Creativity Inc.

Creativity Inc. or how I have learnt that you can’t always measure what you manage…

They still exist – divine moments when you know you have just witnessed something great. To me that happened quite some time ago, when I saw this little lamp jump around:

You may have seen the lamp before, but have you seen Geri’s Game?

Of course both artistic master pieces have been made by Pixar. A company I have envied since I first found it. Their achievements need no further praise (just look here), but some people do not know, that they are also tied into the sudden comeback of Disney (Frozen…).

[Picture credit: http://www.fastcompany.com/3027135/lessons-learned/inside-the-pixar-braintrust]

The people behind this success are the same (to some extent): Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. All three of them of course very well known.

What is less known though is what made their success possible. At least it seems less known to a lot of managers and people in various businesses around the globe. Very few business people understand what it means to really grow a creative company and stay on top of success for such a long time.

[Picture credit: front cover of Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace]

Fortunately, Ed Catmull has written his thoughts down. Amy Wallace does a great job in bringing this book to live.

If there ever was one business book I think you should read, it is this one. Pixar’s success is the complete opposite of what business culture tries to teach you and what to my experience is business as usual in many companies up to this day. It sure made me happy to see that there is a style of management out there that cares about so much more.

To give you an idea, here are some quotes:

“A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Lack of candor, if unchecked, ultimately leads to dysfunctional environments.”

“Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new.”

“The attempt to avoid failure makes failure more likely.”

“Driving the train doesn’t set its course. The real job is laying the track.”

“Your employees are smart; that’s why you hired them. So treat them that way.”

Working in an environment that tries to help marketers achieve a 1:1 conversation with their customers, I often do run across a lot of misconceptions and assumptions on how a business should be run. Everyone seems to understand that the demand and supply of talent is not equal. That the hardest part of business is to get the right people, but it is the example of Pixar that shows how to solve these issues.

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is a quote often attributed to William Edwards Deming. A phrase I have used quite often when discussing the measurement of lift and other variables in the marketing environment. Interestingly enough, Ed Catmull mentions this approach in his book:

“A large portion of what we manage can’t be measured, and not realising this has unintended consequences. The problem comes when people think that data paints a full picture, leading them to ignore what they can’t see.”

Wikipedia actually states that Deming is apparently often incorrectly quoted as saying, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Apparently he stated that one of the seven deadly diseases of management is running a company on visible figures alone.

Although this book has been published quite some time ago, it still is the best business book I have read to date. Do not miss it – it might just change the way you work.

And on a minor side note: the part about Steve Jobs probably catches the genius better than anything I have read about the man. Enjoy!