On Creating Greatness

There are two companies now in existence which have, for a very long time, been an inspiration to me in their passion for creativity and pursuit of excellence. Both Apple and Pixar were born of ardent passion for and an overpowering commitment to an idea or vision.

I just finished watching a documentary, "The Pixar Story". One cannot know the story of Pixar and not be inspired by it. A great deal that goes into film production these days was unheard of before the people of Pixar rewrote the rules of their game. Multiple times. To me, however, the revolutionary ways in which they were able to marry art and technology are not the most inspiring aspects of their story. Rather, it is their strong commitment to their most important asset -- their vision. In terms of their filmmaking, this vision focuses squarely on the power of a great story.

The formula for success at Pixar, appears to be to have no formula. This contrasts vividly, and with some irony, against the great entertainment behemoth, Disney. Over time, and in direct contradiction to the vision of its founder, the Walt Disney Company fell into a formula for making movies. Disney seemed to have become focused on how to make "successful" productions, that their motivation became false. A focus on box office returns resulted in box office failures. The motivation behind Pixar films, on the other hand, is so pure and simple, that it hits people in a very deep and real place. Brad Bird, director of Pixar's "The Incredibles" says in the documentary of the people who work at Pixar, "... they just wanna make something that they themselves want to see." It's so simple, and yet so profound. It's not marketing, it's sharing. In a world of cheap laughs and engineered characters, there stands Pixar. Passionate in art, relentless in progress, and pure in motivation. The great visionary himself, Walt Disney, said it perfectly:

...in planning a new picture, we don't think of grown-ups, and we don't think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall. --http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walt_Disney

Funny that the company known for great movies made through the use of mindless computers has made the theater so emphatically human again.

The obvious commonality between Pixar and Apple is Steve Jobs. He's a complicated and controversial figure, to whom can be fairly attributed a significant amount of good, and who has been in the public eye for long enough to have attracted his fair share of negative press. All in all, I'd have to say I'd jump at the opportunity to meet him. If he really is able to generate a Reality Distortion Field, I'd sure love to know how that works.

Jobs, however, is a personification of something more important than the man himself, something that's shared by a number of people at both Apple and Pixar, as well as an unnumbered host of others in the world. I'm not sure if there is a word for this something, but it's pretty easy to see its effect in the history of Apple. While Jobs was at Apple, so was "it". Apple began as an innovation machine. The company wasn't perfect, of course, and neither was Jobs. There was some arguing, and Jobs left. When Jobs wasn't there, "it" wasn't either. The company lost its focus and very nearly became generic. When Jobs came back, "it" came back with him, and to say that Apple has flourished since would be an understatement. Apple is practically built on this quality that Jobs has, so much so that people have a hard time separating the company from Jobs. To say that Apple is Jobs is a gross oversimplification, but it's a step in the right direction. Jobs is only one person whose most important role at Apple has arguably been to attract people to him who also have "it". In the time that he's been back at the company, Steve Jobs has filled the company not only with his vision, but with other people who share it almost as deeply as he does. Apple has proven over and over again that focus groups don't make great products. Passionate people who are committed to an exquisite manifestation of an epiphany create great things. Somehow, that passion lives inside the products, and infects the people who interact with them. It's like Johnny Ives' drive for greatness is in the room with me, right now. Elegance itself has been yanked out of the realm of abstract ideas, wrapped around centuries of science, and now sits on my lap.

This kind of makes product development at Apple and Pixar seem like some ethereal, undefinable thing that a company may either have or not. This is not the case. The iPod is definitely more than an epiphany. It is the product of research, development, design, re-design, re-development, time, money, and so on. "Toy Story" was written, re-written, thrown out the window, then written again. "Toy Story 2" underwent a similarly painful process. When the project began, "A Bug's Life" was technologically impossible to make. Then, the iPod changed the media landscape, "A Bug's Life" rewrote possible, and the Toy Story movies amazed audiences around the world. I find stories like these to be awe inspiring. But, to say that passion and drive for excellence created these examples of greatness is a little misleading. If greatness were a cake, and its recipe were written on a card in a box in the entrepreneur's business kitchen, passion and perfection would be listed as mere spices. Not critical. Vision might be listed, too, but the most critical component, and the one used in overwhelming abundance, would be work. A vision is not reality, and passion does not a product produce. Work is what actually gets the job done.

The key, though, is the kind of work that is born of passion and drive for excellence. It's not just doing work, it's doing the right work. It's doing the work that's going to actually execute the vision, the work that doesn't result in just another film, or just another device. Most often, it's the work that has to be done the hard way. Asking people in focus groups what they will buy is the easy way. Taking a risk on a product that nobody's ever heard of, believing it's going to be great, is the hard way. Listening to an experienced studio executive tell you your film needs to be more edgy because that's what people will "like" is the easy way. Jumping headlong into an industry steeped in tradition and unwritten law buoyed by nothing but inspiration and naiveté is the hard way. Following a formula because it has worked before is the easy way. Following your gut, believing that because you think something is going to be good, others might also like it, is the hard way. It's hard because it's risky. It's hard because it means cutting your own path. It's hard because it's work, in every one of the grimiest, most dragging and difficult meanings of the word. The passion and drive are important only if they actually motivate a person to do this hard work. More than passion, hard work is the common thread found in the vast majority of innovators in history. In the light of brilliant achievements, it's often easy to miss the period of darkness that preceded the breakthrough. In "The Pixar Story" Steve Jobs said:

If you look really closely, most overnight successes took a really long time.

Passion, then, won't actually buy you success. It's flavor, not substance. Success carries a high price, payable in just one currency -- work.

Is success greatness? I suppose it depends on how you define both terms. I think it's hard to be great without being passionate, but I also think that the passion that inspires greatness is too often overstated. It's definitely important, as is striving for excellence, but the more important moral of the success stories we so often hear is work. We hear the stories and naturally want to emulate the people in them. We want that success and fulfillment, and the easiest of the ingredients to collect is that burning desire to be great. In fact, because good storytelling puts you in the mind and heart of a person in the story, you really can't help but to taste the elation of success experienced by your great heros. The "I want to be like him" feeling is just handed to us for free. The other parts are far more difficult to gather. To invest the necessary amount of work requires patience and faith, virtues with which few of us are born in any abundance.

It's a little bit frustrating. Actually, it's a lot frustrating. I, for one, wish success were much cheaper. It's just not that way though. The low hanging fruit has already been picked over, you've just got to climb higher.

The questions I keep asking myself are these: how do I develop that virtue of hard work? How do I not get tired and bored? How do I stay motivated when the hours and days and weeks drag on without immediately visible results?

I think I may be afraid of the answers.