The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company

by Robert Iger

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.

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

Imagineering has been the subject of many books and articles, and the simplest way I can describe it is that it is the creative and technical heart of everything we build that isn’t a film or TV show or consumer product. All of our theme parks and resorts and attractions, cruise ships and real estate developments, all of the live performances and light shows and parades, every detail from the design of a cast member’s costume to the architecture of our castles emanates from Imagineering.

but optimism in a leader, especially in challenging times, is so vital. Pessimism leads to paranoia, which leads to defensiveness, which leads to risk aversion.

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.

If you approach and engage people with respect and empathy, the seemingly impossible can become real.

Disney was founded on creativity, inventive storytelling, and great animation, and very little of our recent films lived up to our storied past.

If I had to name the ten best days I’ve ever had on the job, that first visit to the Pixar campus would be high on the list.

is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

Surround yourself with people who are good in addition to being good at what they do. You

Looking back on the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm, the thread that runs through all of them (other than that, taken together, they transformed Disney) is that each deal depended on building trust with a single controlling entity.

In moments like that, you have to look past whatever the commercial losses are and be guided, again, by the simple rule that there’s nothing more important than the quality and integrity of your people and your product.

It was all about the future, and our future depended on three things: making high-quality branded content, investing in technology, and growing globally.

Maybe this is the case for many of us: 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.