Steve Jobs didn’t sketch one character in Pixar’s new movie, Brave, but his handprint is on every frame. During an interview on Charlie Rose, John Lasseter, the chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation, told a short, insightful story about the late Apple CEO who had purchased Pixar in 1986 for $10 million (Jobs would later sell Pixar to Disney for $7.4 billion, making Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder). Steve Jobs introduced the Pixar team to his pixel-level obsession with excellence.
In Lasseter’s first meeting with Jobs, he wanted to tell Jobs about a short film he was working on that would show off Pixar’s technology. Pixar was mostly a hardware company at the time and Lasseter was the studio’s only animator. After Lasseter pitched the story, Steve Jobs offered fours words of advice: “Just make it great.” It was the only guidance that Jobs gave Lasseter. That short, Tin Toy, won an Academy Award for best-animated short film, the first time an Oscar had been given to computer animation.
The day of average is over. Today an average business will generate below-average results. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote, “What was average performance in the past will not earn an average grade, an average wage, or a middle class standard of living.” Friedman recommends that all of us need to raise our game. In other words, just make it great.
Search for excellence in everything your business does and everything it stands for. Take another look at your web site. Is it readable, engaging, and easy to navigate? Take another look at your product. Is it elegant and simple to use? Take another look at the customer experience. Are you enriching the lives of your customers and making them feel good about doing business with you? Take another look at your leadership skills. Are you an average leader who gets a job done or a great leader who inspires your team?
The “make it great” mantra. At Gallo Communications, we’ve adopted “just make it great” as our mantra in 2012. It’s driving us crazy in a good way! It forces everyone out of their comfort zones. For example, we are developing a new web-based presentation training course. The process has taken more time than anticipated because we are reviewing everything about it—the video, workbooks, navigation, functionality, etc. Yes, the mantra adds time to the process but the results are always better. I’ve even added a sentence to emails I send to vendors when I’m not 100% satisfied with a particular product. I’ll end an email with the words, “Just make it great.” In every instance the vendor has come back with significant improvements.
John Lasseter said that Steve Jobs taught him to always aim high. With an unprecedented streak of #1 movies, Lasseter and Pixar have certainly aimed high and achieved their mark. Jobs taught Lasseter that “quality is the best business plan.” Jobs would say that everything Pixar does has to be great again and again and again. Every Pixar story had to be great. Every movie had to be great. Every product with Pixar’s name on it had to be great. If you want to succeed in this increasingly competitive global economy, every single thing you do has to be great. Is it?
Carmine Gallo is the communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. He is a popular keynote speaker and author of several books, including the international bestsellers The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His new book, The Apple Experience: Secrets to Building Insanely Great Customer Loyalty is the first book to reveal the secrets behind the stunning success of the Apple Retail Store. Follow Carmine on Facebook or Twitter.
