Pixar–A Case for Collaboration

Too many companies encourage competition with "employee of the month" or "team of the year" programs. Eliminating competition from the workplace is one of the hardest concepts for most managers to grasp. We are a society that rewards competition through our athletics, classrooms, achievements, etc. Alfie Kohn, author of The Case Against Competition, conducted extensive research on the results of competition in the workplace. After over five years of collecting data, he concluded that the most successful organizations embrace a culture of cooperation. Pixar president Ed Catmull stated that he often has discussions with his counterparts at other studios. The heads of other studios claim that the reason Disney and Pixar are so successful is that they get ALL the BIG IDEAS ideas. But Ed claims that it’s not about the BIG IDEA that will generate a hit such as Toy Story or Up…it’s about the thousands of ideas that come from EVERYONE on a project to produce a magical result!

Roy Disney once said, "When values are clear, decisions are easy."

Do all of your employees understand the organization’s mission and values AND how their roles fit into the entire “show?”  It’s imperative to define job scope and guidelines for performance.  One of our clients created performance guidelines for all employees. These guidelines did not define procedures, but rather identified areas of known failure or ideas that were tried in the past, but failed. As long as employees avoided repeating past failures, they were free to exercise their own initiative and creativity, make decisions and achieve results that were in line with the organization's values. Rule of Thumb: Go heavy on guidelines and light on procedures.