Political Frame- Walt Disney
The appointment of Michael Eisner to the helm of Walt Disney was appreciated by various individuals who had witnessed his efforts in turning around the company and making it a formidable American organization in the 80s. During his tenure, Michael Eisner had managed to guide the company to add capital cities to its theme parks and businesses, therefore, making it easy to break into the market. Despite the significant developments, Michael Eisner’s downfall had been imminent mostly because of his desire to improve his own personal power rather than that of the organization. He provides an example of the corporate experiences in the country through their integration with their respective boards.
Bureaucracy was seen as the major political factor behind the downfall of Eisner. After the exit of Katzenberg, Eisner remained as the leader of the force behind the animation studio. He failed to delegate the duties even after being advised so by his personal doctor and wife. The period in Walt Disney was marred by various cases of lack of engagement with majority of the decisions being formulated by the top leadership in the company. Moreover, Eisner had ensured that the board of directors largely comprised of people who were loyal to him (Gershon, 2013). He made sure that he filled the top positions with individuals who were directly related to him, therefore, helping him seize power and yield increased authority. Members of the board included, Irwin Russel, Eisner’s personal lawyer was also the leader of the compensation committee, Roweta Bowers, was the principal of the school in West Hollywood and Robert Stern, his own personal architect.
Eisner was also seen as incapable to run the company owing to various bad decisions he had made in the course of the management. He had written a new $9 million three-year contract for his former employers in ABC despite protests from the considered neutral board members. They felt that he was not capable of making the most effective decisions which would spearhead the organization in the right direction. The political force crated conflicts in the overall decision making process and affected the autonomous nature of various departments that had formed an integral part of the company growth and development.
The examples demonstrate the power of the political environment when managing a huge company such as Walt Disney. The close interaction and influence of the environment on interest areas such as the economy and the various risk levels makes it important that viable options are addressed. The example of Eisner exhibits the actual role of the political power with particular insight on how better and more effective units of development can be integrated to achieve reliable growth (Briefel, 2015). Moreover, it also shows how diversity is important in appreciating opinions and developments which result in the company’s success in the long term.
The political force, thus, ensured his exit since he locked out the shareholders from majority of the business activities and failed to capitalize on the need to incorporate diversified individuals. Eisner also had the votes to remove those who would be seen as threats to his bid. The nature of the business created the need to come up with sufficient strategic growth levels which incorporated opinions and diversity structures, therefore, making it easy to achieve long-term developmental initiatives. Also, the inclusion of diversity led to generation of several innovative interventions. The interventions facilitated the creative solution of organizational challenges at Walt Disney.
The “jungle” metaphor has been used to describe situations involving lack of laws and regulations that result in exploitation of a given individual group. The metaphor, essentially explains the uncontrollable nature of particular elements of the human society, therefore, making them evoke certain feelings of threat, confusion, powerlessness, disorientation and immobilization. The metaphor can be applied in the given situation to show the disorientation that resulted from the actions adopted by Eisner. The bureaucratic nature of the leadership alienated various important stakeholders, therefore, creating aspects of immobilization and powerlessness. Forbes & Watson (2010) explain the situation by quoting the employees negative attitudes towards the management. The aspects showed the lack of proper leadership aspects due to Eisner’s disregard for the law and the existing strategic measures that had been adopted to help the organization develop.
The continued leadership structure adopted by Michael Eisner saw the emergence of coalitions that had varied opinions on the matter. There was the emergence of the coalition of corporate players who sought to effectively develop strategies which would then result in the maintenance of Eisner’s control. The coalition was largely adopted by individuals who were loyal to Eisner and who had directly benefitted from the management style. They felt that the continued tenure of Eisner at the helm of Walt Disney would guarantee for them effective powers and access to resources that would enable them benefit individually. The coalition had been motivated by the pending cases regarding the piracy factors. (Tremblay, 2017).
There was also the emergence of another coalition that sought to unseat Eisner owing to his poor management styles. The coalition had observed significant problems related to systematic failures on the part of the management when making important decisions. The coalition had agreed that Eisner was not the right person to lead the company and his continued tenure at the helm would result in massive losses and even the eventual downfall of Walt Disney. The coalition was spearheaded by Stanley Gold and Roy Disney who had been identified as the voice of reason in the company’s board of directors. They were opposed to Eisner taking up the Toy Story due to the legal battles with Steve Jobs (Aldridge, 2012).
The division amongst the coalitions was seen in their approach in managing the issues related to Eisner’s tenure and the impact it would have on the long-term development of the organization. They had conflicting views on the effectiveness of the management as well as the ability to achieve strategic growth in the most probable ways (Wasko, 2016). The financial aspects, for instance, had been questionable in the given periods owing to the increased slippage of the financial targets. It was a situation in which one group advocated for Eisner’s stay as they had been benefitting individually, while the other group advocated for his exit due to the failure to meet set objectives.
The differences in the coalitions were ultimately solved after the exit of Eisner. They agreed on the importance of the issue due to the polarized nature of the company and the massive negative effects that were being felt because of the poor decisions that has been adopted by the management (Giroux, & Pollock, 2010). There was adoption of a clear voice of reason which sought to advocate for the interests of the company and continued growth through focus on set objectives. The resolution of the differences saw the growth of the company with the employee morale significantly improving the immediate aftermath.
Bolman and Deal’s Political Frame assumptions explain the situation involving Eisner by effectively portraying the organizational framework and the importance of adopting divergent opinions. The framework explains that organizations are coalitions of different individuals and need to be integrated. Essentially, it tries to create awareness on the importance of adopting as well as appreciating the diverse nature of the current human society, therefore, making it easy to achieve long-term sustainability in organizations. The assumption shows the different natures of coalitions that had been formed during Michael Eisner’s tenure with each coalition having a different opinion on the management of the organization. The theoretical assumption showed the need for Eisner to involve and engage stakeholders in trying to achieve the most effective leadership framework. The option would have been viable and would have helped reduce the effects of bureaucracy.
The political frame also states that scarce resources and enduring differences make differences as important factors in the correlated long-term developments. The ideological perspective adopted in the case relates to the importance of power and how individuals possessing it need to manage conflicts resulting from scarce organizational resources. Eisner failed to enhance the aspects due to lack of proper managerial skills (Hermalin, B. E., & Weisbach, 2014). He failed to manage the conflicts that had been brewed in Walt Disney as a result of his poor decisions. The emergence of coalitions with diversified interest helps explain the issue and point to failure of the manager to resolve the issues which would help achieve better growth strategies in the long-term.
The toxic triangle explained by Forbes and Watson demonstrates the effects of destructive leadership forms adopted by managers. It characterizes certain factors that are central to the downfall of the organization and which require proper understanding to ensure probable long-term effects. Issues related to personalized power and ideologies of hate affect the growth schemes of the company.
The triangle explains the case of Michael Eisner by pointing out the values of the employees during the time. The triangle explains the destructive leadership forms in the periods through the charisma and personalized power adopted by Michael. The susceptible followers such as those who were advocating for the removal of Eisner are characterized by unmet needs, low core-self evaluations as well as low maturity levels. There is no effective environment that helps them achieve better growth levels. They also fail to maximize on their interactions with the leadership since their opinions are not usually taken into consideration. However, the colluders such as insiders in the board of director are seen to be ambitious and generally have bad values. They tend to put their needs above those of the company, therefore, resulting in slow growth or even decline (Forbes & Watson, 2010). They create a difficult environment that is characterized by instability as well as the lack of checks and balances which help achieve reasonable growth measures. Essentially, the toxic triangle explains the possible factors which led to the downfall of Michael Eisner.
References
Aldridge, J. K. (2012). Sustaining a high performance corporate culture.
Briefel, A. (2015). Mickey Horror: Escape from Tomorrow and the Gothic Attack on Disney. FILM QUART, 68(4), 36-43.
Forbes, W., & Watson, R. (2010, July). Destructive Corporate Leadership and Board Loyalty Bias: A case study of Michael Eisner’s long tenure at Disney Corporation. Working paper, presented at the Behavioural Finance Working Group Conference, Cass Business School.
Gershon, R. A. (2013). The transnational media corporation: Global messages and free market competition. Routledge.
Giroux, H. A., & Pollock, G. (2010). The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Hermalin, B. E., & Weisbach, M. S. (2014). Understanding corporate governance through learning models of managerial competence (No. w20028). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Tremblay, C. (2017). Disney in the Academy (and Other Disney Educational Experiences on College Campuses). College and University, 92(4), 49-60.
Wasko, J. (2016). The Walt Disney Company. In Global Media Giants (pp. 25-39). Routledge.
