My review of Creativity, Inc - a totally amazing read

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Ed Catmull
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very impressive book, which has ideas of relevance for all workplaces. It provides a history of Pixar, and through it is advice on how to manage a growing organisation, and one where they very deliberately worked a the organisational culture. Mistakes were made, but they were addressed rather than covered up. One of the strongest ideas coming through this is that people learn together, and there needs to be effective feedback, without reprisals or point scoring. I will be reading this book again, to further explore the ideas within it. It is an enjoyable read, and it makes you think about how to improve your own work place, as ideas from this book would work well in other industries. A very clear point is that it is about finding the solution for your workplace, rather than copying. There is some very helpful information in the Disney/Pixar merge content.

"Just because "failure free" is crucial in some industries does not mean that it should be a goal in all of them. When it comes to creative endeavours, the concept of zero failures is worse than useless. It is counterprodutive."
and later in the book
"Similarly it is not the manager's job to prevent risks. it is the manager's job to make it safe to take them"

Read, enjoy and apply.

Note - I would have liked to include more quotes, but scraping them from the Kindle version was not happening.



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