A few great quotes from the excellent book by Ed Catmull, Creativity Inc.
“There is nothing quite like ignorance combined with a driving need to succeed to force rapid learning.”
“Believe me, you don’t want to be at a company where there is more candor in the hallways than in the rooms where fundamental ideas or matters of policy are being hashed out.”
“Your employees are smart; that’s why you hired them. So treat them that way. They know when you deliver a message that’s been heavily massaged.”
“Remember, people are more important than ideas.”
I love this quote about managing downside risk with bureaucracy:
“The oversight group had been put in place without anyone asking a fundamental question: How do we enable our people to solve problems? Instead, they asked: How do we prevent our people from screwing up? That approach never encourages a creative response.”
“I’ve noticed what might be called a ‘law of subverting successful approaches,’ by which I mean once you’ve hit on something that works, don’t expect it to work again, because attendees will know how to manipulate it the second time around.”
On data:
“Measure what you can, evaluate what you measure, and appreciate that you cannot measure the vast majority of what you do. And at least every once in a while, make time to take a step back and think about what you are doing.”
And finally, a warning not to try to make too much out of clever quotes without living the background story:
“Truth without context has no effect on behavior whatsoever.”
