by Martin Sklar
MICKEY’S TEN COMMANDMENTS
It has been almost forty years since the word “writer” appeared on my job description. For thirty of those years—from 1974 to 2004, the period of my creative leadership at Walt Disney Imagineering—I had the final word on what the Imagineers presented to Disney corporate management or, for a few years, to the Parks and Resorts leaders before a project reached Card Walker, Ron Miller, or Michael Eisner.
I did, however, continue to work in the realm of the written word, often invisibly, in keeping with the “we” and not “I” theme. Because of my background in creating slogans like “The Vacation Kingdom of the World” (Walt Disney World), and “Imagineering is the blending of creative imagination with technical know-how” (a favorite statement of Walt Disney), I had an opportunity to ghostwrite dedication plaques, honorary window copy, introductions to a myriad of Disney parks and Imagineering books, tributes, and memorials to the great Disney Legends on their passing, and even the copy line that appeared at the bottom of the stationery for every division of the company: PART OF THE MAGIC OF THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY.
One of my favorites was the sign that stood outside Disneyland’s empty Haunted Mansion for about five years before the interior show was created in 1969. The sign invited AN ACTIVE RETIREMENT to enjoy ALL GHOSTS AND RESTLESS SPIRITS where they could continue to practice their ghostly specialties. YOU TAKE CARE OF THE INSIDE, the sign copy promised. WE’LL TAKE CARE OF THE OUTSIDE.
But it was “Mickey’s Ten Commandments” that established me as a speaker and creator of my own ideas, and gave me the opportunity to communicate them to audiences inside and outside Disney. Although I created the commandments, the first speech was actually written by Imagineer Paul Goldman. It launched a career of speechwriting for Paul, first for executives at Walt Disney World, followed by ten years writing for the chairman and CEO of New York Life Insurance Company.
My initial presentation of “Mickey’s Ten Commandments” was actually a double—two speeches that began in the Twin Cities in Minnesota at the national convention of Science and Technology Centers. Two days later, I made the same talk at the Art Directors Club of Boston.
I developed, refined, and practiced these key principles of leadership, based on what I learned from Walt Disney and my mentors, the great Imagineering Legends, especially designer John Hench. I crystallized these “learnings” into the first of what I called Mickey’s Ten Commandments:
1. Know your audience
Identify the prime audience for your attraction or show before you begin design.
2. Wear your guests’ shoes
Insist that your team members experience your creation just the way guests do it.
3. Organize the flow of people and ideas
Make sure there is a logic and sequence in your stories and in the way guests experience them.
4. Create a wienie (visual magnet)
Create visual “targets” that will lead visitors clearly and logically through your facility.
5. Communicate with visual literacy
Make good use of color, shape, form, texture—all the nonverbal ways of communication.
6. Avoid overload—create turn-ons
Resist the temptation to overload your audience with too much information and too many objects.
7. Tell one story at a time
Stick to the story line; good stories are clear, logical, and consistent.
8. Avoid contradictions—maintain identity
Details in design or content that contradict one another confuse an audience about your story or the time period it takes place in.
9. For every ounce of treatment, provide a ton of treat
In our business, Walt Disney said, you can educate people—but don’t tell them you’re doing it! Make it fun!
10. Keep it up! (maintain it)
In a Disney park or resort, everything must work. Poor maintenance is poor show!
These principles quickly became a kind of gold standard in the park and museum business. Today you will find this list pinned on the office wall of many Imagineers, and more throughout the leisure-recreation industry. In fact, Funworld magazine, published by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA), called them “a classic—perhaps the best guide to the creation of themed entertainment.”
The inauguration of an excellent program to train and motivate leaders at Disneyland and Walt Disney World gave me an opportunity to communicate the ideas and principles I utilized to lead the Imagineers. At these Leadership Conferences, I presented two different programs on leadership and one speech I called “Followership: How to Be a Great Team Player and Help Your Leaders Succeed.”
After the original list, I have added another thirty. The basic points from my now forty commandments are below, with apologies to God and Moses, who somehow managed to stop at ten:
Create and maintain a climate of trust.
Be responsive and make decisions—that’s what leaders do!
Empower your teammates—it takes many hands to bake a success.
Create opportunities for new birds to fly.
Remember: experience is not a negative.
Make sure yours is not the only voice you are listening to.
Celebrate diversity and different points of view.
Never rest on your laurels—the next at-bat is your most important.
Take a chance—support risk-taking.
Provide plenty of blank paper.
(The Leaders’ Bible—Part 2) Leadership is earned and must be exercised daily!
Be optimistic—if you are not positive, who else will be?
Courage and confidence are major cross streets on the road to success.
Make curiosity your search engine.
Learn to love your next assignment—be passionate about whatever you do.
Provide time to explore—but deadlines are great motivation and discipline.
Take time to teach—mentors are mensches.
Forget the politics—it’s not an election!
Traditions are important—but change is the great dynamic.
Team and work are four-letter words—but together they spell “winner.”
Remember: the last three letters of trend are E-N-D!
(Part IV—Followership)
How to be a great team player and help your leaders succeed!
SPEAK UP! Great teammates raise issues before decisions are made!
Never be afraid to ask questions. That’s how we learn our parts—onstage and backstage.
Make your experience count (that’s why you’re on the team).
Help the rookies succeed—you were “new” once, too.
Understand your role—everyone has a job to do.
Never fear failure—winners sometimes fail, too!
But—know when to take a chance (and always let your leaders know you’re doing it).
Play by the rules. If you disagree, work to change them after the game.
Share the joy of success—you didn’t do it by yourself!
Support your teammates—at Disney, there’s only one name on the door.
* * * * * * * * * *
In the spirit of those commandments, I looked back over my Disney career and selected ten of the most significant written communications I was privileged to develop. There were many more to choose from, but for reasons I will explain as I introduce these ten, they all have special significance in time and place in Disney lore.
1. Walt Disney’s last message to Disney shareholders—1966 Annual Report.
I developed four annual reports with another Disney Legend, Creative Director for Publicity Art and Marketing Bob Moore, and graphic designer Norm Noceti. We created a theme, reviewed it with Card Walker, and then met with Roy O. Disney, Disney’s president and chairman of the board, to secure his go-ahead. Our theme for 1966 was “The Disney World.” Roy’s message, which I also wrote with a big assist from Roy’s financial staff, was entitled, “Wherever
We Go, the Organization Is Prepared.” Walt’s was called, “A Look to the Future”:
2. Cover letter from Roy O. Disney—1966 Annual Report.
When Walt passed away on December 15, 1966, the company’s annual report was already printed and ready to be mailed to shareholders after the first of the new year. However, several key corporate executives expressed concern at mailing a document containing Walt’s message; in fact, they argued that we should scrap the whole report and develop a new communication.
I vehemently disagreed.
Ultimately, as distraught as he was at his brother’s death, Roy listened and agreed. I wrote this letter for Roy; when it was mailed to shareholders, it covered the already printed front of the 1966 Annual Report:
3. Disney Image Presentation—November, 1965
Little did I ever dream that Walt’s first reaction to something I had written would be, “I didn’t know anyone was writing my obituary!” It was actually one of two presentations prepared for the Florida Press Conference in November 1965, where Governor Hayden Burns introduced Walt and Roy, and formally announced that Disney was coming to the Sunshine State.
The first presentation was the “meat and potatoes” variety, describing the engine for economic growth that Disneyland had created in Anaheim and Orange County, California, in its first decade. The second was my nineteen-page script that attempted to describe the impact of Walt’s entertainment on people around the world. Despite his comment, I had recorded about three minutes of dialogue with Walt. I still regard “The Disney Image,” as produced with its wonderful visual content, as among the very best writing I created at Disney. The following pages give the flavor of the introduction in Walt’s dialogue that followed a line reciting his “thirty-two Oscars”—his Academy Awards.
The script then transitioned to Walt’s narration.
The script then segued back to a wrap-up ending.
4. The Many Worlds of Disneyland (1965)
The year 1965 was a celebration of Disneyland’s first decade—what Jack Lindquist called the “Tencennial.” The twenty-four-page, full-color section we created in the Los Angeles Times celebrated those first ten years, and of course looked at the new attractions soon to open: Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln in the Opera House on Main Street and the Plaza Inn (1965); “it’s a small world” and New Orleans Square (1966); and Pirates of the Caribbean (1967). For me, it meant editing and producing the newspaper section, and writing one of my favorite descriptions of the park.
5. “I remember…because I was there with Walt Disney at Mineral King” (1972)
In 1965, Bob Moore, Norm Noceti, and I had created the presentation that Walt, Card Walker, and other Disney executives and consultants (including the legendary Willy Schaeffler, director of ski events for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California) used in order to win the approval of the United States Forest Service to create year-round recreational services and facilities at Mineral King, California. Located almost halfway between the population centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the Sequoia National Forest, the approximately twenty square miles known as Mineral King had enormous potential to provide recreational opportunities for Californians. But it was accessible during summer months only by a dangerous and substandard access road. More than six years after the company was selected by the U.S. Forest Service, lawsuits and political manipulating continued to stall, and eventually kill, the Mineral King project.
Frustrated by the political infighting and delays and seeking public support, Disney decided to let the public know that we were ready to move ahead. I wrote the following explanation, which appeared as a paid ad in the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers with Card Walker’s signature:
6. “A Tribute to Harriet Burns” (2008)
As much as I enjoyed being “the kid” and having the opportunity to learn from so many Imagineering Legends in the fifties and sixties, there turned out to be an emotional payback. As my mentors passed away, their families asked me to organize and be the key speaker at the memorial services that celebrated the passion and the career of some of the great Disney talents: Richard Irvine, John Hench, Herb Ryman, Sam McKim, Claude Coats, Don Edgren, and Fred Joerger—and Harriet Burns, that special lady who was the queen bee of the Imagineering Model Shop. Even before the celebration of Harriet’s life, I wrote this tribute for all the Imagineers, to a wonderful talent, the true spirit of so much that Imagineers represent:
7. “Think Diversity” (2000)
As designers of projects that travel the world, lmagineers have an obligation to understand the impact not only of what they create, but of how their future attractions are communicated. When he was Disney’s chairman in the early 1980s, Donn Tatum asked me to take a hard look at the illustrations we drew to communicate the stories, the themes, and the fun of our attractions. He wanted to be sure that our artists were being inclusive; that we depicted people of color and a variety of cultures. Simply put, were we making sure our audience of diverse backgrounds and colors knew that they were welcome in our parks and resorts.
More than a decade later, after learning that Frank Wells had funded a Disney Studio program to find and develop minority writers, I was able to secure funding for an Imagineering program to diversify our staff.
Called ImagiNations, it’s a competition for internships, now in its twentieth year, seeking a diverse population of artists, designers, engineers—the whole mix of talent found in Imagineering’s 140 different disciplines. We look for a variety of cultures, ethnic backgrounds, colors, and of course a mix of genders to become interns and, hopefully, Imagineers. More than twenty-five full-time Imagineers have been recruited through this competition, which has attracted as many as 140 different entries in one year from around the world.
But it all began with Donn Tatum’s request that I write this memo that we distributed to all the Imagineers who reported to me in the Creative Development division. This is the second of the communications I sent out.
8. The Disney Difference: Rides Versus Attractions/Adventures/Experiences (2006)
Over the years, there were two issues related to terminology that particularly irritated me. One was the word “escapism” to describe the “Disney Park” experience. John Hench was the passionate spokesman of antiescapism. “The parks are about reassurance,” John argued. “Disneyland is a public place where you can talk to a stranger and let your children play without fear. We are proof that a public place can be clean and things can work. We reassure people that the world can be okay!”
The second issue was the use of the word “ride” to describe almost anything when vehicles and movement are involved. When the subject actually came up in a Disney shareholder meeting, I sent the attached memo to Jay Rasulo:
9. Note Cards and Red Pen Notes
Early in my years as creative leader of the lmagineers, I wrote a few thank-you notes to people whose work, or work ethic, had made a difference on a project. I began to notice these notes—written on three-and-a-half-by-seven-inch cards that Disney supplied with my name printed at the bottom and IMAGINEERING printed at the top—pinned on the walls of the offices of those who received them. So I made those note cards a metaphorical and actual signature of my leadership. I wrote literally thousands of them, thanking Imagineers not just for the success of their project, but for special effort, leadership, teamwork—almost any way I could personalize the message.
I have borrowed a few from the walls of offices at Imagineering as examples. I truly believe these personalized notes were as important as any other element of leadership I utilized in my thirty years as Imagineering’s top creative executive.
10. There Are Two Ways to Look at a Blank Sheet of Paper (1974–2004)
It became something of a cliché of my years at lmagineering. “There are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper,” I said. “You can see it as the most frightening thing in the world—because you have to make the first mark on it. Or you can see a blank page as the gr
eatest opportunity—you get to make the first mark on it. You can let your imagination fly in any direction. You can create whole new worlds.”
I didn’t care that it became a cliché. I remembered that comment George Lucas made in a meeting about the Star Tours attraction: “Don’t avoid the clichés,” George said. “They are clichés because they work!”
We finally commemorated the importance of this approach in a nine-inch-by-twelve-inch sketchbook printed with the text and image on the facing page. My friend, artist John Horny, provided the official story sketch. Beyond the initial copy, all the pages were blank.
THE BLACK SHEEP
The untimely death in July 2011 of my younger brother, Robert Sklar, in a bicycle accident in Barcelona, Spain, came as a shock to all of us. The tributes we read and heard afterward from the academic community and the publishing world made everyone in our family realize how much Bob, as professor of Cinema Studies at New York University (NYU), had affected so many lives so positively. His Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, originally published in 1975 by Vintage Books, is still used as a textbook in university cinema courses.
Cineaste, AMERICA’S LEADING MAGAZINE ON THE ART AND POLITICS OF THE CINEMA (Bob was a contributing editor), wrote: “Several Cineaste editorial board members who were his former students and advisees have noted how Bob was a life-changing influence through his mentorship that went far beyond the confines of the classroom.” William Simon, Bob’s colleague as professor of Cinema Studies at NYU, told the Los Angeles Times: “He’s among the most important and innovative historians of American film, especially in terms of his approach to understanding film history.”