Second, despite their frustrations, these production managers felt that they were making history and that John was an inspired leader. Toy Story was a meaningful project to work on. That they liked so much of what they were doing allowed them to put up with the parts of the job they came to resent. This was a revelation to me: The good stuff was hiding the bad stuff. I realized that this was something I needed to look out for: When downsides coexist with upsides, as they often do, people are reluctant to explore what’s bugging them, for fear of being labeled complainers. I also realized that this kind of thing, if left unaddressed, could fester and destroy Pixar.

The first principle was “Story Is King,” by which we meant that we would let nothing - not
the technology, not the merchandising possibilities - get in the way of our story. We took
pride in the fact that reviewers talked mainly about the way Toy Story made them feel and not about the computer wizardry that enabled us to get it up on the screen. We believed that this was the direct result of our always keeping story as our guiding light.

The other principle we depended on was “Trust the Process.” We liked this one because it was so reassuring: While there are inevitably difficulties and missteps in any complex creative endeavor, you can trust that “the process” will carry you through. In some ways, this was no different than any optimistic aphorism (“Hang in there, baby!”), except that because our process was so different from other movie studios, we felt that it had real power. Pixar was a place that gave artists running room, that gave directors control, that trusted its people to solve problems. I have always been wary of maxims or rules because, all too often, they turn out to be empty platitudes that impede thoughtfulness, but these two principles actually seemed to help our people.

There is some dispute about when, exactly, the Braintrust came into being. That’s because it developed organically, growing out of the rare working relationship among the five men who led and edited the production of Toy Story - John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, and Joe Ranft. From Pixar’s earliest days, this quintet gave us a solid example of what a highly functional working group should be. They were funny, focused, smart, and relentlessly candid with each other. Most crucially, they never allowed themselves to be thwarted by the kinds of structural or personal issues that can render meaningful communication in a group setting impossible. It was only when we rallied to fix Toy Story 2, coming together to solve a crisis, that the “Braintrust” entered the Pixar lexicon as an official term.

The process of developing a story is one of discovery,” Pete says. “However, there’s always a guiding principle that leads you as you go down the various roads. In Monsters, Inc., all of our very different plots shared a common feeling - the bittersweet goodbye you feel once a problem” - in this case, Sulley’s quest to return Boo to her own world - “has been solved. You suffer through it as you struggle to solve it, but by the end you’ve developed a sort of fondness for it, and you miss it when it is gone. I knew I wanted to express that, and I was eventually able to get it in the film.”

While the process was difficult and time consuming, Pete and his crew never believed that a failed approach meant that they had failed. Instead, they saw that each idea led them a bit closer to finding the better option. And that allowed them to come to work each day engaged and excited, even while in the midst of confusion. This is key: When experimentation is seen as necessary and productive, not as a frustrating waste of time, people will enjoy their work - even when it is confounding them.

And yet, as we made those unconventional choices, everyone agreed, we needed to outline
better, more explicit steps to train and prepare those we felt had the necessary skills to make
movies. Instead of hoping that our director candidates would absorb our shared wisdom through osmosis, we resolved to create a formal mentoring program that would, in a sense,
give to others what Pete and Andrew and Lee had experienced working so closely with John
in the early days. Going forward, every established director would check in weekly with his
mentees - giving them both practical and motivational advice as they developed ideas they
hoped would become feature films.