An Open Letter To Bob Iger
I know...I know. Here we got with another Founder's Brew about Bob Iger. Part of me knows I shouldn't keep beating this dead horse, but the horse is still twitching a little. There have been countless takes on what Iger needs to do to right the ship and the need to identify a successor, a position with which I agree. However, what has yet to be discussed is what to do about the evident sagging employee morale. If, as Iger mentions, he wants to be about the creative again, then he needs to focus on rebuilding morale. I'm happy that the first thing he did was hold a town hall (perhaps he read the latest Brew), but more is needed. I drafted the letter below with some suggestions for building morale and positioning the company for future success. Enjoy:
December 1. 2022
Mr. Robert A. Iger
Chief Executive Officer
The Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521
Dear Mr. Iger:
Typically, I would offer congratulations to someone receiving a major job like yours, but I think the reason for return may require something more along the lines of "I wish you the best of luck." A sigh of relief has greeted your return by many who have felt demoralized over these last few years. While you must achieve many high-level objectives, I encourage you to recognize those demoralized employees. There are many tough decisions ahead, but if you genuinely want to revitalize the creative engine of the company, I urge you to take steps that showcase the value the employees provide to the company. To that end, I've listed some ideas with a minimum cost that can showcase how much you value your employees and set up the company for future success.
Leadership Training - Yes, you must select your successor, but that is only one step to ensuring Disney's future success. It would help if you began to nurture homegrown talent by creating an internal leadership program that exposes high-potential employees to all facets of the Walt Disney Company, from streaming to parks. It would help if you also pulled from every division of the company. I participated in something similar while I was at 20th Century Fox, which was one of my career highlights. If you, in fact, already have a program like this, then you need to broadcast it far and wide. Not only will it encourage current employees to strive to be selected for the program, but it could be a phenomenal recruiting tool to help you find the best and brightest. It could also help your other division leaders be exposed to the talent they may only come across occasionally.
Break Down the Silos - From the folks at Disney I've spoken to, you have more silos at Disney than the Iowan countryside. Disney has grown immensely over the last 15 years, primarily due to your astute leadership in acquiring powerful brands to supplement the already powerful Disney brand. However, you had several very distinct cultures that should have meshed better. You only have to look at the drastic differences between recently acquired 20th Century Fox to see how this can become a problem. It would help if you encouraged cross-pollination as much as possible. While the leadership training I suggested above can help this, this could be only one facet. One initiative I tried to start up a Fox was a creative incubator. We had many of the same silos at Fox, and I found it frustrating, particularly when I was in Australia (more on that below), that there were so many ways that all facets of the company could work together, but it wasn't happening. My idea was quite simple. Select a group of employees from each division who could become high potentials and send them off to a location that isn't necessarily right where they work daily. You need to get them out of their comfort zone and push them to mingle with their fellow employees who they don't necessarily see on their day-to-day. Finally, give them a current creative or business challenge and see what they come up with. You never know what solutions or ideas may be sparked, but the point is that you will foster relationships that will continue long after the incubator has disbanded. Now, they obviously can only go for a short time as people will still have their day jobs, but it will open people's eyes to the bevy of opportunities and talent that the company offers about which they need to learn.
International Exchange - Disney is a global company with operations worldwide. You need to milk that for all it's worth, both for retaining and recruiting employees. During my time at Fox, I had the opportunity to participate in an exchange where I was sent to Sydney, Australia, for three months to work in the marketing department of News Limited, the Australian arm of the then-named 21st Century Fox. What a glorious experience it was. They were launching their iPad versions of their newspapers. I got a deep dive into the inner workings of putting all that tech together and the operations of harnessing the resources across the country to achieve this one goal. Not too bad for an Associate Director of Creative Advertising. It was an invaluable experience that taught me much about myself personally as well as my skills as a leader and communicator. Imagine the skills you could uncover if you were to ship someone from Burbank down to the Parks or vice versa; even better, send a parks person to work in an international distribution office in another country. There will be a need to ensure some skill overlap, but the opportunities are endless with a company like Disney. It was the highlight of my career at Fox, and it could expose you to countless potential new leaders and ideas that would have never happened otherwise.
It has been reported that you feel the "soul" of Disney is dying. As an outside observer, you are correct on that score. I have been a fan of Disney since I was a kid. I even got to peek into the secret city underneath the Magic Kingdown in the "business of entertainment" class that was offered as a guest of Disney World (You should bring that back, by the way), so I've been a fan for some time. My parents often joked that I'd end up running Disney World one day, which could still happen, so I do care about what happens to this iconic brand, not the least of which because I love this industry, and its success depends very much on your success. These are only a few ideas to help encourage those employees who provide much of the creative ingenuity you rightly praise and identify potential future leaders to whom you may otherwise never be exposed. I hope you find these suggestions helpful. I wish you the best of luck in re-fortifying the House of Mouse.
Sincerely,
Keith Rauch
Founder/President Vision Craft Brew
Pages from the Commonplace Book
Since we have an open letter to Bob Iger as the subject of this week's newsletter, we should make it an Iger issue all the way around. To that end, I present the man himself from his memoir The Ride of a Lifetime:
"At its essence, good leadership isn't about being indispensable; it's about helping others be prepared to step into your shoes - giving them access to your own decision-making, identifying the skills they need to develop and helping them improve, and sometimes being honest with them about why they're not ready for the next step up."
One hopes Iger will take his advice as he begins the search for his next successor. It's excellent advice, but sometimes those who give advice often are not that best at taking it.
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