Reflection2

Upon reading How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity, I get to know the importance and scarity of good ideas. More importantly, the essentinal role of system thinking. Pixar, known as the leading technological pioneer in the field of computer animation, has its own adherence to a set of principles and practices for managing creative talent and risk. Having such huge achivements in filming industry is not a simple task. However, Pixar maganges to secceed by having some basic beliefs, that talent is rare. Management’s job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when failures occur. It must be safe to tell the truth. We must constantly challenge all of our assumptions and search for the flaws that could destroy our culture. One piont that system thinking is reflected incisively and vividly is that the ideas of a movie or a film are not only provided by the director and the producers, but the whole group of crew members that may go up to 200 or 250 people. I think this is a very important step that leads to the success of Pixar because by doing so every single of member could somehow contribute to the greater good. It will give the crew a sort of pride, thinking that such a good movie would be generated as the efforts and contributions of theirs are needed and used. And thus, making more efforts and contributions to the movie. This is the advantage of system thinking, that it brings a more enegeritc amtosphere to the group and make every members more involved.

However, it also brings up a problem that inerestes me. If system thinking provides a platform for eveyone to share their ideas and make contributions, whose ideas shall be utilized among all of them? Is it either by voting or the ideas of whoever has a higher status of work would be used. It is not hard for a cleaning lady to come up with an idea, nor is it to pick a better idea from her and the director’s, but it is hard to define the “better”. If the idea of the cleaning lady is actually better, will it be adopted, or it justifably becomes the idea of the director. Thus, when it comes to the part of giving credits, it is kind of tough regarding the social status as those who are in higher places tend to have more advantages.