Mickey Mouse may be an iconic figure. However, history has shown that Walt Disney may have actually been a rat. Building his empire of “The Wonderful World of Disney” does not qualify him to be a captain of industry. By definition, a captain of industry is one with positive integrity. Whereas, a robber baron is motivated by greed. As Disney began his ascent, he was like the Pharaoh in his Prince of Egypt production. Believing the end justified the means, Disney plowed over employees, considering their livelihood as part of collateral damage. Disney was a robber baron with a pernicious temper, who harshly controlled employees, and ruled his cast members by intimidation. Although Walt Disney was known to the public as generous and gentle, …show more content…
The production Snow White alone produced “...over $8 million during its release -- about $130 million today.” (Source F). Without the talent and skills of his animators, Walt Disney would not have been able to gather this amount of proceeds. Disney could afford to treat his animators with greater respect as reflected in their paychecks. A captain of industry helps create jobs. As would follow with all of Disney’s financial success, did that make him a captain of industry? Disney may have opened a variety of job opportunities for the public, but it did not necessarily qualify him as a captain of industry. Just as a sweat factory employed its unhappy workers, many Disney employees felt similar oppression. This led to the rally call of a strike. The day of the strike, “…Walt Disney … found the entrance to his studio ringed with a mob of 300 picketers and reporters” (Source E). This rebellion, the Disney Strike of 1941, was considered the biggest in the history of the cartoon industry. It affected a guild of 800 members and lasted for over nine weeks (Source E). The efforts of the strike forced Disney to heed the demands of his disgruntled employees. Their strike was effective, and it gave workers the chance to be paid more, and to be treated
Since the 1930’s, the Walt Disney Company is known for producing characters, images, as well as stories which have created happiness for audiences around the world. This corporation has grown from a small cartoon studio run by famous Walt and Roy Disney to a million dollar business. In Janet Wasko’s novel, “Understanding Disney”, Wasko explains Disney as corporation calling it “The Disney Empire”. Throughout her novel, Wasko argues that Disney is set up like a typical profit seeking corporation, as well as creates and manufactures fantasy, and lastly re-invents folk tales by “Americanising” them.
There were many men that made America the way it is today and they did not achieve that by sitting back and doing nothing they put their heart and soul into their work.”No man becomes rich unless he enriches others. -Andrew Carnegie”(Andrew Carnegie Quotes). There are many reasons why Andrew Carnegie and Walt Disney are alike and why they are different. They both believe that a good leader is persistent, enthusiastic, honest, and courageous. But most of their differences have to do with how they were raised, Carnegie grew up working and having to support his family and he had no idea what he was going to do as an adult, while Disney dropped out of high school and left his family to pursue his dreams.
Walt Disney is extremely known for being a film producer and popular showman. He was very recognizing for being an innovator in animation and theme park design. Disney was a visionary in terms of cartoons. Disney views and visions came from his persistence for the future. Walt Disney strives upon building Disney’s to have core strengths in three areas of entertainment and recreation, motion pictures and videos. Walt created his first animated character, Mickey Mouse.
Walter Elias Disney was an amazing film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Mr. Disney left this world, impacting and inspiring the lives of everyone and changing the world of movie-making forever. Walt Disney was the creator of popular animated characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White. He is the namesake for the Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Resort, and many more. Walt Disney had lived an enthralling life, and improved the field of entertainment tremendously. To sum it all up, Walt Disney will always be remembered as the best entertainer of
Walt Disney is the prolific creator and leader of The Walt Disney Company. Disney is most recognized for his gallant efforts which created the Disney empire, yet his leadership style is one that has melded into a company culture and a prescribed way of organizational leadership. Disney is a man of many words and accomplishments which has led the Disney organization to extensive success. Throughout his 43 year career in film and television, Disney was the personification of a great leader.
The ability to communicate his vision was just the beginning of Walt Disney’s leadership characteristics. Simply stating ones vision is not enough, you must motivate your followers to reach goals, and Disney was an excellent motivator. One tactic he used to motivate employees was encouraging innovation and rewarding good ideas. In pursuit of additional funding to create new films, Disney reached out to his employees on possible ways to obtain funding from Disneyland. A team of seven people decided to increase revenue they would open the park on weekdays and allow corporate members to offer discounted tickets for their employees. Overall, their plan was a huge success. To reward his employees for their success, on Christmas day each employee opened their door to find Mickey Mouse standing there with an envelope. Inside it were 100 shares of Disney stock, 25 $1,000 bills and a hand-written note from Walt: “It’s fantastic. You’re fantastic. Do it again” (Bradt, 2015).
Imagine yourself as one person trying to totally reinvent the way that families are entertained. I will be talking to you about a farmer that became an animator. A farmer as a visionary leader, impressive. That is the story of Walt Disney. By all rights, Walt Disney was an excellent animator, but he had the self-awareness to know that he could not make his vision a reality on his own. I believe that Walt Disney is a visionary leader and I will show you how he used “Team Building”, “a group organized to work together”, (Thomas N. Barnes Center, 2012)(p.2) skills, “Diversity”, “a composite of individuals characteristics, experiences, and abilities”, (Thomas N. Barnes Center, 2012)(p.3) skills, and Full Range Leadership Development, “Contingent Reward”, “When the follower fulfills the leader’s expectation, a reward is provide to reinforce the demonstrated positive behavior.”,(Thomas N. Barnes Center, 2012),(p.14) skills to inspire people to buy into his vision and motivate others to help him accomplish his vision. I informed you earlier that I believe Walt Disney is a visionary leader, but that doesn’t make him an ethical leader. Through Walt Disney’s violation of “Honest”, “the bottom line is we don’t lie”, (United States Air Force Core Values, 1997), (p.1), “Openness”, “the free flow of
Disney’s long-run success is mainly due to creating value through diversification. Their corporate strategies (primarily under CEO Eisner) include three dimensions: horizontal and geographic expansion as well as vertical integration. Disney is a prime example of how to achieve long-run success through the choices of business, the choice of how many activities to undertake, the choice of how many businesses to be in, the choice of how to manage a portfolio of businesses and the choice of how to create synergies between those businesses (3, p.191-221). All these choices and decisions are
When the subject of the Disney Enterprises is brought up, one often thinks of cartoons, musicals or other movies, amusement parks, and famous characters such as Mickey Mouse.
The Walt Disney Studio’s Diversity Mission Statement is “To create an inclusive environment that is open to all perspectives, allowing us to tell compelling stories in film, animation and music that visually and emotionally reflect our audience worldwide.” “The Walt Disney Studios maintains that the only existing boundaries are those of talent, ambition, imagination and innovation.” (Moore, 2007)
Overall, through ‘Transformational Leadership’, Walt openly communicated his vision into the infrastructure of Disney and instilled values and a sense of purpose among his employees. With a wanted trust and respect for followers, he was able to encourage and challenge traditional methods to harness better, innovative ways to solutions (Flower 1991). Ruling by consensus, his consideration for the individual needs of his followers made him an ideal teacher and coach for his enterprise (Davis 2008).
“The purpose of the company "Walt Disney" is to be one of the world 's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information using its portfolio of brands to differentiate its content, services and consumer goods. The primary financial objectives of the company are to maximize profits and cash flow, and allocate capital to initiatives the development of long-term shareholder value.”
1. What is Walt Disney Company’s corporate generic strategy? Explain the reason for your answer.
Walt Disney, animator, cartoonist, and entrepreneur, was a man of incredible vision and passion. He fundamentally transformed the entertainment industry in America. Prior to Walt Disney Studios, the art of animation was simply a "moving comic strip," void of sound or color and generally constrained to short vignettes featuring friendly characters like cats. Disney was the first to innovate a system of animation on a large-scale, capable of producing feature-length films. Snow White, Dumbo, Pinocchio- these productions revolutionized the film industry in a way never seen previously. Walt Disney continues to be a cultural phenomenon, a household name spoken to this day by children across the world.
The Walt Disney Company started as a small entertainment company in 1923 (Disney.com, 2011). Since that time the company has used various strategies enabling them to grow into a global entertainment company.