PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD When it comes to managing spectacular results, Michael Eisner isn’t Mickey Mousing around. Actually, he is. But in a good way that smart technology managers might profitably emulate.
A former top executive at Disney, Paramount and founder of DreamWorks, Eisner is a pop-culture Zelig. Since the 1960s, Eisner, 69, has “green-lighted” and managed a startling number of iconic films, TV and entertainment: the “Star Trek” film franchise, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and “Beverly Hills Cop,” and hit TV shows such as “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Cheers” and “Family Ties.” While at Disney, the company’s acquisition of Cap Cities turned ESPN from an iffy cable wannabe to a sports monster.
More recently, Eisner has branched into social gaming (Fametown) with Napster founder Sean Fanning and sports/fun cards and online communities (Topps). His investment firm, The Tornante Company, started Vuguru, a “new kind of studio” producing content for the Web, TV, cell phones and other portable media devices. (Personal note: A preview of the studio’s new multiplatform show “The Booth at the End” looks awesome.)
Smarter Technology recently caught Eisner speaking at a major technology conference promoting his new management book "Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed." Here’s an edited version of his comments on secrets for management success:
Tip 1: Create Inside the Box
According to Eisner, every success of his started with creating “the box.” (You might better recognize the term as “fixed budget.”) Once the box and venture are sized, you never go over. Ever.
“Creativity can flourish in sensible financial limitation. You create the box, then you put the creativity into it. Set parameters in which genius can flower.”
At Paramount, for example, Eisner deigned that no film cost more than $10 million–shockingly low by then-prevailing budgets. Blockbusters such as “Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease” and “Terms of Endearment” were made for even less than that, Eisner said proudly. In Eisner’s world, there is very, very little room for “scope creep.”
The reason? Big bucks for projects are no guarantee of success, he says. Companies sometimes try to substitute greater capital for greater creativity. “This rarely works,” he said. A good example: “Raise the Titanic” (not the Leo and Kate film), a costly bomb. “It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.”
Tip 2: Micromanage
Megahits happen, said Eisner, when leaders attend to every detail, no matter how small. “Walt Disney and Steve Jobs are renowned micromanagers. It’s really just shorthand for saying that managers should be involved to a very high degree in operations. The alternative is management by committee, which inevitably leads to the lowest common denominator.”
He likens a business to a pointillist painting made up of thousands of dots. “Every ashtray, every Broadway show, every topiary in a theme park is another dot in the painting of a brand. Each dot is important but no single dot captures the essence. Take one dot at a time and pay close attention to the quality of every detail and you will create something of incredible value. Don’t do mediocrity.”
As proof, he offers “The Lion King.” Eisner said painstaking efforts to find singers in dozens of languages that matched the tone and quality and feel of the original English theme song helped create the first international blockbuster.
“And remember: Failure is OK. One bad dot doesn’t ruin the whole painting.” (Euro Disney anyone?
Tip 3: Get a Partner
This is the heart of Eisner’s message: Every Laverne needs a Shirley, every Lenny a Squiggy. His chatty new book looks at 10 successful business partnerships: Michael D. Eisner and Frank Wells (Disney), Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (Berkshire Hathaway), Bill and Melinda Gates (The Gates Foundation), Brian Grazer and Ron Howard (Imagine Entertainment), Valentino and Giancarlo Giammetti (Valentino), Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell (Studio 54), Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus (The Home Depot), Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken (restaurateurs), Joe Torre and Don Zimmer (New York Yankees), John Angelo and Michael Gordon (finance).
And you don’t need to be a founder or media mogul to derive benefits. “At Disney, we took 20 senior execs from every corner of the company for eight intensive days, 15 hour days, known as ‘Hell Week.’ At the end, the participants had struck up a foxhole kind of relationship. The company ended up being the great beneficiary. Those interpersonal relationships crossed divisions and helped break through silo walls. Interpersonal relationships that cross divisions can break silo walls. “
He concludes: “Partners make everything more fun. We are homo sapiens. We enjoy engaging with others. This is especially true when we are engaged in activity that consumes most of our hours–working. Partners make us more productive, more trusting, more daring, more inventive, more successful. Partnerships also make you just plain happier, whether in work or personal life.”
Solitary, hands-off, go-it-alone tech leaders, take note.
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