Creativity, Inc. Book Summary - Creativity, Inc. Book explained in key points

Creativity, Inc. summary

Name: Creativity, Inc.
Rating: 4.3 (169 reviews)
Author: Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace

Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace

Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

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4.3 (169 ratings)

19 mins

9 key ideas

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What is Creativity, Inc. about?

Creativity, Inc. explores the peaks and troughs in the history of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios along with Ed Catmull’s personal journey towards becoming the successful manager he is today. In doing so, he explains the management beliefs he has acquired along the way, and offers actionable advice on how to turn your team members into creative superstars.

About the Author

Ed Catmull is the current president of both Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, and was co-founder of Pixar in 1986. In addition to being a successful manager, he has also contributed many important tools in computer graphics and animation.

Amy Wallace is an editor-at-large at Los Angeles magazine as well as a correspondent for GQ.

Table of Contents

Key idea 1 of 9

Hierarchical structures prevent honest employee feedback, especially if directed at superiors.

Would you ever ring up your boss with your ideas about how you think the business could be improved? Probably not. Most likely, you – like most people – would feel too scared or unimportant to talk to the head honcho.

Yet, this paralyzing fear can have consequences for the business: if the right people aren’t aware of problems that need fixing, they remain unfixed. So how can you get around this?

You can start by creating feedback systems that allow information to be shared freely and openly between hierarchies. Animation company Pixar, for example, held a “Notes Day” in 2013, when the company halted all operations and the entire staff spent the day working with each other in teams and giving their feedback about the company.

Notes Day was invaluable for the company, as staff members felt free to engage in an open dialogue about the issues they faced, meaning that problems were shared and solved.

But you don’t just want any feedback. In order to get the best feedback from staff, leaders should ensure that their employees take ownership of their work.

For example, Japanese companies in the 1940s were able to improve their productivity with a simple idea: rather than giving only senior managers the power to stop the factory assembly line, all workers could halt production by simply pulling a cord if they saw there was a problem. Workers thus felt pride when they fixed problems on their own rather than waiting on management’s solution. This also boosted efficiency as it led to fast problem solving.

Finally, workers should feel that their opinions and suggestions are actually valued. Unfortunately, they’re often afraid to voice their opinions because they believe management will simply ignore them, or worse, treat them with disdain.

That’s why Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, visits all his employees individually in order to hear and gain insight about their opinions and problems, thus ensuring that they feel confident to speak to him with their opinions.

The fear of failure causes people to prefer familiar routes instead of risking changes.

Have you ever seen what happens when a new computer system is introduced in an office? People are reluctant to use it, and when they finally do, they’ll gripe and moan about how much better the old system was. Why do people behave this way?

People dislike change because they feel that new, unfamiliar things will cause them to make more mistakes. What’s more, we hate making mistakes because we fear we’ll look like a failure.

Leaders need to acknowledge their own shortcomings and listen to the views of their staff.

Have you ever been in a heated argument where the other person raises a valid point, but you just can’t acknowledge it and keep on arguing anyway? Why do we behave like this?

We tend to automatically prefer information that confirms our opinions, which makes us blind to possible alternatives. This was proven in the 1960s by British psychologist Peter Wason, whose experiments showed that we give preference to information that supports our views over information that undermines it, regardless of its accuracy.

Employees work harder if they feel they’re contributing to the company’s drive for excellence.

Would you consider making the commitment to learning quantum physics or Chinese without any real reason to? Probably not. While we certainly all might start something out of idle interest, we’re likely to quit if it doesn’t contribute to some greater goal.

So, in order for companies to operate at their best, they must have a goal to strive towards. This goal doesn’t have to be specific; it can even be something abstract, like “pursuing excellence,” where each staff member strives to be the best they can be.

People are more important than ideas or processes, so assembling the perfect team is critical.

Many people think that success in business hinges on coming up with as many groundbreaking ideas as possible. While this certainly doesn’t hurt, there’s one far more important element to success: hiring the right people.

Indeed, it’s more important to have a great team than a great idea. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how good your idea is, how clear your goals or how airtight your plan – without the right team to get the job done, you won’t succeed.

Managers need to trust the people they hire and empower them to make decisions.

Have you ever had a boss who just couldn’t hand over control of a project to his staff? Who was always looking over your shoulder, scrutinizing everything and micromanaging your work? Well, you don’t want to be that boss. This approach to management isn’t just annoying: limiting employees’ independence can seriously hamper their creativity, not to mention their morale.

A better approach would be to give them the freedom to make necessary decisions on their own. Employees are experts at what they do, and thus more apt to solve certain problems than their managers – that’s why they’re hired in the first place!

A manager’s job isn’t to avoid risk and failure but to enable the company to get back on its feet.

Some businesses seem to meet with more than their fair share of misfortune than others. And while there’s very little that can be done about bad luck, there are ways for businesses to ensure that such misfortune doesn’t damage them.

One method is to incorporate recovery techniques into the business plan instead of trying to prevent failure altogether. Pixar does this by placing value on iterative processes, i.e., they accept that mistakes are part of the process and try to weed them out with each new iteration of their projects.

Companies need to consider their working environment as a tool for fostering creativity.

Imagine walking into a grey, sterile building where every cubicle looks exactly the same and following exactly the same routine every day. Anyone would agree that an environment like this is oppressively dull, yet many companies seem oblivious to this.

The architecture and interior design of your company’s workspace should inspire creativity, not boredom. In fact, changing the atmosphere can be as simple as replacing a table.

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

Change, and the uncertainty and instability that accompany it, is as inevitable as it is necessary for creative environments. A company culture can only be truly creative when focus is placed on forging a functioning team, building trust and fostering an imaginative environment.

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Who should read Creativity, Inc.

Anyone interested in successful managerial habits and leadership styles
Anyone managing a staff whose work requires creativity
Anyone truly committed to building a sustainable creative culture

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Creativity, Inc. summary

Listen to the first key idea

What is Creativity, Inc. about?

About the Author

Hierarchical structures prevent honest employee feedback, especially if directed at superiors.

The fear of failure causes people to prefer familiar routes instead of risking changes.

Leaders need to acknowledge their own shortcomings and listen to the views of their staff.

Employees work harder if they feel they’re contributing to the company’s drive for excellence.

People are more important than ideas or processes, so assembling the perfect team is critical.

Managers need to trust the people they hire and empower them to make decisions.

A manager’s job isn’t to avoid risk and failure but to enable the company to get back on its feet.

Companies need to consider their working environment as a tool for fostering creativity.

Final Summary

Key ideas in Creativity, Inc.

Hierarchical structures prevent honest employee feedback, especially if directed at superiors.

The fear of failure causes people to prefer familiar routes instead of risking changes.

Leaders need to acknowledge their own shortcomings and listen to the views of their staff.

Employees work harder if they feel they’re contributing to the company’s drive for excellence.

People are more important than ideas or processes, so assembling the perfect team is critical.

Managers need to trust the people they hire and empower them to make decisions.

A manager’s job isn’t to avoid risk and failure but to enable the company to get back on its feet.

Companies need to consider their working environment as a tool for fostering creativity.

Final Summary

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