Peter Bart has just put up a think-piece on Robert Iger's first couple of years at the helm of the Disney Co.:
... How did the bastion of Mickey Mouse suddenly morph into the home of "Hannah Montana" and "High School Musical"?
I don't really believe in the efficacy of corporate makeovers, but the radical re-invention of the Disney empire will surely inspire a myriad of business school case studies. It seemed only a couple of years ago that Disney was becoming the ultimate in bland brands. Even the core animation business, the plaything of old Walt himself, was mired in mediocrity ...
Robet Iger hasn't "re-invented" Disney so much as he's taken a less rigid and dogmatic approach to CEOing than his predecessor did. One prominent example: Michael Eisner was happy to go to war with Pixar, Robert Iger made nice with Jobs, Lasseter and Catmull and bought Pixar.
Iger's been flexible and willing to try new approaches. (Maybe he just wants to be the "un-Eisner" ... or maybe he just is a different style of Chief Executive Officer. I tend to think it's the latter.) Bart continues:
...Iger's behind-the-scenes style has lately been in evidence during the tense negotiations to end the writers' strike. When most Hollywood CEOs seemed to duck for cover, it was Iger and Peter Chernin, the chief operating officer of Fox, who took on personal stewardship of the talks even as the prospect of a protracted stalemate loomed darkly.
"Bob Iger was personally appalled by the possibility that thousands of Hollywood artisans could face unemployment for months," says the top executive of a rival company. "He saw that the industry lacked focus and he invested more of his time and energy than anyone else in settling this mess."
Welll. I think that Mr. Iger wanted to get the WGA strike settled, but I don't think it's because he's a saintly corporate officer who's focus is on Hollywood's suffering, unemployed workers. Mr Iger is an exec with his eye on the bottom line, and he was well aware that ABC stood to take a bath on its Academy Award coverage if the job action wasn't settled.
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That's for darn sure! ABC would have eaten it if the Academy Awards had suffered the same fate as the Golden Globes.
Still, you gotta hand it to Iger for steering the ship back to safe waters. The Disney Company is sailing along quite nicely.
I was lucky enough to meet Bob. He's the one on the left.
"I think that Mr. Iger wanted to get the WGA strike settled, but I don't think it's because he's a saintly corporate officer who's focus is on Hollywood's suffering, unemployed workers. Mr Iger is an exec with his eye on the bottom line, and he was well aware that ABC stood to take a bath on its Academy Award coverage if the job action wasn't settled."
Saintliness notwithstanding, isn't it possible for a person to both concerned for the community AND a smart exec with an eye on the bottom line? The smartest executives realize that the two go hand in hand, and tend to have longer-term success than those who go for the big short-term take at the expense of the front-line workers.
Anyway, I too had a chance to meet Bob Iger at a Disney function. I am a defintie Nobody. He had absolutely no reason to talk to me or pay attention to me (or my young son) but he did for a good 10 minutes or so, with a lot of other people pressing on his attention. In that short time he struck me as a bracingly intelligent individual who also happens to be a thoroughly nice chap, almost amazingly so for his lofty position. Never quite met a guy at his level who was so NOT a stuffed shirt/full of himself type character, and I can see how Lasseter was won over to the Disney/Pixar deal over a dinner with Iger at his home.
I won't dust off any halos for him yet, but from my brief meeting with him I could totally buy him being both painfully aware of the bottom line consequences of a labor action AND personally concerned for the community on whose back he makes his kingly salary. There should be more like him.
Don't get me wrong. I think Mr. Iger is a lot more down to earth than the guy before him, and I think he has an awareness of problems and has some empathy for other people.
It's just that I'm ... ah ... cynical about people on the top link of the food chain. Like every CEO, his first allegiance is to shareholders. I never forget that.
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