Doug Lipp's Blog

June 25, 2024

The Power of Giving Back

“There is great comfort and inspiration in this feeling of close human relationships and its bearing on our mutual fortunes—a powerful force to overcome the “tough breaks” which are certain to come for most of us from time to time.”

                                                                    Walt Disney

Tough Breaks happen to us all and appear in many ways. From personal tragedies to professional setbacks, life’s journey is not for the faint of heart.

Today’s blog, while quite short, contains a message I hope you find helpful.

Coping With Grief

The darkest period in my, and my wife’s, life occurred when one of our children suffered a mental health breakdown. The many months of worry, combined with multiple trips to psychiatric facilities to visit our child, took a massive toll on our own physical and mental health.   

In addition to the support we received from family and friends, my wife and I found tremendous solace in the programs offered by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI, the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, is dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

We certainly benefitted, as NAMI proved to be the silver lining to a very dark cloud by helping save our child’s life (and our own mental health!).

Perhaps NAMI can provide you, or a loved one, with similar support.

Giving Back

Paradoxically, I wrote my Disney U book during this time of grief and exhaustion.

This is precisely why my wife and I have donated all author profits from corporate sales of Disney U to NAMI for the past ten years. I still get chills of delight when signing copies!

Many thanks to the many companies who supported NAMI via their purchases of Disney U!

And my gratitude to McGraw-Hill for being such an awesome publisher!   

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Published on June 25, 2024 06:57

June 3, 2024

The Nastiest of the Culture Villains: “Normalization of Deviance”

The slippery slope to mediocrity is a fate awaiting far too many organizations that have enjoyed success. Success can leave any organization vulnerable to a host of debilitating culture villains; previously unacceptable attitudes and behaviors that mysteriously become… acceptable:

“We’re making barrels of money, why change now?”“Don’t worry, that’s ‘good enough.’”“Hmmm, nothing bad happened.  Guess we no longer need be concerned about following that operating procedure.”“Oh, our customers (or clients, patients, employees) will never notice.”“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

The names used to describe the culture villains driving the dysfunction are as varied as the organizations, yet some iteration of the following three inevitably play a role:

Indifference: The state of not caring.Fear: How to maintain the status quo (without upsetting the founding family, the stock market, the powers that be)?Rationalization: The practice of obfuscating the truth via guile and situationally crafted (and flawed) logic.

A fourth culture villain is the one introduced in the title of this blog, Normalization of Deviance. And, it’s arguably more onerous in that it contains elements of all aforementioned culture villains.

I was reminded of this despicable culture villain during a recent tour of NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Despite the intriguing back-stage tours covering the history of our space program and learning of ongoing efforts to eventually send humans to Mars, my mind kept drifting to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986.

Years earlier, I read Diane Vaughn’s masterful analysis of this tragedy in her 1996 book: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, And Deviance At NASA.

Vaughn deftly explained how the scourge of Normalization of Deviance (she coined this phrase) could infect any organization… even one as stellar and respected as NASA.

As Vaughn describes it, Normalization of Deviance is not due to rules being blatantly violated or outright misconduct by individuals. Rather, it’s a slow-growing cancer (my words) driven by budgetary pressures, unattainable performance expectations, and pride. Ultimately NASA, in its drive to perform, developed a culture that was “comfortable with flaws”; standard operating procedures were relaxed when “nothing bad happened.”

Vaughn’s assertion in 1996 of how NASA’s culture of relaxed standards could lead to future problems proved prescient 17 years later, when Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry to Earth on February 1, 2003.

I highly recommend reading her updated, 2016 version of The Challenger Launch Decision.

In the meantime, take a few moments to assess the health of your organization. Specifically, can you identify which culture villains have begun seeping into your daily operations? If so, what have you done to banish those villains? If not, why?

Sadly, the slippery slope to mediocrity is created by leaders who feed and nurture culture villains. Conversely, leaders who avoid mediocrity and crush culture villains champion the following quote I learned while consulting for Andy Grove, CEO of Intel Corporation:

“Success breeds arrogance. Arrogance breeds complacency. Only the paranoid survive.”

Which type of leader are you?

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Published on June 03, 2024 14:37

May 31, 2024

We’ve Become Robots!

Robots!

We’ve all become robots!

The lab technician (phlebotomist) who robotically stabs the needle in the patient’s arm without any greeting, or smile.The grocery store employee who robotically stocks shelves, never looking up to see if customers need help. Better yet, when asked about the location of a product, that same employee—without looking up—merely points in general direction of said product and states, “it’s in aisle five.”

Service Robots don’t see customers, patients, or clients. Service Robots don’t listen to customers, patients, or clients.

Service Robots are in their own world.

And, I feel sorry for Service Robots. Most have lousy managers … who don’t see them or listen to them. Inattentive managers create Service Robots.

The proliferation of Service Robots is an opportunity for many businesses; distancing oneself from the competition has never been easier.

Which is why you’ll love the following story.

I See You, I Hear You

How does a coffee shop increase business by 1,000 percent, in four months, for less than $100.00? By being attentive to the needs of a linguistic minority; a group of 30-40 deaf and hard-of-hearing customers who regularly visited the coffee shop.

Leading by example, the coffee shop manager asked the customers:

How can we improve your experience with us?”

Most importantly, the manager posed the question via one of her employees who was skilled at using American Sign Language … demonstrating a decidedly non-Robotic level of sensitivity.

This non-Robotic approach opened the doors of creativity and led to a magical, transformative experience for both employees and customers:

Simplify Ordering: Instead of relying upon the time-consuming, and awkward process of pointing at the large menu board located high on the wall, this group of customers made the following suggestion:

“Can you place laminated menus, with an erasable marking pen, on the countertop where we order our coffee?”  This would allow us to simply circle our beverage of choice on the portable menu.” 

Walk in Customers’ Shoes: Further refining the process, the group of customers suggested another change to one of the coffee shop’s long-standing operating procedures:

“When our order is ready, instead of calling out our name (which we can’t hear unless we’re focusing on your lips) simply write our name in red on the cup (not the usual black) and place the cup on the counter.”

The red ink served as a reminder to coffee shop employees to not call out the customer’s name, thus avoiding another awkward moment.

Surprise Your Customers: Taking this to another level, the coffee shop manager scheduled the employee skilled at sign language to work on Friday evenings; the day this group of customers always gathered at the shop.    

The Anti-Robot Approach

These three steps instantly reduced ordering time and frustration for employees and customers. Also, this anti-Robot atmosphere led to an astonishing result: Word rapidly spread in the hearing-impaired community. In less than four months, the group of 30-40 customers grew to over 500 … an event that continues to this day.

The manager of this coffee shop demonstrated to her employees, and customers, a remarkable level of other-centered service. Her we’re not Service Robots approach dramatically increased employee engagement, customer loyalty, and …  profits.

What steps are you taking to reprogram the Service Robots in your organization?

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Published on May 31, 2024 08:08

May 20, 2024

You Have No %!#@ Integrity!: Why Most Merged Teams are Doomed from the Start… Is Yours?

Welcome to the earliest days of the merger between Company A and Company B:

Both enjoy tremendous success in their respective countries.Both embrace their rock-solid corporate cultures and values, especially integrity.Both are committed to this merger.

This merger is doomed.

Both companies put their best engineers on the newly merged team and plunge into the work.  The grumbling soon begins:

They have no integrity! How can you expect us to work with people who aren’t honest?  We ask them for their opinions during meetings and they refuse to answer”, state many of the Company A engineers. 

Company B engineers counter with, “They are the ones with no integrity, they openly challenge our ideas in meetings and expect us to fight back in a public forum instead of in private, one-to-one meetings.  How can they so easily disrupt the group harmony?” 

Both sides had widely divergent views of how a person with “integrity” is supposed to behave.  The common sense within Company A corporate culture is that a person with integrity channels constructive confrontation to hash out differences on the spot, regardless of hierarchical rank or the number of onlookers. 

Contrarily, Company B corporate culture is driven by maintaining harmony in a public forum; a good leader refrains from giving critical feedback until in a private, one-to-one setting. 

It’s Just “Common-Sense”

Company A and Company B engineers never intended to upset each other; they were merely operating from their respective common-sense positions.

And this is mindset destroys far too many teams:   

“What works for me should work for you.”“There are no differences really, we’re all striving for the same thing.”“It’s just common-sense, anyone with integrity or, (fill in the blank) wouldn’t do that.”

Sadly, teams comprised of people from different cultural or corporate backgrounds—ranging from newly formed domestic companies to multinational corporations—rarely interpret each others’ behaviors or intentions with accuracy. Hence, communication and teamwork suffer … and team members retreat from each other.

Go Slow, to Go Fast

Newly formed teams, eager to get stuff done, should change their focus.

Instead of:

Focusing on task: “Let’s dive in and get to work!”

Try this:

Focus on process: “Let’s clarify how we will work together … before we work together.”

Company A and Company B engineers team wasted time and squandered team unity by falling into the get stuff done trap. Paradoxically, identifying mutually acceptable rules of engagement—beforehand—ultimately speeds things up; go slow, to go fast.

Assume Comprehension … At Your Own Risk

The seeds of discontent are already sown when leaders of newly formed, or culturally diverse, teams assume comprehension … of anything.

Options abound for leaders to ensure team members of a newly formed organization will accurately bring to life such value-laden words as: customer care, teamwork, or respect:

Lead by example: Demonstrate (during meetings, training sessions, daily actions).Ask team members to describe, then demonstrate, their understanding.Create a hybrid set of behaviors reflecting the cultural, or generational diversity of the team. (Simple example: have team members discuss when direct eye contact conveys respect vs. disrespect.).

Done properly, and in the early stages of team development, this process helps reveal areas of understanding—and misunderstanding—before tempers flare.

Put on Your Socks Properly

Creating new teams or organizations provides a fantastic opportunity to build a strong culture. And, there’s nothing wrong with starting with the basics.

After all, John Wooden, the 10-time NCAA National Champion coach of the UCLA Bruins is famous for starting each new season with the following activity: Teaching players to avoid blisters by putting socks on properly.

When asked about this, Coach Wooden replied:

“The little things matter. All I need is one little wrinkle in one sock to put a blister on one foot, and it could ruin my whole season.”

Where are the metaphorical wrinkles in your organization’s socks?

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Published on May 20, 2024 22:22

May 13, 2024

Happiness: Defined

One of the most confounding questions—before and after the pandemic—countless of us struggle to answer continues to be:

How do we define happiness?

The vast number of books, articles, and YouTube videos devoted to this topic cause even more hand-wringing and confusion:

Why can’t I be like that person? They make it look so easy!Well, if I had that (fill in what’s lacking) in my life, I’d be happy!I’ll be happy once I get through this stage of my life!

Search no more.

The following definition, courtesy of happiness expert Shawn Achor, is realistic, actionable and makes complete sense … to me.

Shawn, my fellow keynote presenter at a leadership conference, absolutely nailed the definition of Happiness. During his segment, Shawn shared the following:

“Happiness is the joy you feel moving towards your potential.”

Brilliant. Happiness is not short-lived pleasure, it’s a journey.

Based upon Shawn’s definition, we can feel joy even during non-pleasurable times;

The muscle-burn we get while running or exercising isn’t pleasurable in the moment, yet we know the long-term benefits so we focus on the process … the journey.Refraining from indulging in that decadent dessert might be painful in the moment, yet we know the long-term benefits so we focus on the process … the journey.Providing “tough love” feedback to a friend, colleague, or family member is never easy, yet we know the long-term benefits so we focus on the process … the journey.

Focusing on a better future-state—our potential—instead of fleeting discomfort, can paradoxically sprinkle happiness into some of our most difficult life journeys.

What potential are you pursuing?

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Published on May 13, 2024 09:03

May 6, 2024

Earn Your Ice Time: My Afternoon With Wayne Gretzky

Wayne Gretzky, also known as “The Great One” amongst Ice Hockey fans, exudes leadership qualities worthy of concerted study. The following story illustrates a good starting point.

I was honored to share the stage with Wayne at a leadership conference in Alberta, Canada. Presenting with Wayne was a treat, and doing so  … In Canada … was very special. Wayne is worshipped in Canada, so his participation ensured many thousands of attendees filled the seats at our conference … held in (where else?) an ice hockey arena!

The time I spent backstage with Wayne, plus listening to his presentation, offered me glimpses of why he is known as The Great One.  Despite the countless records he holds and Stanley Cups he has won, Wayne embodies a quality demonstrated by far too few leaders:

HumilityOther centeredness

As part of his presentation, Wayne recounted an experience he had as a member of the Canadian Hockey Team during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.  His description of an interaction he had with the coach of the Canadian team proved riveting for the audience and profoundly affected me.


We were getting ready for a shootout during our last game of the Olympics. The Canadian team coach approached me to inform me I wouldn’t be taking the ice to participate in the shootout. Even though I was getting along in my career,  coach was clearly tense and didn’t enjoy telling my the bad news; I wouldn’t be taking the ice.


I responded, “Coach I’m honored simply to represent Canada during the Olympic Games. Every player has to earn his ice time and I haven’t earned mine. Heck, I’m happy to just carry the other players’ sticks and sit on the same bench.”


This is where Wayne demonstrated his Greatness:

No temper tantrums.No blaming.

Thousands of Canadians, and I, Iearned what makes Wayne The Great One:

Ice time isn’t bestowed, it’s earned.

Now it’s time to bring this message to life.

Who on your team has recently demonstrated the “Wayne Gretzky Style” of Humility and Other-Centeredness? I know it’s rare, but I’m sure you can think of someone. Next, take a moment and thank them.

There isn’t a simpler, (and entirely free!), way to build a culture of mutual respect.

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Published on May 06, 2024 19:30

April 29, 2024

Even Monkeys Fall From Trees: How Do You Deal with Failure?

Which Are You?

A fresh-out-of-school hard charger.  You’re on a mission to leverage your academic success and build your brand, your business, your market share. You “know it all.”A successful, middle-aged professional.  You’ve been in business for a number of years, either building your own company, or working your way up the ranks of a large organization. You’re a survivor. You “know it all.”You’re the segment leader in a rapidly changing industry… for now. Competitors are closing in. Instead of embracing proactive—and painful—growth, you blame others.   

Each of these represent various levels of success and… each are ripe for failure.

Even Monkeys Fall from Trees

I learned this Japanese proverb while in Graduate School in Japan, and reminded of its powerful lessons throughout my many years living there.

This proverb captures the challenges every organization, and every one of us, ultimately faces; regardless of how capable or skilled we are, we all eventually lose our balance and make mistakes… we all “fall from our trees!”

Here are the proverb’s key lessons:

The tree branches will eventually breakThe wind will eventually blowDon’t blame the metaphorical tree branches, or unexpected gusts of wind,Own your mistakes,Learn from your mistakes,Take action to minimize your mistakesClimb back into the tree and give it another goStrive to become proactive, not simply reactive; make sure to strengthen your tree

The benefits of managing the change process proactively, rather than reacting to the changes forced upon us, should convince anyone to let go of the defenses and excuses that prevent creativity and innovation.

So it’s time to ponder these questions:

When you last “fell out of your tree,” how did you handle it? Did you accept responsibility or blame  others? Did you blame the branches of the tree?Are you, or your company, so successful that you can’t imagine a competitor unseating you from your lofty perch?Are you prone to holding on to the “old ways,” despite massive marketplace changes?When is the last time you “failed successfully,” and crawled back into the tree?

What steps will you take to strengthen your tree?

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Published on April 29, 2024 09:58

April 22, 2024

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses! The Sorry State of Employee Development in Many Organizations

Many organizations aren’t committed to employee training. Blaming Covid is the excuse du jour, yet the fundamental reasons predate the pandemic … by many years.

Andy Grove, former president of, and driving force behind, Intel Corporation’s enormous success once shared with me his thoughts about employee development:

“I can’t stand listening to executives from other Silicon (California) Valley companies spouting excuses for not training their employees. ‘What if I train them, and they leave?’ My response is simply, ‘what if you don’t train them, and they stay!’”

Keep Andy’s thoughts about employee development in mind as you continue … . 

Somewhere in the world, the following two scenarios are currently being played out. Both reflect a passive, victim mentality. Both undermine sustained employee and organizational development. Both come across as cool-headed rationale, but in most cases both are merely lame excuses for inaction.

Scenario #1: “This weak economy is killing me. ‘Do more with less’ is the name of the game. My budgets are slashed and I have no wiggle room.”

The Result:

I don’t have the budget, time or people for training. Why train employees? They’ll be gone pretty soon.

Scenario #2: “This booming economy is killing me. We’re barely filling existing orders. Plus I can’t keep my good people. They jump ship as soon as someone else comes along waving a little extra money.”

The Result:

I don’t have the time or people for training.Why train employees? They’ll be gone pretty soon.

These two organizations are at opposite ends of the economic spectrum; one is in a dying environment and the other in a thriving environment. Yet, the economy aside, there are surprising similarities between the two. The odds are good that neither organization has a history or culture of providing useful employee training, supported by leadership or owners.

The extremes of economic booms and busts will never vanish. Both create considerable stess among leaders, and no one is immune. Leaders in government, business, religious institutions, non-profits and start-up organizations all face similar challenges. Boom and bust extremes force leaders to consider ways to address the following challenges:

Do more with less.Keep employees engaged and motivated.Reduce employee turnover.Improve customer service.Differentiate from the competition.

Differentiation is the ultimate goal; how to stand out as the employer-of-choice, vendor-of-choice, service-provider-of-choice or, the whatever-of-choice.

The anxiety and stress that used to be felt only during the extremes of boom and bust is now a daily reality for many. Leaders who blame the economy for not providing training should look in the mirror.

In closing, wrap your head around the following two quotes from a couple of my mentors at Disneyland, Jim Cora and Van France:

“Marketing is the time and money you spend to get people in the door. Training is the investment you make to get customers to come back and employees to stay; it creates loyalty.”  – Jim Cora, retired chairman, Disneyland International

Jim’s comments reveal the secret behind the success of Disney’s world-famous employee development organization, the Disney University; incessant and overt leadership support.

In addition to Jim, another of my Disney mentors, and founder of the Disney University, was Van France. Van was a vocal and respected cheerleader for constantly providing relevant learning opportunities for Disney’s employees, the cast members. Over his multiple decades of service, Van challenged many Disney executives with the following rant:

The budget has become the scapegoat for every possible negative action and rejection of any suggestion for improving things. Cutting budgets is the coward’s way out of any problem.” – Van France, Disney University Founder

Which excuses are you using to justify a lack of employee development?

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Published on April 22, 2024 12:42

April 15, 2024

Hey Leaders, Stop Playing the Post-Covid Victim Card! Develop Differently-Abled Employees

Sandra, the factory employee I’m observing, works tirelessly and methodically at her station.

Reaching into a large cardboard box filled with hundreds of teabags, Sandra pulls out enough bags to fill tea-bag-sized indentations in a tray situated in front of her on the workbench. Once she fills each indentation—15 for this job — she carefully transfers the teabags from the tray into a smaller box destined for supermarket shelves.

Over and over during her shift, Sandra accurately fills the smaller boxes with the consistency and reliability of a computer-controlled robot … yet she is blind, cannot hear, and cannot count.

Sandra is blessed to work for an organization called Pride Industries. Founded in a church basement in 1966 in Auburn, California, Pride Industries hires and trains people with a variety of physical and mental challenges, the “differently-abled” in our society.  Using massively creative training programs, Pride Industries helps transform often-ignored groups of people into purpose-driven, contributing members of society. 

The overwhelming success of PRIDE has proven what its founding leadership team suspected all along: When people are nourished by the power of purpose, and set up for success via well-designed training, their spirits soar, their talents blossom … and their disabilities disappear.

So, you can only imagine how I recently responded to a complaint voiced by an owner of multiple restaurants across the United States:

Owner: “These young kids today can’t communicate with our customers.”

Me: “Look in the mirror, your lack of leadership and creativity is where the problem resides.”

Business owners, leaders, managers, and supervisors need to stop playing the post-Covid victim card. It’s time to move from the excuses-laden, creativity-killing position of, “No, we can’t do that because,” to the possibilities-rich mindset of “Yes, If.”

Sandra would be the first to agree.

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Published on April 15, 2024 14:06

April 8, 2024

The 3 B’s of Business … and Personal Failure

Gathering professional and life lessons from great leaders around the world can open many doors. We simply need to choose which ones we walk through.

I’ve been blessed to learn from many leaders during my career. And, that’s why I included above the thought that’s often drifting through my head.

So, let’s continue with one of my favorite themes; the simplicity found in groups of three.

Several years ago I had the opportunity to chat with Greg Hicks, owner and founder of Impressions Catering in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Greg opened new doors for me.

Despite the rough and tumble catering world he works in, Greg has thrived. Like many of us, though, Greg had to learn some lessons the hard way. With a matter-of-fact style revealing hard earned wisdom, Greg shared, “I was busy, burned out, and broke.” Battered by the Great Recession of 2008, Greg made the mistake of saying “yes” to every client demand … and his strategy extracted a tremendous toll:

Greg was busy: Lacking focus, Impressions Catering chased every lead, accepted every client request.

Greg was burned out: Chasing one’s own tail is tiring. Greg’s health was suffering.

Greg was broke: Profit margin played second fiddle in Greg’s decision making process.

Greg summed up his failing business model beautifully: “I eventually learned you will be ‘nothing to nobody’ if you try to be ‘all things to all people.’”

This story has a happy ending. Over 20 years of owning and running a now extremely successful catering company has Greg extolling the virtues of remaining laser-focused on one’s strengths … and leveraging those strengths. “Not all business is our business,” said Greg as he shared with me how Impressions Catering remains true to its niche; the business of offering full-service wedding catering.

Greg gets it.

Although many doors open to us in our careers and lives, we don’t need to walk through each one.

Which doors will you choose to walk through … and which will you close?

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Published on April 08, 2024 12:51