"Work In Progress" is the long-anticipated memoir of Michael Eisner, CEO of the Walt Disney Company. Eisner takes you behind the scenes to show how he used a combination of fact and intuition to arrive at the decisions that enabled Disney to achieve its remarkable financial turnaround. In 1984 Disney had a profit margin of $100 million, with Eisner, it grew to nearly $2 billion in 1997.
Without a grimace or a flinch, Eisner details his management style, his triumphs and failures since taking over Disney in late 1984. He lays out the problems encountered at the Euro Disney theme park near Paris; the failed attempt to build a historical theme park in Virginia; the tragic death of his Disney partner and confidant, Frank Wells; his own emergency quadruple heart bypass surgery; and the high-level management changes that followed.
The memoir also traces Eisner's life and career from his New York boyhood up to the present day. His climb to the top of the corporate ladder is no fluke. He earned his success and suffered his failures, always keeping in mind lessons learned as a boy in summer camp: "Work hard. Help the other fellow. Tell the truth. When you make a commitment, stand by it. Be tough, but fair."
In the final chapter, Eisner speculates about the future entertainment and Disney's strategies to meet the challenges of the new millennium. He says, "I spend far less time looking back in regret than I do looking forward with anticipation . . . There is so much to be done."
"Work In Progress" is a valuable blueprint for success in any medium, especially the one called life.
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(Jones is a book critic for the Tulsa World,Tulsa,OK
and the Camden Times, Camden, NY)
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