HIGHLIGHTS: Bob Iger - CEO of Disney

0:00Hi, everybody. Tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday. For the long version, tune in on Wednesdays. Hi, everyone. I'm Nikolaj Tangen, the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. And today we're diving into the magical world of Disney, a company where we are the lucky owner of more than 1%. And I'm here with Bob Iger, the visionary leader who transformed Disney into a global entertainment powerhouse, leading bold acquisitions like Pixar, Marvel, and 21st Century Fox. Bob, warm welcome. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. No, I think no other company has made so many people laugh and cry over more than 100 years.

0:40So in your mind, what is it that makes Disney so special? Well, I think, first of all, the fact that we've touched people's hearts for, as you cited, over 100 years is meaningful. Because when you tell stories that have the kind of effect that our stories have on people, they become memorable. They become part of the fabric of people's lives. And there are also stories that are frequently shared with other people. So you have basically a number of people enjoying our stories together. And that also, I think, compounds the impact of our storytelling. We've also managed to stick to our core values.

1:22And I think that's really important. You know what you're going to get when you see the name Disney on a product. And I think that goes a long way to enabling us to be relevant for over a century. Why do you think we're still so drawn to these imaginary worlds? Well, as Walt Disney used to say, people often like to either experience things or hear stories told that enables them to essentially distance themselves from their daily lives and their daily responsibilities. There's an escapist quality. But I think in many other respects with Disney stories, you know, there are there are things like relatability, common experiences that are reflected in our storytelling.

2:08There's the whole notion of fantasy and igniting people's imagination and creating magic. There's also, I think, something that's very, very unique to Disney, and that is that we make things that can be enjoyed by multiple generations all at once. Is that something you have to do more and more to build in appealing things for several generations? It just strikes me when I watch things like Finding Nemo. You have built in so many layers of complexity that appeals to so many different type of people. We try to essentially tell stories that are as accessible as possible and that best reflect the world that we are telling stories to.

2:52I think that's really quite critical. Now, you say things like, dream big, anything can happen. Now, these are, in a way, quite American values. Do you think the company could ever have been founded in Europe? What was inspired is some of his earliest, greatest stories were inspired by the great European storytellers of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, for instance. So I think he had a respect. He also, he liked to travel and he traveled around Europe. and in many respects some things that he built at Disneyland came from his inspiration, the inspiration that he got through traveling and learning about cultures and learning about places and wanting the world to feel like a one world instead of basically a world that was completely broken up.

3:43What's the key to managing creative genesis? Empathy is the biggest key. You have to understand that when a creator has pitched you a great story and you've given them the ability to go out and tell that story, you've given them the resources, the money, the tools, the place to tell that story, that story is often coming from within them. It's a passion of theirs. It is the invention of their own mind and their own heart. And you have to understand then just how delicate it is to manage someone who is essentially creating something that comes from within them that is inherently theirs. and while we have a responsibility on behalf of the company to make sure that they're telling their stories right and and and and that they're pursuing the extent possible perfection in terms of storytelling and that sometimes requires us to lean on them more in order to get the results that we want you have to always do so by putting yourself in their shoes now you've been first at ABC, but then in the whole kind of Disney company for 50 years.

4:55Are you able to predict what's going to be good or bad? And then when was the last time you were really surprised? Either that something failed that you thought was going to be fantastic or the opposite? Occasionally, I see something that's really good that ends up surprising me on the upside, because it resonates a lot more than even I thought it might. For some reason, And that happens more often than the opposite, than seeing something that failed where I didn't think it would fail. But as we get older, are we less in tune with the general public? Well, one of the things that we get paid to do in these jobs is to stay in tune.

5:39I guess you could argue that the older you get, the harder it is. A good executive, meaning good at managing creativity and good at enabling creators, has done a lot of work to keep their finger on kind of the pulse of the world. And while I don't consider myself the world's greatest expert on today's culture, I certainly have a number of touch points into the culture that enable me to understand and appreciate it more. how important is energy uh because um you you are up uh is it right you're up just after four o 'clock every every day yes that's correct so what do you wake up you put on your dressing going you go down to the kitchen make a cup of coffee or what do you what do you do i usually i it's funny i i i've reversed this since i came back to disney i have a cup of coffee first yes i go down to the kitchen set the coffee maker in the night before so there's a timer i have my coffee and then i put on my workout clothes that i work out at the house um almost every day or and i do the same thing when i'm in a hotel anywhere in the world how long do you wait how long do you work out for i work out for about an hour every morning wow um sometimes less but but rarely less than 45 minutes um and it's again i i like to say that it's for sanity and vanity purposes.

7:07It enables me, as I said, to clear my head, but I also, you know, enables and better repair my mind and my body for the job at hand. But, you know, there's a vanity side to it too. Now, some listeners may not know, but you were a CEO for 15 years. You stepped down in 2020, came back after two years. Now, when you came back and looked at Disney again, what were your priorities then? Well, Disney had been through a really difficult time. Obviously, the board making a decision to remove the former CEO created not just uncertainty, but real concern. So the first thing I had to do was really calm things down and reassure people that the future was bright again and that there were steps we were going to take that I was going to be very transparent about to get Disney back on track.

8:06I believe a company's culture is everything in many respects. And a culture that respects and fosters great creativity, particularly at Disney, is critical. I had to return creativity to the center of the company. The company had been restructured in a way that took some of the accountability and responsibility away from the creative side of the company. I had to restore that. I did that on day one, really, right away. I had to instill optimism again in the company, being a realist in how many things we needed to accomplish, but being an optimist in terms of my confidence that we would be able to accomplish those things.

8:48I also had to streamline the organization, make it much more clear who was responsible for what. There was a lot of fixing that had to be done. What was the toughest part of it? The toughest part for me was to be patient. I had to get used to the fact that the climb upwards wasn't as certain, wasn't as easy, and that we were starting from a very low point. And I had to be patient in terms of how long it would take to get where I felt the company needed to be. I actually feel quite good now about where we are. We have a lot more work to do. And heavens, even if we fixed everything, there still will be work to do.

9:26But I feel really good about not only the recent successes and what we've managed to accomplish as a company to date, but I feel great about the trajectory of our company going forward. Is it difficult for a perfectionist to be patient? It's almost impossible for a perfectionist to be patient. That is one of my personal struggles.