Excerpts & Thoughts — Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

A book 45 years in the making ‘Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration’, is definitely the best book I read in 2021. Written by Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, and the late Amy Wallace, there are plenty of memorable quotes and lessons in the book, including “…when it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.”

If this is the first book review of mine that you’re reading, then here’s how this goes. Firstly, it’s okay not to have time to read a book. We’re all busy, couldn’t be bothered, or have too much other content to consume. I share excerpts from the book in my book reviews, and my personal thoughts are penned in Italics.

Before we begin, let me say that this book deserves a read in full. Why? Because it’s written by Edwin Catmull, a core part of the team behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Monsters, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Edwin Catmull has also been the Vice President at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in the computer graphics division at Lucasfilm, where he is best known for his work on the X-wing.

So let’s just say that this man has single-handedly done more for my childhood than my entire academic life. These movies and the behind-the-scene stories of hardships and processes are written in a narrative style, adding an extreme level of immersion to ‘Creativity, Inc’.

That said, here are the sentences and bits I found most actionable and inspirational. Most of these are around creativity, running a creative business, and the importance of storytelling. These sentences appear in order of which they are written in the text and are not a top or favorite of any sort. I hope you find these quotes as unique, insightful, and contemplative as I did — and if you do, then yaaaay! Do let me know in the comments.

Remember, words in Italics are my thoughts.

1. I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know — not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur.
2. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear.

3. The lesson of ARPA had lodged in my brain: When faced with a challenge, get smarter.

4. Clearly, it wasn’t enough for managers to have good ideas — they had to be able to engender support for those ideas among the people who’d be charged with employing them.
I once had a manager who had incredible ideas in the advertising and marketing space. But, they could never be bothered selling the concept to their team members and juniors. This meant everyone was unhappy, and effort put on the manager’s idea — half-assed.

5. For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right.
This is why the creator economy is story-led and not what looks the best.

6. 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.

7. Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right … Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea … Ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas … Find, develop, and support good people, and they, in turn, will find, develop, and own good ideas.

8. There are often good reasons not to be honest. When it comes to interacting with other people in a work environment, there are times when we choose not to say what we really think.

9. Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another.

10. Societal conditioning discourages telling the truth to those perceived to be in higher positions.
Over my many jobs, I have observed many people who behave this way. I believe many people, when complaining about hierarchy, really want to express their anger against societal conditioning. That said, societal conditioning is hard to change, not impossible. Companies and workspaces need to put in the effort and communication that nullifies this bias.

11. Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new.

12. “Get a bike that’s as low to the ground as you can find, put on elbow and knee pads so you’re not afraid of falling, and go,” he says. If you apply this mindset to everything new you attempt, you can begin to subvert the negative connotation associated with making mistakes.

13. To be wrong as fast as you can is to sign up for aggressive, rapid learning.

14. Is the question being asked: Whose fault was this? If so, your culture is one that vilifies failure. Failure is difficult enough without it being compounded by the search for a scapegoat.
Way too many people need to read, understand, and practice this sentence. During my days as a chef, I had the opportunity to learn this lesson first hand. We had the wrong cut of vegetables from the Garde manger kitchen. Instead of spending time checking if the order placed was wrong or orders got mismanaged, we just fixed the situation by cutting the right shape from scratch.
Sometimes things go wrong, and you may fail, but time is better spent fixing the problem than looking for a culprit. Being wrong and failing is not a crime!

15. We must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.

16. While experimentation is scary to many, I would argue that we should be far more terrified of the opposite approach.

17. To be a truly creative company, you must start things that might fail.

18. If the crew is confused, then their leader is, too.

19. As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the whole.

20. One of the most crucial responsibilities of leadership is creating a culture that rewards those who lift not just our stock prices but our aspirations as well.

21. The antidote to fear is trust, and we all have a desire to find something to trust in an uncertain world.

22. Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.

23. The pressure to create — and quickly! — became the order of the day. To be clear, this happens at many companies, not just in Hollywood, and its unintended effect is always the same: It lessens quality across the board.
Speed does not quality make, and in the instant world of digital marketing, this needs to be something everyone is more mindful of.

24. Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on — but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal.
Doing great shit is more important than doing great business.

25. The key is to view conflict as essential, because that’s how we know the best ideas will be tested and survive.
This is why I believe every creative team needs to have a few people who are very hard to convince. These people must try to attack the idea from all angles. Doing this right means these people attack only the idea, not the person who came up with the idea. And companies must create an environment where this system is kept in check.

26. I often say that managers of creative enterprises must hold lightly to goals and firmly to intentions.

27. There is no growth or success without change … Fear of change — innate, stubborn, and resistant to reason — is a powerful force.

28. Having a finite list of problems is much better than having an illogical feeling that everything is wrong.

29. I’ve heard some people describe creativity as ‘unexpected connections between unrelated concepts or ideas.’ If that’s at all true, you have to be in a certain mindset to make those connections.
Again, I believe this is highly important for creative professions. My scuba diving experience means I associate more value with physical actions than most. This is why, whenever I do a branding project, I always create a physical action that the brand can own.

30. Steve Jobs was known for changing his mind instantly in the light of new facts, and I don’t know anyone who thought he was weak.

31. To think you can control or prevent random problems by making an example of someone is naïve and wrongheaded.

32. People who act without an approved plan should not be punished for “going rogue.” A culture that allows everyone, no matter their position, to stop the assembly line, both figuratively and literally, maximizes the creative engagement of people who want to help.
This is the Toyota Way. Allowing anyone to stop the assembly line, in most cases, ensures people are more attentive to problems while giving them the ability to solve them.

33. No one — not Walt, not Steve, not the people of Pixar — ever achieved creative success by simply clinging to what used to work.

34. There is nothing quite as effective, when it comes to shutting down alternative viewpoints, as being convinced you are right.

35. “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” The cat’s hindsight, in other words, distorts her view. The past should be our teacher, not our master. — an excerpt by Mark Twain referenced in the book

36. It’s extremely difficult to create something out of nothing, especially when you consider that much of what you’re trying to realize is hidden, at least at first. There is hope, however. There are things we can do to help ourselves open up and see more clearly.

37. When filmmakers, industrial designers, software designers, or people in any other creative profession merely cut up and reassemble what has come before, it gives the illusion of creativity, but it is craft without art. Craft is what we are expected to know; art is the unexpected use of our craft.
This is why I’m not a huge fan of reference images. I get inspirational images and mood boards, but not references.

38. You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the familiar. In my experience, when people go out on research trips, they always come back changed.

39. How do we enable our people to solve problems? Instead, they asked: How do we prevent our people from screwing up? That approach never encourages a creative response.

40. I prefer to think of data as one way of seeing, one of many tools we can use to look for what’s hidden. If we think data alone provide answers, then we have misapplied the tool … Here’s my approach: Measure what you can, evaluate what you measure, and appreciate that you cannot measure the vast majority of what you do. And at least every once in a while, make time to take a step back and think about what you are doing.

41. In Korean Zen, the belief that it is good to branch out beyond what we already know is expressed in a phrase that means, literally, “not know mind.” To have a “not know mind” is a goal of creative people. It means you are open to the new, just as children are. Similarly, in Japanese Zen, that idea of not being constrained by what we already know is called “beginner’s mind.” And people practice for years to recapture and keep ahold of it.

42. If you are mindful, you are able to focus on the problem at hand without getting caught up in plans or processes. Mindfulness helps us accept the fleeting and subjective nature of our thoughts, to make peace with what we cannot control.

43. It is a tenet of the Pixar culture that people should work there because they want to, not because a contract requires them to, and as a result, no one at Pixar was under contract.

44. In particular, John and I stressed that no one at Disney needed to wait for permission to come up with solutions. What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don’t empower them to fix what’s broken?

45. It’s difficult sometimes to tell the difference between what is impossible and what is possible (but requires a big reach). At a creative company, mistaking one for the other can be fatal — but getting it right always elevates.

46. The future is not a destination — it is a direction. It is our job, then, to work each day to chart the right course and make corrections when, inevitably, we stray.

47. There’s something else that bears repeating here: Unleashing creativity requires 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. Doing all these things won’t necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn’t the goal; excellence is.

48. In a creative company, separating your people into distinct silos — Project A over here, Project B over there — can be counterproductive.

49. Steve had a remarkable knack for letting go of things that didn’t work. If you were in an argument with him, and you convinced him that you were right, he would instantly change his mind. He didn’t hold on to an idea because he had once believed it to be brilliant. His ego didn’t attach to the suggestions he made, even as he threw his full weight behind them.

50. When looking to hire people, give their potential to grow more weight than their current skill level. What they will be capable of tomorrow is more important than what they can do today.
This is why I’m not too fond of typical interviews where potential and growth are not even considered as much as current qualifications. Yes, qualifications and ability to do the job are important, but what’s more critical is individual growth potential and the long-term effects this has on the company.

51. If there are people in your organization who feel they are not free to suggest ideas, you lose. Do not discount ideas from unexpected sources. Inspiration can, and does, come from anywhere.

52. Many managers feel that if they are not notified about problems before others are or if they are surprised in a meeting, then that is a sign of disrespect. Get over it.

53. Careful “messaging” to downplay problems makes you appear to be lying, deluded, ignorant, or uncaring. Sharing problems is an act of inclusion that makes employees feel invested in the larger enterprise.

54. The first conclusions we draw from our successes and failures are typically wrong. Measuring the outcome without evaluating the process is deceiving.

55. Do not fall for the illusion that by preventing errors, you won’t have errors to fix. The truth is, the cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.

56. The people ultimately responsible for implementing a plan must be empowered to make decisions when things go wrong, even before getting approval. Finding and fixing problems is everybody’s job. Anyone should be able to stop the production line.

57. The desire for everything to run smoothly is a false goal — it leads to measuring people by the mistakes they make rather than by their ability to solve problems.

58. Imposing limits can encourage a creative response. Excellent work can emerge from uncomfortable or seemingly untenable circumstances.

59. An organization, as a whole, is more conservative and resistant to change than the individuals who comprise it. Do not assume that general agreement will lead to change — it takes substantial energy to move a group, even when all are on board.

60. The healthiest organizations are made up of departments whose agendas differ but whose goals are interdependent. If one agenda wins, we all lose.

61. Our job as managers in creative environments is to protect new ideas from those who don’t understand that in order for greatness to emerge, there must be phases of not-so-greatness. Protect the future, not the past.

62. Do not accidentally make stability a goal. Balance is more important than stability.

This blog post may be a lot of information, but it is incredibly condensed, and the book is so much more. I cannot wait to re-read this in 3 years and learn even more.

I hope this has helped. If you feel there’s any book you’d like me to review or would just want someone to talk to, drop a message on my LinkedIn profile.