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c904522 Walt Disney was one of my two boyhood idols. The other was Albert Einstein. To me, even at a young age, they represented the two poles of creativity. Disney was all about inventing the new. He brought things into being--both artistically and technologically--that did not exist before. Einstein, by contrast, was a master of explaining that which already was. Ed Catmull
e23e7fe Candor isn't cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together, that we understand your pain because we've experienced it ourselves. The need to stroke one's own ego, to get the credit we feel we deserve--we strive to check those impulses at the door. The Braintrust is fueled by the idea that every note we give is in the service of a common goal: sup.. Ed Catmull
d1d641c In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that's been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. How, Ed Catmull
823625c To reiterate, it is the focus on people--their work habits, their talents, their values--that is absolutely central to any creative venture. Ed Catmull
676dea9 Toy Story 2 was a case study in how something that is usually considered a plus--a motivated, workaholic workforce pulling together to make a deadline--could destroy itself if left unchecked. Ed Catmull
39fd911 We should trust in people, I told them, not processes. The error we'd made was forgetting that "the process" has no agenda and doesn't have taste. It is just a tool--a framework. We needed to take more responsibility and ownership of our own work, our need for self-discipline, and our goals." Ed Catmull
3b11ca6 In Monsters, Inc., all of our very different plots shared a common feeling--the bittersweet goodbye you feel once a problem"--in this case, Sulley's quest to return Boo to her own world--"has been solved. You suffer through it as you struggle to solve it, but by the end you've developed a sort of fondness for it, and you miss it when it is gone." Ed Catmull
9571201 This is why it is so frustrating that funding for arts programs in schools has been decimated. And those cuts stem from a fundamental misconception that art classes are about learning to draw. In fact, they are about learning to see.) Whether Ed Catmull
38fd329 A good note says what is wrong, what is missing, what isn't clear, what makes no sense. A good note is offered at a timely moment, not too late to fix the problem. A good note doesn't make demands; it doesn't even have to include a proposed fix. But if it does, that fix is offered only to illustrate a potential solution, not to prescribe an answer. Most of all, though, a good note is specific. Ed Catmull
ad33bc9 Originality is fragile. And, in its first moments, it's often far from pretty. Ed Catmull
5dc8324 Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. If you get the team right, chances are that they'll get the ideas right. * Ed Catmull
529f6db Here's what turns a successful hierarchy into one that impedes progress: when too many people begin, subconsciously, to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order. Thus, they focus their energies on managing upward while treating people beneath them on the organizational chart poorly. The people I have seen do this seem to be acting on animal instinct, unaware of what they are doing. Ed Catmull
9ac77f2 Steve used aggressive interplay as a kind of biological sonar. It was how he sized up the world. Ed Catmull
bbfc747 Among the things he learned: John was so tightly scheduled, and meetings with him were so precious, that people tended to overprepare to see him, which served no one. In fact, John said, "there were a lot of notes about my time management, and how I carry the emotion of one meeting into the next, making some people ask, 'Why is he upset at us?' I didn't know I was doing any of this, and those two-and-a-half pages were really tough to read. .. Ed Catmull
c6431ba Careful "messaging" to downplay problems makes you appear to be lying, deluded, ignorant, or uncaring. Sharing problems is an act of inclusion that makes employees feel invested in the larger enterprise. *" Ed Catmull
8c410d0 Once, after one of our special effects software guys resigned, he wrote me an email containing two complaints. First, he said, he didn't like that his job involved cleaning up so many little problems caused by the new software. Second, he wrote, he was disappointed that we weren't taking more technical risks in our movies. The irony was that his job was to help solve problems that arose precisely because we were taking a major technical ris.. Ed Catmull
88636c9 There is nothing quite as effective, when it comes to shutting down alternative viewpoints, as being convinced you are right. Ed Catmull
b65bc8d But in 1947, an American working in Japan turned that thinking on its head. His name was W. Edwards Deming, and he was a statistician who was known for his expertise in quality control. At the request of the U.S. Army, he had traveled to Asia to assist with planning the 1951 Japanese census. Once he arrived, he became deeply involved with the country's reconstruction effort and ended up teaching hundreds of Japanese engineers, managers, and.. Ed Catmull
2935226 In general, I have found that people who pour their energy into thinking about an approach and insisting that it is too early to act are wrong just as often as people who dive in and work quickly. The overplanners just take longer to be wrong Ed Catmull
e50ede7 Confia en el proceso>>. Este nos gustaba porque era muy tranquilizador: aunque es inevitable que surjan dificultades y pasos en falso durante una iniciativa creativa, puedes apostar Ed Catmull
f4efecb Mistakes aren't a necessary evil. They aren't evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new Ed Catmull
e8592c4 The uncreated is a vast, empty space. This emptiness is so scary that most hold on to what they know, making minor adjustments to what they understand, unable to move on to something unknown. Ed Catmull
ad9bef4 They took comfort in their familiar ways, and change meant being uncomfortable. Ed Catmull
4006d1e In graduate school, I'd quietly set a goal of making the first computer-animated feature film, and I'd worked tirelessly for twenty years to accomplish it. Ed Catmull
fcc8834 Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched. That means it is better to focus on how a team is performing, not on the talents of the individuals within it. Ed Catmull
4e537b9 puede quedarse con alguien a quien ama, sabiendo que finalmente sera descartado, o puede volar a un mundo donde se vera protegido para siempre, pero sin el amor para el que fue hecho. Esta es una autentica eleccion, una cuestion real. Ed Catmull
361c2e4 Lee Unkrich, <>. Ed Catmull
fdff5b8 we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, Ed Catmull
9e7c749 Most people have heard of the Eastern teaching that it is important to exist in the moment. It can be hard to train yourself to observe what is right now (and not to bog down in thoughts of what was and what will be), but the philosophical teaching that underlies that idea--the reason that staying in the moment is so vital--is equally important: Everything is changing. All the time. And you can't stop it. And your attempts to stop it actual.. Ed Catmull
29c08ac By resisting the beginner's mind, you make yourself more prone to repeat yourself than to create something new. The attempt to avoid failure, in other words, makes failure more likely. Ed Catmull
2d31e54 easy isn't the goal. Quality is the goal. Ed Catmull
6dac0e0 If one looks at creativity as a resource that we continually draw upon to make something from nothing, then our fear stems from the need to make the nonexistent come into being. Ed Catmull
589c030 Creativity involves missteps and imperfections. I wanted our people to get comfortable with that idea--that both the organization and its members should be willing, at times, to operate on the edge. Ed Catmull
a2ced03 The seating arrangements and place cards were designed for the convenience of the leaders, including me. Sincerely believing that we were in an inclusive meeting, we saw nothing amiss because we didn't feel excluded. Those not sitting at the center of the table, meanwhile, saw quite clearly how it established a pecking order but presumed that we--the leaders--had intended that outcome. Who were they, then, to complain? Ed Catmull
556aa1b Philip Glass once said, "The real issue is not how do you find your voice, but ... getting rid of the damn thing." Ed Catmull
5a29162 And those cuts stem from a fundamental misconception that art classes are about learning to draw. In fact, they are about learning to see.) Ed Catmull
e82c917 The unpredictable is the ground on which creativity occurs. Ed Catmull
acac2bb Some people make the mistake of thinking that they are being mindful because they are focusing diligently on problems. But if they are doing so while subconsciously bound up with their worries and expectations, with no awareness that they can't see clearly or that others may know more, they aren't open at all. Ed Catmull
e58dbd8 The good stuff was hiding the bad stuff. I realised that this was something I needed to look out for: When downsides coexist with upsides, as they often do, people are reluctant to explore what's bugging them, for the fear of being labeled complainers. Ed Catmull
aca4109 I said before that problems are easy to identify, but finding the source of those problems is extraordinarily difficult. Ed Catmull
59c54f0 listen to the stories of professionals who have been making films for decades going through the same slings and arrows of outrageous production problems. In a word: PERSIST. PERSIST on telling your story. PERSIST on reaching your audience. PERSIST on staying true to your vision.... Ed Catmull
ab1742c 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. Ed Catmull
bacc317 We face hundreds of challenges, every day, in our lives. The majority hardly qualify as challenges Ed Catmull
488ab53 We frequently support the idea of pushing boundaries in theory, ignoring the trouble it can cause in practice. Ed Catmull