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.

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.

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).

Autonomy and entrepreneurship in Pixar

Watermans and Peter’s third theme is that organizations encourage employees to take risks in development of 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).

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.

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 a t 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 a t P i x a r s t r i v e t o c r e a t 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 a v e t h e s a m e c o r e va l u e s , t o b e c r e a t 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 t a 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 a t 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 g y i s a l s o v i t a l ly i m p o r t a 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 a t m u l l s t a t e s , “ a r t i n s p i r e s t e c h n o l o g y , t e c h n o l o g y i n s p i r e s a r t . T h i s i s p i x a r ’ s w a y o f l i f e ”( C a t 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 a t i v i t y ) .

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.

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 watermanstheory.

Simultaneous loose-tight Pixar

The last theme of peters and waterman’s theory states that, “Excellentorganizations exhibit both unity of purpose and diversify necessary forinnovation” (Miller, 73)

In Pixar’s organization thework is all through unification. Everyoneis united as a whole to producea animated film no matter whatdepartment you’re in. Catmull discussed in his article that theworkers are all innovative and will even stay over hours to get workdone. The dedication and diversification of employees withdifferent ideas, values, and beliefs are infused into the company,since the company policy is to be open-minded and allowyourselfto be part of a team.

• 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

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)

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

Values and beliefs in PixarAccording 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.

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.

Rights and Rituals in Pixar

Not much is known about Pixar’s r ituals, but what is a r ites of passage is their weekly meetings. I guess the r itual 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.

THE CULTURAL NETWORK OF PIXARMost 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.

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.

WRAP-UPOFPRESCRIPTIVECULTURE

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 ISWHAT WILL COME OF THEM IN THE FUTURE?

WORK CITED

Miller, Katherine. Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes. 7th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

Catmull, Ed. “How Pixar Foster Collective Creativity”. Harvard Business Review September 2008. Web. Accessed 28 September 2016.