This viral office political drama highlights the need to lead amid fear

Pixar Animation Studios released a new powerful tale this week—the story of protagonist failures, declining ROI and sentimental heartbreak

No, it wasn’t an animated feature film about a cowboy or space ranger, but rather an office political drama.

Pixar (a Disney property) laid off 75 people, and several were thought to be key players. The cuts fell under Bob Iger’s massive slashing of Disney employees in order to right the ship. Twitter was aflame with short-lived micro blogs of both manufactured rage and “go woke go broke.”

Regardless of your take on the outcome, it’s a good reminder for us all.

Just like the Pixar hit “The Incredibles,” your hero status can be revoked without warning.

The plot

Two of the executives cut were behind the underperforming film "Lightyear,” which failed to even recoup its expenses. The film took a $100M loss, which is unheard of for a company that averages more than half a billion dollars at the box office. As Disney CEO Bob Iger looks for underperforming areas to slash, it’s not hard to imagine where the microscope would be turned within Pixar. It’s hard to overlook a nine figure loss.

More surprising to many on the outside was the firing of Galyn Susman, a longstanding Pixar producer and one-time “hero.” Like a well-crafted Pixar plot, Tweets ran wild praising Galyn as the one who single handedly saved “Toy Story 2” from an inevitable demise.

Or so you’d be led to think from the social media outrage.

During the creation of the Toy Story sequel and long before the days of endless cloud backups, another Pixar employee accidentally wiped the servers of nearly the whole movie. The backup failed and the thousands of man hours were gone. Susman was working from home on maternity leave when she realized she had a backup copy that could save the film.

To many on Twitter, this makes her a sacred cow.

But it’s not the full story. The plot thickened.

No one is talking about the fact that the Pixar team decided to scrap the entire movie themselves because it just sucked. They intentionally hit Command + A, Command + D.

Poof.

Gone.

You can read more about that story here. I want to get back to reminding you that the restructuring efforts across Disney, including the consolidation of film and television divisions and making streaming profitable, reflect the company's determination to maintain its status as a global entertainment leader. But their status as a corporate giant doesn’t differentiate them from your company all that much.

Think of this:

If a company with $8.47B in cash on hand is rethinking its payroll, what’s your CEO working on behind that closed door?

How to lead amid the fear

A lot of companies are feeling the heat right now. Teams are under pressure to deliver more, faster and better. CEOs are afraid of losing revenue, market share and shareholder value. The quickest way for CEOs to plug a leak in cash flow is often layoffs, and the fear of layoffs can introduce a toxin for company culture.

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Pixar’s founder, Ed Catmull. His book “Creativity, Inc.” had more impact on how I led my teams early in my career than any other book. Many of his teachings are still at the core of my leadership practices. If you haven’t read it and you’re leading a team, now’s a good time to take a look. A few specifics come to mind.

1) Open door policies don’t work

Like many leaders, Catmull thought he’d have this “open door policy” where anyone could come and talk to him about ANYTHING, and he’d fix it. He found out how wrong that approach is. You can’t sit back and wait for feedback. Leaders who operate this way are either driven by ego (thinking the policy itself makes them approachable and a good boss) or ignorance (believing or not realizing that sitting back and waiting for feedback unveils probably less than 5% of what’s actually happening).

Great leaders seek out feedback via 1:1s and real face time with their team. They also build a culture that allows their teams to share freely with anyone—even someone above their boss. I remember being scolded in a previous job because I took a problem to HR instead of my boss. I was told I made her look bad, when in reality it was such a minor issue, she should have thanked me for not putting it on her plate (she was a busy VP). By scolding me, she ensured that I just kept my complaints to myself going forward. Of course she fired me a few months later so the problem itself was short lived.

On another note, not only should you be hearing from your employees often, you have to communicate well with them in times of fear. If they don’t hear from you often, they will fill in the gaps with their own narratives and usually, those narratives will fall into the genre of horror.

2) Ensure ideas can filter to the top

So many leaders manage ideation and solutions top down, and it’s absolutely the worst way to manage a team for most projects. What I mean by top-down is they craft their own versions of solutions to problems, then have a team execute. It limits ideation around alternative—and better—solutions. While CEOs have to decide strategic vision for companies, I find it better to point a mustang in the direction you want to go and let it decide the path, rather than to saddle it and grip tight to the reins.

In times of fear, you will be judged under a microscope, possibly for initiatives leadership completely overlooked. It’s critical to have ongoing feedback on projects from your team, as “great ideas can come from anywhere” as Catmull says.

Try setting up recurring reviews of your projects to get feedback from people who are not living in the weeds. The fresh eyes and ears will usually drum up a list of items you had completely missed. It’s best to catch these potential problems before they’re discovered by leadership.

3) Manage up so leadership isn’t looking down

One of Ed Catmull’s best takes is this:

“My job as a manager is to create a fertile environment, keep it healthy, and watch for the things that undermine it.”

One way you can start doing this today is by managing up. When a company is operating in fear, your boss is going to start worrying about performance. They will shift a watchful eye to you if they’re unsure of what your team is doing. Leaders, I beg of you this one thing:

Learn the art of over communicating.

Once a week, send your boss a highlight reel/status update of your team’s top initiatives and how you’re doing. This should include the obstacles and opportunities, and what you’re doing about each. This consistent practice can help you not only have a better relationship with your boss, it can also help you and members of your team avoid the chopping block if layoffs become inevitable.

As you can see with the “Lightyear” layoffs, cutting teammates is about “what have you done for me lately?” not what you did two decades ago. If you’re communicating your wins often, you’ll turn your boss into your best advocate for you and your team.

When facing layoffs, many people do become a mere number. With a Disney sized layoff, you’re one of 7,000 people. For many of you, though, you’re working for companies with dozens or hundreds of people. The advice I’ve shared here can help you build a relationship and highlight the great work you’re doing every week, and it can not only help you avoid getting the axe if the time arises, it will help you accelerate your career over the long run.

Note: I don’t know anyone at Pixar internally and it’s impossible to say the real reasons anyone was let go. This is an outsider’s perspective, and I’m more interested in using it for discussion rather than justifying why anyone was let go.

Who I’m listening to: Tyler Childers

What I’m reading: “Only the Dead” by Jack Carr

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