The crucial role of Disney’s Imagineers

While Disney’s creative efforts involve a vast network of individuals and departments working together, a core component of the company’s success has long been the Imagineering department. These dreamers and innovators fill the dual role of conceiving new concepts for Disney’s parks and other businesses, as well as finding creative ways to make those dreams possible. While during healthy seasons, the Imagineering and business departments seem to work with impressive synergy, at times of increased financial pressure, Imagineering seems to have ended up at odds with those holding the purse strings of the company.

Several years prior to the pandemic, we examined trends suggesting the relationship between Disney Imagineering and Disney’s business oversight was becoming more strained (our writer, Dakota, did an excellent job on his analysis). The consensus was that Imagineers felt they were sometimes written off as traditionalists, and the implementation of major projects like MyMagic+ frustrated department members who felt they weren’t being heard.

It's hard not to want to side with Disney’s Imagineers—after all, they play a crucial role in make Disney magic magical. That being said, both sides are needed—guest experience will ultimately tank if Disney builds monstrous projects that can’t be sustained or maintained. What I really appreciated about Dakota’s piece, however, was the crucial acknowledgement of what the Imagineers really are—the guardians of Disney’s identity and values. When the Imagineering department is flustered, that becomes reflected in the parks and in Disney’s overall business, because it can mean those core values are being undermined.

When the scales tip—Disney reorganizes its business

The frustrations of the current season largely took root with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of this worldwide event are still being wrestled with today, and they struck Disney particularly hard in three major areas. The first hit was the extended closure of their parks around the world. The second was Disney Cruise Lines coming to a standstill. If that wasn’t enough, the film industry tanked as theater attendance was badly affected (something which still has not bounced back). Were it not for sudden increased demand for Disney+, who knows where the company would be today?

To make matters more complicated, this major event took place around the same time that longtime CEO Bob Iger retired, passing the torch to current CEO Bob Chapek.

We cannot fault Disney for the survival actions they took following the pandemic. It was an unprecedented situation, and desperate measures were necessary to keep things afloat. They lost billions of dollars in revenue, and some manner of belt-tightening was inevitable. Disney made an understandable sharp shift to bolstering Disney+, the most reliable of their revenue streams, rather than pouring too much risk into the parks.

The problem is that it appears the scales aren’t tipping back the other direction even though demand for the parks has re-surged.

Bob Chapek became quite the controversial figure as head of the Walt Disney Company. While Bob Iger earned his fair share of criticism, he had a certain finesse for balancing the different components of Disney’s business, and by and large, he managed to maintain at least some form of balance between the company’s creative and business arms. We are hoping this balance is going to be restored as restructuring begins.

In general, Chapek gained a reputation as more of a bottom-line sort of guy, and the shifts made to Disney’s management structure has shown a strong slant towards bolstering the company’s financial oversight while downsizing or limiting risk from creative arms. One example of this was the decision to consolidate financial decision making for all of Disney’s media and entertainment enterprises under a new department headed by chairperson Kareem Daniel. Whereas Disney’s individual media and entertainment branches used to be able to make budgeting and green-light decisions on their own, these decisions now have to pass through Daniel and the new department. While this shift hasn’t affected the parks directly, its indicative of the general state of Disney’s reorganizing philosophy.