Lots of great lessons and stories from Robert Iger’s time at Disney – 8/10

Robert Iger’s Ten Principles Necessary to True Leadership

1. Optimism – People are not motivated or energized by pessimists.
2. Courage – The foundation of risk-taking is courage. True innovation occurs only when people have courage. Fear of failure destroys creativity.
   1.  “I would much rather take big risks, and sometimes fail, than not take risks at all.”
3. Focus – Allocating time, energy, and resources to the strategies, problems, and projects that are of the highest importance and value is extremely important. It is imperative to communicate your priorities clearly and often.  Only get 3 priorities.
4. Decisiveness – All decisions, no matter how difficult, can and should be made in a timely way. Leaders must encourage a diversity of opinions balanced with the need to make and implement decisions. Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counter-productive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale.
5. Curiosity – A deep and abiding curiosity enables the discovery of new people, places, and ideas, as well as an awareness and understanding of the marketplace and it’s changing dynamics. The path to innovation begins with curiosity.  
6. Fairness – Strong leadership embodies the fair and decent treatment of people. Empathy is essential, as is accessibility. People committing honest mistakes deserve second chances. Judging people too harshly generates fear and anxiety, which discourages communication and innovation. Nothing is worse to an organization than a culture of fear.
7. Thoughtfulness – Thoughtfulness is one of the most underrated elements of good leadership. Thoughtfulness is the process of gaining knowledge, so an opinion rendered, or a decision made, is more credible and more likely to be correct. It is simply about taking the time to develop informed opinions.
8. Authenticity – Be genuine, be honest, don’t fake anything. Truth and authenticity breed respect and trust.
9. The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection – This doesn’t mean perfectionism at all costs. Refusal to accept mediocrity or make excuses for something being “good enough.” If you believe that something can be made better, put in the effort to do it. If you are in the business of making things, being in the business of making things great.
10. Integrity – Nothing is more important than the quality, and integrity of an organization’s people and product. A company’s success depends on setting high ethical standards for all things, big and small. The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

Advice on offering insights and critiques, especially on creative projects (Chapter 3 – Know What You Don’t Know)

• Be exceedingly mindful of how much the creators have poured themselves into the project, and how much is at stake for them.
• Never start out negatively.
• Never start small (unless in the late stages of production). Often people will focus on little details as a way of masking a lack of any clear, coherent, big thoughts.
• If you start petty, you seem petty.
• If the big picture is a mess, the small details don’t matter anyway, and you shouldn’t spend time focusing on them.
• There is a big difference between giving feedback to a seasoned person versus someone with much less experience and confidence.

Asking the right and hard questions (Chapter 4 – Enter Disney)

Those instances in which you find yourself hoping that something will work, without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work, that is when a little bell should go off.

In those cases, ask yourself some clarifying questions:

• What’s the problem I need to solve?
• Does this solution make sense?
• If I’m feeling some doubt, why?
• Am I doing this for sound reasons, or am I motivated by something personal?

On Being a Good Manager (Chapter 4 – Enter Disney)

• Managing your own time and respecting other people’s time is one of the most vital things to do as a manager
• In a company like Disney, if you don’t do the work, the people around you detect that right away and their respect for you disappears
• You have to be attentive, learn, and absorb
• You have to listen to other people’s problems and help find solutions

Balancing Ambition and Opportunity (Chapter 5 – Second in Line)

As a leader, you should want those around you to be eager to rise up and take on more responsibility. As long as dreaming about the job they want doesn’t distract them from the job they have. You can’t let ambition get too far ahead of opportunity.

Bob has known people who didn’t tend enough to the responsibilities they did have because they were longing so much for something else. Their ambition became counter-productive.

It’s important to know how to find the balance. Do the job you have well. Be patient. Look for opportunities to pitch in and expand and grow. Make yourself one of the people, through attitude, energy, and focus, that your bosses feel they have to turn to when an opportunity arises.

On Firing People (Chapter 10 – Marvel and Massive Risks that Make Perfect Sense)

• You have to do it in person. Not by email, phone, or text message.
• 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. They need, and deserve, to know that it is coming from you.
• You can’t make small talk once you bring someone in for the conversation.
• He will usually start with: “I’ve asked you to come in here for a difficult reason.”
• Try to be as direct about the issue as possible.
• Explain clearly and concisely what wasn’t working, and why you don’t think it is going to change.
• Emphasize that it is a tough decision to make, and you understand it is much harder on them.
• There is no way for the conversation not to be painful, but at least it can be honest. In being honest, there is a chance for the person on the receiving end to understand why it’s happening, and eventually move on.

On Leading Through Difficult Challenges (Chapter 11 Star Wars)

You have to recognize that when the stakes of a project are very high, there is not much to be gained from putting additional pressure on the people working on it.

Projecting your anxiety onto your team is counterproductive.

There is a subtle difference between communicating that you share their stress, that you are in it with them, and communicating that you need them to deliver in order to alleviate your stress.

Appendix: Lessons to Lead By

• To tell great stories, you need great talent.
• Innovate or die. There can be no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new.
• The relentless pursuit of perfection. It’s a mindset more than a specific set of rules.
• Take responsibility when you screw up.
• Your inexperience can’t be an excuse for failure.
• Be decent to people. Treat everyone with fairness and empathy.
• Excellence and fairness don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
• Value ability more than experience and put people in roles that require more of them than they know they have in them.
• Ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology when you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can.
• Be comfortable with failure.
• Do not be in the business of playing it safe, be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness.
• Don’t let ambition get ahead of opportunity.
• Don’t invest in small projects that sap resources and don’t give much back. “Avoid getting into the business of manufacturing trombone oil. You may become the greatest trombone oil manufacturer in the world, but in the end, the world only consumes a few quarts of trombone oil a year.”
• As a leader, if you don’t do the work, the people around you are going to know. You lose their respect fast.
• We all want to be indispensable. You have to be self-aware enough that you don’t cling to the notion that you are the only person who can do this job. At its essence, good leadership isn’t about being indispensable, it’s about helping others be prepared to step into your shoes.
• You have to demand integrity from your people and your products at all times. A company’s reputation is the sum total of the actions of its people and the quality of its products.
• Great is often a collection of very small things.
• Too often we lead from a place of fear rather than courage.
• Technological advancements will eventually make older business models obsolete.
• It is easy to be optimistic when everyone is telling you you’re great, it is much harder, and more necessary when your sense of yourself is on the line.
• Treating others with respect is an undervalued currency when it comes to negotiating. A little respect goes a long way, and the absence of it can be very costly. Don’t let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision.
• If something doesn’t feel right to you, it won’t be right for you.
• What people think of you is what they will think of your company.
• When hiring, try to surround yourself with people who are good, in addition to being good at what they do.
• In any negotiation, be clear about where you stand from the beginning.
• Projecting your anxiety on your team is counterproductive.
• Most deals are personal. This is even truer if you are negotiating with someone over something he or she has created.
• If you are in the business of making something, be in the business of making something great.
• It is not good to have power for too long.
• You have to approach your work and life with a sense of genuine humility.