INNOVATE THE PIXAR WAY - INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHORS

'Innovate the Pixar Way' — West Olive is home to business consultants, authors of new book
By BEN BEVERSLUIS
The Holland Sentinel
Posted Nov 28, 2009 @ 08:15 PM
Ottawa County, MI —
First came The Disney Way, Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company, a Fortune Magazine Best Business Book of 1999.
Now Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson are the authors of Innovate the Pixar Way: Business Lessons from the World’s Most Creative Corporate Playground, released Friday.
The two are spreading Pixar’s West Coast message across the United States from our very own West Coast of Michigan. They live and write in West Olive. And in April, their book will be featured as the keynote business presentation for the Holland Area Arts Council.
Below, they talk with The Sentinel about themselves, their book and business in West Michigan.

Question: You have a national presence in the business world, but live in West Michigan. Tell a little about yourselves — who you are, what you do and, mostly, how in the world you ended up here?

A: Bill — I grew up in the Chicago area and earned degrees in economics and mathematics from Illinois State University. I spent five years in the insurance industry and over 30 years in management consulting. From 1981 to 1984, I consulted for Sealed Power (now SPX) in Muskegon. During that time, I was living at the Spring Lake Holiday Inn five days a week, and fell in love with the area. Lynn and I met when, as members of the faculty of the University of Southern Indiana, we launched their business consulting initiative. At that time, we began teaching The Disney Way principles to an international client base. In 1993, we formed Capodagli Jackson Consulting. In 1995, when we began to write The Disney Way, we searched for a tranquil getaway to do our writing. Bill brought Lynn back to West Michigan to witness firsthand the beauty and peacefulness of the area, and she was instantly captivated. That year, we purchased our home on the lake in West Olive.

Q: Which Pixar characters are each of you?

A: Bill — Doc from Cars; Lynn — Sally from Cars They both embraced an environment of mutual respect and trust at Radiator Springs.

Q: You earned a national spotlight with the 1999 best-seller The Disney Way. How did that book change your lives?

A: Prior the writing The Disney Way, we helped clients create collaborative, customer-centric, innovative cultures. We would work with executives and teams over a period of two to four years to help them transform their organizations. After the success of the book, our business shifted from 10 percent speaking engagements and 90 percent long-term consulting engagements to 90 percent speaking engagements and 10 percent consulting. Our speaking engagements vary from 30-minute keynote presentations to three-day seminars on leadership, customer service and innovation.

Q: The Disney Way, now Innovate the Pixar Way. Sounds kind of “left coast.” And yet your roots are firmly planted here in the Midwest. Talk about any difficulties — or advantages — of that perspective.

A: One of our discoveries during our vast international team development experience is that the shared values of people from different nations greatly outweigh their differences. Similarly, we have found through working with teams from all around the U.S. that they have more in common than the stereotypic perception would lead you to believe. It makes no difference whether a person is from India or Brazil or Los Angeles or Holland, Michigan, all human beings want to be respected, trusted and their ideas valued.

Q: The world already has untold numbers of business advice books. Why another one? What’s new under the sun?

A: Ask any child to talk about Woody and Buzz Lightyear, Nemo or Lightning McQueen, and you will believe you’re hearing a story about a trusted friend. These characters were born in the corporate playground known as Pixar. Today, any organization has two choices … they can either provide boring, unimaginative products and services that any of their competitors can copy, or they can create 3D Technicolor, innovative, magical experiences for their customers that only they can provide. And what better example than Pixar, with 10 blockbuster hits in a row grossing well over $5 billion and costing a little over $1 billion to make? Innovate the Pixar Way brings to life how Pixar has established a culture that breeds innovation. Innovation does not come from a miraculous revelation on the road to Damascus. It comes from habitual, non-stop, Pixar-style collaboration!

Q: You don’t have to give away the whole book for free, but tease us with a few of your favorite lessons from Pixar.

A: There are 13 chapters in the book and an appendix highlighting six other “corporate playgrounds.” The book is filled with Pixarian ideas. Here are five ideas you can put to use immediately:
• Begin with the story. Don’t just rework your old and boring product or service — destroy, demolish, eradicate it! Then, once you have totally wiped out the old, think like a director of a play and visualize the major pieces of the production. It all begins with the story that emotionally connects you and your product with your customer.
• Instill mutual respect and trust. Pixar cofounder Alvy Ray Smith told us, “If you are going to have really talented people, it is important to have mutual respect and dignity across organizational lines.”
• Make work fun. Pixar director Andrew Stanton has great advice for preventing emotional burnout. “Laugh hard, twice daily.” Fun is a key element in creating an innovative environment.
• Collaborate. Collaboration at Pixar means bringing together the skills, ideas and personality styles of an entire team to achieve a shared vision.
• Quality is the best business plan. This is the mantra of John Lasseter. Never compromise quality… you do, you’re dead in the water.

Q: Sure, the movie business needs innovation. But how does it apply to making seat liners — or newspapers, for that matter?

A: Innovation is critical to every business. Did you ever wonder why it took so long for the fast-food hamburger business, started by White Castle back in 1912, to become such a staple of the American way of life? It took a creative visionary like Ray Kroc, who was influenced by another visionary — Henry Ford and his assembly line production innovations. Likewise, the discount department store has been around for more than a century; Woolworth dime stores date back to 1879. Again, it took creative visionaries like Sam Walton and West Michigan’s own Fred Meijer to revolutionize the one-stop shopping experience. Creativity abounds in all organizations — they simply have to unleash it.

Q: West Michigan industry was built on some significant innovation: Steelcase, way back when, Herman Miller, Haworth, BuhlerPrince. What are your thoughts about them and how they’re doing?

A: For the second consecutive year, Herman Miller has the distinct honor of being named to Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work For. They are one of three Michigan-based companies to appear on the list and the only representative from the office furniture industry. Brian Walker, Herman Miller president and CEO, endorsed Innovate the Pixar Way. Herman Miller’s culture is like Pixar is many ways - collaborative, risk-taking, great employee spirit and a dedication to quality no matter what.

Lynn: As a board member of the Holland Area Arts Council, I have been so fortunate to be part of a network of many of the most innovative leaders and champions of the arts in our community. Although it’s clear that most local organizations have been seriously affected by the economic turndown, our hope is that these innovative leaders will be well positioned to grow when we emerge from this uncertain business cycle.

Q: We hear from the governor, from MEDC, from Lakeshore Advantage that innovation is badly needed for Michigan’s future. No secret there. What do you see for West Michigan’s future, “to infinity and beyond?” Any bright spots?

A: We believe that innovation needs to be stimulated at the grass roots level — innovation comes from collaboration within organizations, not from government stimulus. For example, Lee Iacocca took over as chairman of Chrysler in 1978 and orchestrated a government $1.5 billion loan. However, he was afforded the freedom to innovate, the result being the first of the K-Car line, the Dodge Aries and the Plymouth Reliant and in 1983, the first minivan. The minivan went on to lead the automobile industry in sales for 25 years. As a result of these innovations, Chrysler was able to repay the government-backed loans seven years earlier than expected. Today, the government seems to be creating an environment of control rather than innovation. Creativity demands awareness — attention to managing the failures that happen on the path to success. The reason this is such a daunting task for most organizations is that they bog down in bureaucracy, hoping and praying a problem won’t turn into a crisis or going on a witch hunt to find someone to blame. Creative people in any industry must learn that failure really is, as Pixar University Dean Randy Nelson put it, “that negative space around success.”

Q: Where can you learn more about how to implement the Pixar principles in West Michigan?

A: The Holland Area Arts Council is hosting the keynote presentation, Innovate the Pixar Way, at the Pinnacle Center on April 20, 2010. For more information, please contact the HAAC at (616)396-3278.