Change Management (The Pixar Story)

Sept 16, 2019

How Pixar Was Transformed

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency

Steve Jobs had a very high sense of urgency not just when immediately joining the company but even for years after. His sense of urgency was immediate when he was forced to leave apple and needed something to invest his time and money into. He found pixar and was very interested in what they were doing and wanted to be a part of it. After this while being a part of pixar and while big steps were being made within the company they were losing more money than they were bringing in. Jobs was losing a million dollars a year investing in pixar but still continued to do so seeing the bigger picture and visualizing what they could be. This is why when Toy Story was pitched to Jobs he liked the idea and put full trust into John Lasseter and got out of his way. Knowing that Pixar had this huge potential but was still going down on the financial slope gave everyone drive and an urgency that something needed to be done fast.

2. Forming a Powerful Guiding Coalition

Jobs was able to form a powerful coalition in the sense that he did not get in anyone's way and let everyone do their job to their ability. Jobs place in Pixar was majorilly as an investor and supporting the people within the company which he did. He did not try to take control or do things “his way” instead he would support people and let them do their jobs. Jobs did what great managers did and got out of the way of people like John Lasseter in order for them to do their best work. This did not surprise me after learning about how Jobs worked with Johnny Ives because the way they operated is incredibly similar to how Jobs did with Pixar. Besides Jobs himself Pixar was constantly hiring ambitious people mostly out of CalArts who were incredibly passionate and dedicated to what they were doing.

3. Creating a Vision

The way jbs created the vision in pixar would be with the financial, technological, and trusting support that he put in the company and the employees. Jobs while losing a million dollars a year was still able to believe in what pixar could be and visualise the success that it could have. As an animation company they did not want to be another Disney but be and do their own thing. Winning and Oscar for the first animated movie and bringing animation into live action films was groundbreaking and came at an incredibly high risk. Jobs was able to create a vision in pixar with how much supported the company and its employees and by showing how he believed how great the company could be.

4. Communicating a Vision

Jobs and Pixar communicated this vision by always moving forward with plans and taking chances. When they had an idea to do something they never second guessed it and they would go through with it no matter what the cost or how much time it would take. This communicated to the employees the kind of work ethic and passion that the company had and made people want to work there. Cartoonist and animators would be excited and thrilled to even be working on small commercials which were nothing compared to a big project like Toy Story. But this shows how well they were able to put this idea in their employees head of what Pixar not only was doing but what they could be.

5. Empowering colleagues to act on the Vision

The best example of Jobs empowering his colleagues to act on a vision is of John Lasseter wanting to act and create Toy Story. At the time this was pitched to jobs he was losing a million dollars a year and instead of trying to take over and do what he thought should be done to get his money back, he put his faith in an idea of an employee. John pitched the idea of Toy Story to Jobs and jobs believing so much in him did the best thing that he could, step back. He got out of Johns way and let him take over with Toy Story and run with it. Jobs wanted to see Pixar become successful and the way he did so was by putting his faith and encouraging his employees and colleagues to do so.

6. Planning for and creating short-term Wins

Jobs and the rest of the team on Pixar were always planning and creating short term wins as much as long terms. While they had their big projects like Toy Story they also focused on slowly evolving and getting better within smaller aspects of the company. They would go on to work with Disney but while trying to be different than them, they were always trying to evolve and become more proficient with their use of technology, and they would take

7. Consolidating improvements & Producing still more Change

Even with the success of Toy Story they were still losing a large sum of money to disney which did not give them much room for failure. So with the aspiration of growing they decided to go public. Steve Jobs was able to raise 132 million dollar investment into pixar which all started off from his small 10 million dollar investment. He was also able to get an extended contract with disney which would then lead to them becoming 50/50 partners. The Biggest steps for Pixar was constantly coming up with new creative ideas for films, evolving with their technology, and finding funding in order to do so.

8. Institutionalizing New Approaches

When Pixar became a studio and evolved from a production company it became a lively place that was fun to be and fun to work. Described as a place where you could “write on the walls or put a whole in the wall and nobody would care”. Being an animation company and now a production company creativity and freedom were very much valued which is why I would consider this to be the best approach. Which is even similar to google today which is designed for the employees to be as happy and creative as possible. Also approaching their movies differently and going back towards the younger audience and having movies like Bugs Life “made you feel like you were in kindergarten again” gave a whole new approach not just to the movie style but now to pixar's audience.