Go BOB Go!
I was meditating yesterday…mumbling to myself about how much good stuff Robert iger has done in the last few months.
Since stepping onto the top spot at the mouse house on October 1st Bob has done some pretty amazing things - shutting down the Strategic Planning division (which had as head the son of Iger’s old ABC old boss Peter Murphy…); being the first to get content on the new ipod with video (and itunes); buying Pixar; getting Oswald the lucky rabbit back to Disney … e ssentially smoothing all feathers with crashed past management, shareholder and Disney family members.
Most of all what, as a business man, I particularly like about Iger is that he doesn’t try to be creative, he doesn’t’ make creative decisions forcing them on others or pretending to be the next Walt Disney.
Sure the guy follows his instincts. Take the decision to place content on the video iPod / iTunes. Reportedly this was pure instinct on his part, but hey … those are the sort of decisions that in the past were delegated to Peter Murphy’s strategic planning division … and therefore often crashed!
What I like most is that most people where actually, in the interim period, betting there money on Iger naming immediately a COO (maybe Stags or Cook) and therefore essentially trying to re-create the same type of organisation which in the past ruled over Disney. Iger did nothing of that.
If you actually look at what is shaping up as the new Walt Disney Company you would see that Iger is placing the creative decisions of what you might want to call “Walt Disney Productions” (as what is in his hands is similar to the pre 1984 businesses the company had), or as I like calling it “Disney core”, on John Lasseter, whom he has chosen to head all creative decisions basically of the same type of businesses Walt oversaw!
Thinking about it I like more a man which stimulates everybody else and actually leaves decisions in the hands of the single divisions and people than someone who, as gifted as he might be, wants to find a formula for trying to make the day last more than 24 hours so to decide on everything by himself!
So … Go Bob go!