It is 30 years since the first Toy Story film was released. It was an immediate hit with audiences, scoring 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and grossing $350 million worldwide. It won one Oscar and was nominated for 3 more. More than that, it was the first computer animated feature film, and it fixed its creator Pixar positively in the minds of the viewing public. Perhaps less well known is that Pixar was majority owned by Steve Jobs. He had bought the business from George Lucas, of Star Wars fame, in 1986. Jobs paid Lucas $5 million for the technology and rights, and invested $5 million of his own money into the business. For many years Pixar wanted to produce computer animated films, but the computing power just wasn’t available. Yet Job’s knew, due to Moore’s Law, which is the doubling of computing power roughly every two years, that the power they needed would come eventually. Until it did Pixar sold computer hardware but kept on working on the idea of computer animation. Eventually in 1995 it released Toy Story, and then in 2006 after, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Cars, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion. Steve Jobs’ 50% holding in Pixar translating into a 7% stake in Disney, making him the single biggest shareholder in that business.
There are many reasons why Toy Story was so successful; the screen play, the voice acting, the quality of the animation, and its appeal to a broad age range. For me the biggest reason it was successful was the perspective it adopted. The tone of the script was set by this phrase; “toys deeply want children to play with them, and this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions.” Everything else flows from this. The idea of switching one’s perspective is common and frequently done by humans, even if we aren’t immediately aware we’re doing it. In psychology it is known as the Theory of Mind. The attribution of thoughts and desires to others. This then allows us to predict or explain other people’s actions or intentions. Empathy is a related idea; the ability to put yourself in the shoes of someone else. It isn’t just humans who are able to do this, some animals such as, apes, corvids (jays, ravens, and crows), elephants, dogs, wolves, dolphins, and some parrots have this ability to some extent too. Jays have been observed watching other jays cache food, stealing it, and then looking to see if they too are being watched when they cache food themselves.
In Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), there is a technique called Perceptual Positions. It is used to explore a relationship issue a client may have from different perspectives. First position being their own perspective, second position being the other person’s perspective, and third position is the perspective of a dispassionate third party. Going through this process and consciously choosing to adopt these different ways of looking at a relationship can bring deep insights, which can help people resolve or heal relationships. This process is also useful when planning for or in the midst of a negotiation. And it is something that I use when coaching individuals. I occasionally swap perspectives, and using what I know already about a client, I imagine what things look like from their point of view. This will often open-up questioning routes for me. Though whilst doing so I make sure my mind read of any situation is checked out with the client and not treated as gospel truth. This idea of switching one’s perspective was something Albert Einstein did when he was 16 years old. He imagined what he would perceive if he travelled at the same speed as a light wave. This insight, eventually led him to postulate Special Relativity, where space and time are not absolute, as they seem, but relative. In Relativity there isn’t a clock on the outside of the universe that applies to everyone, instead we all have our own clocks.
Isn’t it amazing where a little bit of imagination fuelled by a change of perspective can take you. Maybe if we had the courage to view the world through the eyes of others we could start to really make this world a better place for everyone.
“Look deeply into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Albert Einstein.
