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

by Robert Iger

Value ability more than experience,

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 creativity is an art, not a science.

Don’t start negatively, and don’t start small.

if you want innovation, you need to grant permission to fail.

Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness.

Don’t let ambition get ahead of ...

“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!”

not to invest in small projects that would sap my and the company’s resources and not give much back.

When the people at the top of a company have a dysfunctional relationship, there’s no way that the rest of the company can be functional.

As a leader, if you don’t do the work, the people around you are going to know, and you’ll lose their respect fast.

You have to be self-aware enough that you don’t cling to the notion that you are the only person who can do this job.

good leadership isn’t about being indispensable; it’s about helping others be prepared to step into your shoes—giving them access to your own decision-making, identifying the skills they need to develop and helping them improve, and sometimes being honest with them about why they’re not ready for the next step up.

A company’s reputation is the sum total of the actions of its people and the ...

You can’t communicate pessimism to the people around you. It’s ruinous to morale.

Pessimism leads to paranoia, which leads to defensiveness, which leads to risk aversion.

Optimism emerges from faith in yourself and in the people...

It’s about believing in your and others’ abilities.

Long shots aren’t usually as long as they seem. With enough thoughtfulness and commitment, the boldest ideas can be executed.

You have to convey your priorities clearly and repeatedly.

this kind of messaging is fairly simple: This is where we want to be. This is how we’re going to get there.

Technological advancements will eventually make older business models obsolete.

work hard to understand and embrace it with more enthusiasm and creativity than your competitors.

It should be about the future, n...

It’s easy to be optimistic when everyone is telling you you’re great. It’s much harder, and much more necessary, when you...

Treating others with respect is an undervalued currency when it c...

You have to do the homework. You have to be prepared.

there is never 100 percent certainty. No matter how much data you’ve been given, it’s still, ultimately, a risk, and the decision to take that risk or not comes down to one person’s instinct.

If something doesn’t feel right to you, it won’t be right for you.

usually what they’re really acquiring is people. In a creative business, that’s where the value lies.

As a leader, you are the embodiment of that company.

Your values—your sense of integrity and decency and honesty, the way you comport yourself in the world—are a stand-...

what people think of you is what they’ll think of your company.

in. I try to be as direct about the problem as possible, explaining what wasn’t working and why I didn’t think it was going to change.

you respect the person, then you owe them a clear explanation for the decision you’re making. There’s no way for the conversation not to be painful, but at least it can be honest.

When hiring, try to surround yourself with people who are good in addition to being good at what they do.

Genuine decency—an instinct for fairness and openness and mutual respect—is a rarer commodity in business than it should be, and you should look for it in the people you hir...

Projecting your anxiety onto your team is counterproductive.

there’s a difference between communicating that you share their stress—that you’re in it with them—and communicating that you need them to deliver in order to alleviate your stress.

Most deals are personal. This is even more true if you’re negotiating with someone over somet...

If you’re in the business of making something, be in the business of making something great.

The decision to disrupt a business model that is working for you requires no small amount of courage.

It’s not good to have power for too long. You don’t realize the way your voice seems to boom louder than every other voice in the room.

You have to approach your work and life with a sense of genuine humility.

Hold on to your awareness of yourself, even as the world tells you how important and powerful you are.