Out of Juice? Recharge!

"It was pointed out to me that being around a dozen intellectually ravenous people who are new to the field would renew my enthusiasm," says Jacob. "The person who said that was absolutely right on."

The Juggler

Randy Nelson, the dean of PU, stands on a makeshift stage. Before an audience of 15 Pixar employees - students in a gesture-drawing class - he juggles foot-long knives. Nelson, 44, wears a billowy red-and-yellow silk shirt, a glittery silver sash, and black gaucho pants. He is not your father's administrator. A former member of the flying Karamazov Brothers, he has juggled knives on Broadway and chainsaws in Chicago.

As Nelson grandly drops to one knee to snag the pinwheeling daggers, the animators and the techies erupt into applause. Then they sketch like fiends. They've got three minutes to render the dean in action. His feat will keep folks buzzing for the rest of the afternoon.

Nelson's mandate is daunting yet simple: to help Pixar's people to perform at their peak. Make no mistake, he is anything but a showman on lease. Through trial and error, Nelson is working out a game plan for sustaining the company's energy level over the next 10 years. Herewith, three of his road-tested strategies for combating stress and building energy:

Get smarter. Take a course, find a mentor. Getting stale is the fastest way to burn out, says Nelson. PU offers a slew of opportunities to help people advance their technical skills. General-interest classes, such as improv, are another way to keep the creative juices flowing: They make people take risks, work collaboratively, and think on their feet.

Get exercise. Whatever the form, whenever you can. In the "need a release" department, there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all brand of exercise, says Nelson. The menu of sports at Pixar is long and purposely varied. Most employees put themselves on activity-based email lists. So if they're stressed out and have a hoops jones, for example, they can round up a game by simply dashing off an email.

Get outside the box. Try hobbies that challenge, amuse, and resonate. A class like juggling works on multiple levels. For people who punch code all day, juggling is more than a spunky game that tests hand-eye coordination - it's a physical release.

Advanced jugglers won't even attempt to field a poorly thrown pass, says Nelson. But he insists on it. "I tell people to throw me whatever junk they can manage," he says. "We put the onus on the receiver, not the thrower. In business, people are going to throw crap at you all the time. Once you learn how to handle it, you'll never wind up on the fast track to burnout."

Todd Balf toddbalf@compuserve.com, a contributing editor at Outside magazine, writes frequently for Fast Company.