Many of the practices and structures within the company need to adapt, too, including, in this case, how the board rewards our executives. -The Ride of a Lifetime, p.196 Continue reading When you innovate, everything needs to change, not just the way you make or deliver a product.
-The Ride of a Lifetime, p.192 Continue reading Don’t lay out problems without offering a plan for addressing them.
Looking back at the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm, the personal component of each of these deals was going to make or break them, and authenticity was crucial. Steve had to believe my promise that we would respect the essence of Pixar. Ike needed to know that the Marvel team would be valued and given the chance to thrive in their new company. And George had to trust that his legacy, his “baby”, would be in good hands at Disney. The Ride of Lifetime, p.188 Continue reading Each deal depends on building trust with a single controlling entity.
In general, you have to try to recognize that when the stakes of a project are very high, there’s not much to be gained from putting additional pressure on the people working on it. It’s subtle, but there’s a difference between communicating that you share their stress- that you’re in it with them OR communicating that you need them to deliver in order to alleviate your stress. The Ride of a Lifetime, p.184 Continue reading Be soft on people working on hard, challenging projects.
-You have to do it in person, not over the phone and certainly not by email or text. -You have to look the person in the eye. -You can’t use anyone else as an excuse. (This is you making a decision about them – not them as a person but the way they have performed in their job – and they need and deserve to know that it’s coming from you.) -You can’t make small talk once you bring someone in for that conversation Iger says something along the lines of: “I’ve asked you to come in here for a … Continue reading There’s no good playbook for how to fire someone, though Iger has an internal set of rules:
You can’t just force assimilation. Even if it isn’t purposeful, the buyer often destroys the culture of the company it’s buying, and that destroys value. In most cases, you are acquiring the people (they are the ones who made this business successful), not so much the physical assets, manufacturing assets or IP. -The Ride of a Lifetime, p.142 Continue reading Even in the best circumstances, the merger process is delicate.
Believe in your own power and in the ability of your organization to make things happen – with enough energy and thoughtfulness and commitment, even the boldest ideas could be executed. -The Ride of a Lifetime, p.136 Continue reading Long shots aren’t usually as long as they seem.
No matter how much data you’ve been given, it’s still, ultimately,a risk. and the decision to take that risk or not comes down to one person’s instinct. Don’t sacrifice being nimble and acting fast to collect more data and deliberate for eternities. This isn’t to say that research and deliberation aren’t important. You have to do the homework. You have to be prepared. But there’s never 100% certainty. Steve Jobs hates the CEOs who can’t make decisions themselves. The Ride of a lifetime, p.125 Continue reading There is never 100 percent certainty
When Robert Iger became CEO of Disney, one of the first thing he tried was to make peace with Roy Disney who had left the board and we’re openly criticizing theexecutives (especially Michael Eisner). When Robert was named CEO, Roy decided to sue the company to contest Bob’s nomination. Bob could have easily reacted with his ego and sued the company. Instead, he sat down with Roy to defuse this argument. He made Roy feel important (which was free to DIsney) and this respect saved a lot of time and money to the company. The Ride of a lifetime, p.120 Continue reading Don’t let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision.
Roadmap to Billions 