Beware of being blinded by your own success.
Edwin CatmullRead
A hallmark of a healthy creative culture is that its people feel free to share ideas, opinions, and criticisms. Our decision-making is better when we draw on the collective knowledge and unvarnished opinions of the group.
Interpretation
A healthy creative environment encourages open communication and diverse input for better decision-making.
In this quote, Edwin Catmull emphasizes the importance of fostering a creative culture where individuals feel safe to express their thoughts and critiques. By promoting an atmosphere of openness and collaboration, organizations can enhance their decision-making processes by leveraging the collective insights and honest perspectives of their members.
In practice
In a team meeting, you can share this quote to encourage everyone to express their opinions freely.
Beware of being blinded by your own success.
I started off life at Pixar with interesting technical problems. But as time has moved on, I found that the social and management problem was far more complex and interesting.
We need business leaders who have a respect for technical issues even if they don't have technical backgrounds. In a lot of U.S. industries, including cars and even computers, many managers don't think of technology as a core competency, and this attitude leads them to farm out technical issues.
We encourage our people to build their ideas from scratch, and we give them the resources - and, crucially, the candid feedback - that are required to transform the first wisps of a story into a truly compelling film.
It is only by trying new things that we can hope to create products that are original. Don't just say those words; act like you believe them.
The trick is, in everything we do, there are things we love. And sometimes the things we love get us stuck. And it's only if we let go of some of those things that we free the movie up to become greater.
Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.
Coming up with ideas is the easiest thing on earth. Putting them down is the hardest.
People who do a job that claims to be creative have to be alone to recharge their batteries. You can’t live 24 hours a day in the spotlight and remain creative. For people like me, solitude is a victory.
I think it is the weak and the young and the minorities that you need to look after to get a healthy creative environment - to get a lot of choices, a lot of different styles of music, a lot experimental stuff that everyone else feeds off.
In any creative industry, the fact that others are moving in a certain direction is always proof positive, at least to me, that a new direction is the only direction.
There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.
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