Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition) - Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace

Creativity, Inc. (The Expanded Edition)

By Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace

  • Release Date: 2014-04-08
  • Genre: Management & Leadership
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 902 Ratings

Description

The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve.

“Might be the most thoughtful management book ever.”—Fast Company

 
For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.
 
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
• Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.

Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

Reviews

  • Visionary simplicity

    5
    By EasterAries
    Catmull reveals that, like their movies, the secret of Pixar’s creative culture is brilliantly simple and grounded in the principles of being a good human being. It’s easy to understand, even while implementing requires constant vigilance and hard work. Healthy management is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution, but a constant process of communication and introspection.
  • Excellent & Insightful

    5
    By Emajossch
    Fantastic, must-read for basically everyone. Valuable and extremely insightful, one of my favorites for sure.
  • Excellent Leadership

    5
    By LAB0402
    Creativitiy Inc is one of those books that not only inspires leaders and future leaders alike, it inspires employees and followers as well. Everyone has a voice and an environment that allows those voices to be heard in a meaningful and respectful way enables a culture to thrive and be excellent. Also the concepts on making mistakes in invaluable. This book is neccessary!
  • Insightful yet practical

    5
    By My_muzak
    A must read for anyone who leads teams in any capacity.
  • A must read!

    4
    By talentlesshack
    So much information about effective companies and groups.
  • Great read

    4
    By PPLS CHAMP
    So many lessons on how to extract brilliance and creativity from the people around you.
  • Five stars

    5
    By Snowgumby
    Required reading, worth your time.
  • Best book on creative business I've read

    5
    By MikesCrazyIdeas
    Would love a chance to be in an environment where even some of these ideas were implemented.
  • Invaluable

    5
    By UJVB
    As a manager at an exploding new media company, the thoughts and ideas expressed in this book resonate greatly with me and forms the foundation upon which all of us can continue to build and evolve.
  • Under the hood and between the ears look at Innovation

    5
    By Busstaflex
    "Innovation" may be one of the most popularly used words a company will use to describe their core values, yet so many companies fail to foster an environment that truly breeds innovation. Creativity Inc. provides straight forward and insightful thoughts on promoting an innovative environment, and pairs these thoughts with an excellent sampling of real world applications.