Ed Catmull and Pete Docter, in Conversation With Adam Grant
One of my favorite books about working as a team and building a culture of experimentation and creativity is Creativity Inc by Pixar’s Ed Catmull.
Ed Catmull was recently interviewed, together with Pete Docter, Pixar’s Chief Creative Officer and Academy Award winning director and screenwriter, by Adam Grant. (transcript)
A few takeaways from the interview:
- Creativity is a process, not a destination. It takes time, effort, and collaboration to create something truly great. Take one step at a time, one problem at a time.
- Feedback is essential for growth. It’s important to be open to feedback, even if it’s critical. Steve Jobs used the phrase Strong opinions, loosely held often. You should be able to manage two seemingly conflicting points of view at once: Hold onto something tight, and you should be able to let it go at the same time. Just because you express your opinion strongly doesn’t mean you can’t also be holding it weakly.
- Getting feedback is a lot more about diagnosing a problem, rather than taking in the proposed solutions. Sometimes people think you are dismissing their feedback. Instead you may be solving the newly unearthed problem in a different way. Yet you are incorporating the feedback differently.
- Have a challenge network: your braintrust who brings you the critical feedback. (There is a lot in the Creativity Inc book about the Pixar braintrust.)
- A culture of trust and respect is essential for creativity to flourish. People need to feel safe to share their ideas, even if they’re not fully formed.
- Leadership is about creating an environment where people can do their best work. It’s not about micromanaging or dictating from the top down.
- Peer pirates - let department representatives argue the case among themselves, rather than the department heads to avoid changing the dynamics of the room.
- The importance of how a team is run over the team composition. And the role of storytelling to build the culture. Storytelling of successes, failures, and principles.