Disney and Dentistry - Walt's Words

Oddly enough, after posting my last entry, I went to a seminar on comprehensive dentistry, and I opened the binder that was provided with all the handouts and notes from the class. On page 3 of the binder, the instructor gives us this quote:

It seems to me shallow and arrogant for any man in these times to claim he is completely self-made, that he owes all his success to his own unaided efforts. Many hands and hearts and minds generally contribute to anyone's notable achievements.

Walt Disney

The course was using these words to illuminate his views on the value of our dental team, including hygienists, assistants, and clerical staff. When you think about it in terms of Walt himself, he was obviously talking about all the talented individuals who did a lot of the heavy lifting in the process of making Walt Disney Studios the huge success that it became.

What's it have to do with Disney today? Probably very little. Probably has more in common with Pixar, where the team effort of all those guys produced the end result we see today every time we watch a Pixar animated release in the theaters. And maybe that's part of the problem at Disney today (assuming there IS a problem at all!), that it's way too huge to innovate anymore, whether it be in animation or in the theme park industry.

When you think of it, the newest part of Disney is probably the Disney Vacation Club, and that IS in fact a different way of packaging the concept of time shares. And their hotels and resorts are very much destinations in and of themselves. A very successful, very profitable business for the Disney Company. Maybe that spirit of innovation, of lots of talented hands, hearts and minds coming together to make something really cool, is alive and well in this branch of their business. A lot of people scoff at DVC, or resent it, but if you've ever stayed at one of their resorts, you'd probably agree that they're great places. With resorts in Hilton Head, Vero Beach and soon, Hawaii, they aren't limited to the theme parks either.

But that's probably a blog entry on its own. I just found it rather coincidental that I came across more references to Disney as it related to dentistry.

*****

Disney and Dentistry

Some people who read this blog might know that in real life I am a dentist. And if it wasn't for dentistry, I may not have come upon my love of Disney, even as late in life as I did, because the reason we decided to first visit WDW with our kids back in 2004 (I think) was because the American Dental Association was having their annual meeting in Orlando that year. It also happened to be a really bad hurricane year, and we got to Orlando about an hour before they closed the airport. Hurricane Jeanne hit the next day and we spent our entire Sunday, our first day at Disney, cowering in our room at the Port Orleans French Quarter resort, munching on cereal and snack foods, waiting for the winds to pass. (It took them all day to do so because after Jeanne passed to the south of Orlando, she took a right turn and headed north. So we got the high winds and storms twice, sort of, with very little let-up in the middle.)

It so happens that the ADA held their annual meeting in Orlando again this year. We didn't go, because it's in the middle of October and our kids are in school. And school's important to us; we don't feel comfortable taking them out for Disney vacations anymore. But it didn't stop the ADA from having their meeting.

So what's the connection to Disney, you might ask? Well, apparently a hugely popular course titled "Disney's Approach to Quality Service" was on the course list, led by facilitator Tom Thomson of the Disney Institute. This course discussed Disney business philosophies and relating them to dentistry, mostly about anticipating and reacting "to patients' needs, wants and emotions." He drew parallels between the emotions people feel before they come in for their dental visit, perhaps their worries, and the emotions and worries that people have before signing up for a Disney vacation. How we deal with these issues might be different, but the need to deal with them is the same.

I found it interesting that even the ADA recognizes that Disney has something good to add to their program!

*****