The Ride of a Lifetime - Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

IT’S ABOUT THE FUTURE 

At the outset of this Chapter, it is emphasised in the book that it came to Iger’s attention, after the board ousted Michael Eisner, that he should concentrate on the future and not the past. In the questions that Iger received from the board of directors and the press, he would address them in a way that would highlight the lessons learned from prior mistakes and try to improve things going forward. 

Furthermore, Iger was advised to demonstrate some strategic priorities. Accordingly, he was also advised that he should not demonstrate multiple strategic priorities for the company, since he would seem unfocused and it would be inefficient due to the fact that they require a lot of capital. Therefore, Iger decided that he would only demonstrate 3 priorities. 

Subsequently, Iger went on to state that the culture of a company is influenced by a variety of factors, but one of the most significant is the ability to showcase the company’s priorities clearly and consistently. “It’s what separates great managers from the rest. If leaders don’t articulate their priorities clearly, then the people around them don’t know what their own priorities should be. Time and energy and capital get wasted. People in your organization suffer unnecessary anxiety because they don’t know what they should be focused on. Inefficiency sets in, frustration builds up, morale sinks.” 

Iger identified the following priorities:

1) Most of Disney’s time and capital should be allocated to “the creation of high-quality branded content.”

2) Establishing state-of-the-art technology at Disney..

3) Making Disney a genuinely global company by targeting markets such as China and India.

As already stated in a previous Chapter, the corporate structure within Disney was a centralized decision making structure called Strategic Planning. Therefore, due to the excessive analytical decision-making approach, it would result in slow decisions. As Iger expressly told the board: “The world is moving so much faster than it did even a couple of years ago, and the speed with which things are happening is only going to increase. Our decision making has to be straighter and faster, and I need to explore ways of doing that.” Hence, Iger thought “that if the leaders of our businesses felt more involved in making decisions, that would have a positive, trickle-down effect on the company’s morale.” In the subsequent years after taking this different approach, the results would be beyond Iger’s expectations. 

Finally, another important lesson is pointed out by the author, since he rightly observes that tenacity and perseverance are dramatically important as well as being able to remain calm, especially when things are beyond your control. Additionally, it is also rightly observed that “It’s easy to be optimistic when everyone is telling you you’re great. It’s much harder, and much more necessary, when your sense of yourself is being challenged, and in such a public way.”