Travels from Vero Beach, Florida, USA
Bill Capodagli's speaking fee falls within range: $15,000 to $20,000
Bill Capodagli is a Disney expert who guides leaders to adopt Walt’s timeless success credo – Dream, Believe, Dare, Do. He coauthored the Fortune magazine BEST BUSINESS BOOK – The Disney Way. His latest book – Creating a Joy-Centric Culture – offers a simple yet powerful framework for creating workplaces where people find meaning, not fear and where joy becomes the ultimate measure of success.
For over three decades, Bill has changed the lives of countless people…creating a legacy of helping leaders and teams realize the immense power of story, values and human spirit as catalysts for culture transformation.
Bill Capodagli tells of how the Pixar company created “Pixar University,” an educational program for all its employees with the objectives of expanding workers’ horizons and ensuring the company’s future as a top notch studio. “Today they have over 100 classes ranging from drawing and sculptures to self-defense and fencing and everyone from the person cleaning the parking lot to the president, Ed Catmull, is encouraged to spend four hours a week in class on company time.”
“Randy Nelson [former Pixar producer] was once asked, ‘Why would you teach drawing to accountants?’” Bill recounts. “He said, ‘We’re not just teaching them how to draw. We’re teaching them how to be more observant.’ And wouldn’t any organization be more productive if everyone was more observant?”
Bill analyzes Disney’s 90-year record of excellence and the lessons any organization can learn from its practices and founder:“Walt was once asked what the secret of his success was, and he said that he didn’t know how much of a secret it was, but before he would start any new project he would think of four things. First, he would dream of things that had never been done before and ways of doing business that were never tried before. He would test those dreams against his values and the beliefs of his organization. He would dare to take the risk to make those dreams come true and lastly, he’d put plans together so that the dreams do become a reality.”
Bill talks about Walt Disney’s last days, when he was secretly hospitalized for lung cancer. “When he could no longer sit up in his hospital bed, he had his assistant pin the plans to Walt Disney World above his bed so he could continue to dream and share his dreams about this beautiful park...Let’s fast forward the clock about 30 years into the future, and I’m here at Walt Disney World with a group from British Petroleum. One of the vice presidents turns to me and says, ‘You know, Bill, it’s a shame that Walt Disney didn’t live to see this beautiful place completed.’ And I thought for a moment. I said, ‘George, he did see it. That’s why it’s here.’”
Management wizard and the world’s foremost Disney expert, Bill Capodagli teaches companies, educational establishments, and hospitals how they can utilize the same principles that have guided the Disney organization for 90 years.
Disney’s unfaltering record of transforming the impossible into magical moments and cultural icons offers lessons in how any organization can be reinvented in terms of leadership, customer service, collaboration, and creativity.
Bill will fascinate you with his unique behind-the-scenes knowledge of what is perhaps the world’s most well-known and influential company. His storytelling and lessons will leave you dreaming and daring to make a difference.
If Walt Ran Your Organization! – Bill’s Signature Keynote
Walt Disney created an organization that has become the quintessential model for customer service, perhaps in the entire world. Based upon the 3rd edition of The Disney Way, Bill Capodagli leads his audiences to apply Walt’s Dream, Believe, Dare, Do principles to achieve a customer-centric culture. Walt Disney once said, “You don’t build the product for yourself. You need to know what people want and build it for them.” Bill provides a solid roadmap required to do just that!
Bill Capodagli shows audiences how Disney’s values of providing service to customers, training and enabling employees, and managing creativity and innovation can be successfully adopted in organizations of any size, across diverse industries and markets.
Leadership – The Disney Way
Walt Disney left us nearly a half century ago, but his leadership lessons are as relevant now as they were back then. Bill Capodagli explains the critical elements in Walt’s definition of leadership, and provides extraordinary leadership examples from the featured organizations in The Disney Way 3rd edition. Bill also shares a useful action plan to improve anyone’s leadership skills!
Walt Disney embraced a Leadership Definition that is still applied in both The Walt Disney Company and Pixar today: the ability to establish and manage a creative climate in which individuals and teams are self-motivated to the successful achievement of long-term goals in an environment of mutual respect and trust
Dreams and Dreamers: How to Innovate Like Walt Disney and the Pixarians
In this eye-opening session, Bill Capodagli leads his audiences to discover the secrets for creating a truly innovative work culture from one of the world’s leaders on creativity – Pixar. Bill has taken his search for business excellence one step further with his enormously popular book – Innovate the Pixar Way – that reveals key strategies for taking any organization from ho-hum to outstanding.
Pixar is the benchmark of innovative success. With numerous Academy Awards under their belts, they keep breaking the mold on creativity and taking it to the next level. Pixarians never settle for what they’ve done but continue to look forward to the future.
Bill Capodagli explains how Pixar has reawakened the innovative spirit of Walt Disney and how they have realized phenomenal success in doing so. Bill wrote, “innovation cannot be ‘ordered like a pizza’…it requires dedicated leadership and a collaborative culture.” He inspires his audiences to produce Pixar-style innovation in their own organizations!
“We were delighted to have Bill with us. The comments received from many folks were that they found his information engaging and useful for their work. Additionally, having him remain with us during the week and present a breakout the afternoon following his workshop was a bonus that many people enjoyed.” PCPA (Event booked by Speaking.com)
“The luncheon was a huge success and the audience was impressed with Bill’s presentation. We had a sellout crowd, between 400 and 410 people.” Glen Ellyn Chamber of Commerce (Event booked by Speaking.com)
“Overall very good responses from our attendees – many felt they received great information and inspiration.” Opening Minds through the Arts (OMA) Foundation (Event booked by Speaking.com)
“With their breadth of topics and depth of knowledge, Bill and Lynn helped my team to operate at true peak performance.” Whirlpool Global
“I could not ask for more professional and competent partners for our public programming offerings. It was a pleasure to work with Bill and his support staff in providing such a high quality, hands-on, learning experience for our constituents. We continue to receive positive comments on The Disney Way—Dream, Believe, Dare, Do program nearly three months after delivery. Their program is exciting, fresh, new, thought –provoking, and entertaining. Are you tired of offering just another lecture? Bill will put your constituents to work in a seminar they will not forget. This may be just what your clients are looking for when it comes to needing a new method for instilling creativity in their workplace…a full day’s work and their phenomenal book to support the learning.” Northern Illinois University
The Disney Way program addresses universal business issues and therefore is appealing to those in virtually every profession. Most leaders are intrigued with Disney’s so-called “secret recipe” for success and are enthusiastic to learn practical methods for adapting the ingredients into their own organizations. Here are some actual reactions from our audience:
Based on the experience of The Management Roundtable, I believe you will find that the innovative Dream, Believe, Dare, Do process will captivate your audiences and provide a solid foundation to restructuring their organizations in “The Disney Way.” Kimberly Weir, Conference Director, Management Roundtable, Inc.
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Creating a Joy-Centric Culture: A Leader’s Journey Through Dream, Believe, Dare, Do
Creating a Joy-Centric Culture: The Leader’s Journey Through Dream, Believe, Dare, Dochallenges a long-held assumption in leadership: performance is driven primarily by pressure, metrics, and control. Fortunately, bestselling author of The Disney Way, Bill Capodagli reveals a more powerful truth. The most successful organizations achieve excellence by designing cultures rooted in purpose, trust, and joy.
Drawing on more than 30 years of experience helping organizations improve culture and performance, Capodagli combines timeless leadership principles with real-world stories from organizations such as Walt Disney, Four Seasons Hotels, Zappos, and purpose-driven public institutions. Inspired by the philosophies of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Simon Sinek, and other thought leaders, this book shows that joy is not a soft concept or morale program, but rather a disciplined way of leading that unlocks engagement, accountability, and sustainable results.
Through fifteen practical, story-rich chapters, readers learn how to create a living organizational story, translate values into everyday behavior, build psychological safety, and replace fear and confusion with clarity and trust. This book introduces simple, actionable tools leaders can use immediately, including “purpose pauses,” Story Circles, weekly feedback, and joy-centered measures of success.
Whether you lead a small team, a global enterprise, or a government agency, Creating a Joy-Centric Culture offers a proven path to transforming ordinary work into a meaningful shared journey. When leaders choose joy, people thrive, cultures strengthen, and performance follows.
DREAM-see what others don’t; BELIEVE-what other doubt; DARE-to do what others fear; DO-make it real every day. Joy is not a destination; it is journey you commit to every day.
Innovate the Pixar Way Pixar was built upon the “magic’ of Walt Disney. Pixar’s Ed Catmull and John Lasseter have long admired the genius of Walt Disney. Ed’s childhood heroes were Walt Disney and Albert Einstein. In the 9th grade, John Lasseter discovered a library copy of The Art of Animation written by Disney biographer, Bob Thomas, and later decided to become an animator. It is no accident that Ed and John modeled Pixar in Walt’s image.
One of their great discoveries was a 1930s memo written by Walt Disney himself, revealing the secrets of how to build a creative and successful company. Inspired by Walt’s words, Ed and John have put a stake in the ground by saying: “this is the kind of company we want to build.” The Pixar organization honors the legacy of Walt Disney by fulfilling the promise of bringing the “story” to life… refusing to take shortcuts (in comparison to the crippling short-term mentality that has become a cancer in American business culture today), and never compromising the integrity and quality of its work. It’s all about living their “story” every day, continuously moving forward and championing excellence at all levels.
Walt Disney’s Dream, Believe, Dare, Do success credo has inspired the creative culture at Pixar, and is the key to their success. In Innovate the Pixar Way, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson introduce the formula for unleashing a Pixar-type creative genius in any organization:
The Pixar Way will help readers discover their own roadmaps for unleashing a creative organization.
The Disney Way “I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.” Walt Disney
Walt Disney’s dreams, beliefs, and daring gave birth to captivating characters, thrilling theme park attractions, and breathtaking tales that have inspired the imaginations of generations of children and adults. Disney also launched an entertainment and marketing empire whose influence is felt around the world, and whose success provides a model of business excellence that can guide any company. Each principle is then examined in detail by illustrating the principle at work at Disney as well as at other successful companies.
Capodagli and Jackson have spent their careers studying Disney and teaching this unique management method to others. As consultants to companies ranging from Illinois Power to Bristol-Myers Squibb and Whirlpool, they have used the Disney principles again and again, and have seen them yield startling performance improvements. They have distilled this wisdom in THE DISNEY WAY. In this book, you’ll learn how to: Give every member of your organization the chance to dream, and tap into the creativity those dreams embody; Treat your customers like guests; Build long-term relationships with key suppliers and partners; Dare to take calculated risks in order to bring innovative ideas to fruition; Align long-term vision with short-term execution. And more. No fairy dust. No magic wands. No wishing on a star. Just sound, effective management principles that stem from Walt Disney’s values, vision, and philosophy. Lists of questions to ask and actions to take, along with real-life examples, will help you adapt the Disney Way to suit your company’s needs. From the hiring and training of employees to the realization of a creative concept to exceptional customer service, every aspect of the Walt Disney Company is linked to Walt Disney’s vision.
The Disney Way Fieldbook How to Implement Walt Disney’s Vision of “Dream, Believe, Dare, Do” in Your Own Company
Business people around the world raved about The Disney Way and Fortune proclaimed it, “so useful you may whistle while you work.” Now, authors Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson are back to deliver a comprehensive, step-by-step implementation plan based on Walt Disney’s principles outlined in the best-selling The Disney Way.
The Disney Way Fieldbook provides action plans for instilling Disney’s vision into any company, complete with diagnostic exercises, practice sessions, proven advice, and insightful questionnaires. Packed with universally applicable tools and techniques, the book also features inspiring quotes from Walt Disney himself and little known facts about his extraordinary empire.
Leading at the Speed of Change Using New Economy Rules to Transform Old Economy Companies
Today’s business climate demands that companies move quickly, adapt rapidly, and innovate like never before… all without losing sight of their core businesses. And one of the biggest challenges facing traditional companies like AT&T is the e-Commerce and Internet Revolution. AT&T is ready for battle. AT&T’s goal is to offer one-stop-shopping for the world’s communication needs. To do this, AT&T is striving to be on the forefront when it comes to cutting-edge management that fosters innovation, action, and growth. AT&T’s largest division, Business Services, is headed by Rick Rocsitt, who Business Week has named a “rising star.”
The success of Business Services is crucial to the overall strategy of AT&T. CEO Michael Armstrong is relying on Rocsitt and his team to do for Business Services what he did for AT&T Solutions (providing outsourcing, consulting, networking integration and multimedia call center services). That is, they want Rocsitt to infuse the division with entrepreneurial spirit, to bring that “adrenaline rush” of the DotCom world back into this global giant.
A close look at what Rick did at the AT&T Solutions Division offers lessons for managers and executives on how to manage at “DotCom Speed” and defeat the competition. The success of so many companies depends on it. Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson are the authors of The Disney Way, named by Fortune as one of the year’s “Best Business Books.” Their forte is analyzing the management style of comparies, and identifying exactly what makes the companies tick—what makes them succeed (or what is causing them to underperform). They have been fascinated by the success of AT&T Solutions, and have discovered that Rick Rocsitt’s accomplishments can be clearly explained through the paradigm they coined, Dream, Believe, Dare, Do.
In this book, they take a close look at AT&T Solutions—and interview key players at AT&T including CEO Michael Armstrong—to explain exactly how AT&T Solutions grew at such a phenomenal rate (in less than five years AT&T Solutions grew from a dream in the mind of Rick Roscitt to a five billion dollar corporation). The goal is to present a blueprint that managers and executives in any company can use to implement a winning strategy that produces amazing results.
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