This was the 12th book I read in 2020.
I am a sucker for memoirs and when I started reading this one, I immediately knew it would turn out to be a memorable read. I am glad that I wasn’t wrong.
I get a different feeling when I read a memoir. I feel like the author or the person in the memoir is sitting beside me and just talking through the book. This is an important reason why I devoured this memoir in a week. It was definitely one of the top 5 memoirs for me and is highly recommended if you are a fan of memoir, like me!
Let’s get started with the highlights from this book.
Innovate or Die
This is the biggest takeaway from this book.
When I read this title of one of the chapters in this book, it seemed so obvious to me. I thought, what an easy and obvious thing to say. It was until I went through the entire chapter I realized it is not only to put the fancy title to the chapter but actually implement it.
Throughout the chapter (& book), the author, Bob Iger, has mentioned how innovation helped him and his companies thrive during the difficult times and come out stronger than ever. Bob Iger explained in details the various decisions he took with his trusted team of advisors to steer Disney in innovative ways and sustain during the difficult times and overcome the competitions.
What I found more interesting and important was that his elegance, straightforwardness, and keeping other’s feelings in mind while taking these decisions.
One sentence that struck me the most was “Be kind to others. You never know what personal tragedy that others might be going through.” This sentence is true in so many ways, especially during these COVID-19 outbreak times.
For me, personally, this has been a eye opening message. If you want to survive in these challenging times, the only way to do it is by innovating!
Humble Beginnings
The book starts off with a shooting incident at a bar near the Florida Disneworld. I must say from the first page/sentence itself, the author grabs your attention and you sort of get glued to the pages of the book.
After this initial engaging story, you just wait and wait until the author revisits it during the later part of the book. While doing that, the author carefully introduces his humble beginnings as a small kid, his first job, and later transition to the corporate life.
It was an important and clever decision to squeeze in details regarding his personal life during these chapters because the reader, in anticipation of returning to the incident mentioned in the first chapter, reads quite intently and never seem to take their eyes off the content.
During the initial life, I loved how author explained influence of his father on his lifestyle. I loved how the author openly mentioned that his father might be suffering from depression when the author was growing up. What I loved more about the author was that when he became the CEO of Disney, he took his father out for lunch and told him that he was a successful father and he did everything that he could to raise the author and his sibling.
It was a touching moment for me and I imagined myself taking my Dad out for lunch and talking to him, sometime in the future.
Apart from his personal life, I liked how humble his beginnings were as far as his professional career was concerned. Though he didn’t have any authority, he made sure to do his job and duties with utmost focus and importance to deliver the high quality content to the consumers and producers.
I distinctly remember an incident when he was in the recording studio or some big room, with almost 30 people working on a show and there was a talk about some screw up during one of the shows. Without hesitation, while being asked whose mistake was it, the author quickly got up from his seat and told everyone that it was his mistake and assured that he would be careful next time onwards.
Everyone moved their necks towards him and some people later told him that that was a bad move. It might seemed a bad move for everyone, but the key people in the room noticed the author and later on started giving him more opportunities and responsibilities. One thing that I learnt from this incident was that it is very important to innovate, do the right thing, and think outside the box; But, while doing that, if you screw up, you should be ready to own the mistake and move forward with the learnings.
It was an important lesson for me.
It is about the future, not the past
What can I say about this?
When the author was preparing for his interview for the position of Disney CEO, he had one goal in mind – to convince the board of directors how important his vision is for the betterment of the company and its people. The one theme that he focused throughout the interview process was that “IT IS ABOUT THE FUTURE, NOT THE PAST“. It seemed like a really simple idea, but it paid a lot not only enabling him to become the next CEO of Disney, but also steering Disney in the correct direction of the innovation.
Based on his experience throughout the hiring process (which lasted for more than 5 months), he knew how important it would be to deliver on the promises that he made to the Disney board during the interview process.
The author kept one thing in mind – always focus on the future, but not by overlooking what we have right now. This has paid big throughout his journey at Disney. You can talk about Acquisitions, Expansions, and Innovative Solutions such as Disney+ to back this strategy. The author always focused on what’s next, not loosing the site of what they had in hand right now.
It is an important business strategy.
Acquisitions
The author was part of the first acquisition when CapCities/ABC was acquired by Disney. This experience helped him to realize what it feels when you are acquired by a bigger company. The biggest learning from this acquisition for the author was that “we are acquiring the company for the people” & has mentioned many times throughout the book “It doesn’t make sense to change you into something else from what you are, because that’s the reason we acquired you“.
Again, it is a common theme throughout the book. The idea/sentence is simple, but the execution of it was much more difficult.
The author remembered his time and feelings when CapCities/ABC was acquired and made sure to sympathize with people of the companies that was being acquired by Disney when the author was Disney’s CEO. Throughout the chapters when the author talked about acquiring other companies, he made sure to explain his side of the deal.
He mentioned how important it was for him to talk directly and face-to-face to the person in charge, who will help him with the acquisition.
The author also mentioned the tumultuous times Disney went through when they were acquiring Fox Networks. This was a crucial time for Disney to steer in the new direction and come out stronger after the acquisition. However, there were many hurdles and the way the author handled the situation with ease and keeping empathy in mind, helped them close the acquisition of Fox, even though Comcast were offering more money than Disney’s initial offer.
Diversity & Inclusion
Having climbed the corporate ladder successfully and proving to everyone and himself that he is the man who can make Disney from a successful company to a great company, but the author mentioned the most important thing that he had done in his career was supporting the launch of Marvel’s Black Panther.
Being an ardent Marvel fan, Disney has been close to my heart, but when the author mentioned and actually showed the email that he wrote to the Disney Employees after the release of Black Panther, he was so proud of the team and everyone who supported the launch. I loved how he started the email saying “Wakhanda Forever!”.
It goes on to show that a great leader not only works for showing profit, earning more revenue, and making the boardmembers happy, the great leader also strives to maintain the diversity and inclusion, especially in a big company.
When I was reading this chapter, I couldn’t help but remember our Ford CEO Jim Farley. Ever since he became a CEO, Jim has paid more attention to the Diversity & Inclusion initiative at Ford and I really liked and appreciated his effort for doing so. It goes on to show how important this topic is for him and the entire Ford family.
Disney+
This is the last and probably the most important product that the author worked on in his career. When they were working on launching a streaming platform, they had so many choices to make – whether to go with Disney’s own platform or acquire other companies who are already making headways in this direction and then build on top of it. I never knew there were so many things a company and CEO has to look for before taking a decision.
As you are reading now, and after listening to Disney’s latest earnings call, it is evident that Disney+ went from becoming the newest member in the Disney family to the *only* important product during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The launch of Disney+ was so revolutionary for Disney as a company that this single product helped them thrive through the pandemic and if you go by the latest numbers, you will realize that they amassed more than 75M subscriptions for their services. It was truly a masterstroke, something that helped Disney survive the closing of their parks and release of some of their iconic movies.
In conclusion, I would like to say, Disney CEO Bob Iger, lived his CEO tenure keeping the following things in mind
– Innovation is the only way to success (Innovate or Die)
– Technology is always going to be our friend, so we better get used to it
– It is always about the future, not the past
– Be empathetic to people, show sympathy
– Maintain transparent communication and don’t back down from speaking your mind
– Own your mistakes
There were so many things I learnt from this book. Thanks, Bob!
See you at the next book review.
stochasticity 
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