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When I'm the one attending a meeting with a group outside of Disney, I make sure to connect and speak with every person at the table. It's a small gesture, but I remember how it felt to be the overlooked sidekick, and anything that reminds you that you're not the center of the universe is a good thing.
"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!" He was telling me not to invest in projects that would sap the resources of my company and me and not give much back.
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Every time a question came up about what had gone wrong at Disney over the past years, what mistakes Michael made, and why they should think I'm any different, my response could simply and honestly be: "I cannot do anything about the past. We can talk about lessons learned, and we can make sure we apply those lessons going forward. But we don't get any do-overs. You want to know where I'm going to take this company, not where it's been. Here is my plan."
If leaders don't articulate their priorities clearly, then the people around them don't know about what their own priorities should be. Time and energy and capital get wasted. People in your organization suffer unnecessary anxiety because they don't know what they should be focused on. Inefficiency sets in, frustration builds up, morale sinks.
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3 clear strategic priorities:
(1) We needed to devote most of our time and capital to the creation of high-quality branded content. In an age when more and more "content" was being created and distributed, we needed to bet on the fact that quality will matter more and more. It wasn't enough to create lots of content; and it wasn't even enough to create lots of good content. With an explosion of choice, consumers needed an ability to make decisions about how to spend their time and money. Great brands would become even more powerful tools for guiding consumer behavior.
(2) We needed to embrace technology to the fullest extent, first by using it to enable the creation of higher quality products, and then to reach more consumers in more modern, more relevant ways. From the earliest Disney years under Walt, technology was always viewed as a powerful storytelling tool; now it was time to double down our commitment to doing the same thing. It was also becoming clear that while we were still, and would remain, primarily a content creator, the day would come when modern distribution would be an essential means of maintaining brand relevance. Unless consumers had the ability to consume our content in more user-friendly, more mobile, and more digital ways, our relevance would be challenged. In short, we needed to view technology as more of an opportunity than a threat, and we had to do so with commitment, enthusiasm, and a sense of urgency.
(3) We needed to become a truly global company. We were broad with our reach, doing business in numerous markets around the world, but we needed to better penetrate certain markets, particularly the world's most populous countries like China and India. If our primary focus was on creating excellent branded content, the next step was to bring that content to a global audience, firmly planting our roots in those markets and creating a strong foundation to grow significantly in scale. To continue to create the same things for the same loyal customers was stagnation.
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Why is the new Disney guy up there with Steve? It can only be one reason. I had no script, but the first thing I said was "I know what you're thinking, but I'm not here for that!" There were laughs and groans.
"This can't be about the past. There's nothing we can do about bad creative decisions that were made and disappointing films that were released. But there's a lot we can do to change the future, and we need to start now."
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You can't make small talk once you bring someone in for that conversation. I normally say something along the lines of: "I've asked you to come in here for a difficult reason." And then I try to be as direct about the issue as possible, explaining clearly and concisely what wasn't working and why I didn't think it was going to change. I emphasize that it was a tough decision to make, and that I understand that it's much harder on them.
He was 68 years old at the time, and I said, "I don't want to be fatalistic, George, and please stop me if you would rather not have this conversation, but I think it's worth putting this on the table. What happens down the road? You don't have any heirs who are going to run the company for you. They may control it, but they're not going to run it. Shouldn't you determine who protects or carries on your legacy?
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Take responsibility when you screw up. In work, in life, you'll be more respected and trusted by the people around you if you own up to your mistakes. It's impossible to avoid them; but it is possible to acknowledge them, learn from them, and set an example that it's okay to get things wrong sometimes.
Be decent to people. Treat everyone with fairness and empathy. This doesn't mean that you lower your expectations or convey the message that mistakes don't matter. It means that you create an environment where people know you'll hear them out, that you're emotionally consistent and fair-minded, and that they'll be given second changes for honest mistakes.
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Excellence and fairness don't have to be mutually exclusive. Strive for perfection but always be aware of the pitfalls of caring only about the product and never the people.
Managing creativity is an art, not a science. When giving notes, be mindful of how much of themselves the person you're speaking to has poured into the project and how much is at stake for them.
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Don't start negatively, and don't start small. People will often focus on little details as a way of masking a lack of any clear, coherent, big thoughts. If you start petty, you seem petty.
Of all the lessons I learned in my first year running prime time at ABC, the acceptance that creativity isn't a science was the most profound. I became comfortable with failure - not with lack of effort but with the fact that if you want innovation, you need to grant permission to fail.
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We all want to believe we're 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 - 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.
Pessimism leads to paranoia, which leads to defensiveness, which leads to risk aversion.
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Optimism emerges from faith in yourself and in the people who work for you. It's not about saying things are good when they're not, and it's not about conveying some blind faith that "things will work out." It's about believing in your and others' abilities.
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