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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Robert Iger
Read between
October 22 - October 27, 2022
And I tend to approach bad news as a problem that can be worked through and solved, something I have control over rather than something happening to me.
Sometimes, even though you’re “in charge,” you need to be aware that in the moment you might have nothing to add, and so you don’t wade in. You trust your people to do their jobs and focus your energies on some other pressing issue.
Optimism. One of the most important qualities of a good leader is optimism, a pragmatic enthusiasm for what can be achieved. Even in the face of difficult choices and less than ideal outcomes, an optimistic leader does not yield to pessimism. Simply put, people are not motivated or energized by pessimists.
Chronic indecision is not only inefficient and counterproductive, but it is deeply corrosive to morale.
Nothing is worse to an organization than a culture of fear.
Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.
It’s not, at least as I have internalized it, about perfectionism at all costs (something Roone wasn’t especially concerned about). Instead, it’s about creating an environment in which you refuse to accept mediocrity.
It’s a delicate thing, finding the balance between demanding that your people perform and not instilling a fear of failure in them.
Excellence and fairness don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
true integrity—a sense of knowing who you are and being guided by your own clear sense of right and wrong—is a kind of secret weapon.
They would talk about valuing ability more than experience, and they believed in putting people in roles that required more of them than they knew they had in them. It wasn’t that experience wasn’t important, but they “bet on brains,” as they put it, and trusted that things would work out if they put talented people in positions where they could grow, even if they were in unfamiliar territory.
The first rule is not to fake anything. You have to be humble, and you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not or to know something you don’t. You’re also in a position of leadership, though, so you can’t let humility prevent you from leading. It’s a fine line, and something I preach today. You have to ask the questions you need to ask, admit without apology what you don’t understand, and do the work to learn what you need to learn as quickly as you can. There’s nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess.
Empathy is a prerequisite to the sound management of creativity, and respect is critical.
“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.
When the two people at the top of a company have a dysfunctional relationship, there’s no way that the rest of the company beneath them can be functional.
Managing your own time and respecting others’ time is one of the most vital things to do as a manager, and he was horrendous at it.
At its essence, good leadership isn’t about being indispensable; it’s about helping others be prepared to possibly step into your shoes—giving them access to your own decision making, identifying the skills they need to develop and helping them improve, and, as I’ve had to do, sometimes being honest with them about why they’re not ready for the next step up.
Optimism sets a different machine in motion. Especially in difficult moments, the people you lead need to feel confident in your ability to focus on what matters, and not to operate from a place of defensiveness and self-preservation. This isn’t about saying things are good when they’re not, and it’s not about conveying some innate faith that “things will work out.”
It’s about believing you and the people around you can steer toward the best outcome, and not communicating the feeling that all is lost if things don’t break your way. The tone you set as a leader has an enormous effect on the people around you. No one wants to follow a pessimist.
“Stop talking. Once you have that many of them, they’re no longer priorities.” Priorities are the few things that you’re going to spend a lot of time and a lot of capital on. Not only do you undermine their significance by having too many, but nobody is going to remember them all. “You’re going to seem unfocused,” he said. “You only get three. I can’t tell you what those three should be. We don’t have to figure that out today. You never have to tell me what they are if you don’t want to. But you only get three.”
A company’s culture is shaped by a lot of things, but this is one of the most important—you have to convey your priorities clearly and repeatedly.
You can do a lot for the morale of the people around you (and therefore the people around them) just by taking the guesswork out of their day-to-day life.
Don’t let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision.
If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.
You can’t wear your disdain for people on your sleeve, though. You end up either cowing them into submission or frustrating them into complacency.
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.
