Creativity, Inc. Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

By fostering a creative environment for your employees, which is free from the fear of risk-taking, your company will work more efficiently as a team. Change, risk, and failure are necessary for creative companies. But, by being prepared, your team can quickly recover from a failure.

About the Author

Ed Catmull is a retired American computer scientist and former president of Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has contributed many advances to 3D computer graphics. Ed was born in Parkersburg, West Virgina. He was the oldest of five children and as a young man worked as a missionary to the New York City area in the 1960s.

After graduating from the University of Utah, he worked as a computer programmer at The Boeing Company in Seattle for some time and also at the New York Institute of Technology. He graduated from the University of Utah with a Ph.D in Computer Science. During his time at university, he worked on texture mapping and bicubic patches and invented algorithms for spatial anti-aliasing and refining subdivision surfaces. He also independently discovered Z-buffering.

Topics

Entrepreneurship Management & Leadership

Creativity, Inc. Book Summary Preview

Key Insights

It’s the goal to be creative and innovative in the development of your company.

But, oftentimes creativity gets stifled because of the fear of risk, as risk often can lead to a loss in profits.

In “Creativity, Inc” Ed Catmull uses anecdotes to tell his success story. Catmull is the founder of Pixar and has created a multi-billion dollar company out of his dream.

“Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.”- Ed Catmull

He delves into the mistakes management oftentimes make which hinder the creative aspects of the business. And, as a result stops them from growing.

Catmull explains what you need in a creative team in order for it to succeed.

Honest Employee Feedback

In a hierarchical structure, it’s hard to tell your boss how you really feel. Likewise, it’s hard to present ideas for the company’s improvement, even if they’re genius. This results in a lot of problems going unfixed, simply because no one has the guts to tell the guy in charge.

Feedback systems are important for company success. For example, with Pixar, a Notes Day was established in order to give employees the chance to speak their ideas on the improvement of the company. It was a safe space for open dialogue because the employees knew the boss wanted to hear it.

By employees being able to speak their minds, they feel greater accountability for their work. If they spot a problem, they will be more likely to address it rather than ignoring it.

Workers should feel that their concerns are valid and that their ideas will be taken seriously. And, that environment needs to be created by the leader.

Ed Catmull of Pixar makes the effort to talk to all of his employees individually so that they know they are valued in the company.

Fear of Failure

People don’t like change. This is because they correlate it to failure. For example, if a new system is put into place at work and they are not familiar with it, they will hate it because it brings stress upon them. They think that the new system will make them fail or make a mistake.

Teachers expect their students to make mistakes, as it’s just another part of learning. And, business is no different. The environment the leader establishes should promote the idea that making mistakes is ok. Without mistakes, there are no new innovations.

When companies are unwilling to explore ‘the new’ and make changes, they become stagnant and inflexible which can take away a lot of new opportunities for them.

“If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it.”- Catmull

Catmull believes in having a goal, but being flexible with it. Goals are not meant to constrain you, but rather direct you.

Shortcomings

As humans, we tend to more easily accept information that confirms our opinions. This can be a problem because it hinders us to be able to see issues from different perspectives.

Leaders can avoid...