3 Lessons Learned from “Creativity Inc.” Book for Product Managers
Aidin Ziapour, Product Management Expert, Design Thinking Coach
Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidinziapour
Introduction
Every time I buy a book, I make sure that at least one book on the subject of biographies or memoirs of successful people in various fields will be in my shopping cart. Regardless of the fascination of reading the life story of people who openly write the details of their lives and various decisions that they made, knowing the experience of people, what they have learned, and the decisions that have led to the greatest successes and failures, can unbelievably help us to increase our chance of success. It provides us with the experience of others in our personal and professional lives and gives us the power that I call decision-making maturity. Making decisions based on the lessons learned by others in similar situations, experiencing the good experience of others in these situations, and of course, not experiencing their failure experience in similar situations.
To be honest, one of the best books I have read in this field is Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar. Line by line of this book is full of lessons for business owners, innovation managers, product managers, and any other expert who plays a significant role in producing valuable products. In this article, I intend to share three very important lessons learned from this book and the life of Ed Catmull, which is very important for product managers and senior managers of product-oriented enterprises. So, Let’s review the lessons!
1- Lesson learned: Self-expression causes unlimited creativity
In the first part of the book, Catmull mentions “Pixar values self-expression. This usually has a big impact on visitors who often say that the experience of coming to Pixar made them feel a little sad. As if they feel they have something lacking in their career life; Something like tangible energy, a sense of unlimited cooperation and creativity, and a sense of possibility. It’s called liveliness, recklessness, or whatever — plays an important role in Pixar’s success.”
If there is one thing that Aidin Ziapour have learned from working in different organizations and famous brands as a product manager, consultant, and trainer, that is the role of listening (which is different from hearing) to all the voices of the organization, which is a chance to improve the product and value proposition somehow they give it to the organization. Encouraging self-expression in organizations by senior executives allows them to add a sense of unlimited collaboration and creativity to their product team culture and use this as a chance to develop distinctive products for the target market. Keep in mind that a product will provide a pleasant user experience for its users when the team that built it has a pleasant experience of working on that product in the organization. Unlimited creativity in a team will create a pleasant experience of cooperation with the people in the organization.
2- Lesson learned: Creative and sustainable culture will avoid the illusion of doing the right thing
In another part of the book he mentioned, “The important question is that what makes smart people make decisions that will ultimately divert their companies from the right path? Ed Catmull believes he had no doubt that those intelligent people believed they were doing the right thing, but it was as if something was holding them back and preventing them from seeing the problems that were about to overturn their company. As a result, their company grown like a bubble and then exploded in the blink of an eye. The rise and fall of these companies or the constant transformation of industry was not due to technological change, but to the fact that the leaders of these companies were so involved in a competition that they could not find any deep insights from the other destructive forces at work. The question that needs to be asked here is that is paying attention to the mistakes of others helps us to be more aware of ourselves. In order to find an answer to this question, I devoted my efforts to learn how to build not only a successful company but also a creative and sustainable culture.”
We must always keep in mind that at any time, there is a possibility of mistakes on our side as a product manager. This is important when the organization, as the first person responsible for the success of the product, devotes remarkable responsibility to you. Mistakes in identifying and elicitating requirements, mistakes in finalizing a feature before it is validated by the market, and hundreds more can trap us in the illusion of doing the right thing which is totally wrong.
One of the things we should always use individually and as a team is to running Retrospective events; This comes from Agile approaches. Holding a consistent event helps individuals and product teams focus on their work, examine in detail, and identify patterns that have led to success or failure in achieving their goals, and help them to identify destructive forces in the team and design a plan to address these issues. Keep in mind that identifying problems and designing solutions for them comes from the team stems from a creative and sustainable culture.
3- Lesson Learned: Only if we accept our ignorances, we can hope to learn them
“I believe that the best managers are those who recognize and make room for what they do not know about, not just because humility is a virtue, but because without such a mindset, the most valuable victories will not happen. I believe that managers should reduce the intensity of controls, not increase them. They must take the risk; They must trust those who work for them and work hard to pave the way; And they should always pay attention to and deal with anything that creates fear. In addition, successful organizational leaders acknowledge the fact that their patterns may be flawed or incomplete. We can only hope to learn our ignorance if we accept it.”
Based on experience, many senior executives of organizations refuse to apply new approaches to innovation in their organization and in the production of their products. The question that always arises in this regard is whether these people are afraid of change or believe that the cost of applying these approaches is very high? The root of this problem goes back to the formed intellectual patterns of these managers. Intellectual patterns based on successful experiences and previous failures or other things. Organizations, companies, teams, and individuals who intend to produce innovative and creative products for their target markets must recognize that it is not possible to produce outstanding products without adopting a mindset that tests the unknown and recognizes them in the team. They must take new and innovative approaches by implementing managed risks and, through the use of new methods, first improve their thought patterns and then, change the world of their customers and users by presenting distinctive value propositions.
