In honor of our pending family vacation to Disney World, here’s a book review by someone who knows a little bit about the Magic Kingdom. Lee was the Executive VP of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort. Lee wrote this book from the perspective of his leadership experiences at other companies and how he used those learnings to craft his leadership style at Disney and how it helped to shape the culture at Disney. He boils his learnings down to 10 common sense principles. This book is a great leadership read. Most everyone can relate to the excellence and “magic” of Disney and this book gives you a real insiders perspective into how the organization uses common sense principles to create a culture of magic. Here’s some highlights:

• It’s not the magic that makes it work; it’s the way we work that makes it magic.
• Creating magic requires that the outsiders never see the effort required to deliver the product.
• Products and services can easily be replicated. So if your company’s competitive advantage is based on products and services alone, you are at risk.
• The three-legged stool: the Guests, the Cast Members, and the business metrics.
• When you do something really well, the word tends to get out.
• All business problems boil down to leadership problems.
• The true work of a business leader, like that of a mother, is to help others to be the best they can be.
• In times of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future.

There is a lot of good content in this book. If you’re a fan of Disney, leadership, common sense, continuous improvement or good stories, this book is worth a read.