PPCD ASSIGNMENT 2 Assignment reference: PDFULL/July11/2/Group Tatiana Gerasina Tamer Nassar

8220447 8244373

Tameem ALZOABI 7995650 Tarek Fahmy

7986821

WALT DISNEY&HIS TEAM

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1 DISNEYS TEAM INPUTS ................................................................................................................. 2 TEAM PROSESSES ............................................................................................................................ 4 Corporate culture ................................................................................................................................. 5 Work place organization ...................................................................................................................... 6 Leadership ........................................................................................................................................... 6 Brainstorming a three room idea management ................................................................................ 7 Brainstorming Storyboarding ........................................................................................................... 10 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................. 11 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 12

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INTRODUCTION
Walt Disney Studio made an innovative breakthrough in an entertainment industry, which started from cartoons and all-famous Mickey Mouse, Disneys first Cartoon Hero. Walt Disney and his team were the first who steered cartoons away from the "rubber hose" style of the silent and encouraged his artists to develop a realistic, naturalist style of animation in the early 1930s. Later on Disney continued innovative way as they produced great movies and created worldwide known cartoon characters, such groundbreaking films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), the first full-length animated feature, and "Pinocchio (1940), a film whose intricate levels of technical brilliance many animators feel has never been surpassed. Walt Disney started his career as an artist with Pesman-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, where he met Ubbe Iwwerks. Later, Walt worked in different places as cartoonists until finally he moved to Hollywood with an aim to become a director. As Hollywoods companies rejected his candidacy, he started a small business to make animated movies and cartoons together with his friend Ube Iwerks and his brother Roy Disney. Ube and Walt started their work in a small office in an old building, where mice could be seen running around. They worked on drawing the cartoon mouse walking on two legs that turned to be the Mickey Mouse. No doubt that the success of any project doesnt depend only on one or few people. The success of the project depends on the extent to which individuals in the group can forge themselves into a team, cooperating effectively, flexibly and consistently towards the achievement of thoughtfully defined and agreed goals. The framework developed by Hackman and Morris (1975) named Input-Processes-Outcomes (IP-O) can help us to identify the key factors that led Disneys team to success. Inputs contain the drivers of a team, such as materials or human resources. Processes are dynamic interactions among team members. Outcomes refer to the task and non-task-related results of a teams operation.

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DISNEYS TEAM INPUTS

Input relates to size of the team, the skills and abilities of team members and how long team members have worked together. Inputs influence the way how teams operate and perform. Walter Disney made great efforts to form a talented team of animators, he encouraged people from all over the country to join his studio. After joining, new employees were sent to the best art schools. No doubt that Disney attracted the best talents, they were masters of the form, but they also had to have attitude of the student to acquire new knowledge and develop themselves. Walt Disney believed that people working in his team should dream, believe and dare to do something different. A well-known principle of Walt Disney Make everyones Dream come true; Believe in your people, your guests, your partners; Dare to make a difference; then just Do it! identifies the kind of people he wanted to have in his team. Disney wanted the people who were able and who wanted to break the rules, rebels by nature, who dared to dream and had crazy ideas (from youtube interview). Finally, the core team was formed through decades with nine team members who he called: my old nine men after Roosevelts name of his high Supreme Court judges. - Les Clark, the first of the nine old men, the man who did Mickey Mouse animations for decades, took over this specialty from Ube Iwerks. - Marc Davis, the man who designed and animated Snow white, cruel de Vil, Maleficient and Cinderella. Known as the Disneys Ladies Man. - Ollie Johnson, together with Frank Thomas, they formed a legendary Frank & Ollie character animation team. - Frank Thomas, the other half of Frank and Ollie team. The team has created the characters like Captain Hook &King Louie. - Mit Kahl, a brilliant artist who designed Tramp in Lady and the Tramp, Roger and Anita Radcliffe in 101 Dalmations. - Ward Kimball, he was the man who loved music besides being a great animator.
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Eric Larson, his great role of developing Disneys Talent program and creating a next generation of talents had huge influence on Disney.

John Lounsbery, a comic animator who mastered great techniques, the man who codirected Winnie the Pooh and Tigeer Too.

Wolfgang Reitherman, the man of action sequences. His work in Pinocchiio and Sleeping beauty was great, he also directed 101 Dalmations and other movies.

This team has stood together with Walt Disney until his death in 1966. Important to notice that Disneys team size and composition were unique and diverse. At the very beginning, the size of the team was only three people and at the same time they had diverse talents. Walt had outstanding artistic talent, but was an average animator. Roy Disney was a pragmatic person, who managed financial and organizational part. Ube was a very good animator from technical point of you. In order to create a complete studio they required animators, technicians, musicians, administrators etc and they managed to find the best old nine men. The formed team stayed together with Walt Disney until his death in 1966 and it was one of the most productive and innovative teams the history ever knew.

Walts core team as we can see wasnt so big and multiple researches also confirm that the output of the teams decreases with the increase of teams size above some certain size. This happens because of team inhibitors such as social loafing, conformity or production blocking.

Team longevity is also important factor when we speak about creative team. In general, the longer a team works together, the less innovative they become. First of all, the initial breakthrough was done by a very young team, which supports the theory. Secondly, we believe that the reason why the discussed team fountained innovative solutions for so many years was an attitude of the students to everything they did, their craziness and the desire to do something different of all members of the team. And of course the mixture of the materials (people), done by Walt Disney was a genius one.

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TEAM PROSESSES
Whatever we accomplish belongs to our entire group, a tribute of our combined effort, Walt Disney.

Shades of teamwork are everywhere in Disney films, but none better illustrates Walt's belief in the value of collaboration than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. For many of us, those seven individual charactersHappy, Sleepy, Doc, Bashful, Sneezy, Grumpy, and Dopeyare treasured childhood friends. We remember them as a true team, always going off to work each morning whistling a happy tune. Walt intentionally embedded the concept of teamwork and cooperation into the script, with the dwarfs illustrating how different talents and personalities can be brought together to accomplish shared goals (Capodagli and Jackson, 2001).

Director of Pixar, Brad Bird, said to his team when he only headed the company: Look, this is a young team. As individual animators, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, but if we interconnect all our strengths, we are collectively the greatest animator on earth (Rao et al, 2008).

Success doesnt depend only on each team members talents and resources but also on the way people interact with each other, in other words on processes within the group.

Which processes do separate normal team from outstanding creative team?

As was already said above, on the input stage it is very important to hire people who are involved. Involved people make better innovations. Bird said Involved people can be quite, load or anything in-between what they have in common is a restless, probing nature (Rao et al, 2008). Walt Disneys team initially was a combination of imagineers, who were possessed with cartoons and animation; they were determined to create cartoon stars and make a difference.

The other component of the successful team is that people should be engaged and motivated.
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Engagement means that people should share their ideas, speak up and disagree. Peoples input should not be restricted, and problems should be brought up and discussed. If people dont feel motivated and dont feel that they invest in work, productivity goes down. On the other hand, if people share their ideas the learning curve goes up and productivity increases.

Corporate culture
Team or corporate culture the way we do things around here (Deal and Kennedy) - is then very important to create the atmosphere, to set the tone of a groups work, to stimulate involvement and engagement. Innovative companies therefore tend to have cultures, which emphasize and reward values and norms that support the generation and implementation of new ideas (Andriopoulos and Dawson, 2009).

Disney is well-known for its strong culture, behavioral norms and promotion of supportive conflict. Disney Company builds its wholesome entertainment branding through the way it manages the people. Culture created by Walt was smart dresses code, no swearing, and the use of euphemisms to describe people who work there cast members rather than employees (Langdon, 2003). People, who worked in Disney studio from the very start, remember that Walt was friendly with everyone and asked his newly hired employees to call him simply Walt. Nevertheless, simply Walt demanded very high performance from his team and from himself. Enthusiastic team worked together with Walter from 7am till 10pm, many hours of overtime without any compensation. But interestedly, they also mentioned that they were happy to do this, that proves once again that working atmosphere was positive. Disney company nowadays also puts much time, effort and money into getting new joiners to adopt the company way of doing things, which also called organizational socialization. It includes job previews, training courses, Traditions class for new hires about history language, organizational goals and values. In addition, Disney Company, as in early days of establishment, continues to stimulate employees to have all kinds of optional classes to encourage people to learn outside their areas/boxes, which makes employees more complete and more open to new ideas.

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Work place organization

The way how work stations organised or internal design within the company also contributes to the culture and the way people interact with each other. For example, Steve Jobs in Pixar designed a huge atrium with the idea that people have to interact with each other constantly. He believed that things happen when people make eye contact and run into each other.

Disneys first studio in California had an atmosphere of free kind, very loose and open which contributed to high creativity of the company. However, a newly built in 1940 Burbank studio had a very different, revolutionary type of work place organisation, common for that time Fordism principle. Walt created a new studio as a production line, with high specialization of employees. It was a rationally planned new animation factory with high segregation of tasks, with supervisors, impersonal and hierarchical atmosphere. Many authors mention that although this new design resulted in decrease of costs and served the purpose of mass and increased production, this new kind of designed later on contributed in decrease of creativity as well.

Leadership
Walt Disney defined Leadership as the ability to establish and manage a creative climate where people and teams are self-motivated to the successful achievement of long-term goals in an environment of mutual respect and trust. Leaders personality plays a crucial role in establishing conditions upon which creativity flourish and under which team conflicts can be resolved. No doubt that Disney personality was an outstanding one. Disney mantra was, I dont make movies to make money, I make money to make movies. Walt Disney himself was obsessed with improving the quality of the cartoons. No doubt that the passion of Walt gave inspiration to his team. At the same time Walt was a good task manager, who could choose the best people and organise the working process in the way that creativity could bring the harvest. In general, the team created by him was a combination of innovation, discipline and hard-working.
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Walt Disney was a perfectionist, he required attention to details. How can we do better? is the question Walt asked at every turn. He strove continually to improve the quality of the products that gave him and his team fuel to move further to creative and new ideas.

There is a general consensus among authors that a democratic-participative leadership style facilitates creativity and innovation (Andriopoulos and Dawson 2009, p.166). It is a controversy here of whether we can call Walts leadership style democratic. People who used to communicate with him on work mentioned that it wasnt easy to work with him. He was a powerful person and sometimes could fire someone on spot if he didnt like something about the person or about what the person had said. They also mention that the environment wasnt democratic, but more autocratic inside the company.

Brainstorming a three room idea management

Walt Disneys concept was that the human being should think differently. He tried to think up and refine ideas, they were brainstorming alone and in groups, they tend to fill the room with a dreamer or two, a few realists, and a group of spoilers and work together to reach creative unique ideas.

Walt Disney, credibly, being among of the most successful creative teams of all times, has developed a rigorous process to generate creative ideas - a three room idea management process. Disney team believed that a new creative idea should pass through three rooms in order to materialize as a new innovation.

The first room is the dreaming room, dreams has no limitations; dreams can be crazy, wild or completely irrational. This is exactly how developing new ideas should be free from any restrictions on thoughts, no matter how odd an idea could be it should be spoken out. This goes very well with the second rule of Osborns (1963) four rules, which emphasis on accepting freewheeling, where Walt Disney ensured a barriers free environment. Disneys first management principle (Capodagli and Jackson, 1999) was Make Everyones Dream come true. The first

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phase doesnt take feasibility into account, thus judgment is suspended, enabling generation of large numbers of ideas without the fear of being judged or criticized. It doesnt matter whether the idea is realistic or not. This fulfills Osborns (1963) first rule of effective use of brainstorming which states that criticism of ideas should be abolished during brainstorming session and also makes the third rule materialize where Disneys team could easily go for large quantities of ideas through setting aside any assumptions.

The second room is where the focus moves to be on creative execution, thinking of means to implement the idea and how the team would work on the tasks. Mainly in this phase the Disney team starts to draft sketches of new characters, share views on how a storyboard can be built. The phase mainly allows team members to look into ideas from first room, start to question things and try to resolve issues. Applying Osborns (1963) Fourth rule - combination and improvement need to be sought. Team starts to build on each others ideas, a team member would need to find out how to develop others ideas and let others pick his own ideas that they find attractive and adopt them with improvements or combine ideas forming an idea cross pollination mechanism.

First and second room in Disneys idea generation creative process resembles the idea generation, which is the first stage according to Osborns (1963) who argued that creative process is based on idea generation and idea evaluation. The brainstorming happens in the first two rooms while the third room is where the evaluation phase takes place, questions like is it right to do it or do something else? and why we do it? take place. Simply, a criticism is now allowed in this room, doubts are raised, and difficult analytical questions are asked. The second stage is mainly where the idea is evaluated based on business needs.

The three rooms are different in setup, each room is designed to meet the purpose it is used for, the first room has high ceilings with good ventilation, allowing fresh air. High ceilings inspire for unrestricted free dreams and unlimited thoughts. Team seating is also designed to serve the goal of creative flow, a circled seating where team members face each other allows face to face
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interactions promoting collaboration. The second room setup is more like a classroom with boards or wall facilities where team is seated in semi circular shape facing the boards, so that team could easily share ideas and simultaneously go through ideas. This is some sort of using brainwriting technique, which prevents the occurrence of the problem of production blocking. The team seated facing the boards have access to ideas without the need to wait for others or to take turns. Also a Shared sketch over the walls is another figure of brain walking, which is discussed later. The third room setup is much simpler, team is seated facing project plan in a single row formation. This serves the aim, project criticism rather than individual people criticism. The different rooms enables team members to set their mentality to the right mode at the right phase.

Advantages of Disneys Brainstorming process

The first two rooms, resembling the idea generation stage, with their setup and role in

the process enhances the brainstorming process and emphasis its advantages. Huge numbers of ideas are generated in the first room with the free dreaming

encouraged. Team morale went sky high with a belief that each member contributes strongly to the

creative abilities of the Disney visionaries. The team cohesiveness increased and members got to know each other very well and

hence more comfort in sharing experiences and ideas was achieved. Enjoyment, it is clear how the Disney old nine enjoyed their work and creative process,

they stick together with Walt Disney for lifetime. Impressed clients, who could impress clients more than Disneys old nine team and their

sketches. Low cost, the room setup is much less expensive than what nowadays companys spend

on expensive equipment and tools. Disney rooms are located in work place and team utilizes available resource.

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Disneys method overcame Brainstorming disadvantages

While Brainstorming sessions have two major disadvantages, the structured Disney method could minimize the drawbacks and avoid flaws.

Generation of ideas without screening. Disneys second room is the key solution to this

issue, while traditional brainstorming techniques result in large numbers of generated ideas that has no limitations and end up there. Disneys second room screen the ideas generated in room one with a means of selecting ideas that would be developed and cross pollinated. Brainstorming is not always the answer to problems. This is because brainstorming has

four rules (Osborn 1963) that must be applied to result in an effective session. Disneys method is very well disciplined, the three phases/ rooms are very well defined and time management was ensured. We have reflected above the fulfilment of the four rules within the rooms.

Brainstorming Storyboarding
Disney Team also invented a unique way of brainstorming, which is called Storyboarding, which is related to the second room technique described above. Storyboarding is a structured exercise that quickly captures the thoughts and creative ideas from group of participants. These thoughts and ideas recorded on cards and then displayed on a board or a wall. The result is an idea landscape. Storyboarding is an ideal tool for generating solutions to problems and enhancing communication. Visual element makes interconnection of ideas creative thoughts and activities readily apparent.

Walt took note and began asking his artists to pin their drawings pencil sketches and fully colored renderings alike on boards. Walt then sequenced the boards, hung them on the walls, and thus beheld the stories spring to life. Today, Disneys employees use the storyboard to develop movie plot lines, design theme parks, solve business problems and plan corporate strategy. Generating and putting ideas graphically, instead of just verbally, expands team members perspective, sharpens their focus, and spurs them to see and feel and dream, not just
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think. Storyboarding is a very democratic process, engaging people at all levels and in all functions and benefiting all personality types (Capodagli and Jackson, 2001):

Quiet and reserved people need not to speak until they are ready; Assertive and talkative people focus on putting pencil to paper, and thus dont dominate

the discussion; Visual people revel in generating and arranging pictures that become stories in front of

their eyes; Detail-oriented people can see how the smallest elements combine to create the big

picture. Now they see forest and the trees.

CONCLUSION
To accomplish something beyond the capabilities of individuals working on their own is the reason for forming the teams. Organizations that invest the time and resources necessary to build successful teams find that they benefit not just from the team meeting their goal, but also get from the characteristics of the team itself. Through teamwork company benefits from diverse exchanges of ideas and information. The heterogeneity aspects of a team can lead to a range of skills and abilities that form different beliefs and opinions among its members. This diverse views lead to increased creativity. An increase in creativity allows the organization to adjust to new situations flexibly.

Based on the analysis performed above, we can conclude that Disney team headed by their outstanding leader has managed to build such processes within the team which resulted in production of many innovative products and ideas. These know-how processes, ideas and methods are still widely used today in many companies all over the world. Moreover, team which created Mickey Mouse gave a rise to the world. the most powerful multi-national corporation in

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REFERENCES Andriopoulos, C. and Dawson, P. (2009). Managing Change, Creativity and Innovation.
London: SAGE Publications ltd. Buchanan, D.A. and Huczynski, A.A. (2010). Organizational Behavior. 7th ed. Harlow: Capodagli, B, & Jackson, L. (2001). Disney Way Fieldbook: How To Implement Walt Pearson Education Limited. Disney's Vision Of 'Dream, Believe, Dare, Do' In Your Own Company, n.p.: McGraw-Hill, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost, viewed 14 December 2012. Capodagli, B. and L. Jackson. (1999). The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company. McGraw-Hill. Dilts, Robert. Walt Disney: Strategies of Genius. The Article of the Month. 27 Nov. 2001 Ken Langdon. (2003). The 100 Greatest business ideas of all time. Capstone. Rao, H., Sutton, R. and Webb, A. (2008) . Innovation lessons from Pixar: An Interview with Oscar-winning Brand Bird. The McKinsey Quarterly April 2008. Available from: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Innovation_lessons_from_Pixar_An_interview_with_Oscar -winning_director_Brad_Bird_2127 [accessed 14 December 2012] McCrimmon, M. (1995). Teams without roles: empowering team for greater creativity. Journal of Management & Development. Retrieved September 5, 2006, from the Apollo Library Prichard, J.S, & Stanton, N.A. (1999). Testing Belbin's team role theory of effective groups. Journal of Management Development. Retrieved September 5, 2006 o o o o o o o o Websites accesses 14 December 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnpGiEjxN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtzyaoFe_wo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b8KyzHpEvw The Walt Disney Company website http://thewaltdisneycompany.com/citizenship/report-archive http://hoomancan.com/blog/2009/01/walt-disney-and-his-imagineers-always-strived- to-plus-it/ http://www.arinanikitina.com/walt-disney-a-person-who-never-stopped- dreaming.html http://99u.com/tips/6993/Brainstorming-20-Making-Ideas-That-Really-Happen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE2fZYTdIqA

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