Pixar President, Ed Catmull, sets creativity at the foundation of effective leadership and business success.
There is no doubt that Ed Catmull’s Pixar had a huge influence on Hollywood and Silicon Valley: from movie giants as Disney, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to tech moguls as Steve Jobs or the Microsoft corporation.
Now, I believe this creative spark will light up the business industry and influence all professionals who will pick up Ed Catmull’s book.
Creativity, Inc was a great read that not only told the fascinating making-of stories of some of my favorite movies, like Toy Story or Wall-E, but also provided great business insight on challenging the status quo, harnessing creative processes, and the importance of taking risks in order to grow.
„THERE IS NOTHING quite like ignorance combined with a driving need to succeed to force rapid learning.”
„You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.”
„If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it… Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning.”
„For many people, changing course is also a sign of weakness, tantamount to admitting that you don’t know what you are doing. This strikes me as particularly bizarre—I think the person who can’t change his or her mind is dangerous.”
„Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view is that working with change is what creativity is about.”
Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull