Image credits: Bloomberg
Last week, I was looking into my emails. I don't read them all; I don't think anybody does. But there are a few emails that I am a regular reader of. One of the email newsletters that I consistently catch up with is Bill Gates's. He sends out reading lists from time to time, and all of the books that he recommends have a quality to it. In this particular email, he suggested a series of books, and in it was a business book called "The Ride of a Lifetime" by Bob Iger.
I have heard of Bob, like many of us have. I was aware that he was the CEO of Disney (he recently stepped down as the CEO and remained as the Chairman of Disney) and had a good relationship with Steve Jobs. Other than that, there wasn't much that I knew about him or his work. Since I like reading business books, I thought I would give it a try, and so I did.
After a dozen pages, I realized that this book is going to teach me some valuable lessons about how to navigate work and strive to become a better leader in the future.
Bob's story is unique. From the perspective of someone who has had a few years of work experience, it felt like Bob's job was unimaginably dense. Although Disney is known for creating happy films and delight in youngsters with theme park experiences, there is so much more that which a leader of such an organization is responsible for.
In his early days, Bob was a weatherman. He became a studio supervisor in the television production industry. He had to run errands for stars and executives often. He gradually moved up with intention and openness to experience and to learn from new job opportunities. Little did he or the world knew that he would become one of the most successful businessmen who would acquire four major corporations (Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and a chunk of Fox's assets) into Disney's umbrella, disrupting the entertainment space as much as Netflix.
In one of his interviews, he claims how Disney is different from Netflix.
"What Netflix is doing is making content to support a platform. We're making content to tell great stories. It's very different."
Image credits: LA Times
In addition to animation films, he was also responsible for strategizing the expansion of Disney's theme parks, resorts, hotels, merchandises, and more. Of course, people assisted him and gave him the necessary inputs to make decisions. But one has to have a mind of an optimistic risk-taker to have achieved the outcomes that he did in his career.
In a world where I observed that managing a few reports requires so much effort and analysis, I could only imagine what would a CEO of this stature with 250,000 employees in the company had to do.
Here are seven pointers that I gathered from the book that differentiated him from other leaders and helped him succeed in the long run.
1. When Bob was elected as the CEO, he drilled down and articulated three goals for his career as a CEO. Every initiative that he ventured on was enveloped within these goals.
"Make high-quality branded content, invest in technology, and grow globally."
2. He had a ridiculously disciplined work ethic. He wakes up at 4:15 AM every day to work out and spend quality time in the morning to think about work. He leaves from the office at 4:30 PM and makes it a point to spend time with his family. He believes in the concept of "Shokunin" which in Japanese means the art of mastering perfection.
"You instinctively push back against the urge to say ‘There's not enough time, or I don't have the energy, or This requires a difficult conversation I don't want to have’, or any of the many other ways we can convince ourselves that ‘good enough’ is good enough."
3. He was self-aware of things that he was good at and things he had to be good at, even when heading departments. He practiced authenticity and asked for help from people while transitioning.
"The task was to not let my ego get the best of me. Rather than trying too hard to impress whoever was across the table, I needed to resist the urge to pretend I knew what I was doing and ask a lot of questions. There was no getting around that I was a square peg there. I didn't come up through Hollywood. I didn't have a big personality or any obvious swagger. I barely knew anyone in town. I could be insecure about that, or I could let my relative blandness—my un-Hollywood-ness—be a kind of mystery that worked to my advantage while I absorbed as much as I could."
4. He learned from his mentor about the importance of the "innovate or die" mindset and was passionate about practicing it. This mindset meant taking timely risks even when there's not enough research available on the table.
"I didn't want to be in the business of playing it safe. I wanted to be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness."
5. He always played fair, gave the greatest importance to people, and took time to understand where they came from. It's not a lie that he was the nicest CEO the industry had ever seen.
"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."
6. He always highlights the bigger picture rather than getting into insignificant criticisms.
"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."
7. He constantly reminds himself that his success at work doesn't define his worth as a human being.
"No matter who we become or what we accomplish, we still feel that we're essentially the kid we were at some simpler time long ago. Somehow that's the trick of leadership, too, I think, to hold on to that awareness of yourself even as the world tells you how powerful and important you are."
I hope these lessons are useful to you as they are for me. In the book, Bob goes more in-depth into how he went about fulfilling all of the three goals he had set for himself. It's a truly gripping and significant book on addressing the pressures of a high-functioning job in the most composed and strategic way. It was a pleasure reading it and knowing Bob through the pages. I can imagine re-reading it and referring back to his lessons in the future. Have a good week!