Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. My guest this episode is forty three year Disney veteran and brother of Bob Allen. It's Rick Allen. And now I mentioned Rick, I mentioned in the introduction brother of Bob Allen only because you two were on the show together before. And Yep. I finally separated you two. Bob was on just a couple episodes ago, and all he did was tell stories about you. Well, then you gotta hear my side because he's known as to
color some stories a little bit differently than the actual truth. But he's a good storyteller, so so I love and, yeah, he had a ball on your show, dude. He had a ball on it. So Oh, we had a We love doing all this. Oh, we we had a great conversation. And I, you know, I knew I liked Bob before. But before we started recording, we had this great conversation about birds, and I'm like, okay. I like him even better now. And I even said, Bob, let's
let's save some of the bird talk for when we're recording. And so we got to talk about birds. Birds have yeah. All his birds have names. You know, he talks all the time about how Clarice showed up today, and he fed Diana. And it's, that's all for real. He's, he loves the birds up there on on the lake he lives on. Well, I have one story for you before we get into your stories. I had a very proud father moment. You were talking about your brother being a
storyteller. My daughter was telling a story. She just turned 18, so she would have been 17 when this happened. She was telling a story, and my wife corrected her. And my daughter then said to my wife, you're letting your facts get in the way of my story. And I thought, okay. I must have done okay as a father. You did because that's the way it ought to be. Let the story play out, man. Those facts can get in the way for sure. That's great.
Yeah. That's great. That was good. Okay. So it was wonderful having you and Bob together on the episode, and you two told plenty of great stories. And now we've had Bob fill in a lot of his stories and talk about his career. Well, now you get the chance to speak up and correct the record and
say, look, what Bob said yeah. Actually, this is brought me to something I where I did wanna start is one of the things that he did say about you is he said he didn't really wanna follow in his in your father's footsteps and go work for Disney. And he kind of reluctantly did. And he said, you know, I'm not like my brother Rick. You went to business school and wanted to work at Disney and all that. So I thought, well,
that's a interesting take. You have one brother who didn't want to go really follow in your father's footsteps, and then he ended up on the creative side. But then we have you who was interested in the business of what your father did and what happened, and then you ended up in the operations side of Disney. So it's interesting how
that worked out. Yeah. That's all that is absolutely true. I think, Bob was, you know, he was a hippie and he loved the music business and he loved, you know, being creative and doing all of that stuff to get him where he was. And I loved the part about Disney being show business. That was so romantic to me growing up, listening to dad's stories, and going out in the park and and with him and thinking about that. To be a part of that, to be part of a
show, I started as a custodial host. But in my head, I was part of this show, and that was just darn cool. And so, yeah, that's why I I wanted to to stick with the business. And it made it made it easy too because we can't you know, I started as at 16 years old as an hourly. And so as I got out of college, I did get an MBA and all that stuff. But as I got out, it was easy just to slide in and go, okay. I already know the language. Everybody talks
out there, you know, about. Anyway, they had they have their own Disney has its own language, cast members enroll in the show and things like that. And it made it a little bit easier to get started out there, and it filled a sort of a romantic thing for me. It was really cool. Yeah. What a neat story and how you two took different paths to get to the same place and and then took different paths again. But I liked your story, one, because I found out you're the middle child and I'm
a middle child. So I think we get each other that way. Right? That no one pays attention to us. And That's right. And we're sensitive. We are sensitive. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. And so I think yours is such a classic Disney story to start out in the hourly roles, working the front line, and over a wonderful career to work yourself up higher and have many different roles along the way. How many different roles did you have during your career? Oh, gosh.
That's a really great question. I'm sure 30 probably, different roles, maybe more than that, actually, 30 or 35. That's a great thing about working at Walt Disney World. When we think about young people coming up today, you know, the Gen Zers and the Gen Xers and and the Millennials and and all of that, I'm a boomer, and so I came up and, you know, you said we're gonna, you know, we we're gonna go for the gold watch. We're gonna work forever, and we're gonna get
a pension, and we're gonna get out. And young folks today, they think we're crazy, right, thinking about that. And so we I remember we used to always tell our you'd start meetings at Disney a lot by going around the room, and we'd say, alright. Let's all say how many years you've worked here. And you'd go around. Hey. I've worked ten. Oh, I've worked
five. Oh, I've worked twenty. Oh, congratulations. And I'm a guy who studied how the different demographics learn, the millennials and the versus the boomers, said, you guys should stop doing that because the young folks, they don't care. If you've been there forty years, they're gonna say, why would you do that? And they said, but instead of saying that, say, I've had this many different adventures at Disney. I've had this many different roles at Disney. You don't have to say how many
years. You know, I got to go to Paris. I got to do task force as a place. I got to do openings. That excites them rather than just dragging them through, you know, gee, I don't know what. You don't have any goals. You you didn't wanna go anywhere at forty three years. That's crazy. So yeah. Yeah. All of that was is way different with people today as it should be as it should be, I think. It's interesting to to realize that that there are some organizations or maybe that's not even
true anymore. A different time when that I've been here thirty two years brings you credibility and makes people wanna talk to you and learn from you. But maybe that's not relevant anymore, but I've had 30 roles means a lot more to someone than I've had thirty years of experience here. Yeah. And then we could say, you you know, I'm an example, guys. You're you wanna have a lot of different adventures, but
you don't have to move. You can come to Walt Disney World, and you can do all of these different things, but you can you can keep your feet on the ground. You know? I'm not picking on all other organizations, but if you wanna do that sort of thing with, you know, say, Hilton, we gotta move. They're gonna call you and say, hey. We got an opening in Atlanta, and that's the sort of thing you need to go. You gotta go. Hey.
Now we've got one in Philadelphia, and you've gotta go. You know, 29, 30 resorts at Disney, four parks, water parks, all the different departments. You can do all of those experiences and, stay in your hometown. Yeah. That is amazing to to think. And I I always thought it was a good thing as a park ranger that I could advance and never leave the organization. But often you have to move
around to get that and you don't at Disney. And when I compare Lee Cockrell's career at Marriott to Dan Cockrell's career at Disney, they may have had the same number of roles, even though Marriott didn't use that term, but they would have had the same number of roles. But Lee had to move all across the country. He bounced Chicago, Philadelphia. Yeah. Boston, Washington, DC, Los Angeles. I mean, he was everywhere. And Dan did do a stint in Paris. Right.
Otherwise, he had 19 different roles without leaving Orlando. Yeah. Yeah. No. I you're right. That's interesting from father to son. And then, of course, Dan messes the whole thing up by flying out and now living in Australia. So he's messing up our our theory here. But yeah. No. That's a good comparison. Well, we were talking about birth order before. Dan's an only child, so sometimes they do things like that. Right. We blame it on
that. Yeah. Sure. Well, since we're talking about the early roles, how you started in the beginning, I feel like so often I ask leadership level questions, executive level questions. But just like when I was a park ranger on the front lines, some of the best stories happened when you're working there. I'm sure that's true at Disney. When you had those frontline roles, that's probably where the best stories took place. Well, I think
you're right. You know, there's some some some certainly some fun things in in my mind when I think about that. And it's funny. Just last week, I was doing a talk for an organization and they you know, I've got my career. They know what I did, and they almost all asked about what were those early roles like. You know, I started in as a custodial host in Fantasyland. And it may
sound funny, but I remember after working there for I was 16 years old. I remember working there for a week and my lead and so, you know, the guy I reported to, he said, come here, Rick. Let me, let's go sit over here. And we we went to a break here. He says, I'm going to buy you a Coke. And we sat down and he said, you know, you're 16 and full of energy and youth, and you need to slow down a little. You're making
everybody look bad out here. Now, of course, I'm just scared to death because I'm 16 and I'm in a brand new job, so I am running like crazy everywhere. But I, I thought that was a, an interesting welcome to the business. But the one I remember most learning about was those thinking about show business. I got this interesting slap in the head about what show business is about because we got to the custodial guys, we cleaned up for the after the parade. Right? So at the end of the parade and
I know you've seen them. They they go down. They end up down Main Street, and, you know, a parade is a huge party. There's music, and there's confetti, and there's dancing, and there's thousands of people watching with food and drink. And that's all a wonderful show. And then the parade ends and right behind it, you see this army of custodial people coming behind that and they're they pull up the cheese and the tracks, you know, in in the there's railroad tracks
in the middle. There's little those tracks you have to put yellow we called it cheese so that none of the parade floats would they get caught in it, and everybody's yanking up cheese. And then I got to drive we call them billy goats, but I don't know what the real name for the machine is. But it's one of those things that just it sucks up anything. It just so you see, like, an army of 10 billy goats behind there and just sucking up
popcorn boxes and Coke and everything in one. And literally in seconds, that huge party is back to Main Street USA. Right? The theming of this wonderful little turn of the century place with the right music and all that. And so strangely enough, you know, right off the bat, learning a little bit about show business. I thought that was a great education. After that, I got to go to Fort Wilderness. And Fort Wilderness, it's a campground, if your listeners don't know.
And it's a it's a great place, but it's got its own culture, man. If you work at the fort, they're rebels. They are rebels out there, and they they have this thing where they'll they'll do whatever it takes in the name of guest service. And we talk about that, Bob and I do, sometimes in our talks. The first general manager there was named Keith Cambach, and, his team were called Cambach's Raiders. And they
would they invented the midnight requisition. And so they'd go out in the middle of the night, and they'd go borrow stuff, steal stuff in order to make the fort work. And it was people would just nudge. I know it's against the rules, but, doc god, we need this stuff. And, you know, the fort didn't have a big budget. They weren't a big, glitzy hotel that had a monorail running through it. They're a campground that had, you know, $30 rates instead of hundred and $30 rates. And so,
they didn't have any budgets or anything. So they'd go out, steal stuff, and make things work. One of the examples was they had, you know, the work work vehicles at Disney were white. They were all white. Anytime a company vehicle was white, except well, what is theirs were green. They actually called it Fort Greene. And the fort had a
paint booth. And Keith's, Cambach's Raiders, they'd go out and occasionally hotwire a truck or two in the middle of the night, bring it back, paint it fort green, and it became a four wheeler this truck. Man, I tell you, that stuff is true. I got to be the general manager there for a few years, and it was just wonderful. And, of course, it was long after Keith Cambach had been there, but I called him. And he, he had retired from the company by then. And I said, Keith, I gotta know about the
theming here. I said, I I get it. It's it's Fort Wilderness, and it's a Western town, and Davy Crockett, and all of those things. But now I'm I'm looking up here and I see totem poles. And I said, I just can you catch me up what the theming is like? He he laughed. He said, Rick, I was there when we first started it. He said, I got my guys, and we got a big truck. And I sent them to California, to Disneyland, and they drove back behind Disneyland backstage and
stole anything they thought was interesting. They brought it back, and he said, so? Totem poles. Okay. Now I now I get it. But, you know, that's their thing. And I hope the fort still has that still has that ambiance with their group. They'll do anything to to figure things out. They're a little bit crazy. But that's the kind of funny stuff that have I'll give you one more. You want me to pause for a minute and let you say something?
I do have a question about the Raiders, but maybe it should come after your next story. Okay. Alright. Well, I'll switch after the fort. And, again, boy, this is memory lane for me. I hope everybody has patience in me telling these stories. But I got to go work on the Jungle Cruise in Magic Kingdom. And, boy, you talk about a place that a culture within a culture. The Jungle Cruise is a whole lot of fun, and it's a great attraction.
And I think one of the reasons why it's so special is because, you know, it's a live show that you're a skipper on the Jungle Cruise, and that's you get to live interaction with the show around you, but with your your guests, and that makes it that makes it special. And the skippers, when when I was there, man, everybody is looking for good gags. You know, there there's the stuff you're supposed to say,
which is the SOP spiel. And then we were given what were called approved ad libs, which is kinda weird. Right? Because that's an oxymoron in and of itself. An ad lib is something that you think up on the spot. So how could it be approved? But you'd have those. But then, you know, everybody kinda do a few of their own little things here and there to make the crews great, And you'd sort of bend the rules a little bit in the name of that great
guest service. And there were some great performances out there, some guys that really did some really fun stuff. And I say guys too, because when I was there, this was at '76, '70 '7, something like that. There were just guys. And, actually, that summer that I was there, we got the first woman that joined, and so that barrier was broken, and that was great. And you could tell when peep when their boats you know, everybody watched. The skippers all watched when somebody's boat came back to the
dock. You know, if they were cheering going on, if they were laughing going on, we know, boy, that guy must really be doing a good job or even boos. If the crowd was booing them, then, you know, that's probably because they were using puns, you know, and people love to boo puns. And so, you know, that was a success as well. Like, when I finished the I still remember when I finished the jungle, one of my sometimes you'd say,
alright, everybody. We're back to the dock. Rise like bread. No loafing on my boat. It's the yeast you can do. Well, you know, you'd get some boos on that, and that's probably okay if if they boo boo you there. But here was my lesson that I learned on that. You know, we'd sort of rate the crews. We'd sit in the break room and go, boy, boy, I had a, you know, really good one today. Or, boy, these guys were just staring at me. Nothing going on. And and we'd sort of rate the crews
and how they did. But I began to notice that my best crews were when I was early in my shift, right, when I was more energetic, when I was fresher, when my timing was better. You know, we did 20 trips a day around the around the rivers of the world. And so you later in the day, you'd get more robotic and you'd you'd get less engaged with people. And I remember one time, I was actually on a cruise late in my shift, and I was completely out of sync. I was talking
about gorillas when I'm standing in front of crocodiles. It made no sense. But the thing that was weirder was the guest didn't even they didn't notice. And I think because I wasn't engaged, they weren't engaged. They were just riding around taking pictures of things. And so what I learned was, you know, there's no bad audiences. The engagement of the skip made all all of the difference. And I think there
was a leadership thing there too. You know? Same thing in leading people. You've gotta be engaged with people, and that's how you get the best out of them. The very best spieler was a guy named Gary. Jungle Gary, I guess. And he wasn't funny. All the rest of us tried gags and tried to be funny. He was the real thing. He tried his best to be like an authentic what an authentic skipper would really be acting like going through the jungle. And, man, people he was in a class by himself,
and that was harder. You know? Doing puns is easy, but, doing the real thing is is harder. Anyway, the Jungle Cruise was, also a great a fun thing to do in the beginning. I bet. And it that lesson that you learned on Jungle Cruise, I'm sure that's still relevant. You said you just gave a presentation last week. I'm sure you felt it. If you were energetic and engaged, the audience is, and that's been true ever
since you were on the Jungle Cruise. What I like about Jungle Cruise stories is I feel like that if you're a skipper, you have such a connection to Walt because he seemed to the way the skippers were seemed to be a big deal to him. And I feel like the effort he put into shaping the jungle cruise and what a skipper is like is still true today, is still there with the skippers. And that's what I think about when I ride the Jungle Cruise. That and then and knowing that's
where Jeff Knowl got his start as a skipper. Jungle Jeff. Yeah. Jungle Jeff. So I I think about that, how the performance you see, the show that's been put on, that's the show Walt wanted. And he had standards of what he wanted that to be and let people know if they weren't there. Yeah. Boy. And and there's that famous story you're probably, referring to with when, he came down and rode the jungle, right, in in Disneyland. And and then, I think it was like I'll I'm making up the timing a
little bit. Eight or nine minutes long. And so he called Dick Nunes who, you know, was running everything in the in the park, and he called him over. And he said, Dick, what happened to my other four minutes? And, he's Dick said, yes, sir. I'll make sure. And and, Dick went on a absolute retraining tirade, and, Walt came back a week later and, wrote it and said, now that's now that's what it ought to be. But like you said, that was very important to to
him, and you you don't shortchange it at all. Yeah. And if you know that story, and that's what I was thinking about, it just changes the way I ride it when I see it. And another cool thing about the Jungle Cruise is part of its charm is just how cheesy it is and that it kind of feels like it's a really old ride. That's what I love about it, that it it just has that feel to it. Yeah. And it and it you know, the they've, I think, encouraged the sarcastic
knucklehead, you know, skipper thing. It's okay to do that. You know? Like, guests would come up to us on the dock and and say, hey. You know? Jeez. You because we weren't allowed to go in the rain. So we we would be down one or two. We'd go down in the rain, and they'd come up and say, hey. You know? When's the rain gonna stop? And so, you know, you go, well, hang on. Let me grab the schedule. And you'd you'd open it up some stupid piece of paper and go, you know, they're
gonna raise the dome here in thirty minute. You know, you could do all that stuff, and, you could get away with it. They'd people say, hey. What what's up? What you guys work here. What's the best place to see the firework? In the sky, ma'am. In the sky. That's the best place. So you anywhere else, you might get looked down upon, but as a jungle crew skipper, it was fun. Yeah. That's a good I would recommend anybody to work there. It also gets you quite a bit over
fear of of speaking to people in front of people. You know, you got 20 people on your boat, and you do it 20 times a day, and you got five days a week, and you do that fifty weeks a year. And that's 5,000 speeches a year. So, you, you get to have a little bit of confidence in yourself. I bet. I hadn't thought of it that way. That's interesting take. Okay. I wanna bump back to the Raiders. Yeah. What I like about that story is for what what was his last name again? What were the
Raiders? Camback. Camback. Raiders. Okay. Yeah. So Disney as a whole does a really good job making cast members feel special, like they're part of something. But I love the story of came back Raiders because in a company that already makes you feel like part of something, I'm sure if you were one of the Raiders, like, you felt really special. Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, I think the fort still maintains that that they they've got this wink, wink, nudge,
nudge. You know, you're part of a special I remember when I got to be the GM there, as a matter of fact. And, you know, again, it's very hard to get money to invest in capital and things like that, and and all the general managers work hard to make, you know, make their presentations. Hey. We need a new one of these, or we need to repair one of those. And, of course,
there's not enough money to do all the things that you wanna do. And the fort was even harder again because your return doesn't make as much money as some of the others. But I'm so I remember going through my dog and pony show with our our finance director in resorts. And, I said I finally saw it at the end, and I said, and I know we're probably not gonna get these. And, her name is Stephanie, and and we saw her the other day. She said, you know what, Rick?
She said, I worked at the Fort. I was there for five years. We Fort folks got to stick together. We're going to get these. And I thought, man, that's good. You know? So to your point, it's a cool little club that I'd I think is different than any other resort out there. Oh, how fun. Well, the way I was connected to Rick, I can't recall if I told this
story when Rick and Bob were on together. The way I was connected to Rick, Lee Cockrell and I were putting on an event, the Creating Magic Mastermind, and we always have a guest speaker from Disney join us. We had someone lined up and it fell through, and I needed someone fairly quick. And I was like, I don't know who to reach out to. So I asked my pal, Dwan Rivers. Dwan, who would be a great fit? Because Dwan had been a speaker. He knew the event.
And I said, who would be a good fit for what we're doing? And he only gave me one name and that name was Rick Allen. And I think the world of the one. So I knew I would like Rick because the one liked Rick, But it made me realize before I even met you, Rick, that you must be a relationship guy to have had such a good relationship with DeJuan. So tell us a bit about the role relationships played during your career.
Yeah. You know, that's a great question. And and again, I would, you know, I'm gonna relate it to the Disney culture. You know, they're the Disney culture is it's a relationship based culture. And, you know, what I tell people when they would come talk to me about it, sometimes it was, hey. How do you get ahead in a career? What what should I do and everything? And I'd always remind them of that. And it's for good or for
ill. Right? You know, the culture is the way it is. It's what people do when nobody's watching, and and it's just the way things are done around here. Changing the culture isn't gonna get you there. So if you don't like it being relationship based, that's too bad because it is. And so, you know, it's a key thing. And there are a couple of stories that I remember that made it
really crystal clear for me. And one is a a story about how relationships just beat everything else when it comes to guests, and another is about relationships when it comes to cast members, so employees with each other. And and maybe I'll throw them both out of here if we if we have have enough time. So the first one about guests, I I was the general manager at Caribbean Beach Resort. So, and I was the brand new general manager there. I'd only
been there about a week. And I'd I called our executive housekeeper. Her name was Letha. And I said, Letha, who is our best housekeeping trainer? And she said, that's easy. That's easy. It's Betty Jackson. Betty is our best. Is our best she gets the all the most great guest comments, and we try to have everybody train with Betty when we can. And I said, perfect. Sign me up. I wanna train with Betty. And so we booked it, and I got my costume on the day and that we
booked it. And I went and I cleaned rooms with Betty. And the well, the odd thing was it didn't go very well. She missed a lot of things that were really standard
for us. You know, for example, she she didn't look under a bed one time to see if there was trash under there, didn't look in the armoire, in one of the drawers to see if the guest in a checkout might have left something behind, which they had actually and forgot to replace some amenities, some shampoo so much that in my mind, I'm going, jeez, this is our best trainer. And and I felt like I had to say something. And I said, Betty, we missed a couple things here,
didn't we? And and she said, oh my gosh, Rick. I am so sorry. I don't know where my head is today. And then I thought, okay. You know, the GM is a can be an intimidating role. I totally get that. And so I said, yeah, I'm probably just making her nervous. So so so we will I'll just bring the temperature down, and we'll chat. So I said, let's sit down and talk for a minute. I remember saying, so, Betty, how long you worked here? She said, well,
twenty five years, Rick. All at The Caribbean. I said, man, that's great. Congratulations. I said, do you like it? She said, no. I love it. I love it. It's great. She said, let me let me show you why. And we walked to the door of the room we were in, and we looked outside, and she cleaned 18 rooms a day in her section. She pointed up to one of the rooms she cleaned. She says that that's 15 o one, and that's Donnie and Marcia Davis are staying there, and they are on their honeymoon. And, they
got here three days ago, and tonight, they're going to the California Grill. And I'm gonna write them a note in there and put it in the room so that they know tonight that I'm thinking about them. And the next room right next to that is Room 1502, and that's Jose and Maria, and that's Jimmy and Bobby. They're kids. They're six year old twins, and they love Buzz Lightyear. And so I'm gonna make a little towel animal for that for, like, for Buzz Lightyear, and I'm gonna write a
note that says to infinity and beyond. And I'm gonna stick it in that stick it so they know I'm thinking about them. And the room next to that is 1503, and that's Steve Johnson. And Steve's here on business, and he's been he's been in meetings for three days. He's got meetings tomorrow too, but that's his checkout day. So I'm gonna call the front desk tonight and make sure he gets a late checkout tomorrow. And Jody, she went on and on every room
that was occupied without looking at any document. She knew all of her guests. She knew their kids. She knew things she could do to make their stay more special. Here was our one of our poorer cleaners in my mind who was the best housekeeper because of relationships. And so, you know, that really made that clear to me in a way that I did that had never gotten through my head before. And, boy, we needed a whole lot more, you know, Betty's in my mind. So
that was that was a neat experience. So that that is a great story. That is to understand the effort that she put into knowing the people that are staying there, that is wonderful. Yeah. She was natural at it. And so and, you know, that and that goes to so many things. That goes to so many things. You know, we'd we'd tell all of our guys. It says, look, if you just if you listen to the to your guest if a
guest has a has an issue that they're then you solve. If you listen to them and look them in the eye and write things down and don't be defensive and and say, okay. Here's I think here I understand what your issue is. You know, if you do all those things, they're gonna feel heard and they're gonna they're gonna know you're taking care of it. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you can say, I think I've got this. You come back and get help. But if you listen to them and
establish that relationship, I think that really matters. Let me give you one more about but this was about, cast members. We got time? We okay? We're good. This is a story about my general manager there named Ed Mayotte. Ed was, and this was at the Disney Inn, which at first was the golf resort then became the Disney Inn, and now it's Shades of Green out there, the the military, the
one that gives military stays. But it was the Disney Inn back then, and I was the resident manager and so responsible for front office and housekeeping and a few other things. And Ed came to me and he said, Rick, our our safety scores are not good. We have too many safety incidents. I want you to fix it. So I said, okay. I'm on it. And so I did you know, I put posters up, and I had some meetings, and we did some rah rah sessions and tried to make sure
everybody knew that safety was important. And the everybody knew that safety was important, and the numbers didn't budge. And so I went back, and I got a committee together. And we got some training to do with everybody, and we put some more posters up, and nothing changed. And, Ed got frustrated with me. And so he came in one one morning, and he goes, Rick, this isn't getting any better. Well, jeez. You know, I'm I'm trying all these things. He says, come on. Let's go. Come with
me. We're gonna go fix it. And we walked down to the housekeeping was doing their breakout. The housekeeping breakout every morning or or every other morning, housekeepers will all get together with their leaders, and they'll make sure they know exactly what rooms they're gonna clean and any messages for the day, and that takes about twenty minutes housekeeping breakout. So the whole team is gathered there. And Ed busted in on housekeeping
breakout, and he said, okay, everybody. I need to talk to you for a minute. He said, I need you to stop getting hurt. Now now in my mind, I'm going, that's your big plan, Ed. I've done the posters. I've done the training. You're just gonna tell him to stop getting hurt? But he was much smarter than that. He went around the room one by one, and he and he and he said, you know, Jose, you can't afford to get hurt. He said, you're taking care of your mother at home.
He said, if you're laid up and you're at home, you're not gonna be getting your full pay. You know you can't do that. And then he went to the next person. He said, you know, Maria, you can't because you've got you're raising your son on your own. And and so you're having to pay, you know, for school or or whatever that is. And he did the same thing. He went around the room one at a time and said, this is why this is personal for you, and we care about you, and doggone
it, stop getting hurt. And son of a gun, man. People stopped getting hurt. And that was just such a lesson for me again about this whole relationship thing. And that doesn't have to be at Disney, by the way. Of course, I think that can be anywhere. If you can, you know, if you have a good relationship with people, let them know you care about them and and, listen to what their issues are. Man, it can really get you to the
right place. Those stories are so good at illustrating how to build a relationship culture and and what's involved in it. I like that Rick reminded us, you don't have to be Disney to do it. I remember when Dan Cockrell first left Disney and we were working together, one of the things he would often hear as he would talk to organizations was, yeah. You can do that at Disney, but that doesn't work here because you've got all that staff, the big budgets. And he said, no. It
doesn't take money to focus on details. It doesn't take money to build relationships. You just have to be deliberate about it. And I thought I think that's a great way to look at it. If people think there's something magical about Disney, and there is. But as Lee Cockerell says, it's not magic that makes it work. It's the way we work that make it magical. Mhmm. Yeah. Sure. And it's the focus on relationships
with guests, with other cast members. And and I think that is a a good way to to wrap up what's been a great conversation, Rick, that's idea of just a culture of relationships. And I think that's what you've described to us. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you and Dan more on that. I think that it you know, any any organization can do that. That's about how people work. You know, that's how how how brains work, and we all would react that way. Right? And so yeah. It's good to
to learn from that. It's just, fascinating how you can see it time and time again right in front of you that those are the things that matter. Yeah. That's right. Well, Rick has been out giving talks and well, so, Rick, I know we at the end of the episode when you were with your brother Bob, we talked about the talk that you two are giving together, but you're also out there doing stuff on your own. So tell us a little
bit about what you're up to. Yeah. Thanks. So I've got a a talk called Culture Tales, and it's t a I l s. Right? So that's, you know, probably a a reference to my old boss, Mickey. But, you know, what that gets to is, you know, Disney has a very successful operating culture. And if you're interested in that, I think I'm pretty smart about being able to tell you stories about how that worked with the Disney company and then give you tactics to say that and this is how you can
bring that to life. And so I've that's about culture tales, and I like doing that. And then there's a there's another one that I've, I'm putting the buttons on it now. It's not quite finished, but I'm tentatively calling it making it work. And that's for the all the operators out there. You know, operators in any organization, you know, you're given the assignments, man. Somebody cooks up the strategy, but they say, now you go make it work. And so making it work at Disney is,
you know, was part of what we what we operators did. And so I've got a talk working on that. We actually did a, we had a project one time where we needed to get our guest service scores up, and I won't go too far in the details. But I was part of a group that said, you know what? If you could do anything you wanted, anything to make your guest scores go up, what would you do? And let's go try
it. And so we got a chance to do that for about three months, and we learned a ton of things, made a lot of mistakes, but we learned a ton about some things that, that ended up carrying on out there. And so this talk will be about, you know, what are some things that an operator out there might wanna learn from that. Alright. Wonderful. And where can we find you? You can find my website is, rickallenconsultinggroup.com. That looks like
a long sentence, but Rick Allen. So r I c k a l l e e n. Rick Allen consulting group dot com, and and I'm on there, or you could give me a call. (407) 832-3592. That is great that you gave your phone number, Rick. I have expected someone to do that eventually. And and here you you did it. You just threw it out there. You
know, Lee puts his phone number. He's got his phone number in the back of the customer rules and people call him, but he said it is way less than you would think, the people that actually call him, even though his phone number is right there. Yeah. That's it. So we'll we'll try it and see if anybody anybody calls out. You know, I may, I may get a you may get a voice mail, but then I'll if, you know, if you've got a question for me about all this, I'll be happy to call
you back. Alright, Rick. Thanks for coming back. I'm glad we were able to sneak you away from Bob and have a a private episode here. You know how first moms are. Right? They always want the spotlight. That's right. Exactly right. They need us sensitive people that, you know, can make compromise happen. So that's what we're all about in the middle, I think. That's right. Well, thank you so much, Rick, and thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry Show. The kids say he's hip. It's Sugar Jay.