Recently Ed Catmull shared several thoughts that have shaped the way he builds teams at Pixar & Disney Animation Studios.
These 3 have been rolling around in my head for the past week.
[bctt tweet=”Focus less on good ideas. Focus on building teams. -Ed Catmull”]
Experience has taught me this is so true. I can have a team of people that generate good ideas but if they don’t work well together, the idea struggles to materialize. Ideas amount to nothing more than a pile of potential.
But when you have a team of people that can work well together, ideas are a natural product. Not only can they generate them, but they have the capacity to work together to make the idea come to reality.
[bctt tweet=”Share ownership in each other’s success. -Ed Catmull”]
I believe I have two functions within the ministry team I lead. First, to help each individual increase their own capacity to lead. Second, to help each individual increase each other’s capacity to lead.
I can easily focus on the former and each team member will grow. But when I focus on the latter, my team (on the whole) improves exponentially. There’s something about a team that’s willing to rally around each other to ensure success.
You hear less ‘me’ statements and more ‘we’ statements.
[bctt tweet=”Give and listen to honest notes. -Ed Catmull”]
This is one area I’ve grown in a lot in the past few years. And I have much more ground to take here. Learning to give honest feedback should be driven from the foundational belief that everyone wants to be better. And if they want to be better, then they want to hear things that will help them be better.
Yet, on the same hand, if we truly want to be better, we have to be willing to listen to honest feedback. It’s a give and take. A team that successfully works together… that has shared ownership in each other’s success… is a team that is willing to hear hard stuff. And have the courage to make necessary changes to improve.
No matter the arena in which we lead, these 3 ideas are pivotal to fostering and leading a great team.
What about you? What would you add to this list?
For Ed’s entire Leadercast talk on teams, check out this video.
I love the first point. I find myself so many times focused on ideas and then trying to put people in place to make those ideas come to be.