An Inside Look at Pixar's Bravery

Courtesy of Pixar Animation Studios

 
I was excited when I heard that Ed Catmull was releasing a book earlier this year.  It is not as though I knew a lot about Ed, but I had read about him in previous tomes on Steve Jobs and because of the perspective of those other accounts I had assumed that it was Jobs' magic touch that had given Pixar it's DNA.

However, when you consider that Ed has been a constant from the earliest days in Lucas Films to the Steve Jobs run standalone Pixar and now under the control of Disney - you start to realize that he has been a bigger part of the magic than perhaps people really understood.

As a result of this book the spotlight is being shown on Pixar as a business and there have been some great articles of late discussing the magic that is Pixar.  One of the more comprehensive reviews is the recent article in Fast Company.  If you don't have time for Ed's book in the short-term then you must read this article for a nice primer - chances are you'll be wanting more.

The article gives some amazing insights into not only the aspects of Pixar's culture but some of what created and continues to sustain that culture.  It is important to understand some of those aspects because they have been extremely successful.  Consider the following:

• 14 consecutive #1 box office hits
• Over $7 billion in world box office receipts

Some of the great quotes from the article that provide insights into a brave organization include....

"They threw you into a lot of different things to try and eliminate fear from the creative process," he says. This meant improv classes, drawing classes, learning from people who were the best in their field--all in the interest of attaining confidence in your own artistic ideas. “Fear is the biggest killer of creativity,” Schlumberger says. “In order to cultivate a strong creative environment, you need to make people comfortable in expressing their ideas."

This quote hits on several themes that we champion at Corporate Bravery including supporting individuality, encouraging taking risks and viewing failure as a necessary part of growth and development.

The article ends with an incredible three paragraphs that really underscore some incredible insights into what creates brave cultures.

"Ed Catmull says the purpose of an organization isn’t stability, it’s balance," says Rowghani. "Stability is when you sort of pour concrete around something and just bolt it down. Balance is a state where if you think about yoga, you’re standing on one leg and you’re swaying left and right in these tiny little movements, but you’re able to stay balanced.”

In any organization, there are various factions intent on advancing their own interests--product, marketing, communications, sales--which may or may not align. And here is where balance is essential.

"If any one function wins, we all lose. It’s the balance of these competing forces and the ability to keep them in this juxtaposed tension that really leads to great, great things being created and being done,” says Rowghani. “I try to preserve the right tension between the various functions and groups within this company. I think really great ideas come out of this sense of you could fall at any time. Innovation comes from some level of awareness that things aren’t bolted down and we don’t know exactly what’s going to come next."

Risk management functions in many corporate cultures could learn a bit from the first half of this quote from Catmull.  The typical risk management approach is to identify the full universe of risks, put it into a matrix and identify controls and quantify residual risk to a monetary range.

The problem with this approach is that it comes from a world view of seeking stability.  It implies that pouring concrete by putting risks into a matrix and believing that if you have five controls then the business is bolted down and not going to move and that just isn't the case.  Expecting that, doesn't allow for the nimbleness that is necessary to make the constant tweaks and adjustments to maintain an organizational balance or to withstand sudden jolts to the business that is necessary for long-term business success.

The second half of the quote about the juxtaposed tension that creates corporate politics is another important concept to consider.  The idea that if one function wins we all lose give credibility to the need for politics - but good leaders keep this in balance and don't allow instability to win at the expense of staying upright.