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

by Ed Catmull

In general, people are resistant to self-assessment. Companies are bad at it, too.

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is a maxim that is taught and believed by many in both the business and education sectors. But in fact, the phrase is ridiculous—something said by people who are unaware of how much is hidden.

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

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. When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality—a beginner’s mind, open to everything because, well, what do they have to lose?

Those with superior talent and the ability to marshal the energies of others have learned from experience that there is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking.

The takeaway, as he puts it: “Sometimes, as a director, you’re driving. And other times, you’re letting the car drive.”

They know better than anyone when they are working hard but not going anywhere.

He compares writing a screenplay to climbing a mountain blindfolded. “The first trick,” he likes to say, “is to find the mountain.”

Remember John Walker’s upside-down pyramid? His mental model focuses not on climbing a hill or reaching a destination but on balancing a multitude of competing demands.

(Think about that—the topic that captured my Pixar colleagues’ imagination more than any other was an attempt to be even more aggressive in trying to reduce the budget!

He believed in simple materials, masterfully constructed. He wanted all the steel exposed, not painted. He wanted glass doors to be flush with the walls. No wonder that when it opened in the fall of 2000, after four years of planning and construction, Pixar’s people—who typically worked for four years on each film—took to calling the building “Steve’s movie.”