Via his Pixar colleague Michael Johnson:
In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.
Very wise indeed. Part of why I left my last company was because morale was in the tank after we were acquired.
Saw a documentary on Pixar awhile back & that quote fits with the biggest takeaway I had – they seemed to understand that if you put smart, creative people together, give them the tools they need AND GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY – they’ll do great things. It requires a level of trust from upper management that is very rare.
I missed the perfect Timing of this post that contrasts with this: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/opinion/why-i-am-leaving-goldman-sachs.html?_r=1