The Founder Flounder happens when a company forgets who they are. Graphics: Disney

Someone gets an idea. They found a business. They work out of a garage, they skip meals, they live cheap. The founder’s vision and guidance inspires others to join in. Slowly at first, but increasing accelerating, the business takes off. Although the business remains somewhat informal, the number of employees expands exponentially. Many years later, the founder, having built a success, retires or passes away. The people who worked with that founder carry on. To protect the founder’s vision, they codify processes and make decisions based on what they remember the founder doing. Those team members eventually retire or pass away too. A new team, consisting of people who knew about, but did not know the founder and the business goals, takes over. Eventually they too are gone and a new generation, with no firsthand memory of the founder, are placed in charge.

That’s when businesses flounder.

It’s a familiar sequence and happens all the time. Can anyone claim, for instance, that Apple products are as simple and elegant as they were when founder Steve Jobs saw his main mission as keeping complicated add–ons off his products?

The Walt Disney Company is currently, I believe, experiencing a founder flounder. The people in charge now want to do the best thing for the Walt Disney Company, and, in fairness to them, strive to make the world a better place. The problem is that the founder’s course seems to have been forgotten. There are a number of reasons this has happened.

1. Walt Disney passed away in 1966. Firsthand memories of him are becoming rarer every day.
2. The world, and peoples’ tastes and attitudes have changed dramatically in that fifty plus years.
3. Disney, beginning in the 1990s, purchased a number of business entities, including Cap Cities/ABC/ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Lucas Film, 20th century Fox. These acquisitions were smart. By dramatically increasing the size and revenue of the company, they did a great service to the memory of Walt Disney: they made a takeover of his company unlikely. Unfortunately however, none of these entities share Walt Disney’s vision of what Disney entertainment is. They have different world views and expect to be able to champion those world views in their offerings.
4. Disney is now on its seventh CEO. The first four (Roy Disney, Art Tatum, Card Walker, Ron Miller) knew Walt Disney personally. The last three (Michael Eisner, Bob Iger, Bob Chapek) did not. In what I call Christmas Treeing, each of the three added their own spin to the company. Listen, for instance, to this example of current CEO Bob Chapek talking about the company and never even mentioning Walt Disney the man.

Where does that leave the Mouse House? Will it morph into something else as General Electric has? Will it die a slow death like Sears? Or will it stay true to its roots? It’s hard to say. What can be said is that the company is currently in the middle of its own founder flounder.