September 24, 2015, Churchill Club Awards, Redwood City, CA—The Churchill Club presented their magical team award to Pixar Animation Studios for collaborative breakthroughs that resulted in an irresistible product or service. Goeffrey Moore talked with Ed Catmull from Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.
Moore noted that the Pixar team has to work at the intersection of technology and art, and must channel creativity, collaboration, and complex processes. Is there some type of brain trust to help the group(s) convert a story into a film?
Catmull responded that they have four main directives. First, that the director has the final decision with on management override. Second, there is no power structure. Third, the team has to share success and failure. For example, a hard note is a statement like "the idea sucks" and can cause people to lose objectivity. At the same time, the team has to balance truth and perceptions and work together. Finally, everyone has to give and listen to hard notes. The teams mostly live up to these ideals, but people do things out of self interest. Sometimes magic happens and the group has zero egos.
Moore asked about management trying to correct the team
Catmull claimed that the management gives no coaching and don't try to change people on the team. The managers use an escalating intervention process and only get involved if things are getting too bad. If things re not working and they change part of the team, the people who are moved and those remaining are damaged. Managers still wait too long before trying to correct problems. One key is to avoid the fear of failure.
All of us are partially polluted relative to success and failure. We don't fully analyze our successes and failures. Our failures should be learning experiences and lead us to better performance and experience in the future and should be positive experiences. In the academic arena, there is the concept of the danger of failure. Both aspects are important, but the company tries to make both safe for the teams.
Moore wondered if it is easier to learn from failure than from success. Do you debrief successes?
Catmull responded that the post-mortems are like taking medicine, necessary but not pleasant. The problem is that future successes lead to pat on your own back responses, so the debriefs need some outside force.
Moore asked for tips and things to look for.
Catmull claimed that people come into the industry and all want to do well. Their emotions and biases need management, either from self or from the managers. We in the Disney organization have failed some people. The trap is that getting the process right is important, but is not the main goal. We need to balance many variables including process, creativity, collaboration, and honesty.
