Strategic Execution: Role of Creativity

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Ed Catmull achieved the thesis of his book at Pixar:
Ed Catmull achieved the thesis of his book at Pixar by involving a large number of people from different disciplines together to solve many difficult problems. Catmull achieved creativity at Pixar by placing the responsibility for creative authority with the project leaders, he built a culture of creativity at Pixar which encourages individuals to share their work-in-progress and provide support to others as peers, and he removed the natural barriers at Pixar that divide disciplines. Moreover, Catmull implemented at Pixar lucid values, free communication, regular postmortems, and a steady intake of outsiders who challenge the status quo. Catmull has put in place strong practices for structuring and running a creative organization. At Pixar, he allows creative people leeway to make decisions, allows them to share unfinished work with other employees, and extracts lessons for reducing risks on later projects. Apart from these Catmull has achieved the thesis of his book by freeing up communication, employees at Pixar can approach anyone in another department, and developing a learning environment at Pixar. Pixar teaches its employees multiple skills, encourages them to learn from post-mortems, and values its good people. Catmull has insisted that people at Pixar stick to their principles and practices for managing creativity. At Pixar, Catmull has built the capability of recovering when failures happen, challenging the assumption at Pixar, and hunt for flaws that can destroy its culture. At Pixar, Catmull achieved the thesis of his book by getting talented people to work effectively with one another, earning their trust and respect, and constructing an environment that nurtures trusting and respectful relationships.

The essential of creative thinking and sound decision-making in Creativity Inc is that the teams for creativity must be excellent, recruit people who have the potential to grow, and recruit people who are smarter than you. For example, if an idea for a product is given to a team that has mediocre performance the outcome may not be satisfactory. Further, recruiting people who are smart, intelligent, and sharp will be able to spot creative ideas, work on communicating them, and defend their ideas. In a team, creativity means ...