Clearly, if the Pixar executives wanted to keep the floodgates of feedback open, an ongoing process was needed—though it would take some adjustment to reap real rewards. Two employees, one technical and one artistic, proposed a system: if people didn’t feel comfortable talking to their manager about something that wasn’t working, they could approach a designated Peer Pirate for help. Catmull explained that “in the days of real pirates, the crew would elect one of their peers to take issues and complaints to the captain with the agreement that he wouldn’t be killed for what he said.”
