Personally, I'm not particularly keen on management, but when I saw ed catmull's article in Harvard Business Review-how Pixar cultivates collective creativity, I felt a lot. Pixar's success is not accidental. It is the result of decades of efforts by many people with ideals, perhaps because of the geographical distance from Hollywood, and there are some ways of management that are quite different from the industry. The logic behind these thoughts is worth thinking about. In fact, these unique management thoughts have shaped Pixar's unique culture. This article is not only suitable for industry managers' reference, but also very suitable for general artists to read. If other managers think this information is worth learning, I think the focus should be on the thinking behind these management methods, not just the superficial appearance. In addition to the article, this link can also hear the audio file of the interview with Catmull, which is the echo of Catmull's keynote speech on SIGGRAPH. The following are some highlights of this article, and I recommend you to read the whole article:
Catmull once heard this statement at lunch with the manager of a film company. The manager thinks it is not difficult to find a partner, but it is difficult to find a good idea or a good story. In fact, this manager's idea reflects the mistake made by many managers, that is, they overemphasize the importance of original stories in front of original content. In Pixar's experience, they never buy scripts or ideas from outside, and all their films are created by people in the company.
Creativity should be displayed from every corner of the production stage. The so-called original high-concept story conception is only a small stage in the long production process. In the whole production process, every employee exerts his creativity and provides different ideas, and then the leader summarizes these ideas and applies useful information to the whole, making them all elements to help tell stories. This is a very difficult job.
As a manager, you should resist the nature of avoiding risks. In the film circle, some people are keen to copy other people's successful models instead of trying new things themselves. That's why many movies you see are the same. No wonder these films are not so good. If you really want to make an original film, you must accept the uncertainty that comes with it, even if it makes people uncomfortable. And also have the ability to make the company recover from failure, which is what managers should have. His job is not to guard against risks, but to build a physique that can recover from setbacks. So what is the key to rapid recovery? That's talent. I disagree with the manager who has dinner with me. I think talents are hard to find. I have worked with many talented people. My experience tells me that it is right to hire people who are more talented than me.
Community: Another equally difficult task is how to bring these talents together and work efficiently. This requires trust and respect. This is beyond the manager's command. More importantly, it takes time to cultivate such a tacit understanding. What we can do as managers is to cultivate such an environment of trust and respect, and then release everyone's creativity. If we are right, the result is a vibrant community. Everyone trusts each other and is full of confidence in the films that we have created together. Therefore, everyone will feel that they are part of a great case, not just talking about it. Pixar is really like a community. How to cultivate this community? Long-term relationships between employees are very important. I know what I'm talking about is completely different from the contract system that the film industry is used to at present, but
An example where talent is more important than ideas, Toy Story 2 was originally intended to be released only on DVD. However, due to the problems caused by different standards when making this film, it still became an animated feature film. Although the original concept of Toy Story 2 was very good, the team that developed it at first could not finish the story, and later lasseter took over and solved the problem of the story. This example fully illustrates the concept that talents are more important than ideas. If you give a mediocre team a good idea, it may be destroyed, but if you give a great team a mediocre idea, they will have a way to repair it or come up with a better idea to replace it.
Toy Story 2 also taught us that all the films we make need to have the same high standards ... Of course, every manager knows that talents are needed and good stories are needed, but the focus of management is how to create such an environment, support talented people and encourage them to support each other.
After Toy Story 2, the operation of the development department has changed. In the past, its task was to come up with new film ideas (as did most companies), but now its operation mode has become a group system, and the story development department will gather a small number of frustrated people and then let them help the director to concretize his ideas. Then convince lasseter that these ideas may become a great feature film animation. Each group usually has a director, a playwright, some artists and some storyboard artists.
We emphasize that creative vision is the most important thing, which is why we say that we are a filmmaker-led company, so there are only two leaders in a movie, one is the director and the other is the producer. These two people need to cooperate perfectly, not only to make a great movie, but also to be able to make it in a limited time. Budget and limited manpower to complete the task, in the production stage, we give them the leading power of the film, and we will not interfere with their decisions, nor will we micromanage these decisions. Even if the film has problems, what we do is to provide support and encouragement without interfering with their leading power. One way is to provide help from creative think tanks. If this doesn't work, sometimes we will send someone to reinforce the team, such as adding a director or playwright to increase the creativity of the film.
Of course, our director needs to know how to tell a story through the medium of film, which means that he needs to have an idea from beginning to end, an ability to integrate all concepts and add them to a film, and they must also be able to turn what they want into clear instructions that others can follow. They must provide other people with the information they need for their work, so that they know what to do, not how to do it, even if the work is small. Everyone in the production should be given a creative role. The most valuable thing about Pixar is that no matter what class we are in, we support and encourage each other, and everyone tries their best to help others do their best.
Pixar's think tank began to take shape in Toy Story. The crisis in the production period has fostered a special relationship between john lasseter, andrew stanton, lee unkrich and joe ranft, and because of this relationship, even when everyone is flushed, everyone knows that it is aimed at stories, not individuals. After a while, outsiders joined Pixar's team, so the brain trust expanded more and more, and finally it became like this, a group that would appear when the director needed help.
In the operation of the think tank, their opinions are not dominant, and it is still important for the director and his team to decide whether to adopt these suggestions. Because think tanks are not dominant, then these people can really give professional advice. For directors, they can seek assistance at any time without any worries. We have tried to apply this model to other departments. However, it didn't succeed at first. Later, we found out that it was because the role of think tanks was authoritative and dominant. Later, we told you that these opinions were only suggestions given by colleagues and were for reference only. As a result, the whole atmosphere changed and the effect was achieved.
Samples: Disney samples are usually watched by a small group of senior artists, and dennis muren of ILM expanded them into a review meeting attended by all special effects personnel. When we started making Toy Story at 1990, Lasseter combined these two daily newspapers. It is applied to Pixar's own daily work. Although it is up to the director to decide whether to choose after showing the animation paragraphs being produced, everyone has the right to criticize in the daily newspaper, which has many advantages. First, once people overcome the embarrassment caused by rough films in the production stage, they will become more creative because of these suggestions. Secondly, the meeting led by the director or department head can let all employees know the key points that the director wants to express in the film at the same time. Third, seeing other employees' works can stimulate other employees to make better works. The final advantage is to ensure that there are no accidents at the end of the process, and to avoid showing the work to the director after completion, only to find that the hard work is not what the director wants. The daily newspaper avoided such a waste of time.
Technology+art = magic, technology stimulates art, and art challenges technological progress. These are not just slogans for us, but our way of life.
In the company, everyone should have the freedom to communicate with anyone else at any time, which means that the decision-making level in management is different from the communication level. If there is a problem, members of each department should be allowed to go to another department to find someone to solve the problem at any time without going through an "appropriate" channel, which means that managers need to understand that they are not necessarily the first people to know what happened. It is also acceptable to know some surprising news only when you walk into the meeting room, because the most efficient way to solve the problem is to "trust employees" and let them solve the problem themselves without obtaining redundant approval.
Everyone should be able to criticize the company or movie "safely" without any worries.
We strongly encourage employees to publish their R&D results and participate in various seminars in the industry. Publishing the results may lead to the outflow of our own research, but it keeps us in touch with the relevant communities, which is much more important than publishing these results. It has helped us attract hard-to-find talents, and once again verified our belief that "talents are more important than ideas".
The education and training provided by our Pixar University includes various courses. Different courses can not only expose employees to things outside their own fields, but also let everyone know each other's majors better, so as to better understand the hardships of others. In addition, these courses also make everyone's ideas tend to be consistent.
The design of this building in our company encourages people from different departments to have more opportunities to interact. Many buildings are designed for specific functions, while our buildings are designed to increase the chances of meeting each other.
After-the-fact analysis: I know that most failed companies lack the ability of introspection. When Pixar became an independent company, I vowed that we would be different. I find it difficult for companies to analyze and reflect on themselves, because it makes people feel uncomfortable and it is usually difficult to remain objective. Therefore, I find that the two most challenging things in management are: systematically fighting against self-satisfaction and being able to find potential problems when the company is running smoothly.
For self-reflection, I found an interesting thing. Although everyone can learn something from the post-evaluation meeting, employees generally don't like it. People prefer to talk about good things rather than discuss what mistakes they made. Moreover, after spending several years on the same film, most people just want to change a new case as soon as possible. There are several ways to solve these problems. First, try to change the way of the post-review meeting. Another way is to ask them to list five.
New blood: When new employees or new ideas enter, a successful company often faces two challenges. One of them is "not invented here" and the other is "fear of the system" (this disease often happens to young people). We try our best to make young people or new employees dare to express their ideas. We will ask these people why our methods don't make sense to them. The point is,