Diversity And Inclusion How Pixar Fosters a Culture of Vulnerability at Work - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

 Diversity And Inclusion

How Pixar Fosters a Culture of Vulnerability at Work - Sun and Planets Spirituality AYINRIN

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Summary.   

In an era where the boundary between work and personal life is increasingly blurred, navigating personal story sharing demands a nuanced approach. For workers, sharing the personal remains essential to their well-being and success, but requires an intentional and strategic approach. The way forward for leaders involves dismantling workplace paradigms that penalize some individuals for sharing with vulnerability. To harness the power of storytelling in the workplace, we must work toward eliminating structures that only favor some for sharing authentically. By dismantling these barriers, we pave the way for a more inclusive and empowering environment where the experiences of all individuals are valued and celebrated.

Pete Docter, the chief creative officer of Pixar Animation Studios, puts his storytelling skills to work when mentoring emerging leaders and filmmakers. He once candidly recounted the crisis of confidence he experienced while directing the film Inside Out to a group of 22 mentees in Pixar’s Leadership Mentor Program. The film revolves around a girl, and the main characters are the emotions inside her head, with Joy serving as the central character. Struggling to crack the story, Docter found himself in a three-years-long “tunnel of darkness,” as he put it: feeling like a failure, and convinced he’d be fired. In the depths of sadness and despair, he had a breakthrough realization: the Sadness character needed a more prominent role.

He shared that story with the mentees to help them understand that the inevitable crisis of confidence they’d face is a normal part of the creative process — not a failure, but a universal human experience.

Experts encourage us to be vulnerable, but it’s not that simple for everyone. Women, people of color, and people from other marginalized groups are already at a disadvantage when it comes to proving themselves at work. For them, sharing their vulnerability can be dangerous. As Elaine Lin Hering, author of Unlearning Silence, puts it, “This advice is a luxury not afforded to me because of the identities I hold.”

Consider a young female emerging leader I knew at a large tech company. Inspired by advice to be more authentic and vulnerable, she confided her imposter feelings to a couple of senior leaders. Unfortunately, their response proved to be devastating — they perceived her as lacking the confidence and leadership presence expected at a higher level.

As the line between work and personal life blurs and personal story-sharing gains popularity, it’s essential that people with lower status in the organization navigate this territory with care and intention. The research suggests that feeling more authentic at work is associated with greater well-being and a sense of belonging. In contrast, covering up your authenticity can feel stifling and lead you to search for safer work environments. Furthermore, research reveals health impacts of silencing yourself. If you’re constantly calculating and on high alert, the cognitive load can feel exhausting.

If authenticity carries a cost, and concealing your true self isn’t the answer, what can you do? Here, we’ll discuss some ways for employees to be strategically vulnerable when they face a crisis of confidence, as well as some ways company leaders can make it safe for them to do so.

How Employees Can Be Strategically Vulnerable

Be intentional.

What makes being vulnerable at work worth it? Conduct an honest analysis of the potential costs — for example, being passed over for promotions or denied other growth opportunities. One Black male leader told me, “The downside of not being vulnerable and authentic for me is like covering up a wound that doesn’t heal. I don’t want to modify myself for my superiors to give me value, but I am aware there’s a financial implication.” This calculation is different for everyone.

Know your audience.

Do they see you as competent? Do they care about your success? It’s leaders’ responsibility to make it safe to be authentic and vulnerable — but the reality is not all of them do.

If you’ve done the calculation and determined that sharing vulnerably isn’t safe, choosing to conceal your authentic feelings can allow you to feel more in control and protected from judgment — and it might be the right choice for self-care. You’re strategically weighing the costs of being real with the costs of not self-disclosing.

Don’t forget the third act of your story.

If you share your imposter feelings or another source of vulnerability with someone, don’t leave out how you’ve learned to navigate them, even if you don’t always navigate them brilliantly. You want to embrace a future self that’s still evolving.

Think of it as the third act in the three-act structure that’s universal to all good stories. Act I is where we meet the protagonist (that’s you). Act II is where the protagonist faces a progressive series of obstacles. The low point inspires the protagonist to learn and grow, to discover what’s most important. Whatever that most important thing is, that’s the theme of your story. Act III focuses on the learning and resolution. For example, the film Up reaches its conclusion with Carl realizing that even after the loss of his wife, Ellie, there are new relationships to be formed and new adventures ahead. There’s still a lot more growth to come, but we feel a sense of resolution.

Find a cohort of peers that provides safety and advocacy.

Find a group where members can advocate for each other. In early 2014 at Pixar, we formed a group called the Story Artistas for the company’s five women story artists. Every two weeks, these women shared stories of feeling silenced or insecure. They observed men taking up more air time while they struggled to be heard. Domee Shi, the first woman and person of color to direct a Pixar feature film, credits this group as essential to her growth as a leader and film director. It was within this cohort that Domee and the four others finally felt confident enough to declare, without hesitation, their ambition to be movie directors.

How Leaders Can Make Vulnerability Safe

Develop leadership programs with status disparities in mind.

In Pixar’s Mutual Mentorship Program, over the course of six months, mentors became familiar with the experiences of their mentees, allowing time to deepen trust and intimacy. Mentors and mentees got to know each other by exchanging responses to questions like, “Share a pivotal time that created anxiety but informs who you are today.”

Mentors’ deep connections with mentees sparked epiphanies about their own experiences in contrast to those of lower-status individuals. They left the program advocating for their mentees because they really valued and saw them fully.

Mentees gathered monthly to explore how they experienced power dynamics at work, sharing times when they felt reluctant to speak up. With discussion and tools, mentees learned and practiced how to calculate whether and how to speak up. The mentee group formed a strong coalition in which they felt emboldened to share their stories with more confidence and intention.

Build a skillset to celebrate and champion lower-status individuals.

Create a climate in which people are rewarded, not penalized, for being vulnerable. Data suggests that only about a quarter of leaders develop the skills needed to create psychological safety for their teams. The first step is to build greater awareness of your biases. As a leader, enter meetings and interviews asking yourself, “What biases am I holding?”

In the Leading Inclusively at Pixar program, which is mandated for all 500 people leaders, participants completed a “trust map” where they listed the names of those they mentored, those from whom they sought advice, those with whom they socialized, and those with whom they spent the most time on their teams. Big “ahas” came from this exercise, where leaders realized their networks included mostly people of their own age, ethnicity, gender, and organizational level. The call to action was to populate the trust map with a more diverse group of people over the course of the six-month program.

. . .

In an era where the boundary between work and personal life is increasingly blurred, navigating personal story sharing demands a nuanced approach. For workers, sharing the personal remains essential to their well-being and success, but requires an intentional and strategic approach. The way forward for leaders involves dismantling workplace paradigms that penalize some individuals for sharing with vulnerability. To harness the power of storytelling in the workplace, we must work toward eliminating structures that only favor some for sharing authentically. By dismantling these barriers, we pave the way for a more inclusive and empowering environment where the experiences of all individuals are valued and celebrated.

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