The Santa system: Ten Leader Lessons from the North Pole by Lenn Millbower
Unwrap Santa’s secrets. Ccelebrate your success.
Imagine an organization that serves billions of children all over the world. The man in charge must know which of those children are nice and which toys each nice child wants. And, he must deliver the right toys, to the right child, in the right home, in just one night. From a business perspective, the leadership, employees, processes, and organizational effectiveness required for such success boggles the mind.
Though it may seem too good to be true, that organization exists. It’s Santa’s Workshop and Lenn Millbower, The Mouse Man™ and former Disney training leader, visited it at the North Pole. Santa’s team, led by Merri Claus, gave him an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at the methodology that delivers Santa’s success. In this book, Lenn will unwrap those secret strategies so you can deliver your own organizational magic.
The Santa System: Ten Leader Lessons from the North Pole is ideal for leaders, influencers, contributors, and specialists at all organizational levels. As Dr. Karl Albrecht writes in the foreword, it “is a fun ride and a good time. Drawing on his long experince with the legendary Disney culture, and a career in show business, and adding his own creative twists, Lenn deliverst a fresh, entertaining, and useful perspective for thinking about the challenges of leadership, management, employee engagement, and organizational effectiveness. His Santa Claus metaphor and model, while fun to work with, are also surprisingly durable, with room for the spectrum of concepts, principles, and practices that shape the practical realities of running a successful enterprise.”
Among the topics covered in The Santa System, Lenn shares five critical areas that deliver Santa’s success:
PURPOSE – Gaining a deeper understanding of how harnessing emotion motivates and inspires team members to soar to new heights.
PRIORITIES – Avoiding the naughty and embracing the nice through effective decision-making filters that align with organizational purpose and values.
PEOPLE – Uncovering the true North Pole behaviors expected of leaders and team members to create an organizational culture of excellence and accountability.
PERFORMANCE – Learning how to protect the organization’s image and align it, and its team members, with public perception.
PROCESS – Helping transform the organization into a lean, efficient, and ever-improving machine through continuous improvement methodology.
The Santa System is, obviously, an analogy, but analogies give a fanciful gift. They illuminate key truths without the baggage of reality. This analogy will deliver practical tools and tips to illustrate key concepts. Among other gifts, it will share the detailed process for the annual roof run, how the NaNe (naughty/nice) list works, and, just for fun, the surprising secrets about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So, join Lenn on a happy holiday of discovery, and give the gift of success to yourself and your organization. You’ll learn Santa’s secrets and love your success.
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Author Bio:
Disney training leader, big picture thinker, adult learning expert, six-time published author, keynote speaker and workshop facilitator
Lenn Millbower is the founder and president of Offbeat Training LLC — an organization specializing in teaching Disney methodology so that business professionals can make their own magic.
Lenn has extensive experience in healthcare, training and education, instructional design, customer service, leadership, innovation, and presentation skills over the past three decades in a variety of organizational environments. His lauded learner focused strategies give him a real-world perspective on the relevant application of brain-based adult learning methodologies.
Prior to founding Offbeat Training LLC, Lenn was a training leader at Disney World Learning Solutions where he managed the team that wrote and documented all operational employee training. He wrote leadership, technical, and soft-skills training as the instructional design training manager for Walt Disney Entertainment, including the Disney Character training program and all the technical fireworks training. At the Disney Institute, Lenn was the instructional designer and content owner for The Disney Approach to Loyalty, The Disney Approach to Quality Service and The Disney Approach to Quality Service for Health Care Professionals. Working as an instructional designer for the Disney University, Lenn wrote several training programs, including Housekeeping, Custodial, Attractions, Ticket Sales, customer service, and orientation programs for Epcot, Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Walt Disney World. Finally, on the Disney’s Animal Kingdom opening team, Lenn wrote and established the entertainment training offerings and department. In recognition of his efforts on the opening team of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Lenn was recipient of Disney’s highest internal recognition award: Partners in Excellence.
Post Disney, Lenn uses consulting, keynotes, workshops, and coaching to apply Disney methodology to client organizations. Clients have included well known healthcare, governmental, military, supermarket, and insurance industry organizations. This consulting has been so successful that his latest client, Lowes Foods, has increased profits by 50% per day. Another client, Hamilton Health Care system saw its HCAHPS scores increase by over 15%.
Lenn practices the interactivity he preaches. His keynotes, seminars, and workshops use a highly engaging, interactive and enjoyable mixture of entertainment-based techniques that energize trainees while fully demonstrating the effectiveness of his techniques in real-world applications. Lenn focuses on demonstrating practical techniques that the trainees can immediately apply. His examples are specific and targeted to the training needs of the organization he is training.
A highly successful speaker and trainer, Lenn has delivered well-received presentations at international conferences including the American Management Association, the American Society for Training & Development, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the International Alliance for Learning, the International Society for Performance Improvement, the National Speakers Association, the Society for Human Resource Management, and the Training national and international conferences.
Prior to his training and education career, Lenn was a professional magician, comedian, and musician who performed extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and on cruise ships.
Lenn’s published works include The Santa System (2025), Care Like a Mouse, The Learnertainment Pocket Tip Book, Show Biz Training; Cartoons for Trainers; Game Show Themes for Trainers; and Training with a Beat. Contributing works include Speaker, Training. CLO, and T&D magazines, and the books 90 World Class Activities from 90 World Class Trainers, the Pfeiffer Annual, and The Training and Performance Source Book.
Lenn received his BM in Composition from Berklee College of Music and his MA in Human Resource Development from Webster University. He is a professional member of the National Speaker’s Association, the American Society for Training and Development, a former board member of the National Speakers Association of Central Florida, the International Alliance for Learning and the Contract Trainer’s Association and is listed in several Who’s Who editions.