When You are Not Really the CEO
This is my first newsletter On Leadership. I will be publishing (mostly) short notes on leadership and some timely topics every few weeks. Please subscribe if you would like to receive an alert when I publish a new note. Thanks!
Bob Chapek and Bob Iger source Wall Street Journal
No prospective CEO should accept the job if the predecessor takes the "Executive Chairman" title. Executive Chairman means the X-CEO will remain in charge and in control of any day-to-day decisions they wish to control. Leaders need the opportunity to lead, and having the "X-CEO" leaning over their shoulder is an impossible situation.
Don't get me wrong, Bob Chapek made his share of bad calls, including getting involved in Florida politics, but it's not clear that some of the biggest calls were his. Iger was the original champion of Disney entering the streaming video business and clearly continued to push hard on the streaming business as the future growth of Disney as Executive Chairman and a board member.
But, when your boss has a car with the license plate that says “Is there life after Disney?” you have to ask yourself who is really going to be in charge and who will be allowed to make the big calls? As my partner, Rita McGrath discussed in The Inside Baseball of Corporate Transformation, even when there is an apparent alignment of goals from the board on down, the politics of transformation can derail an executive and entire team's efforts.
As an advisor and coach, I would have given Bob Chapek some simple advice:
Transformation is hard and very high risk. Most transformations fail to achieve their ultimate goal, so alignment of objectives, strategy and the team is critical,
Alignment has many flavors. Even if you have agreed alignment from the top it may be soft and come with spoken or unspoken caveats that will quickly erode support if goals aren't met or the path is not as smooth as some would like,
Know who is on your team. This is the key issue that Chapek faced, Iger never actually left the CEO job, he simply changed his tile. From a political perspective, this was brilliant, he could allow Chapek to take the risk of digital transformation while maintaining his "godfather" view from the board while being available to swoop in and save the day when needed,
Ensure you have the resources you need. Human and financial resource prioritization and allocation are critical to effective leadership in transformation. Disney had and has amazing people and leaders but it's not clear they were all within Chapek's control or that they agreed with his direction. His CFO clearly was undermining him with the board and likely the balance of the executive team despite Chapek's attempts to build his own loyal leadership team. Additionally, Disney faced serious cash flow issues, which were only made worse by aggressive spending on content.
The bottom line is I would have advised Chapek to look hard in the mirror and ask himself if he really was entering an environment where he could win both from a skills and experience perspective and politically. I think the honest answer would have been a resounding "no".
Be happy and healthy,
Ron