Ba420 Power and Politics Essay

A). Lack of Teamwork and Conflict resoultion: In relation to the case, many of the recently hires employees are not including and not trusting/age discriminating Mr. Hill. Although, there were more older employees who were upset, Mr. Hill was the one who had a massive reduction in hours. He is now going to the HR Director and Executive Director. He should have approached them earlier with the problem. (Chapter 4)

Lasseter was named the Chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney.Since taking on that position in 2006 he has been the executive on all of Disney animation studios feature films as well as it's division Disney Toons Studios. (Disney animation studio/teamview, 2016) Lasseter is the first film maker to oversee Disneys animation operations since Walt Disney himself. Lasseter has been the executive producers on such films as Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Brave, Planes, Frozen(no.1 animated film of all time) and many more. In 2011 Lasseter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Lasseter is currently working on Toy Story 4 set to release in 2018. (Disney animation studio/teamview,

The companies worked towards a culture that was more in line with team learning. Pixar had previously operated under the premise where people were given the full chance to be creative and use their ideas in order to learn from their success or failures. Disney allowed for creativity however was more micromanaged. This new cultural shift for Disney to let go of some of the control was a hard thing to do for them. Disney had initially lost some of the people with this shift in their culture mainly with those who failed to adapt to this new free-spirited environment. With Disney’s regimented culture they followed more of a top down approach within their work environment. This approach initially during the merger hindered the learning approach that Disney Pixar was trying to create. Some employees at Pixar initially had issues with the cultural clash of a free-spirited environment and the rigid environment Disney operated with causing problems with retaining the talent at Pixar. Despite these cultural clashes and differences Disney Pixar was able to pull their new-shared vision in a direction that allowed for cross-organizational collaboration and for a new culture that worked for both companies.

When it came time to hire Eisner, Schneider, a Disney’s first president, explained, “…Michael [Eisner] had an amazing track record coming from Paramount. He’d had hits, Oscar nominations, Terms of Endearment. He was a winner when he was hired to come in and run Disney. He also was a man who liked to blow things up.” Eisner had a lot of experience in the film industry and was very successful, too; he was the perfect fit to help bring Disney out of their downward spiral. With Eisner’s help, he was able to use his previous experience at Paramount to lead Disney to success once again. Similarly, Katzenberg was willing to help lead Disney out of their misery by being the lifeline of the film division. Eisner recalled, “He was a worker. He was committed. He was obsessed”. When the film division no longer had hope, Katzenberg was there to guide it to something more than it had ever been before. He made the animators excited and pushed them to the next level. He held them to high standards. He never stopped until the drawings reached perfection; if that meant hundreds of edits to one drawing, then he would wait for the edit that eventually made the drawing flawless. With his determination, he was able to lead the film division to produce The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and many

Seventeen animation artists were ushered out of Disney Studios in Burbank, California on May 28th, 1941; they were then fired for being part of the Screen Cartoonist Guild.1 Once the news spread to the other eight hundred plus artists and four hundred plus Disney workers, many were outraged and further gathered together to make derisive posters and stir up compelling speeches to support of their fellow colleagues. On May 29th, 1941 three hundred employees went on strike.2 The few loyal to the Disney Corporation gathered with management in hopes to quickly put an end to the strike, however it was just the beginning. The Disney Studio Strike was acrimonious, lasting five weeks and ultimately shattering the benevolent image Disney Studios portrayed to the rest of the world.3 Many people associate the Disney Corporation with a lighthearted atmosphere and Walt Disney with the image of an artistic mastermind; so what happened to cause his workers to deceive him and go on strike?

In a noteworthy study focusing on power two reputable academics John R.P. French and Bertram Raven (1959) broke down power into six different forms which they call bases of power. These six bases of power are referent, legitimate, information, expert, coercive and reward power. French and Raven (1959) explain that these bases or notions of power are known to be the most significant and prevalent when discussing power. These notions of power will be used to analyse ‘Waking Sleeping Beauty’, a documentary focusing on the history of Walt Disney Feature Animation and a timeline of events, which occurred between 1984 to 1994. The events show the management and worker relationships of the organisation and the types of obstacles the company faced when trying to produce animated films.

Around six weeks into working for Gray’s Advertising, Disney was fired because the loss of a big account. Though many would take this as a setback, Disney found the positive in it. He had gained knowledge in how to maneuver through commercial trade, as well as making connections with people who would help him later in life.

Mr. Lasseter created this team through his earlier carrier when he was an animator at Disney. (wiki) During this time, Mr. Lasseter made his first attempted to produce a fully computer animated movie however he was shot down as well as fired from Disney. From here Mr. Lasseter went to work for Pixar and created short films to show off computer animation. After Mr. Lasseter’s short story Tin Toy was produced Disney became interested in Mr. Lasseter

Ron Miller and Card Walker became the new owners of the company and for the next 13 years, Disney would struggle and almost get bought out. During the 1970's and 1980's Disney was struggling with their animation department, with most of their senior animators retiring and leaving the less experienced animators behind. This left into question which way Disney now wanted to head. There was also an inside tension between the creative team and the corporate team on who had the say on which animation projects got the go-ahead.

Employees play a pivotal role in the development of a company. They can help build a positive corporate environment. It is extremely important for a company to contain valuable workers that can contribute to the work of the company. An employee can either help build or destroy a company. Today Walt Disney Co. represents one of the most diverse and largest human resource companies nationwide. This explains the success of the company because most of their entertainment relies on people skills, teamwork and cooperation. Despite the advancement of Disney’s company, Disney employees did not often agree with the ways he treated them. In 1941, Disney employees held one of the longest strikes in history (Disney Strike 1941 how it changed animation,2005).

Walt Disney has various tiers to maintain group performance. Top management is broken into two sections: corporate and business units. Corporate management is CEO Rober Iger and the nine senior executive?s. Business units are sales, production and much more. Employees Harrison (2005) examine group and individual accountability for tasks so to be that critical tasks are not falling in between the cracks (p.63). For example, Walt Disney board members has five annual meetings to ensure Executive responsibilities and group performance. One of the board members consists of a strategic planning for the entire organization. The obligation of the Board of Directors is to the manage internal control, financial reports and compliance with all by laws

It is evident that Jeffery Katzenberg played a significant role in the Walt Disney Animation Studios during this time period. In his role as head of film, he expressed power in differing ways to accomplish different objectives. Throughout the documentary Katzenberg displays a transactional style of leadership. Leading from the top, early on, he attempted to cement his position of power highlighting his ability to deliver commands to the animators and control integral decisions (Bass, 1991). On his first project with the studio, The Black Cauldron, Katzenberg displays legitimate power when believes the film to be too violent and despite protests from the animators insists cuts and changes must be made to the film (Hahn, 2009). French and Raven (1959), define legitimate power as the right – due to status – to prescribe behaviour to others; in simpler terms, to tell someone what to do. The animators likened the actions of Katzenberg to “causing world war three” and thus a power struggle ensues. Robins and Judge (2008) theorise that situations in which there are low levels of trust and high levels of uncertainty within an organisation increase the likelihood of resistance from employees. This rang true in the Disney animation department as many of the animators showed resistance to Katzenberg’s leadership and authority refusing to make the changes he wanted (Hahn, 2009). In retaliation Katzenberg displays an instant of coercive power – defined by French and Raven (1959) as a

Under her directions, all executives were pushed to challenge all-comers and scrapped the posture in which queries were often dismissed with a flat “no comment” response. She was quick on unleashing her “inner pit bull” on critics and reporters ((Disney Case Study – Corporate Spokesperson, “2004, Running Disney’s Word Machine,” Page 9). She even went against the proxy advisor glass, Lewis & Co by publicly stating it as “an upstart company that is trying to grab publicity.” She is tough even with the top management at Disney and known for difficult relationship with Fred Dicker, a New York Post Editor who described her as the “Jack Kevorkian of Public Information.”(Disney Case Study – Corporate Spokesperson, “2004, Running Disney’s Word Machine,” Page 10.)

Walt Disney saw change as a consequence of employee behaviour (Brownell, 2008). If a leader were to be effective, he or she must understand the needs of a member in an organisation. This also included an awareness of motives, personalities, skills, and abilities (See ‘Emotional Intelligence’ in Northouse 2010, p. 23; Brownell, 2008). Path-Goal Theory comprises the motivation of leaders toward subordinates in order that such needs are met and achievement of an organisation’s proposed goal is reached (Northhouse 2010). Walt Disney sustained subordinate involvement and interest through his leadership commitment to employees, as well as his dynamism and enthusiasm (Bryman 1993). After all, “Walt Disney’s greatest creation was not Fantasia, [n]or Snow White, but...his uncanny ability to make people happy” (Collins and

Disney has moved well beyond its cartoon-oriented roots. Though the company is still involved the production of original feature films and other related media (and though the media network division of the Company is still the organization’s leading generator of revenue) the company has long since stopped being your typical “animation studio” or “film production company.”