Page 235 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

216 The Disney Way

From Zero to Hero to Zero

After Walt’s sudden death in 1966, his brother Roy postponed retirement to
complete Walt’s last dream: the building of Disney World. Roy later insisted
that the name be changed from Disney World to Walt Disney World, in
honor of his brother. On October 1, 1971, Walt Disney World opened its
first theme park, the Magic Kingdom. On December 20, 1971, Roy died,
almost five years to the day after his brother passed on.
After Roy’s death, the financial and creative growth of the company came
to a standstill. During the 18 years between Walt Disney’s death in 1966 and
Eisner’s entry as CEO in 1984, a simple question would be asked among the
ranks before any decision was made: “What would Walt do?” To be sure, this
approach rendered the leaders indecisive, especially when Disney executives
had no idea what Walt would do. Asking this question ad nauseam paralyzed
the company. (See Figure 12-1.)
Then in 1984, Roy E. Disney, Walt’s nephew, convinced the board to hire
Michael Eisner as CEO and Frank Wells as president and COO. Eisner and
Wells were consummate decision makers. They quickly began to transform
the sleepy little movie studio into a global entertainment enterprise now
worth over $50 billion. (See Figure 12-2.) They had the Midas touch, turn-
ing everything in the company to gold, from television to baseball to book

Disney
Performance 1970–1984 9/28/84 250%
225%
Disney
200%

175%
150%
100%

50%
25%
S&P 500
0%

70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84
Figure 12-1. The pre-Eisner years financial performance