between the known and the unknown

Invention… is an active process that results from the decisions we make; to change the world, we must bring new things into being. But how do we go about creating the unmade future? I believe that all we can do is foster the optimal conditions in which it – whatever “it” is – can emerge and flourish. This is where real confidence comes in. Not the confidence that we know exactly what to do at all times but the confidence that, together, we will figure it out. 

That uncertainty can make us uncomfortable. We humans like to know where we are headed, but creativity demands that we travel paths that lead to who-knows-where. That requires us to step up to the boundary of what we know and what we don’t know. While we all have the potential to be creative, some people hang back, while others forge ahead. What are the tools they use that lead them toward the new? Those with superior talent and the ability to marshal the energies of others have learned from experience that there is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking. And that, according to the people who make films at Pixar and Disney Animation, means developing a mental model that sustains you. It might sound silly or woo-woo, this kind of visualization, but I believe it’s crucial. Sometimes – especially at the beginning of a daunting project – our mental models are all we’ve got. 

For example, one of our producers, John Walker, stays calm by imagining his very taxing job as holding a giant upside-down pyramid in his palm by its pointy tip. “I’m always looking up, trying to balance it,” he says. “Are there too many people on this side or that side? In my job, I do two things, fundamentally: artist management and cost control. Both depend on hundreds of interactions that are happening above me, up in the fat end of the pyramid. And I have to be okay with the fact that I don’t understand a freaking thing that’s going on half the time – and that that is the magic. The trick, always, is keeping the pyramid in balance.”

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

the role of accidental events

When I look back on Pixar’s history, I have to recognize that so many of the good things that happened could easily have gone a different way. Steve could have sold us – he tried more than once. Toy Story 2 could have been deleted for good, bringing the company down. For years, Disney was trying to steal John back, and they could have succeeded. I am distinctly aware that Disney Animation’s success in the 1990s gave Pixar its chance with Toy Story and also that their later struggles enabled us to join together and ultimately merge.

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune – and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius – lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. Since change is inevitable, the question is: Do you act to stop it and try to protect yourself from it, or do you become the master of change by accepting it and being open to it? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about.

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

mentally compartmentalizing

A theme [Dominic] Barton identified from talking with CEOs is the importance of mentally compartmentalizing. “You get so many issues coming at you, and some of them can paralyze you.” He related a story from a Liberty Mutual CEO who told him, “‘In my first three weeks of my job, I would have kicked you out of my office.'” The CEO explained that at that time, he had been told by his general counsel that the company was being sued for $6 billion, and that everywhere he looked, all he could see was $6 billion. “Now, he said, ‘I’m talking to you, and I have six of those [issues going on right now], but I’m focused on you.'”

"McKinsey’s Dominic Barton on Leadership — and His Three Tries to Make Partner." Knowledge@Wharton. 9/9/2015

failure: a manifestation of learning

Left to their own devices, most people don’t want to fail. But Andrew Stanton isn’t most people. As I’ve mentioned, he’s known around Pixar for repeating the phrases “fail early and fail fast” and “be wrong as fast as you can.” He thinks of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn’t conceivable that you would learn to do this without making mistakes – without toppling over a few times. “Get a bike that’s as low to the ground as you can find. Put on elbow and knee pads so you’re not afraid of falling, and go,” he says. If you apply this mindset to everything new you attempt, you can begin to subvert the negative connotation associated with making mistakes. Says Andrew: “You wouldn’t say to somebody who is first learning to play the guitar, ‘You better think really hard about where you put your fingers on the guitar neck before you strum, because you only get to strum once, and that’s it. And if you get that wrong, we’re going to move on.’ That’s no way to learn, is it?”

This doesn't mean that Andrew enjoys it when he puts his work up for others to judge, and it is found wanting. But he deals with the possibility of failure by addressing it head on – searching for mechanisms that turn pain into progress. To be wrong as fast as you can is to sign up for aggressive, rapid learning. Andrew does this without hesitation.  Even though people in our offices have heard Andrew say this repeatedly – many still miss the point. They think it means accept failure with dignity and move on. The better, more subtle interpretation is that failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it. And, for leaders especially, this strategy — trying to avoid failure by out-thinking it — dooms you to fail.

As Andrew puts it, “Moving things forward allows the team you are leading to feel like – “Oh I’m on a boat that’s actually moving towards land!” as opposed to having a leader that says, “I’m still not sure. I’m going to look at the map a little bit more and we’re just going to float here and all of you stop rowing until I figure this out.” And then weeks go by, and morale plummets, and failure becomes self-fulfilling. People begin to treat the captain with doubt and trepidation. Even if their doubts aren’t fully justified, you’ve become what they see you as because of your inability to move.”

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.

allow more people to solve problems

There is a crucial yet hard-to-understand concept here. Most people grasp the need to set priorities; they put the biggest problems at the top, with smaller problems beneath them. There are simply too many small problems to consider them all. So they draw a horizontal line beneath which they will not tread, directing all their energies to those above the line. I believe there is another approach: If we allow more people to solve problems without permission, and if we tolerate (and don’t vilify) their mistakes, then we enable a much larger set of problems to be addressed. When a random problem pops up in this scenario it causes no panic because the threat of failure has been defanged. The individual and the organization responds with its best thinking because the organization is not frozen with fear – waiting for approval. Mistakes will still be made – but in my experience they are fewer and farther between – and they are caught at an earlier stage. 

Ed Catmull

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. Random House 2014.