Creativity, Inc.

1. Prioritize people and team dynamics over the ideas themselves

If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something better.

People are paramount. Ideas do not exist in a vacuum; they are generated, shaped, and executed by people. Too many managers focus on finding the "perfect idea" rather than assembling the right team and fostering healthy chemistry among its members. A great team can take a flawed concept and iterate it into greatness, whereas a poor team will ruin even the most brilliant premise.

Focus on team dynamics. A highly functional team is not just a collection of talented individuals, but a cohesive unit where members complement and challenge one another. When team dynamics are healthy, the group develops a shared trust that allows them to take risks and solve complex problems together. This collective intelligence is far more powerful than any single "genius" working in isolation.

Nurture talent first. To build a sustainable creative culture, the development of people must always take precedence over the development of products. This means hiring for potential rather than current skill, and ensuring that teams have the support they need to collaborate effectively. When you put people first, the ideas will naturally follow.

• Hire for potential and future growth rather than past achievements.
• Focus on how team members interact rather than their individual resumes.
• Shift the development department's goal from finding scripts to building great teams.
• Trust your people to solve problems rather than micromanaging their process.

2. Foster candor and remove power dynamics through peer-review mechanisms

The Braintrust’s notes, then, are intended to bring the true causes of problems to the surface—not to demand a specific remedy.

Candor over polite reserve. While honesty carries moral weight, candor is about forthrightness and a lack of reserve that allows people to speak freely without fear of looking foolish. In a healthy creative culture, people must feel safe to share unvarnished opinions about work-in-progress. Without candor, feedback becomes polite but useless, and critical flaws go unaddressed.

The power of peer review. Pixar's Braintrust is a group of storytelling peers who meet regularly to evaluate films, but crucially, they have no authority to mandate solutions. This lack of power dynamics ensures that the director remains the ultimate owner of the film while receiving invaluable, non-prescriptive feedback. By removing the ability to command, the Braintrust becomes a safe space for creative problem-solving.

Focus on the problem. To make feedback constructive, the critique must always be directed at the project, never at the person. When filmmakers realize they are not their ideas, they can receive challenging notes without becoming defensive or shut down. The goal is to analyze the emotional beats of a movie without any of its members getting emotional or defensive.

• Replace the moral baggage of "honesty" with the practical utility of "candor."
• Ensure the feedback group has zero authority to enforce changes.
• Deliver specific, constructive notes that diagnose symptoms rather than prescribing cures.
• Separate the creator's self-worth from the quality of their initial ideas.

3. Uncouple fear from failure to encourage bold, rapid learning

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

Fail early and fast. Trying to avoid failure by over-planning only dooms a project to derivative mediocrity. True innovation requires a willingness to make mistakes, treat them as learning experiences, and iterate rapidly toward a better solution. To be wrong as fast as you can is to sign up for aggressive, rapid learning.

Destigmatize the creative slip. When a culture vilifies mistakes, employees become risk-averse and seek the safety of repetition. Leaders must talk openly about their own failures to signal that making mistakes is a natural part of the creative process. The goal is not to drive fear out completely, but to loosen its grip so that people feel free to explore uncharted pathways.

Build recovery capabilities. Management's job is not to prevent risk but to build the capability to recover when things inevitably go wrong. By lowering the cost of failure during early development phases, companies can encourage bold experimentation. When the threat of failure is defanged, the organization responds to crises with its best thinking rather than panic.

• Treat failure as an investment in research and development.
• Encourage rapid prototyping to fail quickly and learn faster.
• Avoid the search for scapegoats when errors are discovered.
• Share leadership failures openly to build trust and psychological safety.

4. Protect fragile new ideas from the demands of operational efficiency

Our job is to protect our babies from being judged too quickly. Our job is to protect the new.

Originality is fragile. Early versions of creative projects are like "ugly babies"—awkward, unformed, and highly vulnerable to premature judgment. If exposed to harsh criticism too early, these fragile ideas will be destroyed before they have a chance to mature. Part of our job is to protect the new from people who don't understand that greatness requires phases of not-so-greatness.

The pressure of the beast. Every successful company develops a "Beast"—the massive operational infrastructure that demands a constant stream of resources and output to remain profitable. The danger is that the need to feed the Beast will prioritize speed and efficiency over the slow, messy process of nurturing original ideas. This leads to safe, predictable, and ultimately unoriginal fare.

Balance competing forces. A healthy culture requires a dynamic balance between the creative needs of the "Baby" and the operational demands of the "Beast." If either side wins completely, the company either goes bankrupt or becomes creatively bankrupt. Managers must hold lightly to specific production goals while holding firmly to their creative intentions.

• Give fragile, new ideas a safe "cocoon" to develop before exposing them to wide critique.
• Prevent operational efficiency from becoming the primary goal of a creative enterprise.
• Recognize that early versions of great products almost always "suck" initially.
• Ensure that creative voices have equal weight to financial and production voices.

5. Actively unearth hidden problems and acknowledge your blind spots

Being on the lookout for problems, I realized, was not the same as seeing problems.

Acknowledge your blind spots. Success often blinds leaders to the destructive forces lurking within their organizations. Just because a company is thriving doesn't mean there aren't serious, hidden rifts or inefficiencies developing right under the surface. Leaders must accept that they cannot see everything and that their view of the company is inevitably flawed.

Vigilance is required. Leaders must actively search for what is unseen rather than assuming that an "open-door policy" is enough to bring problems to light. People are naturally hesitant to speak up, especially to those in authority, meaning that critical information is often withheld. Being on the lookout for problems requires a proactive, curious, and humble mindset.

Engage with discomfort. Uncovering hidden problems requires making yourself uncomfortable and asking difficult, open-ended questions. Only by adopting a mindset of humility and admitting what you do not know can you hope to see the full picture. When you are candid about your own blind spots, you make it safe for others to bring hidden issues to light.

• Do not mistake the absence of complaints for the absence of problems.
• Actively wander the halls and engage with employees at all levels.
• Recognize that success can breed complacency and a false sense of security.
• Create safe, anonymous, or structured channels for feedback.

6. Decouple your communication structure from your organizational hierarchy

We had made the mistake of confusing the communication structure with the organizational structure.

Free-flowing communication. While a clear chain of command is necessary for managing operations and budgets, it must never dictate how information flows. Anyone in the organization should be able to talk to anyone else, at any level, at any time, without fear of reprimand. The exchange of information is key to our business and must happen out of order.

Eliminate bureaucratic bottlenecks. Forcing communication to go through "proper channels" or direct managers creates irritating bottlenecks and slows down problem-solving. When an animator can speak directly to a modeler without managerial mediation, work becomes more efficient and collaborative. Managers must learn to tolerate and not feel threatened by direct communication.

Empower the individual. By decoupling communication from hierarchy, you empower employees to take ownership of their work and solve problems organically. This trust strengthens the overall culture and prevents the development of a rigid, siloed environment. When people talk directly to one another, they build the relationships necessary for true collaboration.

• Allow direct, cross-departmental communication without managerial approval.
• Ensure that managers are kept informed but do not act as gatekeepers.
• Dismantle place cards and seating arrangements that imply a rigid hierarchy.
• Encourage informal, spontaneous interactions across all levels of the company.

7. Embrace randomness and build resilience instead of trying to prevent all risk

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?

Accept the unpredictable. Randomness is a constant force in both life and business, yet our brains are wired to look for patterns and pretend we can control everything. Trying to eliminate all risk and surprise only leads to rigid, fragile systems that cannot adapt when crises occur. The unpredictable is the ground on which creativity occurs.

Build resilience over control. Instead of trying to prevent all errors, focus on building the capability to recover when unexpected events happen. A resilient organization treats surprises not as threats, but as opportunities to test its values and adapt to new realities. When a random problem pops up, the organization responds with its best thinking because the threat of failure has been defanged.

Let go of the past. Success can make companies resistant to change because they want to cling to the formulas that worked before. To remain creative, leaders must hold lightly to their specific goals while holding firmly to their core intentions and values. Working with change, rather than resisting it, is what creativity is about.

• Shift focus from error prevention to rapid, creative recovery.
• Avoid the trap of believing that past success guarantees future results.
• Treat unexpected crises as opportunities to reinforce and demonstrate company values.
• Encourage a "beginner's mind" that remains open to new ways of working.

8. Use resource and time limits to drive creative problem-solving

Imposing limits can encourage a creative response.

The danger of perfectionism. Without limits, creative people will naturally suffer from "appetite control" issues, spending endless time and resources polishing details that the audience will never see. This "beautifully shaded penny" problem drains budgets and energy without adding real value to the final product. Limits force us to prioritize what truly matters.

Limits force innovation. When resources, time, or budgets are constrained, teams are forced to abandon their standard ways of working and invent smarter, more elegant solutions. These boundaries act as a catalyst for creativity rather than a hindrance. Excellent work can emerge from uncomfortable or seemingly untenable circumstances.

Make boundaries visible. To make limits effective, they must be clear and understandable to the people doing the work. Using simple, visual tools—like tracking "person-weeks" on a wall—helps teams make conscious trade-offs and take ownership of their constraints. Trusting teams to manage within their limits is far healthier than micromanaging their choices.

• Set firm deadlines and budgets to force prioritization.
• Prevent "plussing" from turning into wasteful, invisible perfectionism.
• Use visual tracking tools to make resource limits clear to the entire team.
• Trust production teams to manage within their limits rather than imposing external oversight.

9. INTEGRATE ART AND TECHNOLOGY

Art challenges technology, technology inspires art.

A dynamic interplay. Art and technology should not exist in separate silos; they must be deeply integrated and allowed to drive each other forward. When artists push the limits of what is technically possible, they force engineers to innovate, and those new technical tools in turn inspire new artistic visions. This integration keeps the organization fresh and responsive.

Dismantle the silos. In many companies, technical and creative departments view each other with suspicion or misunderstanding. By integrating these disciplines into the leadership and daily workflows, you create a fertile environment where different mindsets can temper and improve each other. The goal is to maintain a balance where neither side dominates.

Invention from within. True innovation occurs when the impetus for new tools comes from the people who actually use them. By encouraging software developers to work directly alongside artists, you ensure that technology is developed in the service of the creative vision. This collaborative relationship turns technical development into a creative endeavor.

• Foster mutual respect and equal status between creative and technical teams.
• Encourage engineers to sit in on creative meetings and vice versa.
• Develop proprietary tools based on the direct feedback of the artists.
• Rotate technical staff in and out of active production roles.

10. COMMIT TO CONTINUOUS SELF-ASSESSMENT AND ACTIVE, LIFELONG LEARNING

Companies, like individuals, do not become exceptional by believing they are exceptional but by understanding the ways in which they aren’t exceptional.

The necessity of postmortems. After completing a major project, the natural impulse is to move on immediately, but holding a rigorous postmortem is essential for consolidating lessons learned. These meetings force self-reflection, prevent resentments from festering, and arm teams with the right questions for the next challenge. The time spent preparing for a postmortem is as valuable as the meeting itself.

Vary the format. To prevent postmortems from becoming pro forma exercises where people pull their punches, leaders must constantly change the format and focus. Using data alongside anecdotal experiences can help keep the discussions neutral, objective, and focused on improvement. The goal is to struggle openly with our problems rather than celebrating our successes.

Keep learning active. Fostering a healthy creative culture requires a commitment to continuous learning, whether through internal education programs or company-wide events like "Notes Day." By giving everyone a voice in self-assessment, you reinforce their ownership of the company's culture and future. Learning to see clearly requires us to constantly challenge our own mental models.

• Use postmortems to consolidate both positive and negative lessons.
• Incorporate neutral data to ground subjective discussions in facts.
• Encourage continuous learning through programs like Pixar University.
• Hold large-scale events like Notes Day to tap the collective brainpower of the entire staff.