Hi Reader,
There’s no doubt that individual learning can have a big impact. Reading books, listening to podcasts, and receiving coaching can have a big impact on how you lead, and certainly can spark personal growth and equip you to lead your team more effectively.
But if the goal is to truly transform how a team works, how they communicate, make decisions, stay aligned, and navigate challenges, that change isn’t likely to come from individual insights alone.
Team-level change requires team-level learning.
When teams learn together, they build shared language, collective understanding, and the kind of trust and alignment that actually shifts how work gets done.
What We Can Learn from Pixar
Pixar is known for its string of beloved films, but as co-founder Ed Catmull put it:
“Early on, all of our movies suck.”
How do they transform a messy, mediocre draft into a blockbuster?
Through a practice called the Braintrust.
The Braintrust is a consistent gathering of directors, writers, and heads of story who come together to give candid, constructive feedback on a film in progress. The goal isn’t to defend ideas or prove who is right, it’s to learn together how to make the story better.
What makes the Braintrust powerful is that it isn’t a one-time meeting; it’s a rhythm built into Pixar’s creative process. It creates psychological safety, allowing people to share honest perspectives, spot patterns, and surface blind spots. Feedback is direct but rooted in a shared commitment: telling the best story possible.
At Pixar, the Braintrust isn’t just a meeting, it’s a team learning system that has become a critical part of their operating system, helping them transform rough ideas into films that resonate with millions.
Why Shared Learning is so Impactful:
1. Shared language = faster alignment. When a team learns together, they build common frameworks and vocabulary. This reduces misunderstandings, shortens debates, and creates smoother decision-making.
2. Trust is built through shared experience. Reading the same article isn’t the same as processing something together. Team learning fosters connection because it involves real-time reflection, vulnerability, and mutual discovery.
3. Everyone has the power to shape progress. When learning is shared, progress isn’t dependent on one person’s insight or initiative. Everyone has access to the same tools and frameworks. That brings a shared sense of ownership in shaping how the team grows and improves.
Three Practices your Team can Borrow from Pixar
1. Build Regular Learning Loops
Pixar’s Braintrust functions as a recurring team retrospective, providing a structured space to pause and ask:
- What’s working?
- What’s not working?
- What should we try next?
This rhythm transforms feedback from a one-off event into a habit of continuous team learning.
You don’t need a Braintrust to start. Schedule a simple monthly retrospective to reflect together and identify small experiments to improve how your team works.
2. Create Safe Spaces for Candid Dialogue
Shared learning requires psychological safety. At Pixar, candid feedback is possible because team members know the goal is to improve the work, not attack the individual.
To build this on your team:
- Frame feedback as learning, not judgment.
- Focus on shared goals and values, not personal preferences.
- Appreciate those who raise concerns or share insights
When people feel safe to speak honestly, learning accelerates.
3. Stay Focused on Purposeful Learning
Pixar’s Braintrust doesn’t meet just to critique; it learns together in service of a clear mission: telling great stories.
Your team’s shared learning should feel connected to a deeper purpose, whether that’s:
- Advancing your mission
- Achieving a key strategic goal
- Strengthening relational trust and cohesion
When your learning loops are tied to purpose, they become a tool for collective progress, not just feedback.
Getting Started
Where is your team engaging in shared learning? What small rhythm or practice could you introduce to begin learning together?
We designed our Leading Together program because we believe deeply that if teams want to transform the way they work, they must learn together. Leading Together helps teams build the rhythms, trust, and shared learning structures needed to move from intention to action, together.
If your team is ready to learn how to do this - and wants to begin building the habits and practices of shared learning - we’d love to hear from you.
Learn more about Leading Together here or reply to this email, and we’ll share more about how your team can get started.
- Shaun & Joe
www.6levers.co
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