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

by Ed Catmull

Unhindered communication was key, no matter what your position.

Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening.

“Do, or do not. There is no try,”

The responsibility for finding and fixing problems should be assigned to every employee, from the most senior manager to the lowliest person on the production line.

You don’t have to ask permission to take responsibility.

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.

efficiency was a goal, quality was the goal.

the process of coming to clarity takes patience and candor.

You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.

The key is to look at the viewpoints being offered, in any successful feedback group, as additive, not competitive. A competitive approach measures other ideas against your own, turning the discussion into a debate to be won or lost. An additive approach, on the other hand, starts with the understanding that each participant contributes something (even if it’s only an idea that fuels the discussion—and ultimately doesn’t work).

failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth.

without them, we’d have no originality).

failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration.

Being open about problems is the first step toward learning from them.

It isn’t enough to pick a path—you must go down it.

There are two parts to any failure: There is the event itself, with all its attendant disappointment, confusion, and shame, and then there is our reaction to it. It is this second part that we control. Do we become introspective, or do we bury our heads in the sand?

When failure occurs, how should you get the most out of it?

One of the biggest barriers is fear, and while failure comes with the territory, fear shouldn’t have to. The goal, then, is to uncouple fear and failure—