Pixar and the Power of Struggle

After watching Soul, and being impressed for the zillionth time at the CONSISTENCY with which Pixar creates stories that…well, they just work. It’s like Golden Era Disney — they create tales that appeal to a broad audience, make massive money and also appeal to critics and award committees. Nothing appeals to everyone of course, and there is variation in their quality, of course. But if you notice someone doing something right, you are well advised to study it and see if there’s something you can learn.

When it comes to the corporate culture and managerial process, I’m totally out of my league — I don’t know that stuff, and have to ask myself if the principles in books like “Creativity Inc.” can be transferred to my own ventures and life.

but that’s the question: is it true? Would it be useful? Well…I can say their success is massive, but that doesn’t’ mean they know WHY it is. If I don’t know the business world enough to have real informed opinions, I have a different path.

If I assume that their logic and reasoning is relatively consistent across different arenas, and I can see chose of their core principles in their specific applications, then by examining an arena where I DO have some expertise, I can make a better guesses about the efficiency of the core principles that birthed them.

Management I don’t understand. Writing, I do. This is a little like examining Aristotle’s Poetics to evaluate the aspects of his writing that are over my head. If the “Poetics” make sense, I…