Book: Creativity, Inc.

Author

Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace

Summary

Practical advice on how to establish and maintain a culture of creativity and innovation in an organization

Takeaways

Running a large organization requires dealing with great complexity, and high uncertainty and instability. It is easy for managers to lose sight of the problems of their employees. The only way managers can avoid this is to encourage candor and open feedback, and to actively work on uncovering and understanding anything that is hidden.

Leaders need to embrace a mindset of humility, admit mistakes and course-correct when new evidence comes to light. Being too fixated on goals and stability is ill-advised as change and failure is unavoidable. Leaders should hold on to their ethics and values, but re-balance priorities and adjust goals as they learn.

Quotes

“I will discuss many of the steps we follow at Pixar, but the most compelling mechanisms to me are those that deal with uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, and the things we cannot see. I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know—not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them."

“Creative people must accept that challenges never cease, failure can’t be avoided, and ‘vision’ is often an illusion. But they must also feel safe -always- to speak their minds."

“Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear. Doing all these things won’t necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn’t the goal; excellence is."

“Do not accidentally make stability a goal. Balance is more important than stability."