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Be patient. Be authentic. And be consistent. The trust will come.
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Ed Catmull |
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What interests me is the number of people who believe that they have the ability to drive the train and who think that this is the power position--that driving the train is the way to shape their companies' futures. The truth is, it's not. Driving the train doesn't set its course. The real job is laying the track.
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Ed Catmull |
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it is not the manager's job to prevent risks. It is the manager's job to make it safe to take them.
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Ed Catmull |
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Quality is the best business plan.
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Ed Catmull |
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The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
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Ed Catmull |
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9b3be9e
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By ignoring my fear, I learned that the fear was groundless. Over the years, I have met people who took what seemed the safer path and were the lesser for it...I had taken a risk, and that risk yielded that greatest reward...Always take a chance on better, even if it seems threatening.
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Ed Catmull |
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We must remember that failure gives us chances to grow, and we ignore those chances at our own peril.
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Ed Catmull |
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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.
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Ed Catmull |
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1ecf5b1
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I tend to flood and freeze up if I'm feeling overwhelmed. When this happens, it's usually because I feel like the world is crashing down and all is lost. One trick I've learned is to force myself to make a list of what's actually wrong. Usually, soon into making the list, I find I can group most of the issues into two or three larger all-encompassing problems. So it's really not all that bad. Having a finite list of problems is much better ..
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Ed Catmull |
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THERE IS NOTHING quite like ignorance combined with a driving need to succeed to force rapid learning.
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Ed Catmull |
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The way I see it, my job as a manager is to create a fertile environment, keep it healthy, and watch for the things that undermine it. I believe, to my core, that everybody has the potential to be creative--whatever form that creativity takes--and that to encourage such development is a noble thing.
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Ed Catmull |
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We humans like to know where we are headed, but creativity demands that we travel paths that lead to who-knows-where.
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Ed Catmull |
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Instead of saying, 'The writing in this scene isn't good enough,' you say, 'Don't you want people to walk out of the theater and be quoting those lines?' It's more of a challenge.
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Ed Catmull |
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We want people to feel like they can take steps to solve problems without asking permission.
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Ed Catmull |
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Here's what we all know, deep down, even though we might wish it weren't true: Change is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Some people see random, unforeseen events as something to fear. I am not one of those people. To my mind, randomness is not just inevitable; it is part of the beauty of life. Acknowledging it and appreciating it helps us respond constructively when we are surprised. Fear makes people reach for certainty and st..
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Ed Catmull |
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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.
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Ed Catmull |
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Management's job is not to prevent risk but to build the ability to recover.
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Ed Catmull |
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Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning.
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Ed Catmull |
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This principle eludes most people, but it is critical: You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.
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idea
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Ed Catmull |
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17f3ed7
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The people you choose must (a) make you think smarter and (b) put lots of solutions on the table in a short amount of time. I don't care who it is, the janitor or the intern or one of your most trusted lieutenants: If they can help you do that, they should be at the table." Believe me, you don't want to be at a company where there is more candor in the hallways than in the rooms where fundamental ideas or matters of policy are being hashed ..
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Ed Catmull |
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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. A large portion of what we manage can't be measured, and not realizing this has unintended consequences. The problem comes when people think that data paints a full picture, leading them to ignore what they ca..
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Ed Catmull |
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Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right.
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Ed Catmull |
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There's something else that bears repeating here: Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear.
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Ed Catmull |
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Uncertainty and change are life's constraints. And that's the fun part.
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Ed Catmull |
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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."
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Ed Catmull |
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In an unhealthy culture, each group believes that if their objectives trump the goals of the other groups, the company will be better off. In a healthy culture, all constituencies recognize the importance of balancing competing desires--they want to be heard, but they don't have to win.
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Ed Catmull |
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when someone hatches an original idea, it may be ungainly and poorly defined, but it is also the opposite of established and entrenched--and that is precisely what is most exciting about it. If, while in this vulnerable state, it is exposed to naysayers who fail to see its potential or lack the patience to let it evolve, it could be destroyed.
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Ed Catmull |
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People who take on complicated creative projects become lost at some point in the process. It is the nature of things--in order to create, you must internalize and almost become the project for a while, and that near-fusing with the project is an essential part of its emergence. But it is also confusing. Where once a movie's writer/director had perspective, he or she loses it. Where once he or she could see a forest, now there are only tree..
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Ed Catmull |
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We are meaning-making creatures who read other people's subtle clues just as they read ours.
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Ed Catmull |
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Rather than trying to prevent all errors, we should assume, as is almost always the case, that our people's intentions are good and that they want to solve problems. Give them responsibility, let the mistakes happen, and let people fix them. If there is fear, there is a reason--our job is to find the reason and to remedy it. Management's job is not to prevent risk but to build the ability to recover.
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Ed Catmull |
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isn't enough to pick a path--you must go down it.
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Ed Catmull |
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His method for taking the measure of a room was saying something definitive and outrageous--"These charts are bullshit!" or "This deal is crap!"--and watching people react. If you were brave enough to come back at him, he often respected it--poking at you, then registering your response, was his way of deducing what you thought and whether you had the guts to champion it."
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Ed Catmull |
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When it come to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless.
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inspiration
hierarchy
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Ed Catmull |
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If you're sailing across the ocean and your goal is to avoid weather and waves, then why the hell are you sailing?" he says. "You have to embrace that sailing means that you can't control the elements and that there will be good days and bad days and that, whatever comes, you will deal with it"
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Ed Catmull |
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For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn't matter if you are getting the story right.
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Ed Catmull |
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The desire for everything to run smoothly is a false goal--it leads to measuring people by the mistakes they make rather than by their ability to solve problems.
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Ed Catmull |
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Don't confuse the process with the goal. Working on our processes to make them better, easier, and more efficient is an indispensable activity and something we should continually work on--but it is not the goal. Making the product great is the goal.
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Ed Catmull |
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It isn't enough to pick a path--you must go down it. By doing so, you see things you couldn't possibly see when you started out; you may not like what you see, some of it may be confusing, but at least you will have, as we like to say, "explored the neighborhood." The key point here is that even if you decide you're in the wrong place, there is still time to head toward the right place."
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fear
success
pathways
prototyping
failure
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Ed Catmull |
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0a7e882
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The first principle was "Story Is King," by which we meant that we would let nothing--not the technology, not the merchandising possibilities--get in the way of our story."
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Ed Catmull |
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Merely repeating ideas means nothing. You must act--and think--accordingly.
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Ed Catmull |
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Not the confidence that we know exactly what to do at all times but the confidence that, together, we will figure it out.
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Ed Catmull |
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good leadership can help creative people stay on the path to excellence no matter what business they're in.
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Ed Catmull |
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I'm a firm believer in the chaotic nature of the creative process needing to be chaotic. If we put too much structure on it, we will kill it. So there's a fine balance between providing some structure and safety--financial and emotional--but also letting it get messy and stay messy for a while. To do that, you need to assess each situation to see what's called for. And then you need to become what's called for.
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Ed Catmull |
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I'm not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth.
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Ed Catmull |