Explaining Pixar's prescriptive culture through Peters and Waterman's "Excellent Cultures" Theory and Deal and Kennedy's "Strong Cultures" Theory.

2. Peter and Waterman’s “Excellent Culture Theory” is a theory that
Peter and Waterman's were trying to establish by identifying
aspects of organizational culture through sixty two “Successful”
companies. The companies were identified by “themes” that
characterized culture in these organizations.These themes were not
strictly rational and showed the importance of organizational
tangibles.
I searched for an article that was related to culture in the film
industry, and I stumbled upon Ed Catmull’s Harvard Review article .
His article explains the values of culture that Ed has endured at
Pixar along with how the employees ran, how the company’s
management pushed the employees to create original and creative
animated films by creative team projects, and how the problems of
teamwork and feedback were resolved.

3. Pixar Action
While waterman’s and peters themes are also shown in Pixar’s culture. The first theme “a bias
for action” is two react quickly in a organization and don’t spend time planning or analyzing
(Miller,73).
Catmull shows in his article that the the organization pushes it employees by giving long hours,
but the jobs get done through smart swift people. By hiring the talented ”smart” people,
productivity is faster and less time and analyzing is needed. There is still a lot of time
analyzing after the movie for changing the ways of production by analyzing positive an negative
feedback, but during production there is limited time to analyze or plan.

4. Watermans and peter’s second theme is to
have close relations to the customer. The way
Pixar gears it’s productivity, actions, and
decisions to the customers is by taking
action of their flaws and successes and
analyzing employee and customer feedback
to strengthen their company and their next
projects. Catmull states that,
“Pixar asks directors and creative employees to list the five
things that they would do again after the movie is released and
the top five thing they wouldn’t do. Balance between positive
and negative makes it a safer environment. Most of what they
do can be measured and analyzed, when something is reworked,
the rates of which things happen, whether a piece was finished
or not when sent to the next department and so on“
(Catmull, How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity).

5. Autonomy and entrepreneurship in
Pixar
Watermans and Peter’s third theme is that organizations
encourage employees to take risks in developmentof new
ideas (Miller,73).
Catmull article states that creative people are the key to
success. The employees are fully invested in their work,
meaning they’re hardworking, innovative, and productive.
Pixar's philosophy is that when you have creative people they
take on their own project with the help of leeway, support, and
encouragement. So in the end the creative PEOPLE with a vision
is what matters the most, and taking that bold risk of using
something instead of the other is generally what happens in
the production process.
(Catmull, How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity).

6. While the fourth theme states that,
“organizations encourage positive and
respectable behavior", according to Catmull,
Pixar goes the length with positive
encouragement and respectable employees.
Pixar creates a creative environment full of self-
decisioning employees. With weekly meetings every
employee gets to put in his/her own thoughts and
decisions to the table and are allowed to share
creative ideas and project ideas without having to give
permission to your management. The system is made
to allow Creative Groups to work together and build
leadership. All levels of tier help each other out and
the main managers “The Brain Trust” are not allowed
to budge into the projects, but only give expert advice
to the lower level employees.

7. hANDS ON,VALUE DRIVEN,HARDWORKING,
PIXAR’S WAY OF LIFE
T h e r e f i f t h t h e m e c o n s i s t s o f e m p l o y e e s s h a r i n g t h e
s a m e p r o d u c t i v i t y a n d p e r f o r m a n c e s c r e at i n g t h e
s a m e c o r e va l u e . ( M i l l e r , 7 3 )
T h e e m p l o y e e s at P i x a r s t r i v e t o c r e at e t h e s a m e
v i s i o n . T h e y w o r k i n d i f f e r e n t g r o u p s a n d i n d i f f e r e n t
e n v i r o n m e n t s , b u t a l l t h e h av e t h e s a m e c o r e va l u e s ,
t o b e c r e at i v e , t o b e p r o d u c t i v e , a n d t h e m o s t
i m p o r ta n t c o r e va l u e , t o w o r k t o g e t h e r . T h i s c r e at e s
t h e c u lt u r e o f P i x a r .
T e c h n o l o gy i s a l s o v i ta l ly i m p o r ta n t , P i x a r ' s c u lt u r e
i s t e c h n o l o g i c a l a n d t h e va l u e s a r e t e c h n o l o g i c a l .
C at m u l l s tat e s , “ a r t i n s p i r e s t e c h n o l o gy , t e c h n o l o gy
i n s p i r e s a r t . T h i s i s p i x a r ’ s way o f l i f e ”
( C at m u l l , H o w p i x a r f o s t e r s c o l l e c t i v e c r e at i v i t y ) .

8. Stick to the Pixar Goal
The sixth theme states that, “Excellent organizations stay
focused on what they do best and avoid radical
diversification” (Miller,73).
Pixar exhibits both of these. While the creative teams stay
focused on their projects and have a very narrow goal. To
finish the project. There is no radical diversity in Pixar’s
workplace, because everyone is on task in heir specific
departments.

9. There seventh theme states that, “Excellent
organizations avoid complex structures and
divisions of labor” (Miller, 73).
In the Pixar's organizational structure, there
consists of very little complexity. They try to break
classical structures, and instead are ran through
creative groups of directors and producers with
small management positions looking over lower-
level team members. Catmull does explain that they
do have the division of work, which could deplete
excellency according to Peters and watermans
theory.

10. Simultaneous loose-
tight Pixar
The last theme of peters and waterman’s theory states that,“Excellent
organizations exhibit both unity of purpose and diversify necessary for
innovation” (Miller, 73)
In Pixar’s organization thework is all through unification.Everyone
is united as a wholeto producea animated film no matter what
department you’rein. Catmull discussed in his article that the
workers are all innovativeand will even stay over hours to get work
done. The dedication and diversification of employees with
different ideas, values, and beliefs are infused into the company,
since the company policy is to be open-minded and allow yourself
to be part of a team.

11. • In the end Pixar hits almost every theme in Petermans and Peter’s
Theory. So would this be considered a strong cultured organization
with excellency? I think it showed itself that I could and it did become
an proficient and creative organization With a innovative and unified
structure that is succeeding towards a great vision.
Summary Of Excellence In Pixar

12. Deal and Kennedy’s theory is
that they believe business
success can be increased by
strong culture. Through their
four components your
organizational performance can
improve (miller, 72)

13. There Are four Components..
4. The cultural network is the communication
system through which cultural values are
instituted and reinforced.
3. Rites and rituals are the ceremonies through which an
organization celebrates its values.
2. Heroes are individuals who come to exemplify an organizations values.
1. Values and the beliefs and vision that members hold for an organization

14. Values and beliefs in Pixar
According to Deal and Kennedy you need Value’s, Beliefs, and Visions that
are held by the organization. (Miller, 73) Pixar holds diversifiable beliefs,
the value of innovation and creativeness and a unitary goal with diverse visions
trying to accomplish and make that goal.

15. HEROS OF PIXAR
Ed Catmull is the one of the founders of Pixar
along with Alvy Ray Smith. The employees and
management looked up to them and are the
pioneers for motion graphics and technology.
They play a main role to support their
employees, fans, and employers, which makes
them role models to the motion graphics
industry.

16. Rights and Rituals in Pixar
Not much is known about Pixar’s rituals, but what
is a rites of passage is their weekly meetings. I
guess the ritual would be that the newcomer
employees would have to speak first about their
ideas and beliefs to the project their working on.
This allows them to ease into the company and
become comfortable when they are open-minded
and outgoing.

17. THE CULTURAL NETWORK OF PIXAR
Most of Pixar’s cultural network consists of face-to-face
communication when dealing with creative ideas and beliefs. There
is times though that informal communication is used for example,
calling for marketing and or emailing ideas through departments.

18. Since Pixar follows Deal and Kennedy’s
four components of strong culture, this
means that Pixar itself is strongly
productive and successful by these
components. Having a strong creative
mind and a group of people to share
work with is in itself what Pixar is.
While while managers push for
creativity it allows everyone to have a
voice, so in the end Pixar is extremely
imaginative.

19. WRAP-UP OFPRESCRIPTIVE
CULTURE
PETERS AND WATERMAN’S “EXCELLENT
CULTURES” THEORY AND DEAL AND KENNEDY’S
“STRONG CULTURES” THEORY BOTH PROVE
THAT PIXAR’S CULTURE IS MAKING ITS OWN
ORGANIZATION SUCCESSFUL . SO DID THEY END
UP IMPROVING? DID THEY TAKE THE CLOSE
RELATIONSHIPS TO PEOPLE AND USE THAT TO
BE INNOVATIVE AND BOOST PORDUCTIVTY?
I THINK PIXAR PULLED IT OFF. IN THE END THEY
BOOSTED PRODUCTIVITY, THEY ESTABLISHED HEALTHY
GOOD CULTURE, AND CARED ABOUT THEIR WORK, THEIR
GOALS, AND THEIR PEOPLE
THE QUESTION IS
WHAT WILL COME OF
THEM IN THE FUTURE?

20. WORK CITED
Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and
Processes.7th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2012.Print.
Catmull, Ed. “HowPixar Foster Collective Creativity”. Harvard Business
Review September 2008.Web. Accessed28 September 2016.