Ed Catmull, Amy Wallace
When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.
Sincerely believing that we were in an inclusive meeting, we saw nothing amiss because we didn’t feel excluded.
My willingness to do this reflected my world-view, forged in academia, that any hard problem should have many good minds simultaneously trying to solve it.
For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right.
I had been seeking simple answers to complex questions
If anyone at any level spotted a problem in the manufacturing process, Deming believed, they should be encouraged (and expected) to stop the assembly line.
But in this case, we had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure.
What would happen to our egos if we continued to succeed? Would they grow so large they could hurt us, and if so, what could we do to address that overconfidence?
Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another.
You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.
But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them—if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line—well, you’re deluding yourself.
Moreover, you cannot plan your way out of problems.
There’s a corollary to this, as well: The more time you spend mapping out an approach, the more likely you are to get attached to it.
When it comes to creative endeavors, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It is counterproductive.
Discussing failure and all its ripple effects is not merely an academic exercise. We face it because by seeking better understanding, we remove barriers to full creative engagement.
If they have to choose between meeting a deadline and some less well defined mandate to “nurture” their people, they will pick the deadline every time.
The antidote to fear is trust, and we all have a desire to find something to trust in an uncertain world.
A manager’s default mode should not be secrecy. What is needed is a thoughtful consideration of the cost of secrecy weighed against the risks. When you instantly resort to secrecy, you are telling people they can’t be trusted.
I had a front-row seat from which to view the way that film’s success led to the studio’s expansion and to its need for more film projects to justify (and occupy) the growing staff. In other words, I was there to witness the creation of Disney’s Beast—and by “Beast” I mean any large group that needs to be fed an uninterrupted diet of new material and resources in order to function.
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.
Self-interest guides opposition to change, but lack of self-awareness fuels it even more.
People who act without an approved plan should not be punished for "going rogue."
Steve Jobs was quite aware of this story and used to repeat it to people at Apple, adding that he never wanted people to ask, “What would Steve do?” No one—not Walt, not Steve, not the people of Pixar—ever achieved creative success by simply clinging to what used to work.
The first, which I discussed in chapter 9, is that our models of the world so distort what we perceive that they can make it hard to see what is right in front of us.
The second is that we don’t typically see the boundary between new information coming in from the outside and our old, established mental models—we perceive both together, as a unified experience.
The third is that when we unknowingly get caught up in our own interpretations, we become inflexible, less able to deal with the problems at hand.
And the fourth idea is that people who work or live together—people like Dick and Anne, for example—have, by virtue of proximity and shared history, models of the world that are deeply (sometimes hopelessly) intertwined with one another.
You’ll never stumble upon the unexpected if you stick only to the
However, from the point of view of those who worked in production on any given film, the oversight group was a hindrance, not a help.
The oversight group had been put in place without anyone asking a fundamental question: 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. My rule of thumb is that any time we impose limits or procedures, we should ask how they will aid in enabling people to respond creatively. If the answer is that they won’t, then the proposals are ill suited to the task at hand.
Just as looking at what is not the chair helps bring it into relief, pulling focus away from a particular problem (and, instead, looking at the environment around it) can lead to better solutions.
There are five reasons, I believe, to do postmortems.
I’ve noticed what might be called a “law of subverting successful approaches,” by which I mean once you’ve hit on something that works, don’t expect it to work again, because attendees will know how to manipulate it the second time around.
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.
As we forge ahead, while we imagine what might be, we must rely on our guiding principles, our intentions, and our goals—not on being able to see and react to what’s coming before it happens.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
My response to this stemmed less from a loyalty to Pixar than from my commitment to a larger idea: In big organizations there are advantages to consistency, but I strongly believe that smaller groups within the larger whole should be allowed to differentiate themselves and operate according to their own rules, so long as those rules work.
I know that when you distill a complex idea into a T-shirt slogan, you risk giving the illusion of understanding—and, in the process, of sapping the idea of its power.
Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. If you get the team right, chances are that they’ll get the ideas right.
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.
Always try to hire people who are smarter than you. Always take a chance on better, even if it seems like a potential threat.
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.
It isn’t enough merely to be open to ideas from others. Engaging the collective brainpower of the people you work with is an active, ongoing process. As a manager, you must coax ideas out of your staff and constantly push them to contribute.
There are many valid reasons why people aren’t candid with one another in a work environment. Your job is to search for those reasons and then address them.
Likewise, if someone disagrees with you, there is a reason. Our first job is to understand the reasoning behind their conclusions.
Further, if there is fear in an organization, there is a reason for it—our job is (a) to find what’s causing it, (b) to understand it, and (c) to try to root it out.
There is nothing quite as effective, when it comes to shutting down alternative viewpoints, as being convinced you are right.
In general, people are hesitant to say things that might rock the boat. Braintrust meetings, dailies, postmortems, and Notes Day are all efforts to reinforce the idea that it is okay to express yourself. All are mechanisms of self-assessment that seek to uncover what’s real.
If there is more truth in the hallways than in meetings, you have a problem.
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.
The first conclusions we draw from our successes and failures are typically wrong. Measuring the outcome without evaluating the process is deceiving.
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.
Change and uncertainty are part of life. Our job is not to resist them but to build the capability to recover when unexpected events occur. If you don’t always try to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead.
Similarly, it is not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It is the manager’s job to make it safe to take them.
Failure isn’t a necessary evil. In fact, it isn’t evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.
Trust doesn’t mean that you trust that someone won’t screw up—it means you trust them even when they do screw up.
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.
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.
Don’t wait for things to be perfect before you share them with others. Show early and show often. It’ll be pretty when we get there, but it won’t be pretty along the way. And that’s as it should be.
A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
Be wary of making too many rules. Rules can simplify life for managers, but they can be demeaning to the 95 percent who behave well. Don’t create rules to rein in the other 5 percent—address abuses of common sense individually. This is more work but ultimately healthier.
Imposing limits can encourage a creative response. Excellent work can emerge from uncomfortable or seemingly untenable circumstances.
Engaging with exceptionally hard problems forces us to think differently.
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.
The healthiest organizations are made up of departments whose agendas differ but whose goals are interdependent. If one agenda wins, we all lose.
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.
New crises are not always lamentable—they test and demonstrate a company’s values. The process of problem-solving often bonds people together and keeps the culture in the present.
Excellence, quality, and good should be earned words, attributed by others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves.
Do not accidentally make stability a goal. Balance is more important than stability.
Don’t confuse the process with the goal. Working on our processes to make them better, easier, and more efficient is an indispensable activity and something we should continually work on—but it is not the goal. Making the product great is the goal.