Read the case study, Politics at Walt Disney, on page 414 and write a 1000-1500

Question

Read the case study, Politics at Walt Disney, on page 414 and write a 1000-1500 word easy with two high-level section headers: Conflict, Politics, and Conflict Resolution (In the section, answer questions:

1. What are the various sources of conflict and politics that have plagued Walt Disney in the past?

2. Discuss how Iger used different conflict resolution and political strategies to solve these conflicts to make better use the company’s resources). Effects of Power on Organizational Structure (In this section, include discussion that: identifies sources and effects of power on organizational structures, and recommends how to evaluate organizational design/strategy in a global operations environment.)

In the early 2000s, Walt Disney CEO Michael Eisner came under increasing criticism for the company’s falling performance and for the way that he had centralized decision making so that all important decisions affecting the company had to have his approval. He began to lose the support of the board of directors, especially of Roy Disney, who as a member of the founding family commanded a great deal of support. However, the majority of Disney’s board of directors had been handpicked by Eisner, and he was able to control the agenda until the company began to incur major losses in the mid 2000s. Poor performance weakened Eisner’s position, but so did his personal relationship with Steve Jobs, who was the CEO and major owner of Pixar, the company that had made most of Disney’s recent blockbuster movies such as Toy Story, Cars, and so on. After Jobs threatened to find a new distributor for Pixar’s movies when its contract with Disney expired in 2007 because of the personal antagonism between himself and Eisner, Disney’s board decided to act. Eisner was encouraged to become chair of Disney and to allow his handpicked successor, Bob Iger, assume control of the company as its CEO. Iger owed his rapid rise at Disney to his personal relationship with Eisner, who had been his mentor and loyal follower. Iger had always suggested new ways to improve Disney’s performance but had never confronted Eisner—always a dangerous thing to do if a manager wants to become the next CEO! Once Iger became CEO in 2006, pressure was applied to Eisner, who soon decided to resign as Disney’s chair; then Iger negotiated the purchase of Pixar by Disney that resulted in Steve Jobs becoming its biggest stockholder. Disney was still performing poorly, but now that Iger was in total control and no longer under the influence of Michael Eisner, he adopted a plan to change the way Disney operated. As COO of Disney under CEO Michael Eisner, Iger recognized that Disney was plagued by slow decision making that had led to many mistakes in putting its new strategies into action. Its Disney stores were losing money; its Internet properties were flops; and even its theme parks seemed to have lost their luster as few new rides or attractions were introduced. Iger believed one of the main reasons for Disney’s declining performance was that it had become too tall and bureaucratic under Iger, and its top managers were following financial rules that did not lead to innovative strategies. One of Iger’s first moves to turn around Disney’s performance was to dismantle its central “strategic planning office,” which was composed of several levels of top managers who were responsible for sifting through all the new ideas and innovations sent up by Disney’s different business divisions, for example, its theme parks, movies, and gaming divisions. After a lengthy decision-making process, they then decided which proposals should be presented to Eisner. Iger saw the strategic planning office as a bureaucratic bottleneck that reduced the number of ideas coming from below; he dissolved the office, reassigned the best managers back to their different business units, and retired the rest.50 The result of cutting out these unnecessary layers in Disney’s hierarchy has been that more new ideas are generated by its different business units and the level of innovation has increased. Divisional managers are more willing to speak out and champion their ideas when they know they are dealing directly with CEO Iger and not with an office of bureaucrats concerned only with the bottom line.51 Disney’s performance has improved steadily under Iger; in 2010, it announced much improved revenues and profits and a new venture—Disney acquired Marvel, the company that owned the rights to such characters as Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Hulk—so many new kinds of rides and movies may be expected in the future.52 In 2011, it announced new agreements with Apple and other companies such as Google and Amazon to stream its huge video library to customers online and to make them available for download using cloud computing so that users can access them using any mobile computing device.

Explanation / Answer

Disney encountered a downturn amid the mid 2000's (Jones, 2013). Amid this time, Michael Eisner was the CEO of Disney (Jones, 2013). By 2010, Disney had expanded income and benefits (Jones, 2013). This must be clarified because in 2006, Disney got another CEO named Bob Iger (Jones, 2013). Iger, rolled out improvements to Disney's governmental issues and power strategy, which thusly enhanced the way of life and standpoint of the association. The contextual investigation of Walt Disney investigates how governmental issues and power can make an association not perform. Strife, Politics, and Conflict Resolution Disney was tormented by different wellsprings of contention and legislative issues. A case of this contention can be seen by Disney's previous CEO Michael Eisner and Pixar's CEO Steve Jobs relationship. Their own relationship turned into an issue when Steve Jobs debilitated to locate an alternate organization to appropriate Pixar's motion pictures when Disney's agreement was fulfilled in 2007 (Jones, 2013). Another wellspring of contention at Disney was the way that Michael Eisner was in entire control (Jones, 2013). Critical choices did not get made without the endorsement of Eisner (Jones, 2013). Eisner additionally picked most of the board individuals (Jones, 2013). This implied he could control the board and the motivation of the board (Jones, 2013). The last clash for Eisner came when he was requested to pick his successor and was put on the board. Eisner picked Bob Iger to wind up CEO and he was set on the board (Jones, 2013). Afterward, Eisner surrendered from the board (Jones, 2013).

managing Conflict

Associations as extensive and intricate as Disney depend on solid organizations. These key associations with organizations like Pixar and Miramax Films enable Disney to develop their vision and participate in positive-entirety circumstances. Under Michael Eisner, the gainful and lofty organization between Disney, the Weinstein siblings, and Steve Jobs had weakened. As aspirations developed, the need of Disney CEO Michael Eisner to control these connections was troublesome and harmed relational connections. In the business world, clash is neither inalienably great nor awful, however it is unavoidable. Some contention circumstances create nothing positive. Other clash circumstances be that as it may, are helpful if they are utilized as instruments for change and advancement. Strife may have either positive or negative outcomes for the association relying upon how much exists and how it is overseen. (Ivancevich, 2014) The contentions between Michael Eisner and the Weinstein siblings, Disney and Gold, and Steve Jobs were all broken in that the contentions hurt the association and thwarted the accomplishment of authoritative objectives.

1 . One of the problems that Disney had in the past was that too much authority was given to the upper management. For example, the CEO, Michael Eisner, had a centralized decision-making structure. He required that all the important decisions for the company had to be approved by him. This caused the company to make slow decisions which delayed the time to develop new strategies. Disney eventually experienced a negative impact on their finances, performance and organizational structure from 2000-2006.

2 . With the end goal for Iger to settle the contentions he needed to apply hierarchical power. Organizational power is characterized as "the capacity of one individual or gathering to beat opposition by others to resolve strife and accomplish a coveted target" (Jones, 401). At the point when Iger assumed control as CEO he made some exceptional changes to the hierarchical structure. He needed to dispose of the" bottleneck" approach that had been utilized before so he "disassembled" Disney's focal strategic planning office. By utilizing his power to roll out improvements he could hold control over the resources and direct them into producing advancement.

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