Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration
by Ed Catmull
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The Net-Net
In Creativity, Inc., Pixar Animation Studios co-founder Ed Catmull shares how he built a company culture that facilitated Pixar’s innovation and dominance of computer-generated storytelling. Catmull — who has a Ph.D. in computer science and pioneered several early CGI advancements—began his film career in the 1980’s with the observation that many of the era’s well-known companies ultimately failed because they were too focused on their competitors and not focused enough on themselves. This observation sparked an obsession for Catmull, who led Pixar determined to ensure the company’s culture not only prevented self-destruction, but also actively encouraged sustained creativity and innovation. Readers will walk away with a detailed understanding of the defining characteristics of Pixar’s culture—candor, risk-taking, curiosity, and constant feedback—along with tactical examples of how one can bring out these qualities in their own workplace.
Top 3 Insights
- To harness the power of honest feedback, check your ego at the door. Catmull understood that to tell incredible stories and push technological boundaries, the company needed to leverage the collective power of its leaders on every project. To do this, Catmull established a ritual called Braintrust meetings, during which a film’s director could present scripts, storyboards, and scenes in front of the company’s best talent. The fresh perspective these meetings provided was highly effective for problem solving and helping get directors “un-stuck.” The power of these perspectives, though, was only realized because Braintrust meetings had been explicitly established as a space that welcomed constructive criticism and had no tolerance for defensiveness. Everyone agreed on the meeting’s purpose: to nurture and support the film at hand.
- Don’t take the safe bets. Catmull strongly believes that taking safe, predictable bets is an easy way to destroy a company’s culture and lose market leadership. Formulaically repeating past successes (I’m looking at you, superhero movies) not only leads to work that is derivative, but also prevents a company from realizing its creative talent’s full potential. Yes, one must accept that striving for originality and novelty will result in some failures, but the tradeoff can be a net positive if the company installs effective systems (e.g., Braintrust meetings) to foster and protect creativity. Employees are energized by challenging projects, and the goal of a great manager should be to empower workers with the resources necessary to maximize their probability of success in the face of those challenges.
- Early on, all Pixar movies suck. Corporate creativity is not simply the result of hiring creative geniuses and elevating their ideas. Catmull drives this point home by stating that “early on, all of [Pixar’s] movies suck” (90) and explaining that all of the company’s well-known hits were, at one time, terrible before going through intense iterative development. This process of taking a risky or novel story idea and aggressively reworking it for years—through corporate systems and rituals designed to facilitate honest feedback—is the secret sauce that makes Pixar special. In the corporate world, of course, one must carefully decide when to give an idea more investment and when to cut losses, but Catmull’s perspective is a refreshing one.
Actionability
At first thought, its hard to imagine modeling your company or team’s culture after that of an animation studio, which may make Catmull’s musings appear distant. But we are reminded that Pixar’s success also depended on strong operations, financial discipline, and efficient resource allocation, just like any other great firm. In acknowledging these constraints, Catmull adds an appreciated layer of practicality to his analysis of what makes Pixar great. You’ll leave Creativity, Inc. with increased optimism about achieving an energizing corporate culture, and several ideas about how to get there.
- Be less defensive of my ideas when receiving feedback from others.
- Gravitate toward novelty, change, and risk instead of relying on what’s worked in the past.
- Artfully deliver critical feedback I might otherwise hold back.
Good Stories
Between Pixar’s innovative start, the company’s precarious years under Steve Jobs’ ownership, and a potentially culture-destroying 2006 sale to the Walt Disney Company, Catmull had plenty of storytelling material to work with. Overall, Catmull does a solid job of bringing to life Pixar’s most interesting moments, and effectively connects these moments with his instructive lessons about company culture. I wish more space in the book had been dedicated to these stories, though, as they were often engaging and rich, but too sparse. In my opinion, some of the space dedicated to instructive content — which felt repetitive at times — could have been swapped out for more stories.
- 90% of Toy Story 2 being accidentally deleted from Pixar’s file system before release. The backup copy for emergencies like this one? Broken.
- A contrarian perspective on Steve Jobs. Catmull shares several stories about Jobs that contrast with the well-known depiction of Jobs in Walter Isaacson’s biography. (Catmull dedicated the book to Jobs and wrote an afterword called “The Steve We Knew.”)
- The stories of how Monsters, Inc. and Up evolved from movies you wouldn’t recognize (remember: early on, all Pixar movies sucked!) into legendary classics.
Key Quotes
- “Being too risk-averse causes many companies to stop innovating and to reject new ideas, which is the first step on the path to irrelevance. Probably more companies hit the skids for this reason than because htey dared to push boundaries and take risks—and, yes, to fail.” (118)
- “Change is our friend because only from struggle does clarity emerge.” (152)
- “While the allure of safety and predictability is strong, achieving true balance means engaging in activities whose outcomes and payoffs are not yet apparent. The most creative people are willing to work in the shadow of uncertainty.” (183)
- “As a company, our determination to avoid disappointments was also causing us to shy away from risk. The specter of past excellence was sapping us of some of the energy that we’d once use to pursue excellence.” (278)
If This Were an MBA Class, it Would Be Called:
Organizational Creativity
Best For:
- Anyone who partners with creatives
- Those leading a culture turnaround
- Organizational designers
Can’t get enough? Consider:
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
- The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger
- Ed Catmull’s fireside chat at Stanford
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