"I'm going to Disneyland"
Michael Eisner has announced that he is walking away as CEO of the Walt Disney Company at the end of his current contract in September 2006.
No doubt, at the home of Roy E. Disney, there was much rejoicing.
As a lifelong Disney partisan, it's hard to categorize my feelings about Eisner. On the one hand, he took a company that was teetering on the brink of collapse in the early 1980s and transformed it, Sorcerer-like, into the entertainment industry's 800-pound gorilla. Under Eisner's reign, Disney reenergized its foundering feature animation department, expanded its theme parks and other live entertainment offerings, built a wildly successful partnership with Steve Jobs's upstart computer animation company Pixar, and gained a central position in the television field with the acquisition of Capital Cities, which included the ABC/ESPN family of networks and cable channels.
The flip side of the coin, however, reflects the fact that after the renaissance, Eisner and the beancounters drove Disney feature animation into the ground, to the degree that it now no longer exists, for all intents and purposes. The people he put in charge of the theme parks cut corners to the point that entertainment venues that had once been without peer are now scorned by a fair portion of their fanbase for resorting to the cheap and slapdash far too often. ABC has fallen from the first-place broadcast network to the fourth. The future of the Pixar partnership stands very much in doubt. Disney's foray into sports franchise ownership with baseball's Anaheim Angels and the NHL's Mighty Ducks has been an unmitigated disaster — the Angels have already been sold off, and Disney would gladly divest itself of the Ducks if a buyer could be found.
I believe Eisner has always been well-intentioned, and that everything he's done has been with the good of Disney at heart. I just think he got himself and the company overextended, and that finally it became impossible to keep all the plates spinning. Going back to Walt's conservatism — which is what I believe Roy E. would do if he were in command — isn't the answer; what worked in the 1950s and '60s isn't going to fly in the 21st century. But the next generation of Disney leadership, whoever they may be, would do well to consider what the company's core competencies are (listen to me, sounding like a management consultant when I can barely balance a checkbook) and focus on those. From my perspective, that would mean concentrating on the television, film, and theme park aspects of their business, and ditching everything else. I'd also ensure that a freer hand went to the creative people in each of those areas, and less control to the number-crunchers. "Let Disney be Disney" should be the mantra for a successful future.
And I hope Michael Eisner takes the time to really enjoy the fruits of his retirement. The past few years have been strife-ridden and rocky, but he deserves credit for saving Disney from its death throes and elevating it to one of the world's premier companies. Eisner should be proud of those accomplishments. I hope he really does go to Disneyland, not as the boss, but as a fan once again...and enjoys the rides.
No doubt, at the home of Roy E. Disney, there was much rejoicing.
As a lifelong Disney partisan, it's hard to categorize my feelings about Eisner. On the one hand, he took a company that was teetering on the brink of collapse in the early 1980s and transformed it, Sorcerer-like, into the entertainment industry's 800-pound gorilla. Under Eisner's reign, Disney reenergized its foundering feature animation department, expanded its theme parks and other live entertainment offerings, built a wildly successful partnership with Steve Jobs's upstart computer animation company Pixar, and gained a central position in the television field with the acquisition of Capital Cities, which included the ABC/ESPN family of networks and cable channels.
The flip side of the coin, however, reflects the fact that after the renaissance, Eisner and the beancounters drove Disney feature animation into the ground, to the degree that it now no longer exists, for all intents and purposes. The people he put in charge of the theme parks cut corners to the point that entertainment venues that had once been without peer are now scorned by a fair portion of their fanbase for resorting to the cheap and slapdash far too often. ABC has fallen from the first-place broadcast network to the fourth. The future of the Pixar partnership stands very much in doubt. Disney's foray into sports franchise ownership with baseball's Anaheim Angels and the NHL's Mighty Ducks has been an unmitigated disaster — the Angels have already been sold off, and Disney would gladly divest itself of the Ducks if a buyer could be found.
I believe Eisner has always been well-intentioned, and that everything he's done has been with the good of Disney at heart. I just think he got himself and the company overextended, and that finally it became impossible to keep all the plates spinning. Going back to Walt's conservatism — which is what I believe Roy E. would do if he were in command — isn't the answer; what worked in the 1950s and '60s isn't going to fly in the 21st century. But the next generation of Disney leadership, whoever they may be, would do well to consider what the company's core competencies are (listen to me, sounding like a management consultant when I can barely balance a checkbook) and focus on those. From my perspective, that would mean concentrating on the television, film, and theme park aspects of their business, and ditching everything else. I'd also ensure that a freer hand went to the creative people in each of those areas, and less control to the number-crunchers. "Let Disney be Disney" should be the mantra for a successful future.
And I hope Michael Eisner takes the time to really enjoy the fruits of his retirement. The past few years have been strife-ridden and rocky, but he deserves credit for saving Disney from its death throes and elevating it to one of the world's premier companies. Eisner should be proud of those accomplishments. I hope he really does go to Disneyland, not as the boss, but as a fan once again...and enjoys the rides.
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