Disney, Time magazine and the Biology of Kindness

On May 9, 2013, Time magazine published an article about the study of the biology of kindness and how it makes us happier and healthier (see the link below). Regarding our subject here, what does kindness (and how it is produced) has to do with brand experiences, and henceforth, helping them to be extraordinary? A lot, I can say.

When I talk about Disney Parks at my seminar, what I like to share with the audience is that the competitive advantage of the company, and what they are most admired for in terms of service, is the opportunity that they open to human kindness to rise and be expressed. Believe it or not, thru their very creative stages (parks and attractions), processes, tools, and most of all thru the people that work there, the Cast Members, they have designed the most nutritious terrain to magical moments to happen, as they call them, that is, to encourage moments to happen where human kindness is evoked on purpose and put into action.

What Disney does to make magical moments happen is to train, encourage and trust Cast Members to apply the "No strings attached" policy. A policy that was thought using as reference the story of Pinocchio who, as you remember, was able to change from a wooden puppet to a real child, breaking free of the strings that held him dependent and on to become his real self, his human self. As it is, Disney’s policy empowers Cast Members (employees) to deliver happiness in the form of magical moments as they see fit by being fully aware of Guests needs and by applying a priority criteria using the Guest Service Guidelines. Therefore, the purposely happening of positive human interactions is encouraged by the company to deliver kindness by Cast Members in the form of magical moments.

Using the Pinocchio metaphor, as Disney understood, consciously or unconsciously, the more independent Cast Members are and, as Stephen Covey foresaw, the more interdependent they learn to be, the more kind they become and the more moments of kindness (magical moments) they deliver.

In correlation with the study that Time Magazine talks about, and that was first published in Psychological Science, it suggests that the vagus nerve connects social contact to the positive emotions that can flow from interactions, therefore helping us feel happier and healthier. So, if we ponder about magical moments, looking them thru the lense of this study, we can understand why they are so powerful to make us remember what we have lived at Disney, and why we judge these interactions as an extraordinary experience. The study helps us understand that magical moments are not only interactions, but highly positive human interactions. Highly positive interactions catered by Cast Members, which are, indeed, human beings purposely interacting in a positive way with other human beings, causing as a result, positive emotions, but most importantly, social connectedness in the most pure human way. This is, in my opinion as a bystander, why people feel happier when visiting a Disney Park and why they judge their experience as magical.

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