5 Lessons from Up, Pixar and Innovate the Pixar Way

This week, the Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the 2010 Oscar nominations. Pixar’s recent blockbuster, Up,captured 5 nominations: Best Picture, Best Animated Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing and Best Score. This is only the second time in history that an animated feature film has been nominated for Best Picture, the first being Beauty and the Beast in 1991.

There are great connections between the movie Up, the Pixar organization and the success principles for innovation we write about in our latest book Innovate the Pixar Way. Now, if you are one of the few who hasn’t yet seen the movie but it’s in your Netflix queue, stop reading! At Pixar, “story is king,” and we wouldn’t dream of spoiling this one for you.

Up is a story of love and adventure to pursue one’s life-long dream. During the first five minutes of the film, we are immersed in the blossoming love between two wide-eyed aspiring explorers – a young Carl Fredricksen and his new friend and future wife, Ellie who shared a long-time dream to one day move to Paradise Falls in South America. As time goes by, they are faced with many obstacles to accomplishing their dream – broken bones, realizing that they are unable to have children and eventually Ellie’s terminal illness. Carl was heartbroken with the loss of his soul mate. But, he also had to live with a feeling of “failure” due to his breaking his “cross-your-heart” promise to Ellie to finally reach Paradise Falls. This was the dream that she had once so magically captured in her childhood scrapbook entitled, My Adventures. Carl would simply not let the dream die with his beloved wife. The now elderly Carl vowed to himself to move their home – their former childhood clubhouse – to the summit of Paradise Falls…alone.

What lesson can we learn from Up’s opening scenes? First, constancy of purpose – the life-long quest of our dreams. In the early 1970s, Pixar co-founders Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith pursued their shared dream to be the first to create a computer-generated animated feature film. During that same period of time, John Lasseter, now chief creative officer for Pixar and Disney Studios, pursued his dream of becoming an animator. In 1984, Ed, Alvy, and John joined forces to bring art and technology together, and they fulfilled their long-term dreams in 1995 with the release of Toy Story.

Lesson One: Never compromise your dream.

The next lesson is routed in the first five minutes of the film as we became emotionally engaged with the story and characters. John Lasseter has said that true emotion is something you have to earn with the audience…it has to be carefully crafted.

Lesson Two: Emotionally engage your customers from their very first contact with your company.

Back to our story… Setting his course for Paradise Falls, Carl, a long-time balloon vendor at the zoo, tied thousands of helium filled balloons to his house, and just like that – he had liftoff in his self-made flying “machine.” At the start of his journey, he was totally alone in his thoughts of Ellie, but the solitude was soon to end. The fatherless Boy Scout named Russell was stranded on the front porch! Carl was in disbelief. He remembered getting a knock on the door the day before the launch – there was Russell who practically begged Carl to help him earn his last merit badge to become a senior wilderness explorer. Russell’s plan was to assist the aging Carl who was all alone…that would be the final adventure in completing the badge. After a shaky beginning of their so-called “no accidents in the universe” relationship, the two unlikely friends learn to trust, respect and rely upon one another.

Collaboration at Pixar means bringing together the skills, ideas and personality styles of an entire team to achieve a shared vision-- “Yes, and what if” (rather then “No, this is better”) is part of Pixar’s common lexicon that fosters collective creativity and keeps the vibe and energy in the room upbeat and alive.

Lesson Three: Collaborate for innovation. Innovation does not come from a miraculous revelation on the “road to Damascus.” It comes from habitual non-stop collaboration!

The heart of Pixar is the ability to view the world through the eyes of a child. Perhaps this lesson was the best one for Carl in his later years with his new-found friend, Russell, but it’s a great lesson for us, too. Remember, when we were children, the truth lived in our imaginations. In our minds, we could do anything! But then parents, teachers, and bosses chased the little kid right out of us. Dreaming, making believe, acting impulsively and taking risks were not rewarded in the “real world” -- the adult world.

Lesson Four: Childhood is not an age, but a state of mind. Don’t let life beat the kid out of you.

The final lesson of the film is perhaps the best of all…daring to begin anew. How difficult it must have been for Carl to destroy his house for the good of the team. After all, this was where he had begun and ended his life’s best adventure…his years with Ellie. And yet, he had come to realize that the house was just a symbol of their past. He had the real treasure – their memories and experiences – planted firmly in his heart.

There are times in life when we fall into rut, thinking we don’t need to change or improve on things. Having witnessed the creative stagnation at Disney in the post Walt-era, Pixar leaders Ed Catmull and John Lasseter did not want to take their success for granted. After three hits – Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Toy Story II – there was concern that the company might struggle to continue creating new and freshly innovative films.

Enter director Brad Bird. He was the brilliant outsider who came in to bam…kick things up a notch! And, with his first project –The Incredibles – shaking things up was the order of the day. Everything in this film was a nightmare for computer-generated animation--human characters, hair, water, fire and a massive number of sets. John Lasseter and the creative leads were ecstatic about the film, but the technical teams were about ready to go into coronary arrest. They told Brad that the project would take ten years and a mammoth budget to complete. Brad said, “Give us the ‘black sheep.’ I want artists who are frustrated. I want the ones who have another way of doing things that nobody’s listening to. Give us all the guys who are headed out the door.” Brad’s “black sheep” were the malcontents who had been given little opportunity to try new ideas, since the first three films were such blockbusters. The “black sheep” stepped up to the challenge, and in the end, The Incredibles cost Pixar less per minute than its previous films while having three times the number of sets. The film won the Academy Award in 2005 for Best Animated Feature as well as Best Achievement in Sound Editing and was the highest-selling DVD of that year. Brad said, “All this because the heads of Pixar gave us leave to try crazy ideas.”

Lesson Five: Don’t just copy your old and boring product or service – destroy, demolish, eradicate, nuke, vaporize and zap it! Then, once you have totally wiped out the old, think like director Brad Bird – try crazy ideas and create your next great adventure. Three cheers to Up’s hero Carl for the courage and strength to reinvent himself.

No Short-term Stupidity at Pixar

The focus on short-term results has become the primary motive for most business leaders today. A dozen years ago, the average tenure of a CEO was 10 years; today, it is less than 5 years. Wall Street expects a new CEO to implement a new strategy in his or her first 100 days on the job. So, instead of investing in future technologies and growth, CEOs are manipulating costs; eliminating jobs and training; ignoring new markets and R&D; and compromising quality… all for the next Wall Street analyst’s meeting.

Pixar and Disney Animation Studios president Ed Catmull gets it! He recently wrote, “Managers who focus on maximizing short-term profits end up driving out things that generate long-term value – like R&D. They use all sorts of excuses when they make those decisions, including to please Wall Street and create shareholder value. But they are just excuses for poor thinking.”

Pixar director Brad Bird echoes Ed’s thoughts: “It is never about cheaper and faster. It’s creating for the long-term. People here love the characters and they are aware these films, if done correctly, are living things.”

During the last half of Michael Eisner’s tenure as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, he totally lost sight of their long-term vision “to provide the finest in family entertainment.” During the late 1990s, Disney released more than one dozen “formulaic” animated feature films. A formulaic film is one that capitalizes on a prior storyline with little or no original creative thought. The Lion King II and 102 Dalmatians are classic products of this time of “stagnation” in Disney’s history. Prior to purchasing Pixar in 2007, Disney and Pixar were in partnership (Disney financed and distributed the Pixar films). After the phenomenal success of Toy Story in 1995, Disney advised Pixar to make Toy Story II as a formulaic direct to video, cheap feature. Luckily, Pixar leaders Ed Catmull and John Lasseter (now chief creative officer of Pixar and Disney Studios) refused to compromise quality. John said, “These were the people that gave us Cinderella II. We believe that the only reason to a sequel is if you have a great story, period…We want these (Pixar) films to be at the same level of the films that Walt Disney made.”

In The Disney Way, we wrote about Disney’s current CEO Bob Iger: “Having been on the job for less than four months, Bob Iger surprised the business community by purchasing Pixar (in 2007) for $7.4 billion.” This was a critical junction in the Disney organization’s history…and Bob was the leader who would steer them back on the track to long-term success. Bob had had a revelation while watching the opening day parade of Hong Kong Disneyland. Not one of the new characters were from Disney…they were all born in the creative storytelling playground we have all come to know as Pixar! Bob realized that the last ten years at Disney had been a failure and he vowed to resurrect the passion that Walt once brought to every project, from features films to theme park attractions.

Bob Iger continues to impress us with his long-term mentality. In Innovate the Pixar Way, we cite Bob’s response to an entertainment analyst claiming that many of the Pixar films lack the commercial success to create merchandise franchises: “We seek to make great films first. If the film gives birth to a franchise, we are the first to leverage such success. A check the boxes approach to creativity is likely to result in blandness and failure.”

Today’s business leaders must embrace the long-term genius of the likes of Walt Disney, Bob Iger, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. Of course, long-term thinking does not mean that you should ignore the short-term job. Pixar’s brand of self-motivated talent is always in a “want to” mode – enthusiastically improving everything they do. The lesson is to constantly plus your short-term efforts while working to accomplish your long-term dream. Never comprise long-term results for short-term gains. Would you rather provide a knock-your-socks-off product that your customers will remember like Toy Story II, or the unimaginative, forgettable product like 102 Dalmatians?

TUCSON LAUNCHES INNOVATE THE PIXAR WAY

Yesterday, Bill spoke at the Loft Cinema in Tucson to an enthusiastic audience. In attendance was Amanda Shauger from KXCI Community Radio who was there to record clips for a radio show featuring Innovate the Pixar Way.

In a follow-up email message to us, she wrote, "last night through the magic of Google, I discovered an article about my girl scout troop from 1975. It described our awards dish dinner at a local park. Our badges were acknowledged and the one I remember best was from our skating lessons. It was a little trip down memory lane and I remembered how fun that was and how proud I was...didn't think too much about it until during the talk when Mr. Capodagli said that his greatest finding of Pixar was to look at things through the eyes of a child."

We hope everyone who reads Innovate the Pixar Way will remember the importance of doing just that! Thank you, Amanda!

TOP5 SPEAKER on MANAGEMENT - BILL CAPODAGLI

Thanks to all of you who voted for Bill as Best Speaker at Speaking.com. They announced the "Top5 Speaker" honorees for 2010 and Bill has been awarded the Top5 Speaker designation in Management!

Fail Early, Fail Often and Learn Fast!

Last month, Pixar president Ed Catmull spoke to an enthusiastic audience at USC’s Ray Stark Theatre. (named for the legendary Hollywood producer of such hits as Night of the Iguana and Funny Girl)

The message? “Fail early, fail often and learn fast.” It’s great advice for those of us who are making New Year’s resolutions! Whether it’s personal development, diet plans, or creating new products and services, there’s always the possibility of frustration and failed goals. It’s what we do with that failure that’s the key.

Ed Catmull endeared himself to the attendees by delving into the particulars of a Pixar “failure” – allowing a novice director to direct a Pixar short film costing $2 million rather than giving him or her the reigns of a feature film that could have cost up to $180 million! Ed said, “Our take on it was that it was better to have a train wreck with model trains than with real ones.”

People typically view problems and failures as unwanted events. We admit, it’s counter-instinctive for people to accept failure, much less court it by taking risks. When failure occurs, don’t ignore it – learn from it and try again. Why not give a prize for the dumbest mistake of the month! Then don’t be surprised if the lesson it teaches triggers some major success. It’s better that team members ask forgiveness for errors than beg permission just to try. Don’t forget that the first steamboat was initially dubbed, “Fulton’s Folly.” And, behind Walt Disney’s back, people referred to Snow White as “Disney’s Folly.”

As we write in our new book, Innovate the Pixar Way, Randy Nelson, Dean of Pixar University, explains, “You have to honor failure, because failure is just the negative space around success."

Roy E. Disney, Walt's Nephew Dies at Age 79

Yesterday, Roy Edward Disney died of stomach cancer. Although he lived in the shadow of his famous uncle and father Roy O. Disney, he never wavered in his commitment to protect their legacy of creating arguably the most powerful entertainment empire of all time. As chairman of Disney animation, Roy E. Disney helped guide the studio to a new golden age of animation with an unprecedented string of artistic and box-office smashes that included The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. He was executive producer of Fantasia/2000, the sequel to the 1940 Disney classic, and the 2004 Oscar-nominated Destino, based on a 1945 collaboration between Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dali.

In the years after Walt's death in 1966 and his father Roy's death in 1971, Roy E. became disillusioned the Walt Disney Co., which he likened to "a real estate company that happened to be in the movie business." The company had let its feature animation film business, once the cornerstone of the company, go into a freefall. The company, Roy would later say, had lost its "creative drive."

As we write in The Disney Way..."After Roy's (Walt’s brother) death, the financial and creative growth of the company came to a standstill. During the 18 years between Walt's death in 1966 and Michael Eisner's entry as CEO in 1984, a simple question would be asked among the ranks before any decision was made: ‘What would Walt do?’

In 1984, Roy (Walt’s nephew) convinced the board to hire Michael Eisner as CEO and Frank Wells as president and COO. Eisner and Wells were consummate decision makers and quickly began to transform the sleepy little movie studio into a global entertainment enterprise now worth over $50 billion.”

Upon taking over as chief executive, Eisner asked Roy what he wanted to do. Disney responded that he wanted to revive the company's sagging animation division where morale was at an all-time low.

Fortunately, Eisner granted Disney his wish. It was Roy who persuaded Eisner and Wells to invest about $10 million in a digital ink and paint system developed by Pixar. As you can read in Innovate the Pixar Way, the early Disney-Pixar relationship laid the foundation for the soon-to-be-made fortunes of both organizations in the world of computer-generated animation. Although Michael Eisner is credited with much of the Disney turnaround in the 1980s-1990s, Roy was one of the first to realize that Michael Eisner had morphed into what we term a "hero to zero" in The Disney Way. In Chapter 12 of The Disney Way, we describe the events that we believe led to Eisner's demise. For a complete history of the “fight of the century” that prompted Roy to remove himself from the company’s board of directors, you can also read James Stewart’s Disney Wars.

In Pixar’s Blog of August 19, 2008, it is written….
“I need not remind anyone familiar that the latter part of Eisner's employment was marked by extremely bad decisions that deeply threatened the company. The suit-produced movies. The sequels-mill atmosphere. Eisner endangered Disney and its shareholders by letting his great personal dislike (to say the least) of then Pixar CEO Steve Jobs cloud his business sense, putting the relationship with Pixar into serious jeopardy. Had Disney shareholders not revolted, Disney/Pixar would almost definitely have been history, leaving Disney in a very tough situation. Fortunately they did, being led by Roy E. Disney, –who coincidentally now chairs the Disney Legends committee– and, natch, the rest is history.”

Clearly, Roy Disney was passionate about protecting "the happiest place on earth." When Bob Iger stepped in as president in late 2005, he invited Roy to return to the board of directors in an emeritus role and as a consultant.

Chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, John Lasseter commented, "I really credit Roy Disney completely with the renaissance of Disney animation, beginning with Little Mermaid and all the way through that great amazing series of classic Disney films."

A year ago, we were on the Disney Magic sailing the eastern Caribbean and Roy happened to be onboard promoting his film, Morning Light - the story of a real-life crew training who competed in the 44th Transpacific Yacht Race aboard a TP52 class yacht, Morning Light, owned by Roy. After we watched the film’s debut in ship’s magnificent Walt Disney Theatre, we had a chance to hear Roy speak during the Q & A session and also had the opportunity to meet him afterwards. We found him to be gracious and unassuming… following his own passions, yes, but still remaining a true force in the entertainment empire built by his famous uncle and father. Roy’s passing marks the end of an era. But the values that Walt, brother Roy and nephew Roy so passionately upheld will hopefully guide The Walt Disney Company for years to come.

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