Curiosity. A deep and abiding curiosity enables the discovery of new people, places, and ideas, as well as an awareness and an understanding of the marketplace and its changing dynamics. The path to innovation begins with curiosity.

You can do a lot for the morale of the people around you (and therefore the people around them) just by taking the guesswork out of their day-to-day life. A lot of work is complex and requires intense amounts of focus and energy, but this kind of messaging is fairly simple: This is where we want to be. This is how we're going to get there.

I would give Roy an emeritus role on the board and would invite him to film premieres and theme-park openings and special company events. (He wouldn’t attend board meetings, however.) I’d also give him a small consulting fee and an office on the lot so he could come and go and call Disney his home again. In exchange, there would be no lawsuit, no

Innovate or die, and there’s no innovation if you operate out of fear of the new or untested.

The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in ever-changing, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have courage.

Michael Eisner used to say, "micromanaging is underrated." I agree with him-to a point. Sweating the details can show how much you care. "Great" is often a collection of very small things, after all. The downside of micromanagement is that it can be stultifying, and it can reinforce the feeling that you don't trust the people who work for you.

Courage. The foundation of risk-taking is courage, and in everchanging, disrupted businesses, risk-taking is essential, innovation is vital, and true innovation occurs only when people have This is true of acquisitions, investments, and capital allocations, and it particularly applies to creative decisions. Fear of failure destroys creativity.

Excellence and fairness don't have to be mutually exclusive. Strive for perfection but always be aware of the pitfalls of caring only about the product and never the people.

It's a hard thing to do, especially in the moment, but those instances in which you find yourself hoping that something will work without being able to convincingly explain to yourself how it will work-that's when a little bell should go off, and you should walk yourself through some clarifying questions. What's the problem I need to solve? Does