Steve Jobs, while making his way through throngs of fans at
the 79th Annual Academy Awards that would grant “Cars” its best
animated feature film award, turned to colleague Ed Catmull, and remarked “What
this scene really needs is a Buddhist monk lighting himself on fire.” Irreverent,
funny (if you forgive Jobs for cultural insensitivity) and more – it was one of
those comments that Jobs would say to a loyal colleague like Ed. And it is this
kind of perspective taking that made Jobs so brilliant, visionary, and
successful and allowed him to see, even at the Academy Awards, the potential
for a greater spectacle.
With a new film coming out about Jobs in late October, I
can’t imagine better preparation than Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. (2014) as a way to get a glimpse of how difficult
Jobs could be but also how compassionate, creative, and engaging he could be as
well. Creativity, Inc. isn’t about Jobs but about Pixar, the organization
he bought from George Lucas, nurtured through difficult times, and ultimately
supported all the way to its great successes with Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Finding Nemo, The
Incredibles, Ratatouille, and others.
I don’t know that I’ve ever read a more discerning book on
the impact of organization climate on creativity and innovation. With
innovation very much on the radar for advanced economies that are shifting
their focus to services and quality of life, for-profit, not-for-profit, and
educational organizations would do well to pay close attention to the story of
Pixar – how it came to be, how its founders established the open culture that
would support creativity, and how difficult it was to maintain this culture
over the long haul.
Catmull and his colleagues founded Pixar with the goal of
producing the first ever digitally animated film, a goal that was far beyond
his or anyone else’s capability when they started on their journey. They
created an organization that was partially about its physical space, one that
eventually was characterized as Steve Jobs’ “movie,” but more importantly it
was about how Pixar approached problems. As Catmull said about Pixar, “we will
always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to
uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable;
and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to
solve it.”
Pixar had a different vision of itself. The staff “realized
that our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to
foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions.” This culture
would be characterized by avoiding confining rules, by candor, by assuming
equality among all employees, by recognizing and pushing problems down to
places where they can be solved, and by
adopting a framework that supports talent and excellence. And this kind of
creative culture would be guided by leaders who were humble, recognized what
they didn’t know, welcomed risk, had the
ability to suspend habits and impulses that had the potential to obscure their
vision, and cultivated constant learning.
Creativity, Inc.
brings great hope to those who seek to innovate by offering many practical
examples and tips. As one who sought to
bring innovation to higher education in a number of ways (and I still do), I
have frequently felt dismissed for seeing things differently than others. I’ve
always understood that innovation by its nature is about change and that there
will always be resistance to things that are outside the norm. Looking back on
some experiences that I viewed as failures is difficult but Catmull helped me
find dignity in striving when he said, “creative people discover and realize
visions over time and through dedicated, protracted struggle.” Leaders who want
their organizations to be more innovative need to realize that, “Unleashing
creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our
colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that
creates fear.”
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