They call it Disney University. Here’s how it prepares employees for success.

Disney loves to use the word ‘magic’ to describe… just about everything. It’s a hand-wave-y word that can make running one of the world’s largest and most complex companies sound like it takes little more than pixie dust.

What it actually takes is training, culture, and a whole lot of room for failure and improvement.

I recently spent a day inside “Disney University” in Florida, the facility where Disney prepares its “cast members” (what they call employees) for everything from cleaning hotel rooms to running massive operations. Disney operates at a scale few businesses can match. But many of the ideas behind its training are surprisingly simple, and surprisingly useful for entrepreneurs.

One of the stranger parts of Disney University feels a little like something out of a Nathan Fielder show.

Tucked away in the building are fake hotel rooms and mock lobbies where housekeepers can practice resetting rooms and cleaning bathrooms, and front-desk employees can role-play check-ins and concierge tasks.

If you’ve seen HBO’s The Rehearsal, you get the idea: Repeatedly rehearsing a task in a realistic, low-stakes environment lets you iron out the bugs before showtime.

We all screw up. These fake environments let cast members do so somewhere the customer can’t see it.

For smaller companies, the lesson is simple: Don’t let a good employee flame out because their first real attempt happens in front of a customer. Sure, some people thrive in sink-or-swim situations.

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