Page 63 - Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company

44 The Disney Way

hemmed in by tawdry fast-food outlets and motels. He vowed that he would
not make the same mistake twice.
When it came time to plan for Walt Disney World, Walt was not ham-
pered by such monetary constraints. He bought 29,500 acres of Florida real
estate for an average price of $200 an acre. Less than half of that acreage is being
used today, while the remainder has risen in value to more than $1 million an
acre. Selling off the undeveloped land would bring more than $10 billion into
corporate coffers.
Why doesn’t the company sell the Florida acreage? Because such a sale
would be at odds with the Disney long-term mentality. Still adhering to Walt’s
beliefs, the company is looking ahead to expansion that will further upgrade
the show. The theme-park business, after all, is driven by a need to constantly
offer new attractions that will entice both first-time and repeat guests.
Michael Eisner made it clear that short-term gains are not what Disney is
about when he said at an industry conference in 1997: “I’m not looking for
some outrageous, ridiculous multiple that blows in the wind or gets battered
by changes in the economy. I hope people like the company, but I don’t
want to promise them Nirvana.”

Leadership for the Long Term

In today’s business world, where technology is driving an accelerated pace of
change, a long-term mentality is a must for survival. But not everyone rec-
ognizes this imperative, as evidenced by some of our consulting experiences.
The one-man roadblock we encountered when we began working with a
large Fortune 500 manufacturer is a case in point.
We had asked a top management team to formalize the plans and speci-
fications for an initiative intended to take their division into the future. The
team worked for three months on the plan, meeting one full day a week to
establish their values, decide on the organizational structure, and determine
how best to communicate the vision underlying the plan.
The plans were great, but the boss failed to act on them. Sure, he talked
about what he was going to do, but he never, as the saying goes, walked the
talk. No changes were made until the boss was transferred and a young engi-
neer named Steve was installed in his place.
Suddenly, plans turned into actions. Working together with his plan-
ning team, Steve established four subteams charged with developing new
technologies, providing back-up systems and facilities support to engineers,