Creativity, Inc.

Creativity, Inc. Plot Summary

Introduction

In a sunlit conference room at Pixar Animation Studios, a group of talented artists and technicians gather around a table strewn with sketches and storyboards. The air is charged with creative tension as they review early footage from what will eventually become a beloved film. Suddenly, a junior animator speaks up, pointing out a fundamental flaw in a scene the director has spent weeks crafting. The room falls silent. In most companies, this moment would end in awkward backpedaling or strained smiles. But here, something different happens: the director pauses, considers the feedback thoughtfully, and says, "You're absolutely right. Let's fix it." This small moment captures the essence of what makes Pixar's creative culture so extraordinary. While many organizations claim to value innovation and collaboration, few have mastered the delicate balance of psychological safety, candid feedback, and relentless pursuit of excellence that consistently produces groundbreaking work. Through intimate stories of triumph and near-disaster, we discover how Pixar's leaders deliberately constructed an environment where creativity can flourish despite the immense technical and commercial pressures of modern filmmaking. Their journey reveals profound insights about human creativity that extend far beyond animation – showing us how any group of people, when given the right conditions, can achieve remarkable things together.

Chapter 1: The Fearless Pursuit of Creative Excellence

When Toy Story 2 was initially conceived, it was meant to be a direct-to-video release – a common practice for sequels at the time. But as production began, something felt wrong. The Pixar team realized they were creating a "B-team" mentality, with their top talent focused on A Bug's Life while others worked on what was perceived as a lesser project. This ran counter to everything they believed about quality. Despite the financial logic behind Disney's request, they made a bold decision: Toy Story 2 would be a theatrical release deserving the same care as any Pixar film. This commitment to quality was immediately tested. With just nine months until release, John Lasseter and the creative leadership reviewed the film's progress and discovered it was falling far short of Pixar's standards. The story lacked emotional depth, the humor fell flat, and the film felt hollow. In a pivotal moment, they made the painful decision to replace the directors and essentially restart the entire movie from scratch. "We couldn't lobby Disney for the chance to make a theatrical release, insist on our excellence, and then deliver something subpar," Catmull explains. What followed was the most grueling production schedule in Pixar's history. The team worked seven days a week, deep into nights. The physical and emotional toll was severe – at one point, an exhausted artist forgot their child in a hot car, a terrifying wake-up call about the human cost of their intense pace. By the time Toy Story 2 was completed, a third of the staff suffered from repetitive stress injuries. Yet despite these hardships, they had created something extraordinary – a sequel that many critics considered superior to the original. During this crucible, Catmull observed something profound about creative leadership. Two phrases had become mantras at Pixar: "Story Is King" and "Trust the Process." While these sounded wise, they had become what Catmull calls "handles without suitcases" – empty words disconnected from their deeper meaning. The team realized that merely repeating these phrases hadn't protected them from disaster. What mattered wasn't the process itself but the people implementing it. The Toy Story 2 experience crystallized a fundamental principle that would guide Pixar forward: "Getting the team right is the necessary precursor to getting the ideas right." As Catmull explains, "It is easy to say you want talented people, and you do, but the way those people interact with one another is the real key. Even the smartest people can form an ineffective team if they are mismatched." This insight inverted conventional wisdom. While many executives believed finding good ideas was the primary challenge, Catmull recognized that good people were the true foundation of success. This hard-won wisdom transformed how Pixar approached filmmaking and talent development. Rather than focusing primarily on efficiency or predetermined outcomes, they prioritized creating an environment where talented people could thrive together. The painful journey of Toy Story 2 taught them that true excellence emerges not from rigid processes or inspiring slogans, but from empowered teams who trust each other enough to navigate the inevitable challenges of creative work.

Chapter 2: Candor: The Lifeblood of Collaborative Creativity

In a conference room at Pixar, a group of the studio's most experienced storytellers has gathered to review an early version of Pete Docter's film that would eventually become Inside Out. The atmosphere is charged with energy as they discuss a pivotal scene that isn't quite working. Brad Bird speaks up first: "I understand that you want to keep this simple and relatable, but I think we need something that your audience can get a little more invested in." Andrew Stanton follows: "Pete, this movie is about the inevitability of change. And of growing up." This is the Braintrust in action – Pixar's primary mechanism for providing candid feedback on films during development. Unlike typical Hollywood studio notes, which often come from executives with little filmmaking experience, the Braintrust consists of directors, writers, and story experts who understand the creative process intimately. They speak frankly but constructively, focusing on identifying problems rather than prescribing solutions. Most importantly, they have no authority to mandate changes – the film's director maintains creative control. The Braintrust emerged organically during the making of Toy Story, when John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, and Lee Unkrich discovered they worked exceptionally well together as a problem-solving unit. Their candid interactions, free from ego and politics, proved invaluable when they rallied to save Toy Story 2. Since then, the group has evolved to include more members, but its essential element remains the same: candor. What makes the Braintrust different from ordinary feedback mechanisms is its foundation of trust. When directors share their unfinished work – which Catmull describes as "ugly babies" that are "awkward and unformed" – they make themselves vulnerable. The Braintrust creates a safe space where these early versions can be honestly assessed without personal judgment. "The film itself – not the filmmaker – is under the microscope," Catmull explains. This principle is critical: "You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged." The Braintrust has been instrumental in solving countless story problems. When WALL-E's ending wasn't working, Brad Bird pointed out that the audience was being denied the emotional payoff they wanted – seeing EVE save WALL-E rather than the other way around. For Toy Story 3, Andrew Stanton identified that the toys' mutiny against Lotso wasn't believable because the story hadn't established proper motivation. These insights didn't come from hierarchical authority but from the collective wisdom of people who understood storytelling. Creating an environment where candor flourishes isn't easy. People naturally hesitate to speak up, fearing they might appear foolish or hurt others' feelings. The Braintrust works because it's built on the understanding that everyone is united by a common goal: making the film better. As Catmull puts it, "Candor isn't cruel. It does not destroy. On the contrary, any successful feedback system is built on empathy, on the idea that we are all in this together." This principle extends beyond Pixar – any creative organization can benefit from establishing a culture where people feel safe enough to speak honestly and where ideas are improved through constructive dialogue rather than competition.

Chapter 3: Embracing Failure as a Path to Innovation

During the production of Toy Story 3, something unusual happened – nothing went wrong. The film progressed smoothly from concept to completion without any major crises or creative meltdowns. When Steve Jobs called to check on progress, Catmull told him, "It's really strange. We haven't had a single big problem on this film." Jobs' response was telling: "Watch out. That's a dangerous place to be." He understood what many leaders don't – that the absence of visible problems often masks hidden dangers. Jobs' concern proved prescient. In the years that followed, Pixar experienced a string of troubled productions. Two films required director changes, and another project was shut down entirely after three years of development. While these setbacks were painful and costly, Catmull came to view them as investments in learning rather than failures to be ashamed of. "I came to think of our meltdowns as a necessary part of doing our business," he explains, "like investments in R&D." This perspective runs counter to how most of us are conditioned to view failure. From early schooling, we're taught that failure means we didn't prepare enough or aren't smart enough – something to be ashamed of. This perception persists into adulthood, making us resist and reject failure despite intellectually acknowledging its value. As Catmull observes, "There is a visceral reaction to failure: It hurts." Pixar director Andrew Stanton approaches this differently. Known for saying "fail early and fail fast" and "be wrong as fast as you can," he compares learning to ride a bike: you can't do it without falling over a few times. "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,'" he explains. "That's no way to learn." This philosophy played out during the development of Monsters, Inc. Director Pete Docter's original concept was completely different – about a 30-year-old man haunted by monsters only he could see, representing childhood fears he never confronted. Through years of exploration and many "wrong turns," the story evolved into the tale of Sulley and Boo that audiences came to love. Docter describes this as a process of discovery: "However, there's always a guiding principle that leads you as you go down the various roads." The key insight Catmull draws from these experiences is that failure and fear must be uncoupled. While failure is inevitable in creative work, fear shouldn't be. Creating an environment where people feel safe to take risks means establishing trust – demonstrating through actions, not just words, that mistakes won't be punished. When managers respond well to failure, treating it as an opportunity to learn rather than assigning blame, they build the trust necessary for creativity to flourish.

Chapter 4: The Hidden Forces That Shape Creative Culture

In ancient Greek mythology, Cassandra was cursed with the ability to see the future but never to be believed. When she warned about the Trojan Horse, her accurate predictions fell on deaf ears. For Catmull, this myth raises a profound question: "Why do we think of Cassandra as the one who's cursed? The real curse afflicts everyone else – all of those who are unable to perceive the truth she speaks." This insight lies at the heart of leadership challenges. Despite our best intentions and careful planning, we all have blind spots – things we cannot see that nonetheless affect our organizations profoundly. When Steve Jobs encouraged Pixar to go public in 1995, his reasoning was sobering: "We were going to screw up, it was inevitable. And we didn't know when or how." This acknowledgment of the "hidden" – problems we don't yet know exist – became central to Catmull's management philosophy. The hidden manifests in multiple layers. First, as leaders rise in an organization, people behave differently around them. "They saw me as an 'Important Manager' at an 'Important Company,'" Catmull recalls, "and what this meant was that things I'd once been privy to became increasingly unavailable to me." People naturally hide their frustrations, conflicts, and mistakes from those in authority, creating an information gap that widens with each promotion. A second layer involves hierarchical structures. While hierarchy itself isn't inherently problematic, it becomes dangerous when people begin "to equate their own value and that of others with where they fall in the pecking order." This creates environments where managing upward becomes more important than honest communication, further obscuring reality from leaders. A third layer involves the complexity of creative work itself. The people directly involved in production see problems long before executives do, but may hesitate to raise concerns. Meanwhile, leaders have access to information about market conditions or resource constraints that others don't see. "Each of us, then, draws conclusions based on incomplete pictures," Catmull observes. "It would be wrong for me to assume that my limited view is necessarily better." Perhaps most profound is how randomness shapes our organizations in ways we can't perceive. Catmull shares a harrowing story from his childhood – a near-fatal car accident where two more inches would have sent his family's car over a cliff. "Two more inches – no Pixar," he reflects. Countless such "two-inch events" in the lives of key people determined Pixar's existence, yet remain invisible to us. The danger lies in our tendency to construct simplified narratives that ignore these hidden factors. We attribute success solely to our brilliance and failure to others' incompetence, when reality is far more complex. "Hindsight is not 20-20," Catmull insists. "Our view of the past, in fact, is hardly clearer than our view of the future." This blindness becomes particularly dangerous when success convinces us we're doing everything right.

Chapter 5: Protecting New Ideas in a Production-Driven World

In the late 1980s, as Disney Animation experienced a remarkable renaissance with hits like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Catmull began hearing a phrase repeated in their executive suites: "You've got to feed the Beast." The "Beast" referred to the massive infrastructure that had developed around animation – marketing teams, distribution channels, consumer products divisions – all requiring a steady stream of new films to justify their existence. This pressure to produce led to an expansion of Disney's animation studios and an accelerated release schedule that ultimately compromised quality. Watching this unfold, Catmull recognized a fundamental tension that exists in any creative enterprise: the conflict between the Beast's hunger for output and the fragile nature of new ideas. He describes early versions of Pixar's films as "ugly babies" – awkward, vulnerable, and incomplete creations that need time and nurturing to develop. "They are not beautiful, miniature versions of the adults they will grow up to be," he explains. "They need nurturing – in the form of time and patience – in order to grow." This tension played out dramatically during the development of Finding Nemo. After Andrew Stanton's brilliant initial pitch about a father clownfish searching for his son, Pixar's leadership saw an opportunity to improve their production process. They reasoned that if they could finalize the story before production began, the film would be more efficient and less costly to make. "We were hoping to avoid the messy (and at times uncomfortable) part of the creative process," Catmull admits. "We were trying to eliminate errors." Reality quickly shattered this plan. The flashback structure that had seemed so compelling in the pitch proved confusing in execution. Characters needed to be reworked, storylines adjusted, and entire sequences reimagined. Despite their hopes that Finding Nemo would transform their production process, they ended up making as many adjustments as on any previous film. The result was a masterpiece that became the highest-grossing animated film of its time – but it didn't deliver the streamlined process they'd hoped for. This experience revealed a crucial insight: "Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on – but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal." When efficiency or consistency becomes the primary focus, new ideas – the ugly babies – aren't given the protection they need to mature. Instead, organizations gravitate toward safer projects that mimic past successes, feeding the Beast but starving creativity. The challenge for leaders is to maintain balance between these competing forces. The Beast isn't inherently evil – its hunger creates deadlines and urgency that prevent endless tinkering. But when production demands overwhelm creative needs, originality suffers. "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," Catmull explains.

Chapter 6: Leading Through Trust Rather Than Control

When Brad Bird joined Pixar to direct The Incredibles, he brought with him a reputation for brilliance, but also for being demanding and difficult. He had just come from an experience where his previous film, The Iron Giant, was poorly marketed despite critical acclaim. Frustrated and determined not to let it happen again, he arrived at Pixar with something to prove. Rather than asking him to tone down his intensity, Pixar's leadership took a different approach – they gave him what they called "the black sheep" of the company, a team of technical rebels who had a reputation for questioning authority and pushing boundaries. The conventional wisdom would suggest this was a recipe for disaster – putting a demanding director together with a team of strong-willed technicians. Instead, it resulted in one of Pixar's most innovative films. Bird pushed the team to achieve things they hadn't thought possible, like creating believable human characters and complex action sequences that had never been attempted in animation before. The team, in turn, challenged Bird's assumptions about what could and couldn't be done technically. As one team member put it, "Brad pushed us to do things we didn't think we could do, and we pushed him to consider approaches he hadn't imagined." This counterintuitive leadership decision reflects Pixar's understanding that creative tension, when properly channeled, drives innovation. Rather than seeing conflict as something to be avoided, they recognized that the friction between different perspectives often produces the spark of breakthrough ideas. The key was creating an environment where that tension remained productive rather than destructive. John Lasseter, Pixar's Chief Creative Officer, exemplified another aspect of this leadership approach through his practice of "plussing." When reviewing work in progress, he would always acknowledge what was working before suggesting improvements, and he would frame his suggestions as additions rather than criticisms: "What if we added this?" rather than "This doesn't work." This subtle linguistic shift created an atmosphere where feedback felt collaborative rather than judgmental. Perhaps the most revealing leadership moment came during the troubled production of Toy Story 2. When it became clear that the film needed to be completely reworked with just nine months until release, Pixar's leaders faced an impossible choice: delay the film (angering Disney and Wall Street) or release something mediocre (compromising their standards). They chose a third option – they rallied the team around the challenge of doing the impossible. Rather than lowering expectations or extending deadlines, they inspired people to rise to the occasion. The result was not just a successful film, but a defining moment in Pixar's culture. The leadership philosophy behind Pixar's success challenges conventional management wisdom in fundamental ways. Instead of trying to eliminate problems, their leaders focus on creating resilience – building teams that can solve problems as they arise. Instead of avoiding creative tension, they harness it as a source of innovation. And perhaps most importantly, they lead not through control but through trust – creating an environment where people feel both the freedom to take risks and the responsibility to uphold the highest standards.

Chapter 7: Transforming Organizations Through Creative Principles

When Disney acquired Pixar in 2006, it created a natural experiment: Could the principles that had made Pixar successful work in a completely different environment? Disney Animation, once the gold standard of the industry, had fallen into a sixteen-year slump without a single number one film. The studio had talented artists but was hampered by a culture of fear and a complex bureaucracy that stifled creativity. If Pixar's approach could revitalize Disney Animation, it would prove that their principles weren't just lucky accidents but transferable insights about creative collaboration. On their first day at Disney Animation, Catmull and Lasseter discovered how deeply entrenched the problems were. When Catmull arrived early to walk the halls, he noticed something strange – none of the employees' desks showed any personal items or decorations. When he asked about this, the facilities manager reluctantly admitted that everyone had been told to clean their desks to "make a good first impression." This small detail revealed a culture where people felt they needed to hide their true selves to please authority figures. More troubling was the creative process itself. Directors received mandatory notes from three different levels of executives, often contradicting each other. These weren't suggestions but requirements, complete with checkboxes that had to be marked off. Most of these executives had never made a film themselves, yet their opinions carried more weight than the filmmakers'. The result was movies designed by committee rather than driven by a clear creative vision. Rather than imposing Pixar's methods directly, Catmull and Lasseter began by addressing the underlying fear. They eliminated the oversight groups that micromanaged productions. They invited Disney's directors to observe Pixar's Braintrust in action, showing rather than telling them how candid feedback could work when separated from authority. Most importantly, they demonstrated through their actions that it was safe to take risks – even if those risks led to failure. The turning point came during production of a film that would eventually become Bolt. The project was in trouble, with a story that wasn't working and a main character design that lacked appeal. With the release date approaching, the technical directors said it would take six months to fix a critical animation problem – time they didn't have. In a company-wide meeting, Catmull gave what became known as "the Toyota speech," explaining how the car manufacturer empowered assembly line workers to stop production when they saw problems. He challenged Disney's team to find solutions without waiting for permission. That weekend, three employees took it upon themselves to solve the problem that had been estimated to take six months. They fixed it in three days. This moment marked a cultural shift. People began to realize they had agency – that they could solve problems rather than just reporting them up the chain of command. The results were dramatic. In 2010, Tangled became Disney Animation's first number one hit in sixteen years. It was followed by Wreck-It Ralph and then Frozen, which became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. The same studio, with largely the same talented people, had transformed from a struggling division into an industry leader.

Summary

Throughout this exploration of Pixar's creative journey, we've witnessed how seemingly simple principles can transform an organization when applied with consistency and care. The heart of their approach isn't about flashy techniques or revolutionary management theories – it's about addressing the fundamentally human aspects of creative collaboration. Fear silences innovation. Candor, when delivered with respect, elevates it. Failure, when treated as learning rather than disaster, becomes the soil from which new ideas grow. And leadership isn't about having all the answers, but about creating environments where the best answers can emerge from anywhere. Perhaps the most powerful lesson from Pixar's experience is that creativity isn't mysterious or magical – it's the natural result of removing the barriers that stand between talented people and their best work. When we create psychological safety, when we balance structure with freedom, when we embrace the messiness of the creative process rather than trying to control it – we unlock possibilities that no single individual could imagine alone. The principles that transformed both Pixar and Disney Animation aren't limited to filmmaking; they apply anywhere humans come together to solve problems and create something new. By focusing less on managing creativity and more on managing for creativity – building the conditions where it can naturally flourish – we can all participate in bringing new ideas to life. In a world of constant change and uncertainty, this ability to collectively imagine and create the future isn't just a competitive advantage – it's an essential skill for navigating the challenges ahead.

About Author

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Ed Catmull

Edwin Earl "Ed" Catmull, PhD is a computer scientist and current president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, DisneyToon Studios, and Pixar Animation Studios. As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics.

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