You can read a number of books on Creativity or read this 2008 HBR article by Ed Catmull – there are so many timeless pearls of wisdom from his illustrious career he shares in the article that I have read many times over the last decade.?He re-emphasizes why people count over ideas anyday, and also shares the Creativity secret sauce of so many computer-animated blockbusters from Pixar.
If you have 20-25 mins to spare, go thru the full article.?My summary cannot do justice to all that’s in there.?Every time I have read it, it has been instructional at a new level:
- Creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems
- At Pixar, lasting relationships based on shared beliefs matter.?Why??If you want to be original, you have to accept the uncertainty, even when it’s uncomfortable, and have the capability to recover when your organization takes a big risk and fails.?
- What’s the key to being able to recover? Talented people, not ideas!?Talent is rare.?If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up; if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something that works.
- So, how does Pixar get talented people to work effectively with one another? That takes trust and respect, which can’t be mandated; they must be earned over time.?You get great creative people, bet big on them, give them enormous leeway and support, and provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone in a safe environment.
- How do they get creative folks to collaborate??By having “Dailies” or daily reviews – every team member has to be vulnerable enough to show their incomplete work with the entire team, get inputs, learn and inspire each other.?The desire to wait till the work reaches a “good state” before showing it to others is completely removed, with no surprises at the end.
- But, who decides in such an environment??There are really two leaders: the director and the producer. All operating decisions are made by them.?No second-guesses.?
- What does it take for a director to be a successful leader in this environment? They have to be masters at knowing how to tell a film story, i.e. a unifying vision—one that will give coherence to the thousands of ideas that go into a movie—that can be turned into clear directives for the staff to implement; sharing all relevant information but leaving the creative ownership of the “how” to the team members
- But, what do you do when you get stuck??Pixar has a “Brain Trust” – a group of peers and experts who give candid, no-holds-barred feedback to make the movie better.?It’s far better to learn about problems from colleagues when there’s still time to fix them than from the audience after it’s too late.?The Brain Trust has no authority.?Decision-making and whether to heed to their suggestions is still the sole remit of the Director.
“If we aren’t always at least a little scared, we’re not doing our job...”