Bog Iger is not his friend and force of nature Steve Jobs, nor is he neutron Jack Welch – though some of his stories remind one of Welch’s career. He sounds like a guy you can have a beer with – like a super rich legend you can have a beer with, never quit his first job and ended up CEO of Walt Disney and Company. He is a company man, which makes his story and his choices an interesting read. They say the pessimists are right and the optimists make money. Bog Iger is an optimist who took big swings and won.
I read Bob Iger’s ‘The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company’ as COVID layoffs ripped through Silicon Valley. Bob talks about identity. About his predecessor and legendary CEO Michael Eisner’s last day at Disney where Eisner drives off the Disney parking lot one last time, unceremoniously, not needed anymore at the place he called home for over two decades, a business he rejuvenated and turned around. The book poignantly asks the question – if you lose your job today, who are you?
The book is a lively read. Bob shares anecdotes from high wire boardroom drama, massive mergers and acquisitions, activist investors, movie production, telecasting the olympics, leadership in crisis, and most interesting for a product manager – dealing with the uncertainties of the creative process and getting the best out of creative people. Steve Jobs tells Bob as they discuss Pixar acquisition that distractions (like org changes) kill creatives. How does one put pressure on creative people and balance business needs and needs of the creative process. The book provides valuable insights on this with examples from Marvel, Pixar, Disney parks, Twin peaks and the author’s ABC days. The author doesn’t say this but I think the key is to genuinely love and appreciate the creative process. Bob says his ten best working days were the ones he spend at Pixar campus where he finds people enjoy what they are doing and are happy. That said pitching and working on projects like Cars, the rat movie, Wall E, Coco, Up and Inside Out will generally make people happy.
Bob Iger neither had a high flying educational background nor was a creative genius and he fought his way through a humbling CEO selection process to lead Disney. He reminds one of the man in the arena and he speaks to the reader of his wins and losses and anxieties as an equal without sermonizing or bombast. Anxiety is an interesting part of our modern lives and I have often wondered at what level in the corporate hierarchy or after making what kind of money or after what age does one not feel anxious anymore. Bob, a CEO who led Pixar and Star Wars and Marvel acquisitions for Disney and seen it all, talks about the weeks before the Fox acquisition as the most anxiety inducing time in his life – he was sixty eight years old.
The author doesn’t identify himself as a strategy guy, rarely uses the term and admits how when he joined the company the strategic planning department run by ex-management consultants almost killed every big idea. But his strategic focus as a CEO is clear and more importantly Bob Iger comes off as a CEO who is willing to take massive risks to gain competitive advantage in those areas. The three pillars of his strategy for Disney are – great content, great technology (distribution) and global expansion. Not path breaking, it’s the time tested inventory, conversion and traffic playbook. But what is pathbreaking are the big swings he made to build lasting advantages for Disney in these areas. Buying Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel all in less than ten years meant no company would ever challenge Disney on content in its key segment of moms with kids under 12. He managed a massive organizational pivot to a streaming first company with strategic investments in technology, and through fox acquisition became a major player in crucial global markets like India.
Bob doesn’t take a lot of credit for anything. Except when his creatives tell him movies with black heroes don’t do well in international markets (racism is not an American invention or phenomenon) and movies with female leads underperform in domestic markets. He pushes his company to give it a shot and Black Panther was one of Disney’s biggest blockbusters but also one of the most important cultural events in the past decade. I didn’t appreciate the cultural importance when the movie came out, my American manager told me about it.