Some thought Bob Chapek was in the hot seat at Disney. It turns out he was always in the driver’s seat and the Board of Directors just gave him the green light.
Bob Chapek, the supposedly beleaguered CEO of The Walt Disney Company, has been renewed early and unanimously by the Board of Directors of the company during a “health check” of the corporation in Orlando, Florida. Whereas other sites had framed this “health check” as a referendum against Chapek, we have not been so foolish. By giving Chapek a three-year addition to his contract so far in advance of the deadline, the Board’s unanimous decision can only be seen as a full endorsement. Given that Chapek’s prior goal was to moderate the company, which was then derailed momentarily by activists within Pixar and other Disney-owned studios, it would seem the ouster of those who sought his downfall is probably nigh. It should also be noted that any news sources or opinion sites which thought Chapek firing Peter Rice was a way to defend his position are probably not the most trustworthy for understanding the entertainment industry. Clearly the Board of Directors is fully in sync with Bob Chapek. And as one reader of this site has messaged us, perhaps Chapek is the hatchet man the Board is looking for.
“Disney DIS –0.71% was dealt a tough hand by the pandemic, yet with Bob at the helm, our businesses — from parks to streaming — not only weathered the storm, but emerged in a position of strength,” Disney Chairman Susan Arnold said in a statement on Tuesday. “In this important time of growth and transformation, the Board is committed to keeping Disney on the successful path it is on today, and Bob’s leadership is key to achieving that goal. Bob is the right leader at the right time for The Walt Disney Company, and the Board has full confidence in him and his leadership team.”
— Janet H. Cho, Barron’s
https://twitter.com/ThatParkPlace1/status/1541216009897508865
The decision to re-up Chapek’s tenure comes on the heels of Pixar’s abysmal bomb of Lightyear at the box office — a film that was used as a wedge issue to both damage the CEO and force the Walt Disney Company away from a prior position. It also comes as Disney+ viewership does not seem to be rising at the level one would expect were the company on track to hit projection goals. With this vote of utter confidence, however, it may be that the Board agrees with Chapek and may disagree with others as to the cause of those missteps.
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Someone needs to thank Iger for the mess instead of blaming Chapek (my opinion).
Doesn’t the board include Iger?
No Iger was gone as of January 1 2022
Hatchet man? I need the popcorn when this happens.
Yeah, that was me on Twitter talking with TPP.
What I did was float the idea that Chapek could potentially be a Disney corporate hatchet man.
That’s not a disparaging comment but an actual description for a role that sometimes happens in a company that decides on the board level that they need to enact a severe culture change to their company in order to maintain success, but at the same time don’t want to put the company in jeopardy from The fallout of those actions needed to be taken such as insubordination and so on.
As such, corporations in this instance will hire a corporate hatchet man – someone who is hired with the understanding that in a short period of time they will be fired, and giving a golden parachute consummate with their contributions. The hatchet man’s only goal is to enact the culture change as quickly and as harshly as possible. Usually, the hatchet man will over triangulate and go just a little bit further than the board truly desires.
The reason for all of this is so that
1) when the hatchet man gets ‘fired’, he takes all the hatred and animosity with him. People tend to be simple creatures and will blame what’s right in front of them. Therefore the hatchet man takes all the ‘blame’.
2) the corporate replacement for the hatchet man will be the intended long-term CEO or position of power within the company meant to guide and steer it at the board’s behest. He will immediately gain favor with the people in the company as he ‘loosens’ some of the changes that were made, playing up to be a sympathetic figure to the people who had to suffer through the corporate hatchet man. But he only loosens things up to the point of where the board wanted it all along in the first place and keeps the company there, ensuring they never go back but by appearing to be better than the corporate hatchet man who proceeded him, ends up currying favor for those within the company anyway who without realizing it have been retriangulated to the company’s new culture.
That mail sound crazy but it’s a known thing and it’s been done in many places including big businesses. Look up the term corporate hatchet man and you’ll find it very interesting. It’s not conspiracies theory but a real thing.
Now having said all that, I’ll follow up with what I said on Twitter recently – I don’t think this extension means Chapek is the corporate hatchet Man unless he’s gone at the end of the 3 years.
Instead of a hatchet, Disney has just given Bob chapek a flamethrower to burn it all down and start over.
And Chapek would be a fool not to use it.
I agree with you on this line of thinking.
Some people have thrown around the idea that Chapek is Machiavellian and this is him playing 4D chess, the problem with that theory is that Machiavelli kept his head only because he stayed in the shadows as a puppet master. That is not Chapek’s role.
Chapek is the hatchet man and Arnold is Machiavelli playing 4D chess.
Chapek was originally given a 3 year contract to clean house. Because of covid, Iger stayed around for 2 extra years and prevented Chapek from doing his job. Chapek has only had 6 months so far and his extension effectively resets him to a total of 3 1/2 years. It would not be surprising if he just started the timer and is about to light the flamethrower.
I think Chapek was originally only supposed to be a financial hatchet man. Getting the company into a better financial position after the expenditures during the latter part of Iger’s tenure.
That has since been transformed into this “corporate health” hatchet man. The creatives at Disney are now so out of sync with their customers that they’ve taken to insulting them whenever the creatives produce content that no one watches.
Is anyone in the Orlando area able to do a mental health check on Tom Corless?
The reactions to this news on the WDWMagic forums is almost all wailing and gnashing of teeth. LoL
From a theme park perspective I get it. From a company-wide view, a cleanup needs to happen.
WDWMagic are just being philistines if you ask me.