The Little Green Army Men In 'Toy Story,' An Unusual Object In A Company's Meetings, And The World's Best Computer Hackers: How Perspective Changing Improves Performance
The 3-word Quote: “Pivot Your Perspective”
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1.
Matthew Luhn was very nervous.
Luhn, a movie animator, knew his creation had to be perfect.
As his first-ever assignment for Pixar Studios, the characters in the movie had to move and feel like real people, and he was nervous.
He had to get them right.
Luhn was working on Toy Story, and he was assigned to animate the little green army men.
If you have ever played with any of these plastic toys, you know these green soldiers all have a particular object attached to their bodies.
They were all attached to a green plastic base that allowed them to stand up.
The attached base they stood on made them easy to play with but incredibly difficult to animate - they didn't move like other characters.
But Luhn's job was to create how these characters moved. His director and fellow animators would expect nothing less than perfection.
But more importantly, he knew he had to get it right for audiences.
And Luhn was stuck.
But he didn't do what most other animators might do in this stressful situation- he didn't roll up his sleeves, pull up a stool, and start intently drawing at his desk.
Instead, he did something different.
He changed his way of thinking - and went snowboarding.
2.
If you are like most people, you've ordered something from this company before.
It's a huge company.
According to AdertiseMint, Relentless earns 1.2 billion in daily revenue - or $52 million per hour.
And all that money means they have many, many customers.
And thinking about these customers is constantly on the minds of the leaders of Relentless.
In fact, when you go to their 'Who We Are' page on their website, customer focus guides their principles. They have lines like:
"...customer obsession rather than competitor focus…"
"We strive to be the earth's most customer-centric company..."
Like their name, they are relentless regarding customer satisfaction.
However, Relentless is no longer the company's name, but it maintains the Relentless website (click here for its new name, relentless.com).
However, the word still accurately describes their mindset toward success and customer experience.
And in pursuit of customer satisfaction, they often include a wonderfully weird object in company meetings.
This object helps them make customer-focussed decisions.
And it is this object that might help you make better decisions, too.
3.
Deep inside the Pentagon, a secret group is housed.
A Popular Mechanics article described this group’s purpose as 'adversarial network services to the rest of DoD (Department of Defense).'
Many tech companies have similar teams, and these teams are beneficial to those businesses and individuals.
But what does the Pentagon's secret team actually do?
It's a group of highly skilled computer hackers paid to disrupt and break into the government's computer systems.
Yes, they're a governmental group paid to hack into government sites.
Seems strange, doesn't it?
And this group is almost always successful in breaking into government computer systems.
One member says they don't keep stats of successful hacks, but he says their success rate is 100%.
And while the government wishes this team's success rate was lower, they are happy to have this team.
The team's name and the reason they break into government computers is something nearly everyone can benefit from - even if they don't work in tech.
The takeaway
So, what do little green army men from Toy Story, an unusual object in Amazon meetings, and a top-secret team of hackers have in common?
They are all examples of how changing perspectives can lead to better results and performance.
They are all examples of how anticipating, looking for, and accepting mistakes can help make better decisions.
Let's check it out.
Making movies is a laborious undertaking.
Animated films require hundreds of animators and thousands of hours of work.
And in Pixar's case, little is left to chance.
So when animator Matthew Luhn needed to work on making the little green army toys move accurately, it was challenging.
So, to get it right, Luhn went snowboarding.
Well, not exactly snowboarding, but close.
Instead of drawing more when stuck, he brought a wooden plank about five feet in length into his office.
He then took off his shoes and proceeded to securely screw those shoes onto the wooden board about shoulder-width apart.
In a short time, he built what looked like a primitive snowboard on his office floor.
He then slipped his feet into the shoes attached to the board and began to try to walk, hop, and crawl around his office - all while videoing himself performing these somewhat clumsy moves.
Why?
Because he changed the way he thought and started thinking about how the green army characters moved.
Luhn then slipped out of the board and shoe contraption, carefully watched the video of himself, and finally began to sketch those little green army men.
Luhn's shoes, which he nailed to the board, simulated the base on which the toy soldiers stood.
His board and shoes forced him to move without allowing him to use his legs as he normally would.
He knew these toys on screen would move in a very particular way - movement would be much stiffer than other toys because of that base.
So he 'played' army in his office and filmed how he moved while attached to the ‘snow’ board.
Did Luhn, author of The Best Story Wins, have to do this to animate the little green army guys in Toy Story?
Of course not.
He could have imagined how these soldiers would move. But he did what all creators should do - he put his audience first.
He thought differently.
He knew what his audience wanted, and he knew viewers of the film would expect perfection.
He did everything he could to create something memorable, to get it right before the film's final version was released.
While some animators would go straight to the animating, Luhn thought first and researched.
He even modeled the toys' behavior and actions on his family members who had served in the military.
All this for his audience.
And it started with changing his perspective and thinking differently.
***
If Amazon truly is relentless and obsessed with its customers, then it would make sense that most of its decisions would be made with its customers in mind.
But how do you make decisions that benefit customers when the customers are not in those decision-making meetings?
This question bothered Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, so he decided to address the problem.
And his answer involved a simple object already in all the meeting and conference rooms.
And that object changed how they thought in their meetings.
The object was a chair.
Yes, a chair.
And how did a chair get those in the meetings to think more about customers?
Well, at each meeting, Bezos would pull up an empty chair to the conference table.
The chair was the only empty one at the meeting, and it was empty for a reason.
It was a symbol.
The empty chair represented the Amazon customer, whose voice wouldn't be heard in the meeting.
That empty chair reminded those in the room to always consider and make decisions based on their customer.
The empty chair allowed people to speak up on customers' behalf, keeping that focus and obsession on the customer.
And it might seem odd, but the symbol of an empty chair could help you, too.
An empty chair represents the person and voice missing from your meetings, but it doesn’t have to represent a customer.
Lacking diversity at your meetings? An empty chair could help.
First, of course, it would be beneficial if an actual live person that the empty chair represented could participate in the meeting and offer their insights and perspectives.
If that can be accomplished, then an empty chair isn’t necessary.
Short of that, the symbolic empty chair could prompt discussion and encourage a mindset change.
The chair can also allow others to speak up and say things that might be left unspoken otherwise.
It freely allows a 'devil's advocate' line of thinking without feeling like a complainer.
The empty chair can force a different line of thinking.
And, if even for a moment, that can be a powerful exercise in perspective changing.
And that’s good for everyone.
***
And what of those talented tech teams whose job is infiltrating computer systems?
They are essential.
They serve a critical role.
The team’s only goal is to search for problems and glitches in computer systems that ill-intended hackers could also find and exploit.
These teams are often called 'red teams,’ and they find problems that others either didn't see or didn't think of.
If the red team finds a problem, others looking to damage the system could also find the issue.
However, while these red teams are familiar in some tech businesses, a similar squad can serve important roles in other fields.
Obviously, we always think we have considered everything when making a decision or launching a product.
We believe we have considered errors, contemplated mistakes, and found loopholes.
But we never have 20/20 vision when looking at our own work.
A team or individual who is tasked with specifically finding mistakes helps most fields.
Writers have editors.
Musicians have producers.
Movies have test audiences.
We all need extra eyes - most importantly, ones that aren't our own.
If a computer red team finds a loophole, it has to be fixed.
However, when it comes to creative fields, others often offer opinions of what they believe should be done to the work.
And he creator has to decide whether to follow the advice or not.
But most importantly, you must first have the courage to seek out those who will tell you what's wrong.
If you want improvement, you want a red team - and you want it to find something.
Pixar has the 'Braintrust,' which functions as a red team.
Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and author of Creativity, Inc. says, "A hallmark of healthy creative culture is that people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticism."
Catmull believes this freedom allows for better creativity in the end.
So he has instituted the Braintrust to serve this role - this is his red team that will be honest with recommendations.
Catmull says, "Candor could not be more crucial to our creative process."
Animator Mathew Luhn knew his work would come in front of the Braintrust, so he changed his perspective and thought of the audience - so the Braintrust would have fewer critiques.
Luhn was honest with himself about his initial drawings of those little green army men - he knew they needed to be better.
He changed his perspective to that of an actual green army man, and his art improved.
Jeff Bezos uses a symbolic empty chair in meetings to make people think of what voices might be missing from the room.
The chair changes people's perspectives and asks them to think and analyze things from a different point of view.
It works.
The red team’s job is to find errors. Once they find problems in computer systems, the only discussion is how to fix them.
It forces the programmers to think differently to correct their program.
A Pixar animator, an empty chair, the government's red teams - all were looking to find ways to be honest and find problems in order to make something better.
And all had to change their perspective to find those flaws.
Sometimes the best thing to ask is, 'What am I missing?'
And be open to the answer.
3 things before you go:
Read: If you need to find me, I might just be here.
Listen: The 502s, Just a Little While: quick, quirky, and upbeat; love that the first comment under this song on Youtube is “I can’t explain why, but this song makes me so excited for life” - what a compliment.
Listen2: public piano performance; underrated genre of videos is public piano performances; in this one: a guy in a hazmat suit, Boogie Woogie music, and some punk rockers make a killer trio.
Thanks for reading. Hope to see you back here in 10 days. Cheers.
-Jeff