If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently

"But I'm not in the hospital business." Neither am I. But I am a Disney Institute alumnus and an avid practitioner of the Disney Approach to People Management, Quality Service, and Loyalty; and I've found "If Disney Ran Your Hospital" more helpful than anything else in print. I think you will, too. Here's why. A number of books explain the principles and practices that drive Disney. Most are helpful, and one, "Be Our Guest" by the Disney Institute, is indispensable. But Fred Lee does one thing better than anyone else: he models how to transfer those principles to another industry. That's what he did at the Disney Institute and that's what he will help you do in your business. Granted, his applications come from healthcare. But along the way Fred Lee demonstrates how to translate and apply the Disney Approach outside of the Disney setting, and that's what's so helpful--he provides an example that the rest of us can follow. If you're interested in benchmarking the Disney Approach, you need this book. One more thing: Fred Lee can write. "If Disney Ran Your Hospital" is the best book on the Disney Approach...period.

I agree with everyone else about how good this book is. I have been working full time in quality improvement for 12 years, and I was expecting just a rehashing of the same old theories that I have become too accustomed to hearing about. To my surprise, the book was fresh and deep and I literally learned something new on every single page - It is 216 pages long and at $27 that's about 13 cents per insight; a real bargain, I think. Oh, and remarkably it's also quite an easy read due to the excellent stories and intuitive presentation (but you may want to slow down a bit to let the lessons sink in).

Ok. Let us consider it realistically and professionally. Nothing to say about the book more than what all others have said. Simply great. However, enjoying a book is not, and will never be, a goal in itself. What matters is what benefit you can get out of IMPLEMENTING what is in it. In our case, this can be done on two conditions. The first and simple one is that everyone (I mean it) in your hospital should read and understand the book (this includes housekeepers, security guards, gardeners, ..etc). Now comes the second and difficult condition, that is creating a culture, a working environment, an atmosphere that adopts and supports the values and ideas in the book. Unfortunately, at least to me, this seems impossible. I am not saying that culture change or improvement is impossible. Go ahead. Do your best. We all should. I am trying to point out that trying to implement what is in the book will lead you to find out that you actually are trying to create "the city of virtues". No one could. No one will ever be able to. A wise management professional once said: "in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is!". Read this book at any cost. Buy it, borrow it, or even steal it!

This book rates as one of my favorites, which says a lot for a book I read for work! It's even one I refer back to a lot, another thing I don't too often do. I find that many people at the hospital I work at love what they do and are creative in trying to make it better. And somehow almost everything we work on can be improved by ideas covered in this book. From motivating employees, to customer satisfaction, to empathy, to communicating just about anything, this book shares concepts that have greatly impacted how we present ideas. Although most of these topics have been covered many times before, Lee finds a way to bring in new ideas and offers suggestions really easy to implement in our day-to-day projects. Our hospital ordered copies and distributed it to many of us, which is a great thing as after I read it I found myself making sure others read it, or at least referring them to certain sections I thought would be helpful on a project if they hadn't gotten there yet. If there is one book I'd recommend to anyone in health care, this would be it!