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

by Robert Iger

I proposed a radical idea—essentially, that I would determine compensation, based on how much they contributed to this new strategy, even though, without easily measured financial results, this was going to be far more subjective than our typical compensation practices. I proposed stock grants that would vest or mature based on my own assessment of whether executives were stepping up to make this new initiative successful. The committee was skeptical at first; we’d never done anything like that. “I know why companies fail to innovate,” I said to them at one point. “It’s tradition. Tradition generates so much friction, every step of the way.” I talked about the investment community, which so often punishes established companies for reducing profits under any circumstances, which often leads businesses to play it safe and keep doing what they’ve been doing, rather than spend capital in order to generate long-term growth or adapt to change. “There’s even you,” I said, “a board that doesn’t know how to grant stock because there’s only one way we’ve ever done it.” At every stage, we were swimming upstream. “It’s your choice,” I said. “Do you want to fall prey to the ‘innovator’s dilemma’ or do you want to fight it?”