Toy story release, fully computerised. Saw other startups have success then die off. How to build culture vs company? How to keep Creativity?
Assume everyone is talented and creative, assume company is harming that, figure out how to remove those barriers.
Uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, what we can’t see. A
Managers loosen reigns, pay attention to whatever creates fear, assume don’t know everything and willing to learn
Self-awareness as managers and companies
Setting of meeting room in their case was obstacle, important people at centre, more likely to speak up those at edges less likely to
When at centre didn’t identify it was an issue u til meeting held in different room with different configuration
Decisions made on top of decision for good reasons so, fixing error is difficult. Have to unpackage a lot to get to what the actual problem is
Give tools and trust they will produce.
Development of computer animation, resistance from industry. Use new and classical methods to animate. First issue was Walt Disney pas bad experience with animating bubbles.
Created a way to add depth parameter to allow parts to be seen or masked depending where they are.
Need to cooperate with people with different backgrounds. Creativity not only in work but how they work
Take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening (ie hire good people even if they might take your job)
Published/share work instead of keeping as a secret. This was a benefit as it created relationships and connections.
Using model from grad studies, used a flat structure at nyit but led to various projects not necessarily linked. At Lucasfilm slowly introduced managers into his structure
Design computer to look at film, add in computer elements and produce final film – named machine pixar
George Lucas wanted new system to edit films on computer. Biggest problem was people, the editors were comfortable with their methods and didn’t want to help create this new system
Without buy-in, they couldn’t design a machine to serve them.
Difficulty managing, figure out how to organise people. George had long-term vision.
Managed to get a storyteller on board, previously knew they were missing that component in their development.
At WB leaders were very senior and when new managers came in were insecure. Insecurity of managers made them stifle their talents progress and ideas, leading to talent void
Focus was showing what was possible with computer animation. Inventing the process as they were creating a short 2 min film for a conference. Typical entries were 15 seconds in length. Would not meet deadline as not enough computing to render the final product. People did not notice the difference as they were absorbed in the story.
Division was sold after divorce of George Lucas needing to streamline businesses. Some corporate folks wanted to cut staff, they showed a list of their own names as people to cut. Delayed the problem a little bit.
Steve jobs interested, had ongoing issues at apple and met with then again wanting to get away from apple. He told him he wanted to displace him and take over as leader of this new company. He wanted to build a new computer with the company vs making films.
They refused but Jobs went to see them again after having founded another computer company. Jobs had different mindset willing to make movies and not take over company.
Decided to purchase the company for 5 million and invest 5 million. Birth of Pixar
Jobs would say provocative statements (this is crap) and see if people would challenge back to gauge them
Overpriced their product, even when reducing price the first impression of overpriced product stuck
Everyone responsible to find and fix problems (Japanese manufacturing philosophy)
Ownership and pride drive up quality
Despite open door policy people did not come to see him with problems
People don’t want to be complainers, want to keep their job, good hides the bad
Communication structure not aligned with org structure, opened it so anyone can talk to anyone at anytime and figure out how to communicate it later
Going against their values/beliefs with reduced quality harmful to culture and work – decided to reverse course
Had to switch director, difficult decision
Candor important but only works if receiving ready to listen and understand
Braintrust, lively candid debate to get to the truth – excluded jobs from these meetings as he would reduce candid debates
Point of view additive approach vs competitive
Don’t compare ideas to yours, how can they add?
Sometimes cause/solution is misidentified in braintrust but rethinking can lead to a better solution
Good note – specific, not necessarily solution but if one offered just an option not the only way forward. Trying to help not hinder
If not candid or saying opinions, create smaller group so the ideas come out
Failure important for learning
Afraid of failure leads to inaction, or not trying. We can’t predict future. Failure investment in future
Innovative groups to explore new ways of doing things but high chance of failure
How to know when to pull the plug? If people are idling or no changes were made in 3 month update meeting then something needs to happen. In some cases, director needs time to figure things out and that’s ok but shouldn’t lost confidence of crew
Some things need to happen without a massive amount of thinking/planning. Ie you can take a lot of time to plan before you are in production but once in production costs skyrocket, time is very expensive and things need to move
Uncouple fear from failure
Need to have the more senior people train/mentor the newer ones as part of their responsibilities
Trust best way to outst fear
Trust that if there is a failure they will solve it
Most people don’t perceive what their job is correctly before getting it vs after
Impostor syndrome is rampant
In some cases feeding the beast becomes goal
Vs doing a good job/goal, need to produce so all the depts are fed even if the product produced is sub par
Some new ideas a quashed before they can start because they might go against the beast
Need some balance between the two
Each group wants something – problem if one wins, need some sort of compromise/balance to reach goals of the company
Conflict essential to find the right solutions
Manage has to find where balance is lost
Need to protect new things, but not what is already in place – protect future not past
People resist change, may associate it with something they fear (ie takeover of company changing how we do things) when it might not be the case at all – very difficult to convince people
People don’t like change – could be admitting weakness, more work, threat etc.
Lack of self awareness, can’t see flaws in system until too late (ie music industry). Need change that is helpful not for sake of change
Randomness – people can’t comprehend and give more weight to events lived vs acknowledging randomness. Lots of things could have happened but did not and vice versa – we are deceived by them.
People associate success with competence but randomness and luck played key role
Company often in news, need to not believe our own hype
Ackhams razor – when multiple theories possible, use the one with the least variables
Not everything is simple, trying to make it or explain it simply causes problems – can be inapropriate – not oversimplify – keep eyes open
Not good to understand randomness, try and simplify, linearize etc.
Should use stochastic self similarity – ie look the same at a certain scale (ie snowflakes, leaves etc)
Ransom events aren’t on time or schedule, worse events occur less often. If we get caught on big problems don’t address small one that eventually become big
Don’t freak out/blame people – know unforeseen things happen and no one’s fault
Random events- Toy story 2 had issue where Linux command destroyed most of the assets developed in the last 2 years. Backup system had not worked, couldn’t restore. But one person made a backup at home (had baby made backup 1x week to work from there) – went to her house and recovered the movie 3 random unforeseen events.
No blames – restore, fix backup system, add restrictions to make deletion more difficult (did not try to find who did it)
Let people fix their problems and find solutions. Meet unexpected problems with unexpected responses.
Allow people to solve problems without permission, more can be addressed. No fear frozen waiting for approval – less problems, addressed earlier
Better than only addressing problems that meet a certain threshold
Believe most leaders don’t see problems and cause companies to fail. Need to find those problems. What we see and know is flawed. Need to recognize we know very little unless trained in those fields – we have blindspots
Even more blindspots with human interaction. Try to understand why something difficult or impossible to see
Ie act different with people in important positions, can’t see people’s bad behaviour as they hide it.
If people see their worth based on place in org chart – unhealthy. Manage up and treat people below them poorly
Managing up, boss can’t tell difference between good employee or just telling them what they want
Have to understand we don’t know everything and different viewpoints can add to the picture
Healthy workplace when people aren’t afraid to speak up
Leaders need to understand many factors are, and will always be out of sight. When we look back on past, same thing happens, we might not have all the facts that happened – we make up the gaps with memory/models, things we did not actually see
Confirmation bias – ignore information that contradict our mental models of reality.
Our models can make it difficult to see what is right in front of us. Difficulty differentiating between new info and model. We are less flexible. Interconnected models mixed with one another may not be addressing the right thing and lock us into an idea instead of being open.
Dailies to help improve things
In depth research to understand various aspects (in person visits/interviews) before moving forward
Challenge preconceived notions – allow new aspects to come to light, need to go outside the familiar
Need to set limits – force innovation, new ways to do things
Also reduce time spent on things that won’t matter in the end
Sometimes management doesn’t know what takes long, and workers don’t know how things will be used so communication is key to know and set limits
How limits are imposed can cause problems ie. Oversight group taking decisions on what should/shouldn’t be done, micromanagement and destroys morale
Working on smaller projects, more diversifying of skills for members, learning, development of new techniques.
Focusing not on the problem but on what is around it can often solve it. Issue may be elsewhere but we focus on one thing only
Post mortems – review what worked and what didn’t.
Some went well, some didn’t – tips – consolidate what has been learned. Teach those who were not there. Air out resentment. What questions to ask next time.
Vary post-mortem style – will get different answers, harder to manipulate. People afraid to be critical openly. (Top 5 do again, top 5 not repeat to balance) use data to back up.
Data analysis is required, just measuring does not work. Many things can’t be captured in data. So consider this in analysis.
More communication outside ‘regular’ work – training class not only Improve skill but communication between people, cross-skill and understanding of others.
Focus on not crashing makes us crash! Have to stop overthinking it, focus on the positive outcome not the possible failures.
Confident leader , point in right direction (best guess) quickly, admit I’d you screwed up and correct course
Some pieces you create won’t fit into the puzzle and should be discarded. At some point it becomes more clear where it is going. Hiker analogy – sometimes you must go down to go up
Various people focus on different aspects, focus in or big picture. Producers/directors need to guide the process
Resisting change causes more problems. Focus on problem at hand vs worries, expectations.
Meditators have higher pain tolerance, still aware of it but can tolerate
Some suppress pain by ignoring, which does not work as well
Ie- need to acknowledge and work through vs ignore
Allow employees to fix problem offline, not necessarily “the right way” because that may not be the actual way to get it done
Thanking via meeting and letter vs just wire $ in account
Make sure culture remains, everyone keeps knowing they can bring their ideas forward, everyone solve issues together
Give engineers personal project days to increase happyness/retention.
Try and get everyone on board when market conditions changed – they set aside a day to get everyone to meet and come up with a solution
Organized a day, people could pick which discussion topic they wanted to attend (topics picked from feedback/grouped). Clear and focused goal of discussions
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