Corporate Culture

As an employee of the Disney Institute, we teach programs that highly focus on the corporate culture of the company we are teaching. Being a current business student and having just completed a business plan, I am fully aware of how important the corporate culture aspect is for the success of a company. So much so that, in fact, I am a firm believer that it is the culture of employees that will make or break any company. Currently at work we at the Disney Institute have partnered with a very large client to create a collaborative training experience tailored for this client’s needs. This client joins us every year with 5,000 interns that have been extended a job offer, in contingency with the fact that they have to complete the week’s training that the Disney Institute offers.

One event that all interns have to pass is entitled “creating your own comic.” I just recently had the opportunity to be trained in the facilitation of this event. I just want to give you a little background about what the event entails before we discuss how it aids in corporate culture. Marvel and Disney developed a comic book that captured the interns of this company; throughout the comic book you find that these interns have to help save the popular Fantastic Four characters against the evil Sandman. But the comic book does not have an ending, because it was developed so that the interns have to draft and complete their own endings however they choose. With that in mind each intern must take on a role to help finish this comic. These roles can consist of: producer, storyboard artist, or talent to just name a few. After the interns have finished their story, they will then have to locate a backdrop that best fits their storyline out of a collection of 30 life-size picture backdrops that Marvel has created. Then, the interns will take pictures with their actors and props, to construct a visual representation of each comic. At the end of the event each team leader will pitch their comic with the visual pictures their group took. The judges will then decide based upon how strong their story is and other credentials which team is the best and the winning team all win iPads.

Now the important lesson from this experience other then winning an iPad is that communication is key. Because this event is a timed event, it is important that each member does their job to their fullest capacity and work together to create this final project in a very small amount of time. They also learn through the judging process that even though the judges know them each individually that the judges are going to pick the best work that is presented. This is designed to show the interns that they must be open to accepting others success if its what’s best for the company’s growth.

I really like activities like this one because it gives an individual an experience that they can relate to, and remember. If I ever own my own company one day, I will definitely be implementing events or activities that mirror the Disney/ Marvel activity to generate lessons on corporate culture, communication and success.

                This is a picture of my team and I doing the "Create Your Own Comic Book" training.