[deleted]
The Disneyfication of a University
31–40 of 268 posts
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#32Company culture and values training is useful to inform people of what the culture and values are. You can’t impose or change culture and values through training.
“Culture” is just a summary of what people do — the way to reinforce it is just to do it. If people are visibly rewarded day-to-day for acting a certain way, and visibly not rewarded (and let go) for doing the opposite, that’s going to be what determines the culture.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the point of TFA is that it wasn't specific; the core values they suggest would make just as much sense for McDonalds and for GWU.
A good rule of thumb: if you can't imagine a company adopting the opposite position of a "core value", it's not a value at all. "Honesty" is not a value. "Move fast and break things" is a value.
The opposite position of honesty is lying pathologically and constantly, which some leaders do, so honesty passes your test.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#34https://web.archive.org/web/20200210163448/https://academebl...
Thank you! I presume you were getting the same "500 Internal Server Error" that I was.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#35Several years ago, I had to attend a full day "culture training" session given by Senn Delaney (a division of Heidrick & Struggles) [1]. It was also a massive waste of time. Our company actually has a really great culture, and what I remember of the training amounted to a somewhat subtle attempt to indoctrinate employees to be more blindly obedient to management change initiatives. There was some other stuff, but I h…
> every employee had to attend a course that took between one and three whole work days, with no multitasking allowed
That reminded me of the Clockwork Orange.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#36A quick summary: the employees at a university had to attend seminars put on by the Disney Institute to try to instill in them the 'values' that the university should adopt. I vaguely remember the corporate culture workshops we had to attend at a couple previous employers, and yeah, it's annoying and boring, but someone had to justify spending X million dollars on a new slogan and spiffy "these five words summarize w…
It is the norm, but the author is questioning the effectiveness. Also, your summary hit the nail well but missed, >A select group of faculty and staff, those identified as opinion leaders, are being offered all-expenses paid trips to the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando “to gain first-hand insight into Disney’s approach to culture.” Which makes the situation more insidious.
Yeah, definitely not effective in the least. The only thing I remember from those trainings was it was nice to not have to be on-call (at all, another team took over) for a full day, and we got donuts and tasty boxed lunches, so I guess that was nice.
But I can't remember any of the content of the seminars, because I'm not sure I was fully conscious through them.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course; I didn't mean to imply they enjoy them. I just meant that they're often subjected to them.
Why are teenagers subjected to this kind of stuff anyway? It's usually pretty apparent that they don't like this stuff. They won't tell you outright, because they're trained to be compliant and taught to never entirely disagree, but it should still be apparent to those who understand teenagers, no?
It's horrible! I always hated this kind of stuff in middle and high school. I think that it's a combination of school administrators being out of touch and having pressures from their higher-ups. But for the sake of today's teenagers, I wish these sorts of trainings and assemblies were done away with.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#38It's part of the ongoing "corporatization" and "MBA-ization" of US colleges and universities. GW's attempt to institute a "culture" using techniques developed at Disney is just one of many possible examples, although I will admit it is a particularly easy one to mock. (Quoting the OP: "The GW culture initiative can be summed up in two words: Mickey Mouse.") Much of higher education in the US is now controlled by an a…
Usually it’s a bad sign when administration moves away from the place of production. Things often don’t end well. Mercedes did this in the 80s and 90s and I have also heard people say that Boeing’s move to Chicago was the turning point when the company went downhill.
My company also has a corporate headquarters where there are thousands of well paid people keep themselves busy creating training materials and processes that look good but are ultimately not practical or just stating the obvious in new words.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#39How can universities afford things like this, when, at the same time, there seems to be a big student loan problem in the US?
I think one follows the other.
Get more money out of students, put more money into these programs with nice kickbacks to administrators. Win-win, at least if you're in an administration position.
Re: The Disneyfication of a University
#40It's part of the ongoing "corporatization" and "MBA-ization" of US colleges and universities. GW's attempt to institute a "culture" using techniques developed at Disney is just one of many possible examples, although I will admit it is a particularly easy one to mock. (Quoting the OP: "The GW culture initiative can be summed up in two words: Mickey Mouse.") Much of higher education in the US is now controlled by an a…
> At the top of this bureaucracy are college and university presidents earning seven figures a year and also earning additional income from sitting on corporate and non-profit boards.
That they're a certain tier of upper management for whom it's expected and normal that they engage in a bunch of activities at what is assuredly less than "full time" attention to any one of them and among which they cannot possibly be keeping their work totally separate and interests perfectly straight, while employees have to beg to "moonlight" or start their own side-hustle a lot of places, is one of the facts of corporate culture and the state of current capitalism that upsets me the most.
Like, pick one. Either it's super-important that all of us and especially people taking home tons of pay at the top of the pyramid are entirely on-board with a single employer or venture, or those not reaping such huge benefits should have the same freedom of association and freedom with their time as those at the top. I'll take either—the former would probably fix some major systemic problems we have while the latter would make my life easier and simpler.