eisner is a ......

[mikek]

let me say, I've never been pro-eisner, but i always kinda thought you guys (you know who you are) hammered the guy for everything, no matter how small.

I remember a couple threads recent about how he IS responsible fro all the failures. I didnt hop in too much on that one, but i thought it was a little wrong to blame him that you didnt like the color of paint on a particular building.

Well, I'm a convert. It seems he is totally captain micro-manage. So he just might stick his hand in everything, thereby making himself responsible for all the failings of all the different disney divisions.

Case in point- I got my issue of baseball weekly yesterday. It had a bunch of pages about the winter meetings with mock awards and a paragraph or 2 about each 'winner.' Stuff like best AL general manager (my boy Brian Cashman) or best trade made by a GM without a flak jacket (Alomar to the Mets...). Anyhow guess who won the 'best trade that never happened' award? Disney's angels. Apparentlyy they set up a great deal for all the parties involved, all the baseball people for the angels and the other side agreed it was wonderful (as well as baseball weekly). Well it seems they had to call mikey to get his permission and he decided to nix the whole thing because it was too risky. What the hec does he know about baseball? Does the mechanic have to call him to decide what weight oil to but in his car?

So AV and the rest of the gang- i think every screw up just might be caused by him.

 

[JeffJewell]

i always kinda thought you guys (you know who you are) hammered the guy for everything, no matter how small

...I always thought I was simply hammering him for the same thing over and over; it's just that that one same cause tended to manifest itself in all manner of symptoms.

He's cheap. He'll take zero chances with investments, simply spend the least amount of money possible that is likely to generate any kind of return whatsoever. There are businesses where that might be at least an arguably good strategy, but creating high quality entertainment sure ain't one of them.

This past couple of years has shown Eisner's true colors vividly for anyone who cares to note them: $5 billion spent on an outlet for re-runs, while the budget-built parks continue doing their impression of a cement weight around the neck of the resorts division.

He's a merchant, a trader, a re-marketer. All noble professions, in their place, but Disney was always known as a company that created first-rate entertainment. That's not what Eisner does, and it is no longer what Disney does.

It's true that Eisner's worst crime is only that he ran Disney like you should run Wal-Mart or McDonald's--buy the cheapest content you can then shovel it directly in front of as many faces as possible. I'm coming to realize that the real argument between the pro- and anti-Eisner forces is whether or not they can stomach that management style coming from a business that built its reputation and customer loyalty on the absolute antithesis of that style.

Jeff

 

[HBK]

but he didn't make the veto call on the Erstad trade. Tony Tavares (the teams VP) did. The Angels are trying to clear large contracts before attempting to sell the team. Tavares apparently didn't feel they were getting enough in return for Erstad.

Please don't go back to the dark side though. There's plenty of Ei$ner meddling to convert you!

 

[DisneyFanGuy]

I work for a fairly large fast food company. Our CEO was known for wanting be personally involved in every department team. He was considered brilliant, however, would organize a functional team, assign responsibilities, and then "drop" in on meetings long enough to make EVERYONE crazy. He overturned decisions, changed direction, and acted impulsively. He wanted to influence every part of the company, and often boasted about it.

We were a mess under his leadership. After two years of sliding sales, franchise revolts, and multiple marketing officers, he was terminated.

Now we have a new CEO, and are rallying behind his vision. We have added layers of cost to the system, improved product and operational quality, and are currently up about 20% in sales. We will probably improve our income dramatically. His gift is creating a vision, and then selecting talent to implement it.

So as I read posts about Eisner being "personally" involved in everything, yet upsetting everyone, I can relate it to my personal experiences of the last few years. He no longer seems to have the vision to boldly drive quality. Everything Disney does lately seems to be driven entirely by cost effectiveness. Consumers are going to notice more and more. Too bad.

 

[Another Voice]

The best one-word answer to the question is the say that Eisner is a “dabbler”.

He does not make, or is he to blame, for all of the decisions in The Company. Disney is just to big for that. Nor does Mr. Eisner have a desire to get into every single facet of The Company’s dealings (rumor is it that Consumer Products has to remind him every quarter about that little retail operation they run).

Mr. Eisner will tend to find particular projects that interest him and “offer suggestions” about how they should be run. These suggestions often get into things like paint colors, single lines of dialogue in a script, costume design – all the thousands of details that really should be left to the professionals. Things that don’t interest him are shuffled off to subordinates. An issue is that no one knows which detail he might be interested in, and which he isn’t.

That’s where the rub comes in. Here comes The Boss to decided if the wall should be ivory or eggshell white , but the question about the budget to finish the place is brushed aside to an underlining who won’t make a decision (because the underlining doesn’t know if the call is really his or is something Eisner while get interested in later).

 

[airlarry!]

I heard on two different national sports talk shows that Tav had authority from Ei$ner to nix the deal. Course, one intimation was on the Romey show, and he does have an axe to grind. That doesn't make him wrong, however.