The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company – Robert Iger
For nearly a century, the Walt Disney Company has experienced seismic shifts and maintained its status as the world’s most successful media company.
Robert Iger, Chairman and CEO of this legendary brand and a 45-year veteran in the entertainment industry, now tells his story and lays out the principles that nurture the good and manage the bad.
Read The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company to learn how to simultaneously embrace change and operate with integrity, and foster a culture of trust, creativity, and pragmatic risk-taking.
Fire fairly
This focus on fairness must carry over even into firing people—one of the hardest things to do as a boss. There’s no good playbook for how to fire someone, but Iger has developed an internal set of rules, based on the notion of integrity.
Always do it in person, not over the phone or by email, and don’t push the task off onto someone else. You must have the honesty to look someone in the eye and tell them the reasons why you are making this decision about them.
Explain clearly and concisely what isn’t working and why you don’t think it will change. There is no way to avoid the conversation being painful, but the best you can do is to make it honest.
Not the craziest idea
In the mid-1990s, Disney had a co-production and distribution deal with Pixar, but the tension between then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner and Steve Jobs at Pixar led to the two companies acrimoniously parting ways in 2004.
Once it was announced in early 2005 that Iger would be taking over as the next CEO of Disney, he decided that one of his first tasks was to repair the relationship with Pixar, which meant building a new relationship with Steve Jobs.
Iger had the idea that technological change meant that, sooner or later, people would want to watch TV on their computers. He therefore took a risk and pitched the idea to Jobs, who turned out to have been tinkering with the same idea.
Five months later, Iger stood on stage with Jobs at Apple’s launch of its video iPod, announcing that five Disney shows would be available to download on iTunes. The speed with which this happened helped to convince Jobs that Disney was becoming a forward-looking company.
Innovate or die
By the turn of the century, the entertainment industry was changing at lightning speed, and every traditional media company was operating out of fear rather than courage and trying to build walls to protect the old ways of doing things.
Disney made a series of bold acquisitions, but by 2017, it was clear that the company needed to reinvent itself yet again. It was a case of innovating for survival. Could high-quality, branded products still be valuable in a changing marketplace?
Could Disney adapt to the new habits of entertainment consumption and use new technology as a tool for growth?
No guesswork
Company culture is made up of a lot of aspects, but it can be shaped most effectively by leadership that conveys priorities clearly and repeatedly. A great manager takes the guesswork out of people’s day-to-day by being clear about priorities: this is where we want to be, and this is how we get there.
Iger’s three strategic priorities once he took over as CEO were:
1) to devote time and capital to the creation of high-quality branded content,
2) to embrace technology to the fullest, seeing it as an opportunity, not a threat, and
3) to become a truly global company.
Shokunin
The pursuit of perfection is less a set of rules and more a mindset. Rather than striving for perfectionism at all costs, Iger sees the pursuit of perfection as creating an environment in which you refuse to accept mediocrity and never make excuses for something being “good enough.” Never say, “I don’t have the time or the energy to do X.”
If you are in the business of making things, then make things great.
In 2013, while in Tokyo, Iger met master sushi chef Jiro Ono. Even in his 80s, Ono said he was still working on perfecting his art. The master chef embodied the Japanese concept of shokunin—the endless pursuit of perfection for some greater good.
For Iger, this means taking immense pride in the work you create, having the instinct to push to make it better, and having the work ethic to follow through on the goal.
Allow failure
Those working for Arledge strove to meet his exacting standards, but he had no patience for excuses and would quickly turn on people he felt were falling short. Iger believes there is a delicate balance between demanding your people to perform their best versus paralyzing them by the constant fear of failure.
One step toward this balance is to recognize that everyone messes up sometimes, and to own up to your own mistakes. By setting the example that it’s okay to get things wrong if you learn from your mistakes, you instill trust and encouragement in others. Excellence and fairness don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Integrity—Always
In 1985, ABC was sold to Capital Cities Communications. Its owners, Tom Murphy and Dan Burke, had created a culture of decency. Under their tutelage, Iger learned that true integrity, which means being guided by your clear sense of right and wrong, can be a secret weapon in a competitive business.
For Iger, success depends on setting a high ethical standard for everything: “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”
This standard goes beyond treating people well to include hiring for good. This means hiring people with the same strong ethical compass, not just those who are good at what they do professionally.
The Premise
Throughout his long and often tumultuous career, Robert Iger has developed a set of guiding principles for leadership. One of the most important is the relentless pursuit of perfection, but this must be balanced with fairness so that employees aren’t afraid to make mistakes. Alongside this is his focus on integrity, the secret weapon in a competitive business.
Through the acquisitions of Pixar and Marvel, Iger learned that long shots are not so long if you do your homework, and that acquisitions are really about the people rather than the product. When times get tough, focus on the future and the abilities of your people, and always be willing to curb your ego as a leader.
Ultimately, be ready to innovate or die. And during that process, be prepared to suffer now in order to win later.
Suffer now, win later
Launching a new streaming service like Disney+ was major risk. Iger had to explain to Wall Street this was an expensive project upfront, with more than 25 new series and 10 original films were slated to come out in the first year alone. But it would also inflict short-term damage on the bottom line as Disney effectively competed with itself in its traditional businesses.
Intentionally taking on short-term losses in the hope of attaining long-term growth is a big risk and one that takes a lot of courage.
To create original content for Disney+, Iger decided not to create a whole new studio but rather to task the existing studios—including Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars—with creating new products on top of their current business demands.
Everything gets disrupted, including existing business models and practices, routines and priorities, jobs and responsibilities. Iger even tied executive compensation to whether people were stepping up to make the new initiative successful.
Pursuit of perfection
Robert Iger joined ABC as a studio television supervisor in 1974 and soon transferred to ABC Sports, then led by Roone Arledge. Arledge had a simple mantra, but one that had a profound impact on Iger: Do what you need to do to make it better.
This mantra became the basis of what Iger identifies as one of the key qualities of leadership—the relentless pursuit of perfection.
Maintain the value
The Pixar acquisition was the first step in rebuilding Disney. The entertainment business continued to transform rapidly, and it was essential to keep taking risks and keep up with the times. Disney’s next target was Marvel, a much “edgier” company whose fans might be horrified by a link with Disney. Iger recognized that preserving the Marvel culture would be paramount to its success and brand loyalty.
The same awareness came into play when Iger approached George Lucas to buy Lucasfilm. Disney was negotiating to be the keeper of the Star Wars legacy, with the very person who had creative control over the saga. They finally signed the deal in October 2012 after many months of careful negotiation.
Forward focus
Effective leadership also means not giving in to pessimism, which is ruinous to morale. Fearing calamity is not a good way to motivate people. It is much better to embrace optimism—not saying all is well when it is not, but rather making it clear that you believe your team is capable of steering toward the best outcome. Optimism is a kind of pragmatic enthusiasm for what people can achieve.
One manifestation of this is to focus on the future. When Iger was being considered to take over from Eisner, the board repeatedly asked why they should trust him when he’d been Eisner’s number two through several poor business decisions. Iger told the board he couldn’t do anything about the past; “You want to know where I’m going to take this company, not where it’s been. Here’s my plan.”
No second chances
Integrity must seep into every part of the business, and sometimes this means making tough decisions quickly and decisively. In 2017, ABC brought the show Roseanne back to prime-time TV and it promptly received very high ratings.
The show’s outspoken star, Roseanne Barr, had began to make certain controversial remarks. In late May 2018, she tweeted an offensive comment regarding a former administration official. Iger’s reaction was swift: “We have to do what’s right. Not what’s politically correct, and not what’s commercially correct. Just what’s right.”
He immediately demanded Roseanne to apologize and informed her that ABC would be making an announcement canceling the show.
Iger was undeterred by what the financial repercussions would be.
In his email to the Disney board the same morning, Iger stated: “Demanding quality and integrity from all of our people and of all of our products is paramount, and there is no room for second chances, or for tolerance when it comes to an overt transgression that discredits the company in any way.”
Make it great
To this day, Iger holds to the pursuit of perfection, even when the stakes are high. Movie studios can get locked into release dates and let that have an impact on creative decisions. Disney acquired Lucasfilm in late 2012 and was planning to release the first of its Star Wars/ movies in May 2015.
But early script delays and other production problems meant shooting didn’t even begin until spring 2014.
Rather than compromise on the quality of the movie, Iger pushed the release date back to December, even though the delay represented a hit to the studio’s bottom line.
Curb the ego
As a leader, you cannot let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decisions. Board member Roy Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew, had very publicly and vehemently opposed Iger’s taking over as CEO. Once appointed, Iger had to put his ego aside and figure out what was making Roy so angry and how to appease him, or else the disruptive attacks would continue.
He concluded that Roy needed to feel validated, so he made him an emeritus board member with special event privileges.
Know when to go
The final key to effective leadership is not holding on for too long. When one person has a lot of power, it becomes harder to keep how they wield that power in check. Over-confidence becomes a liability as you start to be dismissive of others’ opinions. When you start to entrust too much in your own power and importance, you lose your way.
Effective management starts by recognizing that the true value of a business, especially one in the creative industry, is its people.
Disney was about to acquire Twitter
Sometimes, courage can also mean turning away from an idea. In summer 2016, Disney expressed an interest in acquiring Twitter, and by October, both boards had approved a deal. The platform could work as a way to deliver content directly to consumers.
Still, Iger was concerned about the management of hate speech, which included making difficult decisions about freedom of speech, fake accounts, and political messaging. Tackling such issues could be corrosive to the Disney brand. As a result, Iger decided to listen to his instincts and called off the deal.
As Tom Murphy had said years earlier, “If something doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s probably not right for you.”
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