We have often talked in these reports about process and how Disney isn't magical. it is methodical. Process is a large part of that method and the magic of that process was vividly demonstrated on September 11, 2001.

On that awful morning almost immediately after the planes crashed into the two New York City World Trade Center Towers, senior Walt Disney World leaders made the decision that Walt Disney World could be a terrorist target and that, for the safety of its guests, all four theme parks needed to be evacuated as quickly as possible. Disney has defined processes in place for almost every contingency, including different kinds of evacuations. In this case it was decided that a quick, rather than an emergency, close was the best way to avoid panic.

The process began. 

The attractions stopped loading and cycled through the guests already on the rides. The chefs stopped cooking food and the servers stopped serving. The merchandise cast members shut down their cash registers. To maintain calm, the cast members avoided, unless necessary, telling the guests why the parks had closed. All the cast members headed into the streets as quickly as possible, joined hands, and gently pushed the guests toward the front entrances.

Outside the parks, every available transportation ferry, boat, bus, tram and monorail descended on the parks while entertainment personnel headed to the resort hotels with whatever props or costumes they would need to continuously entertain stranded guests.

Quickly, calmly, cast members like the one pictured in this snap pushed the guests out of the parks, onto waiting transportation, and back to their resorts where they were greeted by characters, musicians and novelty acts.

Within a couple of hours, the parks were fully evacuated of as many as, conservatively, 80,000 people. Such a large-scale evacuation had never been done before. Even so, it went smoothly. The process worked.

Process planning, deployment and plussing are the norm at Walt Disney World. What about your business? You will likely never have to deal with something so large as a four park shutdown, but If a problem occurs over and over again, or your employees constantly complain about an issue, or your customers repeatedly ask for something that your policy does not allow, you likely have a process issue. Why not solve it once and be done with it?

For more process examples, visit Magic from the Mundane, The Epcot Ice Cream Police and Disney Asked What's Wrong With It.