Yes, continuing on from yesterdays post, I thought it would be worth talking about the Pixar a little more.
From the Mavericks at Work book I wrote about before, there was quite a good section which looked at some of the inner workings of the film company (valued at somewhere between 7-10 billion USD!).
“It’s fine to have wildly talented individuals. The real trick, the higher degree of difficulty, is to get a bunch of widely talented people to make productive partnerships, to produce great work”
Randy Nelson, Dean – Pixar University
Pixar seem to focus much more on the creation and preservation of partnerships than other film companies do. They employ their people, a marked difference from normal film companies that hire everyone on contract for different projects, then disperse them after the film is made. Normally, I prefer this kind of work style. I love the idea of swinging in and out of different, funky and creative projects. But, I gotta say, the Pixar model makes sense too. Because everyone is employed at Pixar, they can build on each project (film) they do. Team’s get used to working with each other, are obviously happy and consistently challenged, well paid and so choose to stay on and continue building great works.
It’s an interesting difference, and one I am always contemplating…Sheeds alluded to the benefits of people committing beyond contracts a few months ago…
“Part-time people, get part-time results”
Kevin Sheedy
Now, whilst I am a big fan (hell, I’m trying to live the brand me life!) of the project worker ideals, the thought does consistantly cross my mind that big things do tend to happen after a lot of effort and hard work being committed to achieve them. How do you juggle this tension between committing to a company or organization for a long period to achieve great stuff, and experiencing a great many different and varied projects by not-committing to anything?
Pixar vs Tom Peters??? Business Celebrity Guru Death match #1 Comment who you think would win 🙂
The Squiggly Line 
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