The Bad Avoids tough questions, forgets he's not the star
The Bottom Line A work in progress
Interviewing moguls isn't always fun. And when I had to interview Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney (DIS), it was downright painful. Self-deprecating in public, Eisner was quick to fence with an offending reporter. When I last interviewed him three years ago, in fact, he was downright testy, lecturing me on how Disney ran its theme parks despite the fact that I had written a book -- with his help -- more than a decade earlier on how he ran his company.
These days, Eisner is more journalist than mogul. But as he showed during the first installment of Conversations with Michael Eisner, it can be tough to give up the podium. The hourlong talkshow, which CNBC says it will air "bimonthly," featured a stiff Eisner throwing mostly softball questions at power pals Martha Stewart, Howard Stringer, and technologist Bran Ferren, who headed Disney's high-tech operations during Eisner's tenure. The former Head Mousketeer just kept turning the spotlight back on himself.
The effect was somewhat jarring, even if Eisner wasn't trying to give viewers the corporate equivalent of standup comedy. When he asked Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) founder Stewart about her reputation as a micromanager, Eisner said he felt like "I was looking into a very strange mirror," and added that he "had been known to change the shampoo" in Disneyland hotel bathrooms." When Stringer spoke of the layoffs that are part of his turnaround plans for electronics giant Sony (SNE), Eisner interjected "I was hiring people and getting killed," while Stringer was slashing and "getting awards."
FLUFF STUFF. As an interviewer, Eisner missed some obvious questions and mostly stayed away from the tough stuff. He didn't ask Stewart about her conviction for lying about selling ImClone (IMCL) shares, but he did elicit from the homemaking diva how she "brightened up the day" for inmates at what Eisner and Stewart joked wasn't jail but "Yale." She talked about her perfectionism and mentioned that older men want to buy larger trees for their backyards because they're no longer patient. (Eisner volunteered that he had just bought some tall trees for his place.)
As for Stringer -- why no question about Sony delaying its long-anticipated PlayStation 3 game player? Eisner did get Stringer to admit that he doesn't know much about the technology behind Sony's new Cell computer chip, but that's a bit of a yawner.
Ferren, renowned for thinking far outside the box, described a future in which "database access will be built into human beings" through implanted chips. Eisner cut him short and followed up with: "So, you've thought about the future, you've thought about the government, is the U.S. over?" Huh?
WARMING UP. Eisner does show some promise as a journalist. He was meticulously prepared, asking Stringer about his days as a soldier in Vietnam and getting Ferren to talk about the difficulty of designing Tower of Terror, Disney's falling elevator ride. He called KB Home's (KBH) CEO to ask about the steps that Stewart took before she agreed to create Martha Stewart-branded houses for the company (see BW Online, 1/17/06, "Martha Needs Some Polish"). That kind of research gives Eisner extra credibility.
As the hour came to a close, Eisner, who sat on one side of a table and spoke in his trademark semi-hoarse tone, started growing into the role of interviewer. He did get Stringer to admit to saying "mildly idiotic" things to loosen up his Japanese subordinates, and asked whether Sony will "say to hell with content" and get out of Hollywood to concentrate on consumer electronics. A great question, which Stringer gamely tried to answer.
EGO FREE ZONE. The Eisner who bantered with Stringer is the one I'd like to see on future shows. There was less mogul and more man about town, with the former Disney CEO using his wit and charm to dive under the layers of what makes businesspeople successful. There will be time for Eisner to take center stage: in an upcoming show, talkshow host Regis Philbin turns the tables on Eisner, making fun of him for killing off Philbin's franchise hit Who Wants to be a Millionaire? by airing it too often on ABC's primetime.
In the end, though, this is a show about the biggies sitting across the table from Eisner. He would do well to take some pointers from the Sony CEO, a gregarious, self-deprecating sort in his own right. When Eisner congratulated the Welsh-born Stringer on his ability to check his own ego for the good of his company, Stringer quipped: "I'm Welsh, we have nothing to have an ego about." Neither should ex-moguls turned TV show hosts.
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