February 5, 2025 • 38 mins
"Have other people around you that have different points of view, or related points of view with different perspectives. I think that benefits a lot of people."
Isn't it funny how those unplanned "hallway conversations" drive creativity and collaboration? Bob Weis, retired president of Walt Disney Imagineering, returns to share how our unexpected chats can spark innovation and shape an organization's culture. Read the blog for more insights from this episode.
Notable Moments
03:11 Book Signings Aboard Disney Treasure
07:11 Monitoring the Los Angeles Fires from a Ship
08:58 Unknown Impact of the Fires on Neighborhood and Home While Aboard
15:26 Disney's Strong Alumni Support Network
18:24 Book Signings Give Opportunity to Connect with Fans
21:16 Inspired by Author Timothy Egan's Personal Touch
23:50 Author Signings at Walt Disney's Barn in Griffith Park
27:10 Spontaneous Hallway Conversations Sparked Creative Exchanges at Imagineering.
30:36 Diversity's Role in Creative Success
33:13 Marty Sklar's Energizing Walks to Boost his Mood and Productivity
37:01 Stewardship and Storytelling in Tourism Attracts Repeat Guests
Connect with Bob Weis
Order the book – Dream Chasing
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. I am so
pleased to have Bob Weiss back with us. Bob is
the author of Dream Chasing and the
retired president of Walt Disney Imagineering. Now I know
Bob was on the show not long ago, but we had so much
more to talk about. And it turns out, since we last talked,
(00:26):
there's been other things come up to talk about. So first, let me
say, Bob, it's so great to have you back so soon, and I'm
I'm glad you're with us because you've had a a hectic
month. Well, thank you, Jody. And I
so enjoyed our talk, and I was looking forward to talking again. I am. But
yeah, but a lot has gone on. You know, California has been through it. Southern
(00:48):
California has been through it. Boy, we count ourselves lucky.
We were close, very close to a fire zone. We have houses a few blocks
from us that have been completely burnt to the ground. And
I'm talking about in the twenties of houses. I mean, lots and
lots of houses burnt down. It's a strange, strange thing. And we were on the
Disney cruise ship, the treasure. I was talking, I was
(01:11):
giving book signings, things like that. But we count ourselves lucky. Our house
is the structure is fine. We have some smoke to deal with, things like that.
But yeah, the world is just you never know where things are
going to swing. But it's a great pleasure to speak with you
again and maybe have a chance to just kinda let let some of
it out in our conversation. So Yes. I definitely
(01:34):
want to talk about the the fire and and all that.
But let's start with the crews because that's
where Bob was when the fire broke out. So before we get to
the fire, let's talk about that. Beautiful cruise. The and it was
and the whole thing was a beautiful cruise. I don't wanna make it sound at
all like the cruise was marred in any way. It was beautiful. When I
(01:55):
was at Imagineering and I write a little bit about this, I worked
with a wonderful, wonderful guy, Karl Holtz, who was
developing the new model for the Disney cruise ships at that time, which we call
it the Triton. And the first one that came out was
the Wish, which came out some time ago, has been
very well received. And the treasure, which just
(02:18):
came out just in the lab this is only I think we were only on
maybe the fourth public cruise of the treasure
is the same basic structure or architecture as the Wish
is, but thematically feels much different. It's a completely
different feel, look, everything. And it's just a wonderful,
wonderful ship. We're so happy to be on it. And I was able to
(02:40):
experience every inch of it, including the new
Haunted Mansion parlor bar that doesn't exist anywhere else.
Just the cocoa restaurant, cocoa themed restaurant that
doesn't exist anywhere else. So it was a great, great trip. We count
ourselves privileged and we were the guests of the
Disney Vacation Club cruise. It was exclusively
(03:03):
Disney Vacation Club members, their chance to preview the ship
to be one of the first to see it. And boy, what a
group to talk to. I spoke three times in one of the
venues on board and we had a full house each time. I
always, being a new author, I always wonder, is anybody going to
show up? And each time it was a packed house,
(03:25):
packed house. And then I did signings afterwards and the book
signing line went way down the ship and they
sold out of all the books that they had on board the first morning. So
I was like, well, this will be easy. We'll sell out. We'll just sign
books the first day and that'll be it. Well, I signed all three days for
about two and a half hours each day. And it was because
(03:47):
a lot of members are pretty smart and they
they sign or they ordered their books ahead of time. So they they
brought their books with them. So we had not only however many books
the treasurer brought on board, but lots of people with Amazon
boxes with two or three or sometimes four books ready to
be signed. So what a gratifying experience it is, first of
(04:09):
all, to be on the treasure, to be able to have worked on
it and also be there as now an author to talk
to the people about my experiences and then to sign books
for the most gracious audience in the world. The DVC members are just,
you know, incredibly gracious, fun, inspiring in
their their support of Disney. So I I couldn't have had a
(04:32):
better almost week on the treasure. It was fantastic. I
imagine that was fun. And DVC, Disney Vacation Club, that's
like a whole different level of fandom
because they have paid for access to
locations and events like this and get to do I love asking them. I
love asking them because I'll say, Well, is this your first cruise?
(04:54):
And they'll say, Oh, this is number 16 or this is number 21 or
whatever. These are people who love to do Disney experiences. So and
they're just wonderful people. They're just wonderful. And the cruise is kind of
a intimate chance to chat, to to walk around. I
found myself after three days of giving these talks and signings that people
would just stop me on board and say, good morning, Bob. Like, I was just
(05:16):
like, hey, Bob. Hey, Bob. You know? So it was fun.
Last summer, and I get to do it again this upcoming summer, I
was a guest lecturer for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line on a cruise to the last
Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. It you have felt this
now, I'm sure, unlike any other speaking opportunity you
can have because your my crews that I did this on
(05:39):
was a week. So of the people, there the capacity
was a hundred for each of my talks. So 200 people came to see
me speak and you run into them throughout the week and
at onshore and at lunch. And it is a much different
experience because usually you talk, you may talk to
answer some questions later and then it's over. You may never see them again. But
(06:02):
in these situations, you continue to set a couple more
days or or, you know, five five more days with these folks.
And, yeah, you're right. You're right. And it was it was fun.
It's always fun. And the cast on board
is the best. And, you know, and they're from all over the world. The cast
is from, you know, from Europe, from Asia, from so many places.
(06:24):
And they're all, you know, so gracious and nice. The people
who operate the cruise for the Disney Vacation Club, they're
great. So couldn't be better. And they were really nice to us when we got
off at Canaveral. We realized our neighborhood was
closed. We were supposed to fly back. We didn't know what we were going to
do. And so they were super nice, put us up for a couple more days
(06:45):
in Florida till we could figure out what we're going to do and made us
feel really good, made my daughter have fun. And so it
was great. It's just a wonderful experience, really. So
we were laughing, you know, If you have to be in a disaster, it's pretty
nice to be in a disaster with Disney, you know. Yeah. I
imagine that's as good as it gets. They do everything so well. I'm sure they
(07:06):
do disasters really well too. They even do disasters as
well. When you have But it's a big cultural
shock, I guess. It's a huge thing. And I'm sure
anybody listening has heard about it for Los Angeles. And this is a
I think it's You have to tell me the science. But there's no
question that global warming is impacting
(07:29):
the cycles of growth and then drying out and
then lack of rain and then the buildup of
material to possibly burn and things like that. There's no question about
that. And it's a huge
effect across many places, including
hugely California, Southern California, especially. But on a micro
(07:50):
level, as someone who has spent years with Walt Disney Imagineering,
there's the Altadena, which was where the Eaton fire
area that was just decimated by the Eaton fire, Eaton Canyon
fire is a huge enclave of people from Walt Disney Imagineering,
just a huge enclave of folks. And I just have a
list. I have a running list of people who are close
(08:13):
friends, who I've worked with for years, who've all lost their homes.
It's like a amazing It's hard to
believe how many people lost their homes and how fast they had to get
out. You know, it was, I know you probably heard more about the
Palisades event, but the canyon event was just striking. Just
what a thing to happen. Which fire was it
(08:34):
that came close to your neighborhood? The Palisades or the Eaton?
Palisades is up is up closer to Santa Monica. The Eaton Canyon
fire. I live near Eaton Canyon, and that's the one that came close to
us. And and I I had kind of selected a house that wasn't right at
the foothills. We're several blocks from the foothills for this
reason. And it kind of came down in from the foothills and
(08:56):
hit houses houses a few blocks from us. But then it
goes across this hill, goes across and it goes to different sides of
Pasadena. And Altadena is the one that really got
hit in these nights when they just had they had a night there
where they had these Santa Ana winds that were like between fifty
five and eighty five miles an hour or something like that. And so there's nothing
(09:18):
the firefighters could really do. The the wind that
whips through there on these seasonal things is really
something. It's so give us an idea of what
that was like. You were on the cruise ship when that fire started. And
and I was thinking about you because it's
one terrible thing if your house burns down. And
(09:40):
until we got to talk, I didn't know how it turned out for you. But
it's one terrible thing if your house burns down, but it's another if it happens
when you're gone and you don't get that chance to fill your car
with those most important items. So I
imagine you had a lot of worry and concern
while you were on the ship. We had a lot of we had a lot
(10:01):
of worry and concern and but I'll tell you that I think most of the
people that I've talked to didn't have a chance to load their cars either.
I mean, they got out their lives. They were out. And up in my
neighborhood, there's a lot of houses burnt down, you know, with cars
in the driveway. So people had to move really fast to get out of there.
So I think for people who live in a fire zone, having that stuff
(10:24):
right by the door, this is what they always tell you, have the stuff right
by the door. If there's anything you think you want to save, you better have
it right there because you're not going to get back in again. But
yeah, we were watching it. I have an
adult son who drove up there until they blocked it off.
He drove up there and checked it out for us. And of course, this is
(10:45):
kind of a weird phenomenon of the new ring cameras and
Google cameras. You could watch your house and say, okay, how are we doing?
You know, or watch the embers flying by and stuff like
that. But, you know, we took it with a grain of salt.
My son was fine. We were all on the ship, my daughter and I and
my wife. If you have your family safe,
(11:06):
really everything else is replaceable, right? That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt your
heart to lose things that where heirlooms are
important parts of your family history or something like that. But the most important thing
is you got your family safe. And we were lucky. Our house
has not been damaged at all. It's been smoke damaged. So we don't know
what it's going to take to clean up the house and get back into it.
(11:28):
But you know, I think the most important thing is people have to have
to realize that life is life and, you know, having everybody safe
is the most important thing. Yes. It has been
amazing in a usually in a terrible way watching
the footage. I I was a wildland firefighter when I was a
park ranger, was involved in several small fires and one
(11:51):
really big fire. And even the really big fire, nothing compared
to what is going on in California. But it's hard to compare
anything to that because nothing like this has quite happened
before. And that is the Well, it's interesting, though. It's interesting, though, not to
interrupt you, but it keep going. But but it is interesting, though, that you got
the Maui fire that's very similar. You're seeing events
(12:13):
where there may be a combination of drier,
drier seasons combined with the fact that housing has
encroached into fire areas that it wasn't in before. Right? So you are
seeing this kind of confluence of those
factors that is pretty serious. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Well
and that is something too that I I think this can happen
(12:37):
anywhere in organizations or in
government in cities that once factors start to
change, homes encroach into more fire danger zones
where they weren't. Then policies, procedures
become where they wouldn't have mattered quite before may make a
huge difference now. And I think this is where you
(12:59):
look at at and I always wanna be careful because there's a
lot of finger pointing and back and forth. And my view is, hey, let's just
make sure everyone's safe and then figure out what what might need to change.
But it is you this happened in Yellowstone
in the nineties is they Yeah. It went on for went on for
months. Right? You know? They did because for decades, they
(13:21):
had a policy of any fire gets
put out immediately, period, until the big one came.
And then they realized, oh, that that actually was a bad practice
that we didn't know until it came back to get
us because there was just so much debris, burnable
debris in the forest that when the fire came, it was there
(13:44):
was just no way to put it out. Yeah. And it I remember
it. Yellowstone burnt for for months. Right? And the
smoke was the smoke filled the whole region. Yeah.
And that was in the nineties, and you still see it today. It
was such a big fire that the evidence is still there,
where naturally places like Yellowstone, places like
(14:06):
the hills in Southern California are used to a a cycle
of smaller natural burns. And Yes. And
that's just how it takes but the these these big ones,
you see the evidence of them forever, at least
so far in Yellowstone. I mean, forever in our time, geological
time, it's, I guess, not that big of a deal. That's true.
(14:28):
That's true. Yeah. Well, anyway, like I said, you know, we I think the
number one thing is I what I see is that the
community, but also the Disney community. There's a community and
there's larger than there's a smaller Disney community.
You see an incredibly gratifying group of people
binding together, helping each other. You see people
(14:51):
exchanging information, setting up
ways to help each other. It's a remarkable
thing to see everybody bind together like that. So
that's an ancient thing, right? Disaster happens and everybody comes together.
So that's a good thing. I know you're not there day to day like
you used to be, but I'm sure you still talk to a lot of
(15:14):
imagineers. You still talk to a lot of people that are involved
in the daily operation. Have you seen the Disney
community come together and help each other out after the fires?
Yes. I have. I I'm I'm very well connected that way. And
there's an alumni group that all have communicated to each other who's
where, does anybody need help? You know, does anybody know what happened
(15:37):
to this person's house or that person, you know, or these people need some
help or these people need a place to stay. It's a quite a quite a
network of people. You know, you have your community networks, but Disney
is a community also. And so you definitely see that and you can
definitely, and they're all kind of interconnected that way. And I
know that the company certainly whenever there's a
(15:59):
hurricane or, you know, anything like that, an earthquake and in,
you know, earthquake in Tokyo or or whatever the company binds
together, finds out where everybody is, who needs what, all that kind of thing,
which is a great thing. Well, I know
living in a hotel for however long it's going to last for you is I
don't know. Yeah. It's awfully inconvenient, but
(16:22):
it is certainly good to know that your house is still
standing. It's not as much fun as staying a couple extra days at
Walt Disney World, but you're safe, dry.
You know? It's fine. It's fine. So A few
number of years ago, we had a flood in our house and stayed
in a hotel for eleven days. And my
(16:44):
kids thought it was awesome because someone made their
bed for them every day. They had a swimming pool. Someone made
breakfast for them every day. And for me, it it made
the inconvenience a little more bearable, a little more fun to
see how unique the kids thought it was to live in a hotel. I think
that's I think you're exactly right. My daughter likes the fact that she just runs
(17:06):
downstairs, and there's a there's a waffle machine and a
breakfast buffet. And she loves the gym
downstairs. And yeah. Yeah. For kids, I think, you know,
and you kind of want that, right? I think as a parent, you want to
try to be encouraging. You want them to have fun. I just took my
daughter to Barnes and Noble last night, and we bought three
(17:30):
versions of a book series that she's reading right now. And
normally I might buy her one at a time, or I'd say, let's go to
the public library and get them or whatever. But we just went Barnes and
Noble bought her right there. So she's absorbed in reading those. Whatever you
can do to put some level of normalcy back,
the better. No question. Yeah. Well, on
(17:51):
this, the cruise, I know you were a bit
distracted with what was going on. But, also, as you mentioned, that's
probably not a bad place to be when something bad is happening.
Look out and all you see is wonderful blue water. Yes. And
you're surrounded by people that were happy to see you everywhere you went, so I'm
sure that was nice. And they sold 400
(18:13):
books. Other people brought their own. When people came up
to talk to you about the book, what are the questions people ask the
most or the stories they point to the most from your book?
Yeah. You know, I found out early on that a book
signing has nothing to do with signing the books. It has
everything to do with that few minutes of talk you have with
(18:36):
that person. And it is a warm, wonderful
experience if that, you know, individual or family
or, you know, friends, have bought a book and come up to
you. They have they want to talk to you. And they usually indicates,
what I find is indicates they have a deep connection
to Disney. They have a connection to Disney in
(18:59):
their family or in raising their
kids. And they want to tell you something about that, or they want to ask
a question or, you know, it's so great. It's so gratifying. There's
nothing, you know, it's like a pinch me moment that people could feel that strong.
I'm not relating this to me, Jody. I'm relating it to
Disney in general, although certainly I'm the benefactor of it when I'm
(19:21):
sitting there and assigning. But a couple of times people have asked me,
well, the line's pretty long. It's going to go for another hour.
Should we cut the line off now? And I never say cut off the
line. It's like, if they want to wait, I'm going to sign their book and
I'm going to talk to them and I'm not going to rush it. And I
actually saw this myself and with Marty Scolar, who
(19:43):
was the patriarch of Imagineering for many years. When his
books came out, I saw that he would patiently sit, listen,
talk, sign, and I thought, well, in a lot of ways,
the books are consumed one book at a time by one person at
a time. Right? You read it, you hold it. And so, I really respect
that idea. And so people say, God, even doing this for even
(20:05):
standing here signing for two and a half hours, are you tired? And I'm like,
I'm the most energized I've ever felt. This is the most How
could you not just be so feel so honored to stand here, you
know, as long as it goes. So that's why. And then the cruise ship was
fun. They had me do some silly stuff. They had me do a pin
trading event, which I knew nothing about, but I stood there and I helped hand
(20:27):
out pins and they were like, oh, it's look, it's Bob. And he's handing out
pins. And then I did a mixology thing and I knew absolutely
nothing about what I was doing, but they had me like mix the thing and
I poured some unique beverages to people.
And then I walked around and with expensive champagne and filled people's
glasses up. You know, the kind of crazy stuff you could only do on a
(20:47):
cruise. Right? So, so it was fun. It was really fun. Oh,
that's neat. And isn't it? There is not really, but there is such
a warm feeling to have people and books and
and signing. It's just I think it's just a marvelous, you
know, privilege to be there. Yeah. And and what a
honor to have people line up just to spend a moment
(21:09):
with you. And Yeah. It's incredible. It's incredible. I mean, I I can't imagine
not, you know, having a moment there like that. One of
my author I really enjoy is Timothy Egan, and
he came to the small town I live in. He came to the local
library and did a talk about his book and
then signed books. And I was wearing a Yellowstone National
(21:31):
Park shirt at this and I went up to meet him and get
my book signed. And he, instead of talking about his
book, mentioned my shirt and said how much he liked
Yellowstone and then started asking me questions about
Yellowstone. And I afterwards, I thought, well, how
interesting that they were and I'm sure I'm not the only one he did this
(21:53):
with. I'm just only one that experienced my interaction with
him. There were a lot of people there that came to see him and
somehow he made that book signing
feel like such a personal little interaction
and would ask other people questions instead of just answering questions
about his books. And I always thought that is the best example
(22:15):
I've seen of that. Someone that understood how
this isn't about from his perspective, this isn't about
Timothy Egan. This is about people who bought the book, who came
out to see me to today. And I realized Oh, I think
you're exactly I think you're exactly right there. You know, because I ask
people what their experiences with Disney, where are they from, if
(22:37):
they have kids with them. I asked the kid, young man,
what are you studying? Young lady, what are you studying?
You know, you get a lot of insight into them, but it really does start
a conversation, which is wonderful. Yeah. And I'm I'm sure you've
also seen book signings where it's just sign the book and move
on. And I recall there was a I slight
(23:00):
I hesitate a little bit to say a name, but there was an
author that did a signing at a park here.
It was a book about Lewis and Clark, and it was a Lewis and Clark
two hundredth anniversary. So he was at the this park
that they ended their journey on to sign books.
And he was slotted to be there for two hours and a
(23:22):
lot of people came because this is a big deal. And at the end of
the two hour mark, he got up and left with dozens of
people still in line. And that story spread all
throughout the park system. And can you believe he did that? And
no matter what interaction you have with people that come to
see you and get your book signed, you send them home with a story
(23:44):
that could be good, bad, or indifferent. But what a
chance for people to go home and talk about you. Well, knock on wood. I'll
keep that. You know, I'm I'm I'm new at this, but, you know, I I
have the I have dream chasing out as as we've talked. I have Ghost Dog,
which is another book out. And I I've done the Ghost Dog now
twice at the, at Walt's Barn, Walt Disney's Barn, which is
(24:06):
in Griffith Park. There's a wonderful opportunity if you're ever
in LA. It's only open one day, one Sunday a month,
but it's it's an incredible experience to see the the bar and the
trains, everything that are there. But we've done a couple signings
there with multiple authors and for a little
for a kind of a small sized property
(24:29):
and only open a day a month, they they can get a
pretty big crowd there. And they all buy books and they get in line.
And I'm like, we're not leaving until we sign every one of the every one
of these books and chat with everybody. You know? It's, you know, it's
fun. That's the fun part of it. Yeah. What and what a
gift to give people. And and it makes your book more special
(24:51):
to them too that they got to meet you and you ask them questions.
And I've heard it said I don't remember who it came from, but if you
want people to think you're interesting, show them how interested you
are in them. And it Oh, I think that's a great I think that's a
great expression. I hadn't heard that, but I think you're right. I think that's if
you show that you're interested in them and you start the conversation because
(25:12):
they're I think, they're a little bit nervous
because this is the author. Right? So and they're just coming up
and, you know, so the more disarming you can be, the
more open and inquisitive you can be about their
family and their experiences. It just makes it a lot easier to open up
the experience, I think. Yeah. Alright. I've I know
(25:35):
we've talked a little bit about your crews. We've talked about the
fire, which I know that's an ongoing situation.
And don't Knock on wood. We'll get that under control, and we'll
be past it in a few weeks. Yes. Well, I have
something that I heard you talk about. It's not directly
in the book. Although it is. Once you hear Bob talk about it, I think
(25:58):
you'll realize it's in the book somewhere in dream chasing somewhere. But
Bob, you were talking about the hallway
culture of Disney Imagineering and how important that is and
that nobody's shot, everybody's willing to give input. And this
whole idea of how the unplanned
conversation is so important for creativity. And that really
(26:20):
got me this, the hallway culture that you explained
to Imagineering. I'd like to hear more about that. Okay.
It's really important, Jody. I think even
more important today in our kind of post
COVID business cultural world to realize
that there's a reason why we all come together physically, right,
(26:42):
face to face. And there's a lot of expressions for it.
We at measuring, we've always called it a hallway culture. People call it
around the, you know, water cooler. You know, there is something
about being together with other people. And it's
people say, well, Zoom is more efficient because you set a time and,
you know, the meeting starts at nine and it's over at ten and then you
(27:04):
can start another one at eleven, but you miss the
serendipitous conversation. How many times have you
walked by somebody in whatever kind of environment
you work in or where you go to school or whatever? And somebody says, Oh,
you know, I thought of an idea last night and I was going to ask
you about it. And, you know, can we have a coffee later? Can we have
(27:25):
lunch later or whatever? It's the conversation you didn't know you were going to
have. And Imagineering for years,
we all had kind of like cubicle type offices and these big
boards that you'd set up to have artwork and things on that
would express a story or a plan. And your office
couldn't hold very many of them. So your only option was to line them up
(27:46):
in the hallway outside your office and anybody could
walk by. There was no secrets here. Anybody walked by and see,
Oh, this is interesting. What are you working on? And start the conversation. And they
would probably give you some good notes or some ideas or whatever.
So that hallway conversation, that ability to move
around and just chat with people, to run into somebody at
(28:08):
lunch. And when I was president of Imagineering, we had been
through COVID, and we were starting to try to get
the opportunity to bring people back. And I actually went
after the simplest things. They were the hardest things, but they were the simplest
things like getting our commissary open as soon as possible
for both breakfast and lunch, because people would come
(28:31):
in, sit outside, have coffee, run into somebody. Oh, I haven't seen you in
a long time. Let's talk. Especially when people are a little bit sensitive
about being indoors and masked and being in
conference rooms and things, it was much easier to have meetings outside,
out under the trees. But you realize that the social
culture of working together is a
(28:53):
big part of the development with the ideas that come out of it, the
creativity that comes out of it. And yeah, there's no question you can
do it all on Zoom if you want forever. But how much do we lose
by doing it all on Zoom? I think we lose a lot. I think we
lose a lot of that interaction. And so that to me
is the, you know, that's the I don't think people like to be told
(29:14):
they have to come to the office. That's clear. But I think the
encouragement of people to remember that there's a
great benefit to supporting their colleagues, to supporting their each
other, to exchanging ideas, that's really
a big part of the working life, I think. Is it
more important in an organization like
(29:37):
Imagineering where it's so collaborative, so creative,
ideas need to be bounced around? Is it more important to have a hallway
culture in that setting? Or do you think a hallway
culture is important no matter the work the organization
does? Well, I like to think, you know, I I can't really
judge, but I like to think that most people benefit from
(29:59):
collaboration. That having other people around you
that have different points of view or related points of view, but
different perspectives. I think that benefits a lot of people. Obviously,
there's plenty of work that people are, you know, dealing with customers all
day on calls and things like that that could can work as easily as
home. And the other thing I don't want to be insensitive to is that during
(30:21):
COVID, I think we realized that people have lives. They have families, they have
pets, they have parents that might live with them that they take care
of. So it isn't always easy for everybody to just drop life
and go to the office every day. But I still think
it's beneficial. Now, is it specifically beneficial to a creative
environment? Absolutely. I think because we create at
(30:43):
Disney experiences for people that are
widely different, right? Diverse. Our guest audience
is diverse from all over the world. It's
from grandparents to little kids. And you think about something
like the treasure, the ship I was just on, and you might
have five year olds to 90 year olds on that
(31:05):
ship and people from North Carolina and people from
Europe and people from China on that ship. So the idea
that you're creating stuff for a very diverse audience point of
view means your team has to talk about it. Your team has to
have diverse points of view too. So I don't think you could do the
entertainment business, particularly the park business, I guess I have
(31:27):
to qualify it without really having
a lot of discussion and interaction. And,
we all have different places we come from, different families,
you know, different family compositions or no family composition. We all
have different points of view, and it really helps to exchange them.
Yeah. This is, I feel, like a topic that's
(31:50):
always relevant, but certainly also timely now
as you have some organizations that have made the decision never
to return to the office. But there are also organizations that said,
okay, it's been long enough. We want everybody back to the
office. And I've heard this in different terms,
but I've heard this idea that we're talking about cited as the
(32:12):
reason why. Like, you can't build a culture. You can't
be collaborative if we're not here together. Yeah. I think there's
organizations that have said that and mean it, and I
think Disney is a strong one. And I think there's definitely
organizations that have said, I don't care where you work. I don't care if you
ever get out of your pajamas and work from home because that's not what I'm
(32:32):
looking for. You know, you're writing books or writing algorithms
or, you know, whatever you might be doing. And it's it's more isolated
work. So there are different sides of the scale. But I think in
the creative businesses that deal with the public, there's a
lot of benefit by having people come in together. Yeah. Maybe that
maybe it only needs to be three days a week or something. I don't know.
(32:54):
But, it definitely is a benefit. Yeah. And, well,
to me, this this very interesting, this idea of
hallway culture. Until you use that term, I had never heard
it put that way that the part of the culture of your organization
is built in the hallway. It's such a unique way to look at it. Marty
Scolar, I know because I'm doing this this new book on Marty,
(33:18):
this big, you know, mega effort that we're doing on Marty's
history. When his assistants
would sense that he was upset or depressed or
anything like that, they would find a place to clear his schedule.
And he'd say, what's my next meeting? And they'd say, just go walk around.
And he would come back so energized, so much happier, so
(33:40):
much more positive. And they knew that. So they would just
because, you know, it's easy to just block meeting after meeting after
meeting all day long. And they knew sometimes he had to get out. And so
they would do it because they knew it was better for his point of view.
That is interesting. That I think sometimes we can get so caught
up in our office that it's hard to get out
(34:02):
there and walk around. But that just shows that is part of the
culture that they understood that's what he needed. And to have
people Oh, it's easy. It's easy to get caught too. It's easy to get caught
up. We we had about four conference rooms, went in a short walk
of my office when I was president. And I'd say, no. I wanna
walk to the next building or whatever. And they'd say, well, no. It's gonna take
(34:24):
an extra ten minutes so we don't have the ten minutes. And I would say,
well, then cut it off the meeting. They make the meeting fifty minutes instead of,
you know, sixty minutes, whatever. But we have to get out and be seen
and see people. It takes some discipline. It takes some
discipline. I remember during COVID, actually,
I started making meetings, Zoom meetings, academic hours.
(34:46):
We'd end ten minutes before the hour. And everybody said, wow, what are you going
to do? We need that ten minutes. And it's like to tell everybody to fit
their business into the fifty minutes and they'll do
it. And, you know, people might go to the
bathroom or they might want to get a snack or they might need to make
their kid lunch or, you know, the cat might have to go out
(35:07):
and the dog might have to go out or something. So you're just giving
people a little bit of time flexibility. It's easy to
just make it back to back to back. And it's just I don't think it's
a human it's a it's a human way of working.
Yeah. I get it. And even I work from
home and most of my business is conducted on Zoom,
(35:29):
and I will quite often schedule back to back
without buffer. And even I even feel it
working this way, scheduling too tight that there's no
room for the little breaks or the side
conversations? Because even as an example, if both of us
are scheduled back to back, we can't even have little conversations when we're
(35:51):
not recording or not taking a business. What if we have, you know,
something we didn't think about we wanted to talk about? You know, it's that's kind
of what's fun about life. So, yeah, I agree. Totally.
Yeah. There's a it's funny. I I told you this last
time you were on the show, which prompted you coming back that I didn't even
get to everything I wanted to talk about. And we ended up talking
(36:14):
about the crews and the fire, and I got to
still one of those other questions. But that that's just a sign of a great
podcast guest, Bob, when you don't get the chance to get to
everything on your list because you're just so good at telling stories and
having conversations. Well, it's fun. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a
lot. And, you know, I enjoy reflecting on some of these big
(36:36):
issues that go on that we all have to big issues and small
issues, but it's really enjoyable. And, you know, it's interesting your
background. And I know many of the people who listen to your
podcast have backgrounds in national
parks and in parks and service and things like that. And
I find it very connected to Disney. I think we talked
(36:58):
about this a little bit before that it's all about storytelling.
It's all about meeting the public and making
a great experience for them to experience these incredible places.
But then you also have this, as we do, you have this
incredible stewardship. You have it over these great,
incredible places. Disney has it in a smaller way, but
(37:20):
over these parks and resorts and things like that. And so we have
stewardship, but we also have storytelling and we have
quality of people's growing up vacations. And
so when we have something like a fire like that or something like that, I
just think about how important all of, you know, your
all the folks you know on your side of it that not only
(37:42):
preserve the places that are so important to us, but also communicate them
to the public and communicate them in an effective way that makes
people wanna come back and experience them and experience them with their kids. It's just
so important. Yeah. I can talk all day about that.
And so, perhaps, Bob, we we have you back
another day, and we'll get into some more topics. There's just when When the
(38:04):
air is when the sky is blue, the air is clear. We'll do it
again. That's right. Well, when you when you write a 400
page book, it lends to a lot to talk about. Well, thank you.
Thank you. Alright. Well, the book is Dream Chasing. And,
also, we haven't talked about it yet other than dropping little
tidbits, but there is also Ghost Dog, which is written
(38:26):
by Bob and soon to be narrated by Bob. Check out either one of those
books wherever you buy books. And Bob, thank you for
being generous enough to come back again. Jody, it's been fun. And I
look forward to speaking with you again. And and thanks for everybody who listens.
And thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry Show.
(38:52):
Give Sugar Jay a cookie, and he will want to start a podcast.
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. I am so
pleased to have Bob Weiss back with us. Bob is
the author of Dream Chasing and the
retired president of Walt Disney Imagineering. Now I know
Bob was on the show not long ago, but we had so much
more to talk about. And it turns out, since we last talked,
(00:26):
there's been other things come up to talk about. So first, let me
say, Bob, it's so great to have you back so soon, and I'm
I'm glad you're with us because you've had a a hectic
month. Well, thank you, Jody. And I
so enjoyed our talk, and I was looking forward to talking again. I am. But
yeah, but a lot has gone on. You know, California has been through it. Southern
(00:48):
California has been through it. Boy, we count ourselves lucky.
We were close, very close to a fire zone. We have houses a few blocks
from us that have been completely burnt to the ground. And
I'm talking about in the twenties of houses. I mean, lots and
lots of houses burnt down. It's a strange, strange thing. And we were on the
Disney cruise ship, the treasure. I was talking, I was
(01:11):
giving book signings, things like that. But we count ourselves lucky. Our house
is the structure is fine. We have some smoke to deal with, things like that.
But yeah, the world is just you never know where things are
going to swing. But it's a great pleasure to speak with you
again and maybe have a chance to just kinda let let some of
it out in our conversation. So Yes. I definitely
(01:34):
want to talk about the the fire and and all that.
But let's start with the crews because that's
where Bob was when the fire broke out. So before we get to
the fire, let's talk about that. Beautiful cruise. The and it was
and the whole thing was a beautiful cruise. I don't wanna make it sound at
all like the cruise was marred in any way. It was beautiful. When I
(01:55):
was at Imagineering and I write a little bit about this, I worked
with a wonderful, wonderful guy, Karl Holtz, who was
developing the new model for the Disney cruise ships at that time, which we call
it the Triton. And the first one that came out was
the Wish, which came out some time ago, has been
very well received. And the treasure, which just
(02:18):
came out just in the lab this is only I think we were only on
maybe the fourth public cruise of the treasure
is the same basic structure or architecture as the Wish
is, but thematically feels much different. It's a completely
different feel, look, everything. And it's just a wonderful,
wonderful ship. We're so happy to be on it. And I was able to
(02:40):
experience every inch of it, including the new
Haunted Mansion parlor bar that doesn't exist anywhere else.
Just the cocoa restaurant, cocoa themed restaurant that
doesn't exist anywhere else. So it was a great, great trip. We count
ourselves privileged and we were the guests of the
Disney Vacation Club cruise. It was exclusively
(03:03):
Disney Vacation Club members, their chance to preview the ship
to be one of the first to see it. And boy, what a
group to talk to. I spoke three times in one of the
venues on board and we had a full house each time. I
always, being a new author, I always wonder, is anybody going to
show up? And each time it was a packed house,
(03:25):
packed house. And then I did signings afterwards and the book
signing line went way down the ship and they
sold out of all the books that they had on board the first morning. So
I was like, well, this will be easy. We'll sell out. We'll just sign
books the first day and that'll be it. Well, I signed all three days for
about two and a half hours each day. And it was because
(03:47):
a lot of members are pretty smart and they
they sign or they ordered their books ahead of time. So they they
brought their books with them. So we had not only however many books
the treasurer brought on board, but lots of people with Amazon
boxes with two or three or sometimes four books ready to
be signed. So what a gratifying experience it is, first of
(04:09):
all, to be on the treasure, to be able to have worked on
it and also be there as now an author to talk
to the people about my experiences and then to sign books
for the most gracious audience in the world. The DVC members are just,
you know, incredibly gracious, fun, inspiring in
their their support of Disney. So I I couldn't have had a
(04:32):
better almost week on the treasure. It was fantastic. I
imagine that was fun. And DVC, Disney Vacation Club, that's
like a whole different level of fandom
because they have paid for access to
locations and events like this and get to do I love asking them. I
love asking them because I'll say, Well, is this your first cruise?
(04:54):
And they'll say, Oh, this is number 16 or this is number 21 or
whatever. These are people who love to do Disney experiences. So and
they're just wonderful people. They're just wonderful. And the cruise is kind of
a intimate chance to chat, to to walk around. I
found myself after three days of giving these talks and signings that people
would just stop me on board and say, good morning, Bob. Like, I was just
(05:16):
like, hey, Bob. Hey, Bob. You know? So it was fun.
Last summer, and I get to do it again this upcoming summer, I
was a guest lecturer for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line on a cruise to the last
Oh, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. It you have felt this
now, I'm sure, unlike any other speaking opportunity you
can have because your my crews that I did this on
(05:39):
was a week. So of the people, there the capacity
was a hundred for each of my talks. So 200 people came to see
me speak and you run into them throughout the week and
at onshore and at lunch. And it is a much different
experience because usually you talk, you may talk to
answer some questions later and then it's over. You may never see them again. But
(06:02):
in these situations, you continue to set a couple more
days or or, you know, five five more days with these folks.
And, yeah, you're right. You're right. And it was it was fun.
It's always fun. And the cast on board
is the best. And, you know, and they're from all over the world. The cast
is from, you know, from Europe, from Asia, from so many places.
(06:24):
And they're all, you know, so gracious and nice. The people
who operate the cruise for the Disney Vacation Club, they're
great. So couldn't be better. And they were really nice to us when we got
off at Canaveral. We realized our neighborhood was
closed. We were supposed to fly back. We didn't know what we were going to
do. And so they were super nice, put us up for a couple more days
(06:45):
in Florida till we could figure out what we're going to do and made us
feel really good, made my daughter have fun. And so it
was great. It's just a wonderful experience, really. So
we were laughing, you know, If you have to be in a disaster, it's pretty
nice to be in a disaster with Disney, you know. Yeah. I
imagine that's as good as it gets. They do everything so well. I'm sure they
(07:06):
do disasters really well too. They even do disasters as
well. When you have But it's a big cultural
shock, I guess. It's a huge thing. And I'm sure
anybody listening has heard about it for Los Angeles. And this is a
I think it's You have to tell me the science. But there's no
question that global warming is impacting
(07:29):
the cycles of growth and then drying out and
then lack of rain and then the buildup of
material to possibly burn and things like that. There's no question about
that. And it's a huge
effect across many places, including
hugely California, Southern California, especially. But on a micro
(07:50):
level, as someone who has spent years with Walt Disney Imagineering,
there's the Altadena, which was where the Eaton fire
area that was just decimated by the Eaton fire, Eaton Canyon
fire is a huge enclave of people from Walt Disney Imagineering,
just a huge enclave of folks. And I just have a
list. I have a running list of people who are close
(08:13):
friends, who I've worked with for years, who've all lost their homes.
It's like a amazing It's hard to
believe how many people lost their homes and how fast they had to get
out. You know, it was, I know you probably heard more about the
Palisades event, but the canyon event was just striking. Just
what a thing to happen. Which fire was it
(08:34):
that came close to your neighborhood? The Palisades or the Eaton?
Palisades is up is up closer to Santa Monica. The Eaton Canyon
fire. I live near Eaton Canyon, and that's the one that came close to
us. And and I I had kind of selected a house that wasn't right at
the foothills. We're several blocks from the foothills for this
reason. And it kind of came down in from the foothills and
(08:56):
hit houses houses a few blocks from us. But then it
goes across this hill, goes across and it goes to different sides of
Pasadena. And Altadena is the one that really got
hit in these nights when they just had they had a night there
where they had these Santa Ana winds that were like between fifty
five and eighty five miles an hour or something like that. And so there's nothing
(09:18):
the firefighters could really do. The the wind that
whips through there on these seasonal things is really
something. It's so give us an idea of what
that was like. You were on the cruise ship when that fire started. And
and I was thinking about you because it's
one terrible thing if your house burns down. And
(09:40):
until we got to talk, I didn't know how it turned out for you. But
it's one terrible thing if your house burns down, but it's another if it happens
when you're gone and you don't get that chance to fill your car
with those most important items. So I
imagine you had a lot of worry and concern
while you were on the ship. We had a lot of we had a lot
(10:01):
of worry and concern and but I'll tell you that I think most of the
people that I've talked to didn't have a chance to load their cars either.
I mean, they got out their lives. They were out. And up in my
neighborhood, there's a lot of houses burnt down, you know, with cars
in the driveway. So people had to move really fast to get out of there.
So I think for people who live in a fire zone, having that stuff
(10:24):
right by the door, this is what they always tell you, have the stuff right
by the door. If there's anything you think you want to save, you better have
it right there because you're not going to get back in again. But
yeah, we were watching it. I have an
adult son who drove up there until they blocked it off.
He drove up there and checked it out for us. And of course, this is
(10:45):
kind of a weird phenomenon of the new ring cameras and
Google cameras. You could watch your house and say, okay, how are we doing?
You know, or watch the embers flying by and stuff like
that. But, you know, we took it with a grain of salt.
My son was fine. We were all on the ship, my daughter and I and
my wife. If you have your family safe,
(11:06):
really everything else is replaceable, right? That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt your
heart to lose things that where heirlooms are
important parts of your family history or something like that. But the most important thing
is you got your family safe. And we were lucky. Our house
has not been damaged at all. It's been smoke damaged. So we don't know
what it's going to take to clean up the house and get back into it.
(11:28):
But you know, I think the most important thing is people have to have
to realize that life is life and, you know, having everybody safe
is the most important thing. Yes. It has been
amazing in a usually in a terrible way watching
the footage. I I was a wildland firefighter when I was a
park ranger, was involved in several small fires and one
(11:51):
really big fire. And even the really big fire, nothing compared
to what is going on in California. But it's hard to compare
anything to that because nothing like this has quite happened
before. And that is the Well, it's interesting, though. It's interesting, though, not to
interrupt you, but it keep going. But but it is interesting, though, that you got
the Maui fire that's very similar. You're seeing events
(12:13):
where there may be a combination of drier,
drier seasons combined with the fact that housing has
encroached into fire areas that it wasn't in before. Right? So you are
seeing this kind of confluence of those
factors that is pretty serious. Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Well
and that is something too that I I think this can happen
(12:37):
anywhere in organizations or in
government in cities that once factors start to
change, homes encroach into more fire danger zones
where they weren't. Then policies, procedures
become where they wouldn't have mattered quite before may make a
huge difference now. And I think this is where you
(12:59):
look at at and I always wanna be careful because there's a
lot of finger pointing and back and forth. And my view is, hey, let's just
make sure everyone's safe and then figure out what what might need to change.
But it is you this happened in Yellowstone
in the nineties is they Yeah. It went on for went on for
months. Right? You know? They did because for decades, they
(13:21):
had a policy of any fire gets
put out immediately, period, until the big one came.
And then they realized, oh, that that actually was a bad practice
that we didn't know until it came back to get
us because there was just so much debris, burnable
debris in the forest that when the fire came, it was there
(13:44):
was just no way to put it out. Yeah. And it I remember
it. Yellowstone burnt for for months. Right? And the
smoke was the smoke filled the whole region. Yeah.
And that was in the nineties, and you still see it today. It
was such a big fire that the evidence is still there,
where naturally places like Yellowstone, places like
(14:06):
the hills in Southern California are used to a a cycle
of smaller natural burns. And Yes. And
that's just how it takes but the these these big ones,
you see the evidence of them forever, at least
so far in Yellowstone. I mean, forever in our time, geological
time, it's, I guess, not that big of a deal. That's true.
(14:28):
That's true. Yeah. Well, anyway, like I said, you know, we I think the
number one thing is I what I see is that the
community, but also the Disney community. There's a community and
there's larger than there's a smaller Disney community.
You see an incredibly gratifying group of people
binding together, helping each other. You see people
(14:51):
exchanging information, setting up
ways to help each other. It's a remarkable
thing to see everybody bind together like that. So
that's an ancient thing, right? Disaster happens and everybody comes together.
So that's a good thing. I know you're not there day to day like
you used to be, but I'm sure you still talk to a lot of
(15:14):
imagineers. You still talk to a lot of people that are involved
in the daily operation. Have you seen the Disney
community come together and help each other out after the fires?
Yes. I have. I I'm I'm very well connected that way. And
there's an alumni group that all have communicated to each other who's
where, does anybody need help? You know, does anybody know what happened
(15:37):
to this person's house or that person, you know, or these people need some
help or these people need a place to stay. It's a quite a quite a
network of people. You know, you have your community networks, but Disney
is a community also. And so you definitely see that and you can
definitely, and they're all kind of interconnected that way. And I
know that the company certainly whenever there's a
(15:59):
hurricane or, you know, anything like that, an earthquake and in,
you know, earthquake in Tokyo or or whatever the company binds
together, finds out where everybody is, who needs what, all that kind of thing,
which is a great thing. Well, I know
living in a hotel for however long it's going to last for you is I
don't know. Yeah. It's awfully inconvenient, but
(16:22):
it is certainly good to know that your house is still
standing. It's not as much fun as staying a couple extra days at
Walt Disney World, but you're safe, dry.
You know? It's fine. It's fine. So A few
number of years ago, we had a flood in our house and stayed
in a hotel for eleven days. And my
(16:44):
kids thought it was awesome because someone made their
bed for them every day. They had a swimming pool. Someone made
breakfast for them every day. And for me, it it made
the inconvenience a little more bearable, a little more fun to
see how unique the kids thought it was to live in a hotel. I think
that's I think you're exactly right. My daughter likes the fact that she just runs
(17:06):
downstairs, and there's a there's a waffle machine and a
breakfast buffet. And she loves the gym
downstairs. And yeah. Yeah. For kids, I think, you know,
and you kind of want that, right? I think as a parent, you want to
try to be encouraging. You want them to have fun. I just took my
daughter to Barnes and Noble last night, and we bought three
(17:30):
versions of a book series that she's reading right now. And
normally I might buy her one at a time, or I'd say, let's go to
the public library and get them or whatever. But we just went Barnes and
Noble bought her right there. So she's absorbed in reading those. Whatever you
can do to put some level of normalcy back,
the better. No question. Yeah. Well, on
(17:51):
this, the cruise, I know you were a bit
distracted with what was going on. But, also, as you mentioned, that's
probably not a bad place to be when something bad is happening.
Look out and all you see is wonderful blue water. Yes. And
you're surrounded by people that were happy to see you everywhere you went, so I'm
sure that was nice. And they sold 400
(18:13):
books. Other people brought their own. When people came up
to talk to you about the book, what are the questions people ask the
most or the stories they point to the most from your book?
Yeah. You know, I found out early on that a book
signing has nothing to do with signing the books. It has
everything to do with that few minutes of talk you have with
(18:36):
that person. And it is a warm, wonderful
experience if that, you know, individual or family
or, you know, friends, have bought a book and come up to
you. They have they want to talk to you. And they usually indicates,
what I find is indicates they have a deep connection
to Disney. They have a connection to Disney in
(18:59):
their family or in raising their
kids. And they want to tell you something about that, or they want to ask
a question or, you know, it's so great. It's so gratifying. There's
nothing, you know, it's like a pinch me moment that people could feel that strong.
I'm not relating this to me, Jody. I'm relating it to
Disney in general, although certainly I'm the benefactor of it when I'm
(19:21):
sitting there and assigning. But a couple of times people have asked me,
well, the line's pretty long. It's going to go for another hour.
Should we cut the line off now? And I never say cut off the
line. It's like, if they want to wait, I'm going to sign their book and
I'm going to talk to them and I'm not going to rush it. And I
actually saw this myself and with Marty Scolar, who
(19:43):
was the patriarch of Imagineering for many years. When his
books came out, I saw that he would patiently sit, listen,
talk, sign, and I thought, well, in a lot of ways,
the books are consumed one book at a time by one person at
a time. Right? You read it, you hold it. And so, I really respect
that idea. And so people say, God, even doing this for even
(20:05):
standing here signing for two and a half hours, are you tired? And I'm like,
I'm the most energized I've ever felt. This is the most How
could you not just be so feel so honored to stand here, you
know, as long as it goes. So that's why. And then the cruise ship was
fun. They had me do some silly stuff. They had me do a pin
trading event, which I knew nothing about, but I stood there and I helped hand
(20:27):
out pins and they were like, oh, it's look, it's Bob. And he's handing out
pins. And then I did a mixology thing and I knew absolutely
nothing about what I was doing, but they had me like mix the thing and
I poured some unique beverages to people.
And then I walked around and with expensive champagne and filled people's
glasses up. You know, the kind of crazy stuff you could only do on a
(20:47):
cruise. Right? So, so it was fun. It was really fun. Oh,
that's neat. And isn't it? There is not really, but there is such
a warm feeling to have people and books and
and signing. It's just I think it's just a marvelous, you
know, privilege to be there. Yeah. And and what a
honor to have people line up just to spend a moment
(21:09):
with you. And Yeah. It's incredible. It's incredible. I mean, I I can't imagine
not, you know, having a moment there like that. One of
my author I really enjoy is Timothy Egan, and
he came to the small town I live in. He came to the local
library and did a talk about his book and
then signed books. And I was wearing a Yellowstone National
(21:31):
Park shirt at this and I went up to meet him and get
my book signed. And he, instead of talking about his
book, mentioned my shirt and said how much he liked
Yellowstone and then started asking me questions about
Yellowstone. And I afterwards, I thought, well, how
interesting that they were and I'm sure I'm not the only one he did this
(21:53):
with. I'm just only one that experienced my interaction with
him. There were a lot of people there that came to see him and
somehow he made that book signing
feel like such a personal little interaction
and would ask other people questions instead of just answering questions
about his books. And I always thought that is the best example
(22:15):
I've seen of that. Someone that understood how
this isn't about from his perspective, this isn't about
Timothy Egan. This is about people who bought the book, who came
out to see me to today. And I realized Oh, I think
you're exactly I think you're exactly right there. You know, because I ask
people what their experiences with Disney, where are they from, if
(22:37):
they have kids with them. I asked the kid, young man,
what are you studying? Young lady, what are you studying?
You know, you get a lot of insight into them, but it really does start
a conversation, which is wonderful. Yeah. And I'm I'm sure you've
also seen book signings where it's just sign the book and move
on. And I recall there was a I slight
(23:00):
I hesitate a little bit to say a name, but there was an
author that did a signing at a park here.
It was a book about Lewis and Clark, and it was a Lewis and Clark
two hundredth anniversary. So he was at the this park
that they ended their journey on to sign books.
And he was slotted to be there for two hours and a
(23:22):
lot of people came because this is a big deal. And at the end of
the two hour mark, he got up and left with dozens of
people still in line. And that story spread all
throughout the park system. And can you believe he did that? And
no matter what interaction you have with people that come to
see you and get your book signed, you send them home with a story
(23:44):
that could be good, bad, or indifferent. But what a
chance for people to go home and talk about you. Well, knock on wood. I'll
keep that. You know, I'm I'm I'm new at this, but, you know, I I
have the I have dream chasing out as as we've talked. I have Ghost Dog,
which is another book out. And I I've done the Ghost Dog now
twice at the, at Walt's Barn, Walt Disney's Barn, which is
(24:06):
in Griffith Park. There's a wonderful opportunity if you're ever
in LA. It's only open one day, one Sunday a month,
but it's it's an incredible experience to see the the bar and the
trains, everything that are there. But we've done a couple signings
there with multiple authors and for a little
for a kind of a small sized property
(24:29):
and only open a day a month, they they can get a
pretty big crowd there. And they all buy books and they get in line.
And I'm like, we're not leaving until we sign every one of the every one
of these books and chat with everybody. You know? It's, you know, it's
fun. That's the fun part of it. Yeah. What and what a
gift to give people. And and it makes your book more special
(24:51):
to them too that they got to meet you and you ask them questions.
And I've heard it said I don't remember who it came from, but if you
want people to think you're interesting, show them how interested you
are in them. And it Oh, I think that's a great I think that's a
great expression. I hadn't heard that, but I think you're right. I think that's if
you show that you're interested in them and you start the conversation because
(25:12):
they're I think, they're a little bit nervous
because this is the author. Right? So and they're just coming up
and, you know, so the more disarming you can be, the
more open and inquisitive you can be about their
family and their experiences. It just makes it a lot easier to open up
the experience, I think. Yeah. Alright. I've I know
(25:35):
we've talked a little bit about your crews. We've talked about the
fire, which I know that's an ongoing situation.
And don't Knock on wood. We'll get that under control, and we'll
be past it in a few weeks. Yes. Well, I have
something that I heard you talk about. It's not directly
in the book. Although it is. Once you hear Bob talk about it, I think
(25:58):
you'll realize it's in the book somewhere in dream chasing somewhere. But
Bob, you were talking about the hallway
culture of Disney Imagineering and how important that is and
that nobody's shot, everybody's willing to give input. And this
whole idea of how the unplanned
conversation is so important for creativity. And that really
(26:20):
got me this, the hallway culture that you explained
to Imagineering. I'd like to hear more about that. Okay.
It's really important, Jody. I think even
more important today in our kind of post
COVID business cultural world to realize
that there's a reason why we all come together physically, right,
(26:42):
face to face. And there's a lot of expressions for it.
We at measuring, we've always called it a hallway culture. People call it
around the, you know, water cooler. You know, there is something
about being together with other people. And it's
people say, well, Zoom is more efficient because you set a time and,
you know, the meeting starts at nine and it's over at ten and then you
(27:04):
can start another one at eleven, but you miss the
serendipitous conversation. How many times have you
walked by somebody in whatever kind of environment
you work in or where you go to school or whatever? And somebody says, Oh,
you know, I thought of an idea last night and I was going to ask
you about it. And, you know, can we have a coffee later? Can we have
(27:25):
lunch later or whatever? It's the conversation you didn't know you were going to
have. And Imagineering for years,
we all had kind of like cubicle type offices and these big
boards that you'd set up to have artwork and things on that
would express a story or a plan. And your office
couldn't hold very many of them. So your only option was to line them up
(27:46):
in the hallway outside your office and anybody could
walk by. There was no secrets here. Anybody walked by and see,
Oh, this is interesting. What are you working on? And start the conversation. And they
would probably give you some good notes or some ideas or whatever.
So that hallway conversation, that ability to move
around and just chat with people, to run into somebody at
(28:08):
lunch. And when I was president of Imagineering, we had been
through COVID, and we were starting to try to get
the opportunity to bring people back. And I actually went
after the simplest things. They were the hardest things, but they were the simplest
things like getting our commissary open as soon as possible
for both breakfast and lunch, because people would come
(28:31):
in, sit outside, have coffee, run into somebody. Oh, I haven't seen you in
a long time. Let's talk. Especially when people are a little bit sensitive
about being indoors and masked and being in
conference rooms and things, it was much easier to have meetings outside,
out under the trees. But you realize that the social
culture of working together is a
(28:53):
big part of the development with the ideas that come out of it, the
creativity that comes out of it. And yeah, there's no question you can
do it all on Zoom if you want forever. But how much do we lose
by doing it all on Zoom? I think we lose a lot. I think we
lose a lot of that interaction. And so that to me
is the, you know, that's the I don't think people like to be told
(29:14):
they have to come to the office. That's clear. But I think the
encouragement of people to remember that there's a
great benefit to supporting their colleagues, to supporting their each
other, to exchanging ideas, that's really
a big part of the working life, I think. Is it
more important in an organization like
(29:37):
Imagineering where it's so collaborative, so creative,
ideas need to be bounced around? Is it more important to have a hallway
culture in that setting? Or do you think a hallway
culture is important no matter the work the organization
does? Well, I like to think, you know, I I can't really
judge, but I like to think that most people benefit from
(29:59):
collaboration. That having other people around you
that have different points of view or related points of view, but
different perspectives. I think that benefits a lot of people. Obviously,
there's plenty of work that people are, you know, dealing with customers all
day on calls and things like that that could can work as easily as
home. And the other thing I don't want to be insensitive to is that during
(30:21):
COVID, I think we realized that people have lives. They have families, they have
pets, they have parents that might live with them that they take care
of. So it isn't always easy for everybody to just drop life
and go to the office every day. But I still think
it's beneficial. Now, is it specifically beneficial to a creative
environment? Absolutely. I think because we create at
(30:43):
Disney experiences for people that are
widely different, right? Diverse. Our guest audience
is diverse from all over the world. It's
from grandparents to little kids. And you think about something
like the treasure, the ship I was just on, and you might
have five year olds to 90 year olds on that
(31:05):
ship and people from North Carolina and people from
Europe and people from China on that ship. So the idea
that you're creating stuff for a very diverse audience point of
view means your team has to talk about it. Your team has to
have diverse points of view too. So I don't think you could do the
entertainment business, particularly the park business, I guess I have
(31:27):
to qualify it without really having
a lot of discussion and interaction. And,
we all have different places we come from, different families,
you know, different family compositions or no family composition. We all
have different points of view, and it really helps to exchange them.
Yeah. This is, I feel, like a topic that's
(31:50):
always relevant, but certainly also timely now
as you have some organizations that have made the decision never
to return to the office. But there are also organizations that said,
okay, it's been long enough. We want everybody back to the
office. And I've heard this in different terms,
but I've heard this idea that we're talking about cited as the
(32:12):
reason why. Like, you can't build a culture. You can't
be collaborative if we're not here together. Yeah. I think there's
organizations that have said that and mean it, and I
think Disney is a strong one. And I think there's definitely
organizations that have said, I don't care where you work. I don't care if you
ever get out of your pajamas and work from home because that's not what I'm
(32:32):
looking for. You know, you're writing books or writing algorithms
or, you know, whatever you might be doing. And it's it's more isolated
work. So there are different sides of the scale. But I think in
the creative businesses that deal with the public, there's a
lot of benefit by having people come in together. Yeah. Maybe that
maybe it only needs to be three days a week or something. I don't know.
(32:54):
But, it definitely is a benefit. Yeah. And, well,
to me, this this very interesting, this idea of
hallway culture. Until you use that term, I had never heard
it put that way that the part of the culture of your organization
is built in the hallway. It's such a unique way to look at it. Marty
Scolar, I know because I'm doing this this new book on Marty,
(33:18):
this big, you know, mega effort that we're doing on Marty's
history. When his assistants
would sense that he was upset or depressed or
anything like that, they would find a place to clear his schedule.
And he'd say, what's my next meeting? And they'd say, just go walk around.
And he would come back so energized, so much happier, so
(33:40):
much more positive. And they knew that. So they would just
because, you know, it's easy to just block meeting after meeting after
meeting all day long. And they knew sometimes he had to get out. And so
they would do it because they knew it was better for his point of view.
That is interesting. That I think sometimes we can get so caught
up in our office that it's hard to get out
(34:02):
there and walk around. But that just shows that is part of the
culture that they understood that's what he needed. And to have
people Oh, it's easy. It's easy to get caught too. It's easy to get caught
up. We we had about four conference rooms, went in a short walk
of my office when I was president. And I'd say, no. I wanna
walk to the next building or whatever. And they'd say, well, no. It's gonna take
(34:24):
an extra ten minutes so we don't have the ten minutes. And I would say,
well, then cut it off the meeting. They make the meeting fifty minutes instead of,
you know, sixty minutes, whatever. But we have to get out and be seen
and see people. It takes some discipline. It takes some
discipline. I remember during COVID, actually,
I started making meetings, Zoom meetings, academic hours.
(34:46):
We'd end ten minutes before the hour. And everybody said, wow, what are you going
to do? We need that ten minutes. And it's like to tell everybody to fit
their business into the fifty minutes and they'll do
it. And, you know, people might go to the
bathroom or they might want to get a snack or they might need to make
their kid lunch or, you know, the cat might have to go out
(35:07):
and the dog might have to go out or something. So you're just giving
people a little bit of time flexibility. It's easy to
just make it back to back to back. And it's just I don't think it's
a human it's a it's a human way of working.
Yeah. I get it. And even I work from
home and most of my business is conducted on Zoom,
(35:29):
and I will quite often schedule back to back
without buffer. And even I even feel it
working this way, scheduling too tight that there's no
room for the little breaks or the side
conversations? Because even as an example, if both of us
are scheduled back to back, we can't even have little conversations when we're
(35:51):
not recording or not taking a business. What if we have, you know,
something we didn't think about we wanted to talk about? You know, it's that's kind
of what's fun about life. So, yeah, I agree. Totally.
Yeah. There's a it's funny. I I told you this last
time you were on the show, which prompted you coming back that I didn't even
get to everything I wanted to talk about. And we ended up talking
(36:14):
about the crews and the fire, and I got to
still one of those other questions. But that that's just a sign of a great
podcast guest, Bob, when you don't get the chance to get to
everything on your list because you're just so good at telling stories and
having conversations. Well, it's fun. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a
lot. And, you know, I enjoy reflecting on some of these big
(36:36):
issues that go on that we all have to big issues and small
issues, but it's really enjoyable. And, you know, it's interesting your
background. And I know many of the people who listen to your
podcast have backgrounds in national
parks and in parks and service and things like that. And
I find it very connected to Disney. I think we talked
(36:58):
about this a little bit before that it's all about storytelling.
It's all about meeting the public and making
a great experience for them to experience these incredible places.
But then you also have this, as we do, you have this
incredible stewardship. You have it over these great,
incredible places. Disney has it in a smaller way, but
(37:20):
over these parks and resorts and things like that. And so we have
stewardship, but we also have storytelling and we have
quality of people's growing up vacations. And
so when we have something like a fire like that or something like that, I
just think about how important all of, you know, your
all the folks you know on your side of it that not only
(37:42):
preserve the places that are so important to us, but also communicate them
to the public and communicate them in an effective way that makes
people wanna come back and experience them and experience them with their kids. It's just
so important. Yeah. I can talk all day about that.
And so, perhaps, Bob, we we have you back
another day, and we'll get into some more topics. There's just when When the
(38:04):
air is when the sky is blue, the air is clear. We'll do it
again. That's right. Well, when you when you write a 400
page book, it lends to a lot to talk about. Well, thank you.
Thank you. Alright. Well, the book is Dream Chasing. And,
also, we haven't talked about it yet other than dropping little
tidbits, but there is also Ghost Dog, which is written
(38:26):
by Bob and soon to be narrated by Bob. Check out either one of those
books wherever you buy books. And Bob, thank you for
being generous enough to come back again. Jody, it's been fun. And I
look forward to speaking with you again. And and thanks for everybody who listens.
And thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry Show.
(38:52):
Give Sugar Jay a cookie, and he will want to start a podcast.
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