Work in Progress (Penguin Business) By Michael Eisner
A good book about the entertainment industry has a lot of history is looking forward to a bright future 464 It s an interesting time capsule about where Disney was in 1998 under Eisner s leadership The chapters on Disney s America and the struggles of Disneyland Paris are fascinating Some of Eisner s points his enthusiasm for Paul Pressler focus on strategic planning look worse in hindsight but there s still a lot here that will interest fans of Disney or just business in general 464 I appreciate the man s words Agree or not with his decision making compass the words ring true and Eisner tells a coherent tale about his life from boyhood through Paramount and later Disney He reflects on the reasoning behind his decisions and admits to mistakes ranging from underestimating his mortality in the wake of heart surgery to idealizing his relationships with fellow execs Katzenberg and Ovitz. Certainly the best thing I can say about the book is that it is transparent The words sound a lot less censored than the biographies of other Disney execs like Iger s Ride of a Lifetime and a lot less blatantly inflammatory and controversial than muckraking Disney War or Ovitz s bio. My main issue with this telling though is that it s too much a tale told in the boardroom and not on the frontlines Eisner talks in great detail about reasons behind assigning this exec Nanula there elevating Paul Pressler there to Theme Parks replacing the deceased Frank Wells RIP with Joe Roth there hiring Bollenbach here to fuel acquisitions keeping Iger from ABC all for what So much time and words are spent talking about press leaks three hour board meetings and negotiations about cash vs stock maximizing shareholder value and extremely high level C suite things Meanwhile almost every few paragraphs he takes a weekend or vacation to Aspen a trip to attend a family graduation a wedding or some other life event There s little to nothing about frontline service creativity education storytelling and character design Why do parents and kids trust Disney Why are the parks so popular What do his most dedicated guests say about their experience Too much emphasis is put on the dollar the price the stock value Eisner cites the rise and fall of Disney shareprice as some kind of holy grail or magic mirror reflecting his customers satisfaction where nothing could be farther from the truth Shareholder value is not customer loyalty C suite decisions don t make or break a family s vacation The book needs to drill deeper and tell about the people in the trenches and how that company vision and strategy got communicated from above down to the peons If you re the CEO of a company you have access to everyone Ask questions and share their insights Nobody cares about share price except shareholders What the readers want to know is how Eisner creates a company culture through decision making hiring appointment problem solving and delegation There is clearly a method to his madness and it s just not fully told in a useful applicable way unless you re trying to run a strategic planning group to back calculate your worth for a potential merger acquisition 464
| Work in Progress (Penguin Business) By Michael Eisner |
| 0140281991 |
| 9780140281996 |
| English |
| 464 |
| Paperback |
Work in Progress Penguin Business.