Rather than thinking, “OK, my job is to prevent or avoid all the messes,” I just try to say, “well, let’s make sure it doesn’t get too messy.” So you are always in this balance between clear leadership and chaos in fact that’s where you’re supposed to be.

And adhering to the pure, original plan falls apart, too, because it doesn’t represent reality. But if it gets too messy, it actually does fall apart. We know, intellectually, that if we want to do something new, there will be some unpredictable problems. The Quarterly: One of the questions we had after reading your book is how do you, as the leader of a company, simultaneously create a culture of doubt-of being open to careful, systematic introspection-and inspire confidence?Įd Catmull: The fundamental tension is that people want clear leadership, but what we’re doing is inherently messy. They delved deeply into Catmull’s rules for embracing the messiness that often accompanies great creative output, sending subtle signals, taking smart risks, experimenting to stay ahead of uncertainty, counteracting fear, and taking charge in a new environment-as Catmull did when he became the president of Disney Animation Studios.

But even more, he described the thrill and the challenge of stimulating creativity while keeping up with the breakneck pace of the digital age.Ĭatmull recently sat down with McKinsey’s Allen Webb and Stanford University professors Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton for a far-ranging discussion that picked up where Creativity, Inc. In his 2014 book, Creativity, Inc., Catmull chronicled the story of Pixar-from its early days, when Steve Jobs invested $10 million to spin it off from Lucasfilm, in 1986 to its release of the groundbreaking Toy Story, in 1995 and its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company, for $7.4 billion, in 2006. In 1972, he created a four-minute film of computer-generated animation that represented the state of the art at the time. The president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios began studying computer science at the University of Utah in 1965. Ed Catmull has been at the forefront of the digital revolution since its early days.

Creativity ed catmull