Hiring and firing in the world of Disney

MICHAEL Ovitz may be interested to discover that Michael Eisner, the chairman who sacked him from Walt Disney, wishes they were friends again.

Eisner even says he thinks they will be.

In his long-awaited autobiography, Work In Progress, Eisner admits that he mishandled the whole fiasco of the hiring and then firing 14 months later of his friend Ovitz. The fact was, he says, that "it was impossible to command Michael's (Ovitz's) sustained attention even on key issues."

Eisner first suspected he had made a mistake in hiring the former Hollywood super-agent when Ovitz repeatedly cancelled meetings with Steve Bollenbach, the finance director, designed to teach him about Disney's finances.

The chairman also became alarmed at Ovitz's obsession with his media profile, which seemed more important to him than many issues at Disney.

Meanwhile, Disney executives who found that Ovitz was encroaching on their territory began to demand dismissal until, Eisner says, he had little choice but to oust him.

A messy split followed in which Ovitz walked away with nearly $100 million in compensation.

The book, published by Random House, has been delayed repeatedly over the past three years for various reasons including the bad publicity from the Ovitz debacle. Even now it appears at a moment when Disney's shares are languishing and the company's dynamic performance has stalled. Eisner hopes it will refurbish his reputation on Wall Street, where he is no longer regarded with adulation.

The book contains little to surprise seasoned Disney watchers, telling the story of Eisner's success during the past 14 years in turning Disney into one of the world's most successful entertainment groups. Earlier this month, however, Disney issued a profit warning, blaming the slowdown on the economic crisis in Asia.

Eisner professes not to care about the drop in Disney stock, which he says was overvalued before.

Writing about another celebrated management debacle, the resignation of Jeffrey Katzenberg in 1994, Eisner says the split was amicable. Katzen-berg, head of Disney Films, demanded to be made president only 36 hours after Frank Wells, the previous president, died in a helicopter crash.

Not long afterwards Eisner handed Katzenberg a Press release detailing management changes in which Katzenberg was not mentioned.

Katzenberg resigned on the spot - as Eisner had expected - and went off to set up DreamWorks with his friends Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.

Eisner tries to allay concerns that with his autocratic management style he has failed to groom any possible successors at Disney. "There is a succession plan," he isays, claiming that there are at least 20 executives capable of taking over from him.

But shareholders may not be reassured by a further comment that "we just haven't announced it to the public, or even announced it inside".

Copyright 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.