If you’ve visited any Disney theme park, you’ve noticed that everyone has a first name name tag on. It’s a habit that goes all the way back to Walt Disney. During my Walt Disney World career, I heard several stories about Walt's insistence on calling people—and being called—by their first names. This practice was—especially considering the more formal environment of past generations—unusual.

It’s a practice Walt himself modeled. An old-timer once described to me how, one early morning at Disneyland, while sitting on a bench drinking coffee and gazing at Disneyland’s Rivers of America, he heard a smoker’s cough followed by a gruff voice asking if he had some coffee handy. The old timer looked over his shoulder and saw he was face to face with Walt Disney. He, of course, shared his coffee.

In the book Remembering Walt, Disney photographer Renie Bardeau shared how, in another outing, Walt walked into the Disneyland coffee shop before park opening and sat down. A server approached and asked, “May I help you Mr. Disney?” Walt replied, “Yes, but remember, I’m Walt. There’s only one ‘Mister’ in Disneyland and that’s’ Mr. Toad.”

The behavior was not out of character for Walt. He was, at his core, extremely ordinary in his tastes and behaviors. He loved canned chili. Jell-O was a favorite dessert. He carried crackers and peanuts in his pockets to munch on (and to feed any squirrels he encountered). But besides normalcy, there was a calculated business reason for the informality. It facilitated communication.

In the beginning, the number of Disney employees was small. Walt knew them all. He took time to learn their talents, their likes and dislikes, their phobias, their families and their personal issues. His attitude was communal. He wanted to be “one of the boys.” His friends and co-workers called him “Dis.” They all worked together, exchanging ideas and suggestions that improved the product and led to the golden age of Disney animation.

The organizational structure was loose. Few people had highfalutin titles. The inside joke was that as soon as someone had their name painted on their door, you knew they would be gone soon. Walt himself proclaimed, “We allow no Geniuses around the Studios.” The result was an organization were anyone felt comfortable sharing an idea with anyone else.

Walt Disney wanted those ideas. “If the janitor has a good idea, I’d use it,” he explained. These is one documented instance in which he asked the janitor what color the hallways should be painted. Inagine the situation. Here was the world's most famous animato, with color specialists on staff and over 2,000 colors at his disposal, asking the janitor to pick the color. Walt explained that the janitor had to look at those walls every day and would know more about what color they should be than anyone else.

And, as long as the company was small, informality worked. It, unfortunately, could not last. The company, and the need for support staff, grew. Walt soon found himself looking at faces he did not recognize. By the time Disneyland launched in the 1950s, there was no possible way that Walt could know the name of every employee, and, by 1962, the name tag policy was established.

First name name tags helped people feel comfortable talking to each other. They encouraged an environment in which anyone with an idea can approach anyone else. The policy is so successful that, even today, Disney employees wear first-name name tags. Even executives feel the pressure (In the snap above, courtesy Disney, you can clearly see that Disney Parks chairman Josh D'Amaro is wearing his).

What started as a way for Walt Disney to remain friendly with all his staff has become, over time, a valuable tool for keeping lines of communication open at all levels of the organization.

What about your organization and its leaders? Do they hide behind highfalutin titles? Do they keep themselves separate from the masses? Or, are they personable? Do they mingle? Would they ask the janitor for advice? If not, they may be missing important information they should hear. It’s not necessary to love chili and Jell-O or even to feed the squirrels. It is, however, advisable to not be a Mr., unless you are Mr. Toad.