The 365 Best Business Books Of All-Time: Creativity, Inc.

Pixar is a juggernaut.

For the past twenty years it has literally dominated the animated film industry, producing fourteen consecutive #1 box office hits when most studios would be elated with just one.

Collectively they have won 30 Academy Awards, and generated over $8 billion in ticket sales.

Today, when you go to watch a Pixar movie, you know that you’ll be seeing something truly special.

What’s their secret? In his book Creativity Inc., Pixar’s co-founder Ed Catmull tells us that it’s the unique environment that he and his team has built. That creating an innovative product (over and over again) is a function of what the subtitle of the books says — overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration.

There are 6 core principles that Pixar embraced to go from a little known software startup on the brink of failure, to the world-beating powerhouse we know today.

Here’s my favourite one.

My Key Takeaway/Principle

Prepare for the unknown.

Just like people will fail, it’s a certainty that unforeseen, random events will happen. It’s how you deal with those events that matter.

For instance, during the making of Toy Story 2, an employee used a computer command that accidentally wiped out the drives where the entire movie was stored. 90% of the movie was erased in a matter of seconds.

OMG!

In most companies, that person would have been fired immediately, a new work instruction would have been added to an already overflowing procedure manual, and everybody warned never again to stroke a key that wasn’t pre-approved by the company executives.

I’m exaggerating to make a point, but that’s probably closer to the truth than most people would admit.

However, at Pixar, a different culture had been cultivated. One where people at all levels feel like they “own” the problems and can take steps to fix them without asking for permission.

So when 90% of a feature film disappeared in a matter of seconds, they didn’t point the finger at anybody. Not because it wasn’t important — this was a potentially disastrous situation.

Luckily, the technical director had recently had a baby and was working from home on a regular basis. She had a problem to solve — she couldn’t do her work without an updated copy of the movie.

Instead of asking for permission, she went ahead and killed two birds with one stone — she made a copy that she could use at home on a weekly basis, and at the same time created a backup when nobody else at the company had thought to make one.

If she didn’t feel empowered to do this, Pixar would have missed the deadline for the film, which would have been disastrous for what at the time was a small, public company.

The ultimate point of this is easy to miss. It’s impossible to hire the best and most creative people, throw them into an organization that has a rule for every single action, and expect them to perform at their best.

If you want an innovative and creative organization, you need the right culture. One where people feel free to come up with creative solutions for not just the biggest problems, but any problem.

Questions to ask yourself

• Do your people feel empowered to solve problems both large and small at your company without seeking approval each time?
• If not, what can you do this week to start creating a culture where people feel empowered to do so?

What else is covered in this book?

I found each of the principles from the book to be surprising coming from one of the most creative organizations of all-time. And to me, those are the best books because they force me to think differently. For instance, Principle #3 says that people are more important than ideas.

This year (2018) I’m reading and summarizing the top 365 business books of all-time. You can get the full list of books, and links to my reviews of each book, by clicking here.

Happy learning!