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The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company Hardcover – September 23, 2019
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AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Robert Iger became CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 2005, during a difficult time. Competition was more intense than ever and technology was changing faster than at any time in the company’s history. His vision came down to three clear ideas: Recommit to the concept that quality matters, embrace technology instead of fighting it, and think bigger—think global—and turn Disney into a stronger brand in international markets.
Today, Disney is the largest, most admired media company in the world, counting Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox among its properties. Under Iger’s leadership, Disney’s value grew nearly five times what it was, making Iger one of the most innovating and successful CEOs of our era.
In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger answers the question: What are the qualities of a good leader? He shares the lessons he learned while running Disney and leading its 220,000-plus employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including:
• Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming.
• Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity.
• Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale.
• Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them.
This book is about the relentless curiosity that has driven Iger since the day he started as the lowliest studio grunt at ABC. It’s also about thoughtfulness and respect, and a decency-over-dollars approach that has become the bedrock of every project and partnership Iger pursues, from a deep friendship with Steve Jobs in his final years to an abiding love of the Star Wars mythology.
“The ideas in this book strike me as universal,” Iger writes. “Not just to the aspiring CEOs of the world, but to anyone wanting to feel less fearful, more confidently themselves, as they navigate their professional and even personal lives.”
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRandom House
- Publication dateSeptember 23, 2019
- Dimensions6.32 x 1.01 x 9.51 inches
- ISBN-100399592091
- ISBN-13978-0399592096
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Nurturing creativity is less a skill than an art—especially at a company where the brand alone is synonymous with creativity. That’s a lot to live up to. Bob Iger has not only lived up to ninety-six years of groundbreaking history but has moved the Disney brand far beyond anyone’s expectations, and he has done it with grace and audacity. This book shows you how that’s happened.”—Steven Spielberg
“People have been waiting years for Bob Iger to share his leadership secrets. Now he has, and they are utterly brilliant. The Ride of a Lifetime is not merely a memoir; it’s a personal, all-access session with the wisest CEO you’ve ever met and a playbook for handling the key challenges of our age: how to drive change, leverage technology, build an enduring culture, and empower people. It’s a rippingly good, revelatory read.”—Daniel Coyle, New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Starting at the Bottom
This book is not a memoir, but it’s impossible to talk about the traits that have served me well over the course of my professional life and not look back at my childhood. There are certain ways I’ve always been, things I’ve always done, that are the result of some inscrutable mix of nature and nurture. (I’ve always woken early, for example, as far back as I can remember, and cherished those hours to myself before the rest of the world wakes up.) There are other qualities and habits that are the result of purposeful decisions I made along the path. As is the case with many of us, those decisions were partially made in response to my parents, in particular my father, a brilliant and troubled man who shaped me more than anyone.
My father made me curious about the world. We had a den lined with shelves full of books, and my dad had read every one of them. I didn’t become a serious reader until I was in high school, but when I did finally fall in love with books, it was because of him. He had complete sets that he ordered from the Book of the Month Club of the works of all the American literary giants—Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Faulkner and Steinbeck and so on. I’d pull down from the shelves his copy of Tender Is the Night or For Whom the Bell Tolls or dozens of others and devour them, and he’d urge me to read even more. We also spent our dinners discussing world events, and as young as ten years old, I’d grab the New York Times on our front lawn and read it at the kitchen table before anyone else woke up.
We lived in a split-level house in a small working-class town on Long Island called Oceanside. I was the older of two kids; my sister is three years younger. My mother was warm and loving, a stay-at-home mom until I went to high school, at which point she got a job in the local junior high school library. My dad was a Navy veteran who came back from the war and played the trumpet with some “lesser” big bands, but he figured he could never make much of a living as a musician, so never tried to do it full-time. He majored in marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and his first job was working in marketing for a food manufacturing company, and that led him into advertising. He became an account executive at an advertising agency on Madison Avenue—he handled the Old Milwaukee and Brunswick bowling accounts—but eventually lost that job. He changed agencies several times, almost always lateral moves. By the time I was ten or eleven, he’d changed jobs so many times that I began to wonder why.
He was always deeply politically engaged and had a very strong liberal bias. He once lost a job because he was determined to go to the March on Washington and see Martin Luther King, Jr., speak. His boss wouldn’t give him the day off, but he went anyway. I don’t know if he quit and went to the speech or if he was fired for going after he’d been told he couldn’t, but it was just one of several such endings.
I was proud of his strong character and his politics. He had a fierce sense of what was right and fair, and he was always on the side of the underdog. But he also had trouble regulating his moods and would often say things that got him into trouble. I later learned that he’d been diagnosed with manic depression, and that he’d tried several therapies, including electroshock therapy, to treat his illness. As the older child, I bore the brunt of his emotional unpredictability. I never felt threatened by his moods, but I was acutely aware of his dark side and felt sad for him. We never knew which Dad was coming home at night, and I can distinctly recall sitting in my room on the second floor of our house, knowing by the sound of the way he opened and shut the door and walked up the steps whether it was happy or sad Dad.
He would sometimes check in on his way past my room to make sure I was “spending time productively,” as he put it. That meant reading or doing homework or being engaged in something that would “better” me in some way. He wanted my sister and me to have fun, but it also was very important to him that we use our time wisely and work in a focused way toward our goals. I’m certain that my vigilance (some might say obsessiveness) about time-management comes from him.
The extent to which I tend to be emotionally consistent with the people in my life, or dependable in a crisis, comes from him, too. My sister and I were never deprived of love as kids, but we were deprived of consistency. I felt early on that it was my job to be the steady center of our family, which extended even to practical matters around the house. If something broke, my mother would ask me to fix it, and I learned as a young kid how to repair whatever needed repairing. That’s part of where my curiosity about technology comes from, too, I think. I liked using tools and taking things apart and understanding how they worked.
My parents were worriers. There was a sense with both of them that something bad would soon be coming down the pike. I don’t know how much of it is a fluke of genetics and how much is a learned reaction to their anxiety, but I’ve always been the opposite of that. With few exceptions in my life, I’ve never worried too much about the future, and I’ve never had too much fear about trying something and failing.
As I grew older, I became more aware of my father’s disappointment in himself. He’d led a life that was unsatisfying to him and was a failure in his own eyes. It’s part of why he pushed us to work so hard and be productive, so that we might be successful in a way that he never was. His employment troubles necessitated that I find jobs if I wanted to have any spending money, and I started working in eighth grade, shoveling snow and babysitting and working as a stock boy in a hardware store. At fifteen, I got a job as the summer janitor in my school district. It involved cleaning every heater in every classroom, then moving on to the bottom of every desk, making sure they were gum-free when the school year started. Cleaning gum from the bottoms of a thousand desks can build character, or at least a tolerance for monotony, or something . . . .
I attended Ithaca College and spent nearly every weekend night my freshman and sophomore year making pizza at the local Pizza Hut. I got mostly B’s and a few A’s in high school, but academics was never my passion. Something clicked for me when I went to college, though. I was determined to work hard and learn as much as I could learn, and I think that, too, was related to my father—a function of both my admiration for how learned he was and a growing feeling that I never wanted to experience the same sense of failure that he felt about himself. I didn’t have a clear idea of what “success” meant, no specific vision of being wealthy or powerful, but I was determined not to live a life of disappointment. Whatever shape my life took, I told myself, there wasn’t a chance in the world that I was going to toil in frustration and lack of fulfillment.
I don’t carry much pain with me from those early years, other than the pain that my dad didn’t live a happier life, and that my mother suffered, too, as a result. I wish he could have felt prouder of himself. We always had a roof over our heads and food on the table, but there was little money for much else. Vacations were usually spent driving to mundane places in our car or going to the beach a few minutes away from our house. We had enough clothes to look presentable, but nothing extra, and when I tore a pair of pants in the fall, I was typically told to wear them with a patch until we had the money to replace them, which could be months. I never felt poor, and no one viewed me as such. Things were a lot thinner than they looked, though, and as I grew older I became aware of that.
Late in life, after I’d become CEO of Disney, I took my father to lunch in New York. We talked about his mental health and his perspective on his life. I told him how much I appreciated everything that he and my mom had done for us, the ethics they instilled, and the love they gave us. I told him that was enough, more than enough, and wished that my gratitude might liberate him in some small way from disappointment. I do know that so many of the traits that served me well in my career started with him. I hope that he understood that, too.
I started my career at ABC on July 1, 1974, as a studio supervisor for ABC Television. Before that, I’d spent a year as a weatherman and feature news reporter at a tiny cable TV station in Ithaca, New York. That year of toiling in obscurity (and performing with mediocrity) convinced me to abandon the dream I’d had since I was fifteen years old: to be a network news anchorman. I’m only half-joking when I say that the experience of giving the people of Ithaca their daily weather report taught me a necessary skill, which is the ability to deliver bad news. For roughly six months of the year, the long bleak stretch from October through April, I was far from the most popular guy in town.
I came to ABC thanks to my uncle Bob’s bad eyesight. My mother’s brother, whom I adored, spent a few days in a Manhattan hospital after eye surgery, and his roommate was a lower-level ABC executive, who for whatever reasons wanted my uncle to believe he was a big network mogul. He would fake taking phone calls in his hospital bed, as if there were important network decisions that only he could make, and my uncle fell for it. Before he was discharged, my uncle mentioned to his roommate that his nephew was looking for a job in television production in New York. The guy gave him his number and said, “Tell your nephew to give me a call.”
He was surprised and a little confused about who I was when I actually followed through. Based on what my uncle had described, I was expecting a powerful network executive whose influence was felt at the highest reaches of the company. He was far from that, but to his credit, he did manage to get me an interview in the small department he ran at the network, Production Services, and not long after that I was hired on as a studio supervisor.
The position paid $150 per week and was about as low as you could go on the ABC ladder. There were a half dozen of us who did all manner of menial labor, on game shows and soap operas and talk shows and news shows and made-for-TV specials—basically anything produced at ABC’s sprawling Manhattan studios. I was assigned to a whole gamut of programming: All My Children and One Life to Live and Ryan’s Hope, The $10,000 Pyramid and The Money Maze and Showdown. The Dick Cavett Show. Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America. The ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner.
The job description was pretty simple: Show up whenever they needed me, for whatever task. Often that meant being at a studio at 4:30 a.m. for “lighting calls.” Soap opera sets were set up the night before a shoot, and my job was to let in the lighting director and stagehands long before the sun came up, so the lights would be in place when the director and actors arrived for their first run-throughs. I coordinated all the carpenters and prop masters and electricians, makeup artists and costume people and hairstylists, checking everybody in and making sure they had their marching orders for the day. I kept track of their hours and their grievances and their violations of union rules. I made sure catering was in place and the air-conditioning had cooled the studios enough to begin shooting under the hot lights. It was the opposite of glamorous, but I learned the ins and outs of all of those shows. I spoke the lingo. I got to know all of the people who made a TV show work. Maybe most important, I learned to tolerate the demanding hours and the extreme workload of television production, and that work ethic has stayed with me ever since.
To this day, I wake nearly every morning at four-fifteen, though now I do it for selfish reasons: to have time to think and read and exercise before the demands of the day take over. Those hours aren’t for everyone, but however you find the time, it’s vital to create space in each day to let your thoughts wander beyond your immediate job responsibilities, to turn things over in your mind in a less pressured, more creative way than is possible once the daily triage kicks in. I’ve come to cherish that time alone each morning, and am certain I’d be less productive and less creative in my work if I didn’t also spend those first hours away from the emails and text messages and phone calls that require so much attention as the day goes on.
It was a very different industry back then. In some ways it was better. The competition was simpler, the world less atomized. Certainly there was a mostly shared American narrative, organized around a general societal belief in basic facts. In many other ways, though, it was worse. For one, there was a shrugging tolerance of a level of disrespect that would be unacceptable today. It was without a doubt much more difficult on a day-to-day basis for women and members of underrepresented groups than it ever was for me. But even in my case, being low on the food chain meant exposure to the occasional, casual abuse that people would be fired for now.
One example that captures so much of that time: The Evening News was broadcast at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The moment we wrapped, the anchorman Harry Reasoner and his stage manager, a man called Whitey, would walk off the set and park themselves at the bar of the Hotel des Artistes on West Sixty-seventh Street. (The Evening News was broadcast from a converted ballroom in the old hotel.) Every evening, Harry would down a double extra-dry Beefeater Martini on the rocks with a twist.
Product details
- Publisher : Random House; First Edition (September 23, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0399592091
- ISBN-13 : 978-0399592096
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.32 x 1.01 x 9.51 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #7,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #30 in Biographies of Business & Industrial Professionals
- #159 in Leadership & Motivation
- #269 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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reads amazingly well. I wolfed it!
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About the author
Robert Iger is chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as president and CEO, beginning in October 2005, and was president and COO from 2000 to 2005. Iger began his career at ABC in 1974, and as chairman of the ABC Group he oversaw the broadcast television network and station group and cable television properties, and guided the merger between Capital Cities/ABC and the Walt Disney Company. Iger officially joined the Disney senior management team in 1996 as chairman of the Disney-owned ABC Group and in 1999 was given the additional responsibility of president, Walt Disney International. In that role, Iger expanded Disney's presence outside of the United States, establishing the blueprint for the company's international growth today.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book easy to read and well-written. They appreciate the insightful leadership lessons and powerful lessons from the stories. Readers praise the author's humility, honesty, and integrity. They describe the author as personable and a decent man with exemplary character. The insights into his experiences are enlightening and a nice summary of his life.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book easy to read with a clear storyline and interesting vignettes. They describe it as an engaging memoir with well-written content and a fast-paced thriller feel. Readers also mention that the book provides valuable insights into business and leadership.
"...The story makes it all easy and compelling reading. And he shares explicit lessons in two places in the book...." Read more
"...I wolfed it. It reads like a fast-paced thriller, but a one that actually happened and described from the first-person perspective...." Read more
"...I enjoyed this book as I continued to discover how his intelligence, integrity and very human philosophy, carried him to his success and how he..." Read more
"...He's a strong communicator, making some pretty complex ideas accessible for all readers...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and nicely written. It provides powerful lessons about managing the creative process and negotiating difficult situations. Readers appreciate the thoughtful firsthand account from a great CEO. The author demonstrates his principles through examples and makes them think about themselves at work. Overall, it's described as an interesting career memoir.
"...world, but these strike me as universal ideas: about fostering risk taking and creativity; about building a culture of trust; about fueling a deep..." Read more
"...sprinkles some celebrity's names along the way, but it still is a business book...." Read more
"...as I continued to discover how his intelligence, integrity and very human philosophy, carried him to his success and how he handled setbacks." Read more
"...I wish it got even denser and deeper, but this is more of a high level overview memoir with some broad lessons to take away...." Read more
Customers enjoy the engaging stories in the book. They find the storytelling captivating, with insights into Iger's life and career. Readers appreciate the author's candor and storytelling skills. The stories cover both successes and failures, good leadership, and lessons learned. The story builds momentum continuously from Iger's conviction.
"...The story makes it all easy and compelling reading. And he shares explicit lessons in two places in the book...." Read more
"...major business stories include major acquisitions, which while really interesting, are not exactly applicable to the average reader...." Read more
"...There are lots of great stories about success and failures, good leadership and bad...." Read more
"...The book is filled with personal stories and practical advice that can be applied in any leadership role, whether in business or other fields...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's humility and honesty. They find the leadership style and personal connections honest and candid. The book is described as heartwarming and trust-building, with human emotions like gratitude and decency.
"...denial of it; and about operating, always, with integrity and honesty in the world, even when that means facing things that are difficult to face...." Read more
"...Well, in plain English: with a single person. Relationships are paramount in business. In fact, it's the 80% of the business...." Read more
"...Also, and extremely important, is the very human emotions..." Read more
"...driven, gutsy, forthright man that is balanced with humility, kindness, and genuine humanness. This man has earned everything he has and then some." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's humanness. They find the author impressive, personable, and decent. They describe him as a humble, empathetic leader with real integrity. Readers are inspired by his regard for people, doing the right thing, and creating greatness.
"...beginnings through the trajectory of his career, all in a very real, human and conversational style that made me feel like he was telling me the..." Read more
"...Mr Iger is respectful of his readers, making sure that he/she can take away lessons and advice from this book that are useful not only if you run a..." Read more
"...a great CEO and as I learned from the book, also an empathetic leader with real integrity – such a page turner that I read it in a single sitting!..." Read more
"...He comes off as a genuinely good, down to earth guy who cares about his people (as all such biographies seem to do) with some good, honest lifetime,..." Read more
Customers find the book's insights enlightening and captivating. They appreciate the candid account of Bob Iger's career, as well as the narrative that guides readers through his experiences as CEO. The book also provides insights about well-known people who were not previously associated with Disney. Readers are pleased that it gives many behind-the-scenes answers to how Mr. Iger made decisions.
"...Characters -- A story involves interesting personalities and the dynamics between them...." Read more
"...Ride Of a Lifetime is a brief, simple read, but it is filled with captivating information...." Read more
"...It was a page turner in it's own right! He seamlessly flowed through his history and I found myself thirsting for more as if I didn't know the..." Read more
"Nice summary of Iger's life...." Read more
Customers find the book engaging. They appreciate the style and layout, describing it as captivating and well-written. The author provides detailed explanations about his leadership process in a clear and vivid manner. Readers also mention that the tips are practical and down-to-earth. Overall, customers find the book insightful and thought-provoking.
"...For example, “thoroughness” is well illustrated in the preface, on pages x through xiv...." Read more
"...He's a strong communicator, making some pretty complex ideas accessible for all readers...." Read more
"...Great behind the scenes look into some huge acquisitions: Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel, Fox...." Read more
"...multiple pictures of the author with his wife including a colorful photo image of the author with his wife who is wearing a Yoda dress, and much..." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's pacing. They find it an engaging and quick read with useful insights that can be absorbed quickly. The book is described as honest, informative, and timely. Readers finish it in one sitting, finding it full of personal and professional takeaways.
"...He is quick with great intuition and great writer." Read more
"...all his insights & lessons into a list you can synthesize & ruminate over quickly. Found that very handy...." Read more
"I loved this book and read it in about 5 days- which is fast for me! Part memoir, part business advice, Bob Iger delivers his nuggets of wisdom and..." Read more
"...His legacy is one for the history books. It read very quickly and I wish it could have gone on even longer." Read more
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Inspiring Leadership Lessons from a Legendary CEO
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2024The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger offers invaluable insights into leadership, business strategy, and personal growth. Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned over his 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at how he led Disney through incredible challenges and transformed the company into the entertainment giant it is today.
What I found most inspiring was Iger’s emphasis on the importance of innovation, integrity, and trust in leadership. He reveals how staying true to your values and taking calculated risks can lead to monumental success. The book is filled with personal stories and practical advice that can be applied in any leadership role, whether in business or other fields.
The Ride of a Lifetime is a must-read for anyone interested in leadership, business strategy, or the entertainment industry.
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring Leadership Lessons from a Legendary CEOThe Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger offers invaluable insights into leadership, business strategy, and personal growth. Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned over his 15 years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, giving readers a behind-the-scenes look at how he led Disney through incredible challenges and transformed the company into the entertainment giant it is today.
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2024
What I found most inspiring was Iger’s emphasis on the importance of innovation, integrity, and trust in leadership. He reveals how staying true to your values and taking calculated risks can lead to monumental success. The book is filled with personal stories and practical advice that can be applied in any leadership role, whether in business or other fields.
The Ride of a Lifetime is a must-read for anyone interested in leadership, business strategy, or the entertainment industry.
Images in this review - Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2020I usually start my reviews from the CONs, but there is little to be choosy about here.
The only drawback is there are not a lot of business lessons in the book. It's a great read, but I have only 11 highlights and notes. So, I didn't learn a lot.
Oh, and despite all the challenges, the whole story felt a bit lukewarm. Maybe Mr. Iger always calls every a**hole a "strong personality", or maybe he is just nice to the core? Well, it didn't feel very authentic.
On the other hand, maybe the life in the 0.01% earners in the world is so nice, how would I know?
PROS
1. Great Read.
"The Ride of a Lifetime" reads amazingly well. I wolfed it.
It reads like a fast-paced thriller, but a one that actually happened and described from the first-person perspective.
My guess is Mr. Inger had a world-class ghostwriter ;) If not, then hats off to him; he would probably made more money as a writer than the CEO of Disney.
I haven't enjoyed a book to this degree in a long time. I read it like I read the best fiction- almost in one sitting, and putting my whole life on hold to finish the book.
2. A Sneak-Peek into the Billion-Dollar World.
I've lived on this planet over 41 years and I haven't bumped yet into a person who earns billions of dollars, or the one who signs billion-dollar deals. This book was my next-to-best experience.
I appreciate the author let me into his world and showed me around a bit. Steve Jobs, George Lucas... Now, I feel like I interacted with them.
3. Business Lessons.
"The Ride of a Lifetime" reads as a thriller, sprinkles some celebrity's names along the way, but it still is a business book.
My takeaways were few and far between, yet each time they were significant. Let's go over a few of them:
"Don't let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decisions."
We are emotional beings and most of emotions are related to our ego. It's enough to just take a step back and assess the situation to notice extraordinary solutions.
It applies as to life decisions as aptly as to business decisions.
"Long shots aren't usually as long as they seem."
You never know till you try. NEVER!
"What people think of you, they will think of your company."
It was the hurdle between Disney and Pixar in the first place. The two CEOs didn't think of themselves too high. So, there was no space for doing business. The shift of the relationship was possible only with the personal changes.
"Each deal depended on building trust with a single controlling entity."
Well, in plain English: with a single person. Relationships are paramount in business. In fact, it's the 80% of the business. And the fabric of each relationship is always the mutual trust.
And a couple of lessons from between the lines:
1. "Stay humble; be persistent."
Just being humble and making decisions with a clear head would've been worthless without perseverance. The grit of Robert Inger demonstrated throughout his career is simply superb.
2. "Emotions, emotions, emotions."
When the author described the biggest deals which build the power of Disney as it is now (Pixar, Marvel, LucasArts), he was all about navigating the emotions of the other man. There are some business considerations sprinkled over his narration, but the main thing was always considering the other person's emotions.
LucasArts was the legacy for George Lucas. It couldn't be treat as a common business decision. Yes, Inger had to consider the financial aspect, but even the price Lucas obtained was the result of how much George identified with his universe than an effect of logical calculations.
Once Robert built a rapport with Steve, the deal between Pixar and Disney was almost seamless.
Emotions are paramount, too.
Summary
"The Ride of a Lifetime" is a fascinating read AND you can learn something from it in the by-the-way manner.
The insight into the lives of the most powerful people in the world was an icing on the cake.
During my lecture, I really liked the author as a person. Reading his story I appreciated how he found a balance between remaining a human being and becoming the top corpo official at the same time.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2020The subtitle of this book promises “Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO Of the Walt Disney Company.” You’ll get those, but there’s a lot more. The lessons learned go all the way back to Bob Iger’s childhood and his time at college. They include his time at ABC, which began in 1974.
In other words, there’s a lot more to this book than the title would imply, and the title implies a lot. Bob Iger shares his goal for the book in the Prologue.
“If you run a business or manage a team or collaborate with others in pursuit of a common goal, this book might be helpful to you. My experiences from day one have all been in the media and entertainment world, but these strike me as universal ideas: about fostering risk taking and creativity; about building a culture of trust; about fueling a deep and abiding curiosity in oneself and inspiring that in the people around you; about embracing change rather than living in denial of it; and about operating, always, with integrity and honesty in the world, even when that means facing things that are difficult to face.”
There’s a lot for you in this book, if you’re a leader, someone responsible for the performance of a group. You’ll learn some lessons by reading Iger’s story. Other lessons are written out more explicitly. It’s a great combination.
You get to watch Bob Iger develop. His core values stay essentially the same as his skills develop and his challenges increase. He learns from many mentors. He takes good things from each one and gives them all credit.
The story makes it all easy and compelling reading. And he shares explicit lessons in two places in the book. Iger sketches “10 principles that strike me as necessary to true leadership” in the Prologue. After the end of the book, there’s a section titled “Lessons to Lead By.”
This is a great book. You will learn from the story and from Bob Iger’s life and example. And you’ll learn from explicit lessons that he lays out.
I highlight interesting things and important learnings in every book that I read. Good books have lots of highlights. Great books have mind-jarring highlights. They’re the kind where you stop reading the book, put it down, and ponder what you just read. There was at least one mind-jarring highlight for me in every chapter.
Bottom Line
If you’re a leader or you want to be, buy The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned From 15 Years as CEO Of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger and read it. You’ll absorb lessons from the interesting story that is Bob Iger’s life. You’ll also learn from the explicit lessons.
Top reviews from other countries
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Cliente de KindleReviewed in Mexico on October 16, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Una magnifica lectura e inveión
Historia real, redactada por quien la vivió; en ella "descubres" que el trabajo, la dedicación a la tarea, la aceptación del reto, no bastan para transformar a nadie si uno no se propone actuar con humildad, empatia, deseo de mantenerse aprendiendo permanentemente para destacar positivamente en su ambito de desarrollo.
La historia te mantiene interesado en su desarrollo, pero lo más valioso del libro es lo que el lector encuentra entre lineas.
- Doug EveneshenReviewed in Canada on July 20, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional
Couldn't put the book down. And it has a list of key points at the end of the book, which is a tremendous value and reminder of the messages throughout the book. Excellent reading. I would recommend this to others.
- DodoReviewed in France on May 24, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I ever read about management
Easy to understand- and super logical way of thinking. Thank you Bob for this wonderful book! I learned a lot from you.
- Guilherme Quadros dos SantosReviewed in Brazil on January 26, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Detailed satisfactorily
Interesting histories about Disney CEO, how he got to this position and projects he led, even with Steve Jobs
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LAReviewed in Germany on January 23, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars was ein Buch!
Großartige Biografie mit tollen Werten,Normen und Geschichten. Eine andere Seite von Disney, ich war schon immer ein großer Bob iger Fan, dieses Buch unterstreicht das fan sein in mir. Toller Mensch, von dem man viel lernen kann.