nine players on the court and they needed one more. The guy was looking directly at me.

“If you’re going to play, then play”, he said.

“S-s-sure. Hold on, let me put my stuff down”, I stuttered .I walked onto the court and began to scan the court. The guy who called me out to the court had played in the NBA for a short while and had played overseas. Another 2 or 3 guys had played overseas as well. One woman there was trying to get into the WNBA, while another girl was on our womens basketball team. Two other guys played on our mens basketball team. The other guy was someone I didn’t know, but he and the ex-NBA player spoke like very close friends.

“Can you play?”, the ex-NBA player said to me.

“Well, I guess so–”

“Look, you either can or you can’t. Which can you do?”

I felt as though someone had just smacked me in the face. When he said what he said, he was physically in mmy face. He had a larger build than mine, and he had an intimidating look in his eyes.

He didn't look like Akuma, but the feeling that you get from this picture is what i felt from that ex-NBA player...

“He can play, trust me”, said the womens basketball player.

“He better”, said the ex-NBA player, “or I’ll have to carry him around”.

The next three and a half hours were the greatest hours of play that I have ever experienced in my life. We ran plays that I had never knew existed outside of a XBox 360 game. That ex-NBA guy yelled at me the entire time.

“How could you miss that shot!?!”

“Anticipate the pass!”

“That was your man! Why did your man score !?! Do I have to do your job!?!”

“Don’t get happy yet. My little sister could make that shot!”

In between those insults, he and a few others would stop and give me advice on how to make my game play better. When we were done playing, I had left everything I had on that court. Several players complemented me on my perfromance, but the ex-NBA player had something differnet to say. He called me over to him where only I could hear him and he said something that I will never forget.

“You have a long way to go. At the level of play that you are at now, you could play college, but you would never play in the NBA. You have the heart, and you have the athleticism but you aren’t at that skill level yet. I enjoyed playing with you today. I hope to see you again soon. Work harder, because we’ll probably be playing against one another the next time we meet.”

I was never the best basketball player, but I could outplay most people that I met. I had natural athleticism, I was healthy, I had very good endurance, and I could out-work and out-play you if you blinked. But that day, I was exposed to a guy who was not on a different level but more like a different dimension. And this guy who was at this different dimension had clearly communicated to me that I was good, but I wasn’t great. I needed that. I needed to be told that. It told me where I was.

You will never accurately arrive at where you want to be if you do not know where you are. Leaders have given too much credit to their team players allowing them to receive praises of excellence for sub-par productivity. These employees/volunteers then present an average service expecting customers/commuities to faint from their fake-excellence. The result is a barrage of complaints and very small tips.

The employees/volunteers become bewildered with the fact that no one appreciates their sacrifice and they become unpassionate about their roles on the team. The team becomes handicapped, and the customer/community suffers from a lackluster product. Profits fall, blame is passed, and no one learns from their mistake. Employees/volunteers leave and join other teams, spreading this false sense of greatness like cancer…and ultimately, part of our society dies. Stop lying to your people. If they suck, then they suck. Stop spreading the cancer. Give someone the best day of their life–the day that they learn where they really are, so that they can discover where they should go.

Become A Roadsign

I had just pulled out of my neighborhood and was accelerating in speed when an elderly gentleman driving in the opposite direction began to wave frantically as he flagged me down.

“Excuse me!”, he said as he hit his brakes while sticking his head out of his window.

“There is a woman with a baby up ahead in the mddle of the road around that curve. I just thought that you should know!”

“Why thank you!”, I exclaimed. You see, the curve that he was talking about is a very, very, VERY blind curve. Once you get around it, if there is ANYTHING there, you will not have time to dodge it. What I saw as I came around the curve was even more of a shock than the random guy with his head out of the window.

As a point of precaution I chose to drive in the middle of the road at about 10 mph as I went around the curve. To my surprise there was a woman talking on her cell phone and pushing a sleeping baby in a stroller in the MIDDLE of the my lane on a completely blind curve. Also, there was a woman jogging in the middle of the road. I was accelarating to about 35 mph before hitting the curve, and had that old man not stopped me I would have hit the jogger, the woman and her infant child. It would have not been very pretty.

What that great, wonderful senior citizen did for me is what we should do for many who are going around the curves of life that we have already been on. We should give back by simply passing on information. Information about what? I would like to point out that the man never (a) told me how to drive (b) never told me to change course (c) nor attempted to frighten me. Instead, he educated me. He gave me understanding of what was ahead.

It was up to me to take that knowledge and apply it. Now, I know that people will carelessly walk on that blind curve in the middle of the road so I drive with a constant hint of caution. That knowledge applied is called wisdom.

This is how you transplant wisdom to another, and you must be just as concerned with the delivery as the content of which you want to deliver. So if you are having trouble with people receiving your “words of wisdom”, make sure that you check the delivery. And if you are not passing on wisdom to others who are approaching the curves of life that you have once ventured, then begin to think of what wisdom you could pass on to the rest of us. There are simply some surprises that we could all do without…

You Get What You Celebrate

Several years ago I met a mother who thought that it was absolutely adorable that her daughter could dance to Beyoncé’. Her daughter was only 2 years old, and she attempted to shake and gyrate like the music video. To see a two-year old attempt this was quite humorous to many, and it brought laughter wherever she performed. So needless to say, the mother celebrated her daughter’s accomplishment which in turn encouraged the young lady. Once this child was 7 years old she continued this behavior–but seeing a seven-year old girl move in such a provocative manner compared to a two-year old who doesn’t know any better was NOT a laughable manner. As a matter of fact, it became far worse than anyone could imagine. Anyone and everyone knows that small children will burst into random physical and verbal outbursts when bored. So guess what THIS young lady would do? Can you image during the middle of a church service that this young girl would began to perform rather lewd activities in the middle of an isle when she became bored? The mother and father would stumble over one another in a rush in order to restrain her and punish her but the damage was already done–until her next public performance that is!

So why was she still doing this 5 years later!?! Because her activities were verbally celebrated. As a communicator, you must be very careful that you do not verbally validate bad character in your organization. It is really easy to do. Many do it simply by not acknowledging the issue at hand. I have made this mistake MANY times in the classroom. Instead of stopping a talkative student on the first week of class, I allow them to continue due  to the fact that they “are not talking THAT loud“. But several weeks into the semester I find myself raising MY voice to talk over them in frustration.

When you are the facilitator/manager/leader/boss, sometimes you can feel as though you are abusing your authority by actually exercising your authority. If you exercise your authority with excellence and understanding, then only those who have an absolute disdain for authority will pose a lasting issue. So the next time you are debating about whether or not to allow a potentially destructive and embarrassing behavior to remain in your organization, just imagine that person pole dancing at your next meeting and ask yourself “Do I  REALLY want anyone else to see that?”