Ed Catmull: Creativity, Inc Book Summary

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The underlying principle of the building and campus design was to facilitate community and collaboration
They value self-expressionand creativity
The financially-strained company of 100 people struggled for five years to create Toy Story their way
They figured if they created a movie they wanted to see, other people would want to see it
After the success of Toy Story and going public to ensure their future, he felt that succeeding in the goal that defined his professional life left him feeling a bit empty and without a driving goal
He believes his job as a manager is to create a fertile environment, keep it healthy, and watch for the things that undermine it
He believes at his core that everyone has the potential to be creative
Identifying these destructive forces is a crucial, central mission
Part one: Getting Started

Chapter 1: Animated

When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless
Unhindered communicationwas key no matter what your position
Disney and Einstein represented the two poles of creativity
Disney was all about inventing the new, bringing things into being both artistically and technologically
Einstein was a master of explaining that which already was
To create a fertile laboratory, you have to assemble different kinds of thinkersand encourage their autonomy
They had to offer feedback we needed but also to be willing to stand back and give them room

Chapter 2: Pixar is Born

He admired that his first boss had total confidence in the people that he hired
When faced with a challenge, get smarter
Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening
There were so much secrecy around different companies trying to do animation in a feature film. They took the opposite approach by sharing everything they learned because he felt everyone was so far that keeping secrets would only impede their overall progress
George Lucas pave the way for special-effects in Hollywood. The success of Star Wars allowed him to do it the right way by having the resources to allocate to an animation apartment
When they asked him who else should be considered for the job, he listed off the top people in his industry
What he didn’t know is that they had already interviewed all of them, and none of them gave anyone else’s names. This showed his worldview in that the brightest minds it should be on the hardest problems
Later, George said he hired him because of his honesty, clarity of vision, and steadfast belief in what computers could do

The human resistance to change is a real impediment
It isn’t enough for managers to have good ideas, they have to be able to engender support for those ideasamong the people who would be charged with employing them
For George Lucas, the process of moving toward something, a common goal, of having not yet arrived is what he idealized
George didn’t bump up his salary quotes, he instead ask for licensing rights and bet on himself. He ended up winning
A conversation with Steve Jobs took you places you didn’t expect. It forced you not just to defend but also to engage, and that in itself had value
Steve Jobs bought their computer department from George Lucas for $5 million, and promised an additional 5 million in funding to the department once the sale was closed

Chapter 3: A defining goal

There’s nothing quite like ignorancecombined with a driving need to succeed to force rapid learning
He made the mistake of asking for simple answers to complex questions instead of asking the more fundamental questions
Total quality control: The responsibility for finding and fixing problems should be assigned it to every employee, from the very top to the very bottom
If anyone spots any problem, they should be encouraged and expected to stop the assembly line
This idea gave ownership of and responsibility for a products quality to the people who are most involved in it’s creation
Workers could suggest changes, call out problems, and feel the pride when they helped fix what was broken. This resulted in continuous improvement
While Steve could be brilliant and inspirational, he was also extremely difficult to work with
At this point, he completely lacked any empathy and his sense of humor was nonexistent
He used Steve’s own technique of conflict resolution against him by taking the time to explain his position several times until it was resolved
And even if it wasn’t resolved, Steve would let him take the reins if he was passionate about it. Steve respected passion. If Ed believed in something that strongly, it couldn’t be all wrong
When stakes were highest, Steve could go to another level of play. He successfully negotiated the partnership with Disney for creating their next feature film
Steve accurately predicted and executed the plan of going public after Toy Story became a hit and then renegotiating the contract with Disney for a better deal
After accomplishing his goal of making Toy Story, the first feature animated film, he felt like he lost his purpose
Sometimes the good sides hide the bad sides. When downsides coincide with upsides, people are reluctant to explore what’s bugging them for fear of being labeled as complainers
One change they implemented was removing a hierarchical structurefrom communication channels so that anyone could talk to anyone else without having to go through a supervisor

Chapter 4: Establishing Pixar’s identity

Their first mantra was: Story is king
Many people said Toy Story success was how the story made them feel
Second mantra: trust the process
As one of their core values, they felt proud that they insisted on quality
Decisions like that, he believed, ensured future success
What Toy Story 2 lacked was drama, something that the viewers would believe was a real dilemma they could relate to
The creative team phrased it as: would you choose to live forever without love?
When you can feel the agony of that choice, you have a movie
What he says, “I can’t stop Andy from growing up, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world”
The success of toy story to prove that they can do the impossible

Lesson: if you give a great idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you given a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better
Takeaway: getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right. The way people interact with one another is key. Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched
A good team is made up of people to complement each other. Getting the right peopleand the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea
What is more important: people or ideas? The answer should be obvious. Ideas come from people, therefore people are more important
A movie is not one idea, it’s a multitude of them. And behind these ideas are people
It is the focus on people, their work habits, their talents, their values, that is absolutely central to any creative venture
It was management job to take the long view, to intervene and protect our peoplefrom their willingness to pursue excellence at all costs. Not to do so would be irresponsible
Trust in people, not in processes
It is the responsibility of good leaders to make sure that words remain attached to the meanings and ideals they represent
Lesson: we must always be alert to shifting dynamicsbecause our future depends on it
New phrase: quality is the best business plan
Quality is not a consequence of following some set of behaviors, rather it is a prerequisite and a mindset you must have before you decide what you’re setting out to do
Part two: Protecting the New

Chapter 5: Honesty and Candor

A hallmark of a healthy creative cultureis that it’s people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candor if left unchecked ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments
Principle: You are not your idea, and if you identify so closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged
To set up a healthy feedback system, you must remove power dynamics from the equation
Focus on the problem, not the person
If Pixar is a hospital and the movies are their patients, the brain trust is when the director and producer, or whomever is the filmmaker in charge, is bringing together a group of doctors to consult on the problems and then ultimately make a decision on how to address it
A lively debate in a brain trust meeting and argument serves only to excavate the truth
Steve Jobs stayed out of brain trust meetings because he trusted the people in those meetings that knew better than he did
The key is to look at the view points being offered in any successful feedback group as additive, not competitive
A comparative approach measures other ideas against your own, turning the discussion into a debate to be won or lost
An additive approach starts with the understanding that each participant contributes something, even if it’s only an idea that fuels the discussion and ultimately doesn’t work
The brain trust is valuable because it broadens your perspective, allowing you to peer at least briefly through others eyes
There’s a difference between criticismand constructive criticism

The latter builds up while breaking down. That’s an art form in itself. Whatever notes you are giving should inspire the recipient
Sometimes you have to act like a teacher
This can require talking about the problem in 50 different ways until you find that one sentence that you can see makes their eyes pop, until they’re thinking that they want to do it
Qualifications for a brain trust member: The people you choose must:
make you think smarter
put lots of solutions on the table in a short amount of time
He came to think of their meltdowns as necessary part of doing their business like investments in R&D
Failure is not something to be ashamed of, like how they teach you in school as a kid
Failures aren’t a necessary evil, in fact they aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new, and as such should be seen as valuable. Without them, we would have no originality
Failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making it far worse mistake. You are being driven by the desire to avoid it
As a leader, this strategy dooms you to fail

Do you make failure into something people can face without fear?
If we as leaders can talk about our mistakes and our part in them, then we make it safe for others. You don’t run from it or pretend it doesn’t exist. That is why they make it a point to be open about their meltdowns at Pixar
Being open about problemsis the first step towards learning from them
Principle of Iterative Trial and Failure: Any outcome is good outcome because it yields New information
The more time you spend mapping out an approach, the more you’ll get attached to it
As leaderswe must always think of ourselves as teachers
The antidote to fear is trust
It is managements job to figure out how to help others see conflict as healthy, as a route to balance which benefits us all in the long run
With certain jobs, there isn’t any other way to learn then by doing
By putting yourself in the unstable place and then feeling your way, similar to learning how to stand on a balance board
Negative feedback may be fun, but it is far less brave than endorsing something unprovenand providing room for it to grow
The new needs protection, whether it is people or ideas, to thrive. Eventually it will need to transition into engagement
There is no growth or success without change

People have a natural tendency to want to hold onto things that work
Rather than fear randomness, he believes you can make choices to see it for what it is and to let it work for you
The unpredictableis the ground on which creativity occurs
Having a finite list of problemsis much better than having ideological feeling that everything is going wrong
Another trick is to encourage people to play. Some of the best ideas come out of joking around which only comes when you or the boss give yourself permission to do it
It can feel like a waste of time to watch videos or tell stories about last weekend, but it can actually be very productive in the long run
He’s heard some people describe creativityas unexpected connections between unrelated concepts or ideas. If that’s true, you have to be in a certain mindset to make those connections
Occam’s Razor: if there are competing explanations for why something occurs the way does, you should pick the one that relies on the fewest assumptions and is thus the simplest
In reality, not everything is simple, and to try to force it to be is to misrepresent reality
To think you can control or prevent random problems by making an example of someoneis naïve and wrongheaded
We must meet unexpected problems with unexpected responses
The key is to create a response structurethat matches the problem structure

Nobody, not Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, or people at Pixar, ever achieved creative success by simply clinging to what used to work
A core management belief: if you don’t try to uncover what is unseenand understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead
The better approach is to accept that we can’t understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus instead on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints
If we start with the attitude that different new points are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse
He is an advocate for humility in leaders. But to be truly humble, those leaders must understand that many of the factors that shape their livesin businesses are and will always be out of sight
Our mental modelsplay a major role in our perception of the world
Honoring the viewpoints of otherscan be a difficult principle to put into practice throughout your company
Confirmation bias: The tendency of people to favor information, true or not, that confirms their pre-existing beliefs
Our mental models are not reality. They are simply tools just like a weather forecaster tools which are always prone to be wrong
They had a balance between technology, art, and business between Ed, John, and Steve
Art challenges technology, technology inspires art
Their shorts accomplished different goals such as giving the teams more experience and time to deep in their relationships with each other
Art classesaren’t for learning how to draw, they are for learning how to see
Doing a postmortem(retrospective) is a way to sit down and consolidate all that you’ve learned before you forget it
They are a rare opportunity to do an analysis that was not possible in the heat of the project
It is also a chance to teach otherswho weren’t there
Postmortems are also a way to not let resentments fester

It is a way to force people to think, reflect, andevaluate
The value of datain postmortems is that it is neutral
Through Pixar University, communication thrived because simply by providing an excuse for them to toil side-by-side, humbled by the challenge of learning various skills and crafts, it changed them for the better and taught everyone that no matter their title, to respect the work their colleagues did
It provided and environments without hierarchy because they were all beginners again
Pixar University stressed how important it was for each of them to keep learning new things
That keeps them flexibleand their brains nimble by pushing themselves to try things they’ve never tried before
Fear hinders creativity, as it is shown by second and third graders drawings compared to fourth and fifth graders who became more aware and subconscious
Creative people discover and realize their visions over time, and through dedicated, protracted struggle
In that way, creativityis more like a marathon than a sprint. You have to pace yourself

As long as you commit to a destination and drive toward it with all your might, people will accept when you correct course
People want decisiveness, but they also want honestywhen you’ve effed up.
Include people in your problems, not just your solutions
What’s important as you construct a mental model that works best for you is to be thoughtful about the problems it is helping you to solve
Steve spearheaded the merger of Disney Animation and Pixar, but made sure that Ed and John remained the heads of both entities
They also to make sure that their traditions wouldn’t be overtaken by the larger Disney entity
After the merger, John and Ed kept Pixar and Disney animation completely separate. But they started to try and apply the principles they learned at Pixar and reconstruct Disney animation
He felt that contracts were bad for both the employer and the employee
Keeping the studios separate forced them to be able to solve their own problems, instead of masking it
Ed gave Disney animation the Toyota speech, where he said they strive to empower the smart people they hired to solve their own problems
Timidity won’t make Disney animation great. Innovation would

By spending less time with Pixar and more with Disney animation, it showed that there were capable leaders at Pixar who could step up and solve problems without John and Ed
While he believes that a big organizations there are advantages to consistency, he strongly believes that smaller groups from the larger whole should be allowed to differentiate themselvesand operate according to their own rules so long as those rules work
This fosters a sense of personal ownership and pride in the company that benefits the larger enterprise
They took the idea of research and research trips into Disney animation and now they do it consistently
Disney used the marking lessons from the Princess and the Frog when they released and rebranded the concept for the movie Tangled
Easy isn’t the goal, quality is the goal
He believes clarity is elusive because he doesn’t believe in simple, prescriptive formulas for success
He wanted this book to acknowledge the complexity of that creativity requires
Managers of creative companies must never forget to ask themselves: how do we tap the brain power of our people?
Notes Day was successful in part because of the idea that fixing things is an ongoing, incremental process
Creative people must except that challenge never cease

No creative company should ever stop evolving
The number one topic to discuss I know today was “how to accomplish a 12,000 person week movie”
He believes that what made Notes Day a success was that they made it safer for people to say what they thought
Notes Day made it OK to disagree. That’s in the feeling that people had that they were part of the solution
What made it work? Three factors:
There was a clear and focused goal
This was an idea champion by those at the highest levels of the company
Notes Day was lead from within
Persist.
Persist on telling your story
Persist on reaching your audience
Persist on staying true to your vision.
His goal is to continue to show people how Disney and Pixar continue to figure it out

The future is not a destination, it is a direction
They must not be afraid of constant uncertainty. They must accept it just as they accept the weather
Uncertainty and change are life’s constants. And that’s the fun part. Mistakes will always be made and our work is never done
Unleashing creativityrequires 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
Steve, John, and Ed bonded over their passion for excellence
Steve saw that creativity wasn’t linear, that art was not commerce, and that insisting upon applying dollars and cents logic was to risk disrupting the thing that set them apart
Shift the emphasis in any meeting away from the source of the ideaand onto the idea itself
Steve knew how important it was to construct a story that connected with people
Steve wanted to make people happy and make the world a better place, and there was a special place in his heart for Pixar because he knew that that’s what they did with their movies
Overtime, Steve became more wise, learning how to listen and gaining more empathy

For screenings with the board of directors, Steve focused on the problem itself, not the filmmakers, which made his critiques more powerful
It is easy to dismiss criticisms being levelled for personal reasons
Testing boundariesand crossing the line sometimes is a behavioural trait can be seen as antisocial
Or if it happens to change the world, it can earn you the label “visionary“
Starting points: thoughts for managing a creative culture
Giving an idea to a mediocre team vs giving to a great team will produce different results
When looking to hire people,give their potential to grow more weight than their current skill level

Always try to hire people that are smarter than you
You lose if there are people in your organization don’t feel free to share their ideas
Your job is to search for reason why people aren’t candid and address them
Engaging the collective brainpowerof the people you work with is an active ongoing process
Sharing problems is an act of inclusion that makes employees feel invested in the larger enterprise
Measuring the outcome without evaluating the processis deceiving
Often times the cost of preventing errorsis far greater than fixing them
Do not resist change, just build the capability to recoverwhen they occur
It is the managers job to make it safe to take risks
Trustdoesn’t mean you trust they won’t screw up, it means you trust them even when they do
Finding and fixing problems is everybody’s job
The process of problem solving often bonds people together

Protect the future, not the past
Do not accidentally make stability a goal. Balance is more importantthan stability
Measure people by their ability to solve problems, not by the mistakes they make
It takes substantial energy to move a group, even when everyone is on board
Engaging with exceptionally hard problems forces us to think differently.
Imposing limits can encourage a creative response
Excellence, quality, and good should be earned words attributed by othersto us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves
A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody
Don’t wait for things to be perfect to share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when you get there, but not on the way
Don’t confuse the process with the goal. Improving the process is necessary, but making the product great is the goal
Don’t make too many rules. They can simplify life for managers, but be demeaning for the 95% who behave well

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Ed Catmull: Creativity, Inc Book Summary

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