Do you apply the leadership principles used at Pixar? This is the first of a two-part series about running your business like Pixar with 5 key lessons from the book Creativity Inc. written by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace.
This episode covers:

* Getting the right team is more important than the right idea
* Great products require constructive tension

Podcast Transcript:
Joshua MacLeod:
Great leaders not only find the right team, a team that’s good for their future, a team where you’re hiring people smarter than you, a team that everyone shares the same values, but they also are really good at building environments where you can have candid and constructive conversations.
Podcast Announcer:
Welcome to the Growability Podcast, teaching business and nonprofit leaders a more excellent way to run a business. Visit growability.com for your leadership, coaching consultation and business collaboration needs. This is the first of a two-part series about how to run your business like Pixar. Let’s listen as Joshua and Bernie discussed five key lessons from the book Creativity, Inc. Written by Edwin Catmull and Amy Wallace. Here are your hosts, Joshua MacLeod and Bernie Anderson.
Bernie Anderson:
I really am enjoying, Joshua, the conversation we’ve had over the last couple of weeks talking about leaders, and I understand you have another book today that we can maybe take some time to talk about.
Joshua MacLeod:
I made a tactical error, Bernie, on our podcast by starting with Abraham Lincoln. Like what? So I started thinking about, okay, great. We’re talking about leaders who make leaders, let’s start with Abraham Lincoln, and now it’s like, oh crap, where do you go from Abraham Lincoln? Like we should have ended with that. But yeah, I thought today we could talk about the book Creativity, Inc. Creativity, Inc. is kind of the story of Pixar. I’m thinking like 15 years ago is actually when I picked up this book. I came out with five key concepts, and I thought let’s just talk through the same way that we did with the Abraham Lincoln book. Let’s talk through some of these five key concepts in the Creativity, Inc. book.
Joshua MacLeod:
Number one, getting the right team is more important than getting the right idea. I think sometimes we assume that if I have the right idea, everything’s just going to work. The ideas are going to make it easier. The ideas are going to make it more beautiful. All I need is the brilliant idea. I was into conversation this week actually, and I reminded everybody, okay, hey, let’s remember the idea is 1% of the solution. 99% of the solution is blood, sweat and tears. Ideas don’t create paychecks.
Bernie Anderson:
Right, right.
Joshua MacLeod:
Completed ideas actually create paychecks. So if you have the right team, and if you build the right team, your ideas are going to become realities. Hire people who come up with lots of solutions in a short amount of time. If you can find people who are able to come up with options, that’s what really smart people do. People who are smart think smart, and they help you learn how to think smart. Hire people who are definitely smarter than you.
Bernie Anderson:
Steve Jobs who was very much involved with Pixar, he’s the prime example of someone who hired people smarter than he was. Steve Jobs didn’t know anything about the computer animation of making Woody, the cartoon character, right? He got the right people in the right place at the right time to do that and did that really, really well.
Joshua MacLeod:
Hire people who are little intimidating.
Bernie Anderson:
Yeah.
Joshua MacLeod:
If they come and work with you, you’ll get smarter. And if you are hiring them, first of all, you’re the one hiring them.