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

by Ed Catmull

The point is, we value self-expression here.

This tends to make a big impression on visitors, who often tell me that the experience of walking into Pixar leaves them feeling a little wistful, like something is missing in their work lives—a palpable energy, a feeling of collaboration and unfettered creativity, a sense, not to be corny, of possibility.

What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve

For five straight years, we’d fought to do Toy Story our way.

Despite being novice filmmakers at a fledgling studio in dire financial straits, we had put our faith in a simple idea: If we made something that we wanted to see, others would want to see it, too.

Gradually, a pattern began to emerge: Someone had a creative idea, obtained funding, brought on a lot

of smart people, and developed and sold a product that got a boatload of attention. That initial success begat more success, luring the best engineers and attracting customers who had interesting and high-profile problems to solve.

What interested me was not that companies rose and fell or that the landscape continually shifted as technology changed but that the leaders of these companies seemed so focused on the competition that they never developed any deep introspection about other destructive forces that were at work.

My desire to protect Pixar from the forces that ruin so many businesses gave me renewed focus. I began to see my role as a leader more clearly. I would devote myself to learning how to build not just a successful company but a sustainable creative culture.

As I turned my attention from solving technical problems to engaging with the philosophy of sound management, I was excited once again—and sure that our second act could be as exhilarating as our first.

We start from the presumption that our people are talented and want to contribute. We accept that, without meaning to, our company is stifling that talent in myriad unseen ways. Finally, we try to

identify those impediments and fix them.

the most compelling mechanisms to me are those that deal with uncertainty, instability, lack of candor, and the things we cannot see.

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.

I believe that managers must loosen the controls, ...

Unhindered communication was key, no matter what your position.

So when problems arise—and they always do—disentangling them is not as simple as correcting the original error.

Every time some technological breakthrough occurred, Walt Disney incorporated it and then talked about it on his show in a way that highlighted the relationship between technology and art. I was too young to realize such a synergy was groundbreaking. To me, it just made sense that they belonged together.

By sponsoring our best minds, the architects of ARPA believed, we’d come up with better answers.

Basically, they welcomed us to the program, gave us workspace and access to computers, and then let us pursue whatever turned us on. The result was a collaborative, supportive community so inspiring that I would later seek to replicate it at Pixar.

This tension between the individual’s personal creative contribution and the leverage of the group is a dynamic that exists in all creative environments, but this would be my first taste of it.

ARPA’s mandate—to support smart people in a variety of areas—was carried out based on the unwavering presumption that researchers would try to do the right thing and, in ARPA’s view, overmanaging them was counterproductive.

Professor Sutherland used to say that he loved his graduate students at Utah because we didn’t know what was impossible. Neither, apparently, did he: He was among the first to believe that Hollywood movie execs would care a fig about what was happening in academia.

I knew that the most valuable thing I was taking away from the U of U was the model my teachers had provided for how to lead and inspire other creative thinkers. The

To ensure that it succeeded, I needed to attract the sharpest minds; to attract the sharpest minds, I needed to put my own insecurities away.

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

At NYIT, I’d created a flat structure much like I’d seen at the U of U, giving my colleagues a lot of running room and little oversight, and I’d been relatively pleased with the results. But now I had to admit that our team there behaved a lot like a collection of grad students—independent thinkers with individual projects—rather than a team with a common goal.

The story has been told and retold about how, as a young filmmaker, in the wake of American Graffiti’s success, he was advised to demand a higher salary on his next movie, Star Wars. That would be the expected move in Hollywood: Bump up your quote. Not for George, though. He skipped the raise altogether and asked instead to retain ownership of licensing and merchandising rights to Star Wars. The studio that was distributing the film, 20th Century Fox, readily agreed to his request, thinking it was not giving up much. George would prove them wrong, setting the stage for major changes in the industry he loved. He bet on himself—and won.

For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you are getting the story right.

(This last one was a particular favorite piece of nonadvice. When people hear it, they nod their heads in agreement as if a great truth has been presented, not realizing that they’ve been diverted from addressing the far harder problem: deciding what it is that they should be focusing on. There is nothing in this advice that gives you any idea how to figure out where the focus should be, or how to apply your energy to it. It ends up being advice that doesn’t mean anything.)

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.

In other words, the Japanese assembly line became a place where workers’ engagement strengthened the resulting product.

Computers were ever sold—and we weren’t big enough to design new products quickly. We had grown to more than seventy people, and our overhead was threatening to consume us.

Like an explorer perched on the edge of a melting ice floe, we needed to leap to more stable ground.

In other words, they do something essential for a company whose success relies on hitting deadlines and staying on-budget: They manage people and safeguard the process.

Because making a movie involves hundreds of people, a chain of command is essential. But in this case, we had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure.

We realized that our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions.

Perhaps as important, was replication of success even the right thing to do?

What would happen to our egos if we continued to succeed?

The other principle we depended on was “Trust the Process.” We liked this one because it was so reassuring: While there are inevitably difficulties and missteps in any complex creative endeavor, you can trust that “the process” will carry you through.

“Story Is King” differentiated us, we thought, not just because we said it but also because we believed it and acted accordingly.

Once you’re aware of the suitcase/handle problem, you’ll see it everywhere.

Managers scour books and magazines looking for greater understanding but settle instead for adopting a new terminology, thinking that using fresh words will bring them closer to their goals.

To ensure quality, then, excellence must be an earned word, attributed by others to us, not proclaimed by us about ourselves.

It is the responsibility of good leaders to make sure that words remain attached to the meanings and ideals they represent.

Because we are often working to invent something that doesn’t yet exist, it can be scary to come to work.

When we trust the process—or perhaps more accurately, when we trust the people who use the process—we are optimistic but also realistic. The trust comes from knowing that we are safe, that our colleagues will not judge us for failures but will encourage us to keep pushing the boundaries.

Thinking this way was not just about morale; it was a signal to everyone at Pixar that they were part owners of the company’s greatest asset—its quality.

“Quality is the best business plan.”

without trust, creative collaboration is not possible.