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PART TWO: LEADING
CHAPTER 8: THE POWER OF RESPECT
Bob Iger, as soon as he became CEO of Disney, decided that his first task was to reconcile the relationship between him and Roy Disney. Iger realised that Disney would not gain anything by making Roy Disney feel smaller or insulted. Consequently, Iger decided to provide Roy a small consulting fee and an office in order for him to be able to call Disney his home again. In return, the two parties would not settle their dispute in court or let this dispute dominate public headlines.
As Iger very rightly acknowledged: “Don’t let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision.” Iger knew that he could have won in court after Roy and Stanley sued the board for choosing Iger as CEO, but this would bring a big distraction and a lot of expenses.
Therefore, another great point is the fact that “If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.”
After this solution, Iger set his sights on figuring out ways to resolve the dispute between Disney and Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Pixar. Again, with the same approach of not allowing ego to get in the way, Iger repaired the relationship between the two companies and his relationship with Steve Jobs.
Lastly, another key decision after becoming CEO, Iger reduced the people in Strat Planning from sixty-five to fifteen. As Iger explains in the book: “Remaking Strat Planning turned out to be the most significant accomplishment of that six-month period before I took over the company. I knew that it would have an immediate practical effect, but the announcement that they would no longer have such an iron grip on all aspects of our business had a powerful, instantaneous effect on morale. It was as if all the windows had been thrown open and fresh air was suddenly moving through. As one of our senior executives said to me at the time, ‘If there were church bells on the steeples throughout Disney, they would be ringing’.”
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