Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

"What does effective management entail?"

A sharp book on creativity in business, written by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter, is guaranteed to resonate with fans of Chip and Dan Heath, Daniel Pink, and Tom Peters. Creativity, Inc. is a guide for anyone aspiring to be creative, a book for managers looking to inspire their staff to reach new heights, and the first-ever, all-access tour inside Pixar Animation's nerve center, where some of the most commercially successful movies ever made are discussed, critiqued, and discussed during "Braintrust" meetings. Essentially, the book is about creating a creative culture, but it's also "an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible," according to Ed Catmull, president and co-founder of Pixar. Pixar has dominated the animation industry for over twenty years. It has created beloved movies including Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and Wall-E. These films have broken box office records and won thirty Academy Awards. Pixar films serve as somewhat of an object lesson in creation because of the enjoyable storytelling, creative storylines, and emotional realism. Here, in this book, Catmull divulges the principles and methods that have garnered so much praise and wealth for Pixar.

Ed Catmull's goal as a young man was to create the first computer-animated motion picture. While pursuing his doctorate at the University of Utah, home to many of the pioneers of computer science, he fostered that goal. Later, he formed an alliance with George Lucas that indirectly resulted in the formation of Pixar in 1986 with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. After its premiere nine years later, Toy Story revolutionized animation. The ethos that Catmull and his colleagues established at Pixar, which safeguards the creative process and defies convention, was crucial to the success of that film as well as the thirteen that followed. These principles included:

• If you give a competent team a good concept, they will ruin it. However, if you offer a brilliant team a lousy concept, they will either improve it or come up with something entirely new.

* You will be ill-equipped to lead if you do not make an effort to discover the invisible and comprehend its nature.

• Preventing hazards is not the manager's responsibility. The manager's responsibility is to ensure that others can take them safely. mistake correction is sometimes significantly more expensive than mistake prevention.

* The organizational structure of a corporation shouldn't be reflected in its communication structure. It should be possible for anybody to speak with anyone.

* Even when everyone is in agreement, it takes a lot of effort to get a group to change, so don't assume that widespread agreement will result in change.