Creativity, Inc. – Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace
Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new
What’s more important? People, or Ideas?
Is having the right people with you more important than having the right idea?
According to Ed Catmull (the President and Co-Founder of Pixar Studios), having the right people gives you the edge.
If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up.
If you give a mediocre idea to a brilliant team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.
Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.
Hire inspired people, then give them good ideas. Never try to reverse the process.
It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
Creativity, an antonym for boredom?
- There’s one thing you should definitely hand over before you enter your building, and that’s boredom.
- Let everyone design their own workspace to keep boredom out of your building.
- Creativity is about embracing that people are different; that’s how it happens in the first place, so you should encourage your employees to show who they are by letting them design their own workspace.
- Let everyone work according to their own style, whether that’s remote or in-house, in the morning or at night, more alone or more in teams. Focus on the results, not the design.
Risk Taking: Individual or A Team’s Effort?
Not being surprised by failure when it happens, the people at Pixar acknowledge it up front. They greet it right at the door. By accepting that mistakes are just part of the deal, they can design their processes to be iterative, meaning they can weed out the mistakes they find with the next project and not repeat them again.
Dealing with Failure
At Pixar, mistakes are never made by individuals, only by teams. When failure happens, the entire team is responsible.
Failure-sharing is exactly that. When everyone feels safe to take risks, do you have an environment where everyone can have the courage to be creative?
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