Pixar

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The last step in fostering creativity is building a talented team of individuals. Catmull mentions the phrase “talented people” multiple times throughout the case because these are the people that push Pixar forward. If you put a group of unmotivated people to work in a creative environment they will easily get distracted and not accomplish their work. Catmull says that the directors at Pixar – “must have a unifying vision, one that will give coherence to the thousands of ideas that go into a movie.” He goes on to say that “it’s OK to hire people who are smarter than you.” The reason I brought up these points was to support my view that a company needs a strong core team of individuals in order to push other team members to their true creative potential. By setting up daily check-ins, individuals showcase their work to the team which in turn motivates team members and sparks new creative thoughts. It is teams like these that have solved problems that were thought to be unsolvable. For example, if it was not for a strong team at NASA, three astronauts would have died aboard Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank blew out one night and disabled the heat shields. Through critical thinking and long hours, the operations team at NASA was able to solve the problem and brought the astronauts back to safety. Whether it’s a near disaster in outer space or being time pressed to create Toy Story 2, creativity is driven by talented people who reject mediocrity at great pain and personal sacrifice.