Catmull Quotes & Sayings
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When we disagreed, I would state my case, but since Steve could think much faster than I could, he would often shoot down my arguments. So I'd wait a week, marshal my thoughts, and then come back and explain it again. He might dismiss my points again, but I would keep coming back until one of three things happened: (1) He would say "Oh, okay, I get it" and give me what I needed; (2) I'd see that he was right and stop lobbying; or (3) our debate would be inconclusive, in which case I'd just go ahead and do what I had proposed in the first place. — Ed Catmull

Where, along the way, do we turn from the wide-eyed child into the adult who fears surprises and has all the answers and seeks to control all outcomes? — Ed Catmull

I heard a delightful - and possibly apocryphal - story about what happened when the British introduced golf to India in the 1820s. Upon building the first golf course there, the Royal Calcutta, the British discovered a problem: Indigenous monkeys were intrigued by the little white balls and would swoop down out of the trees and onto the fairways, picking them up and carrying them off. This was a disruption, to say the least. In response, officials tried erecting fences to keep the monkeys out, but the monkeys climbed right over. They tried capturing and relocating the monkeys, but the monkeys kept coming back. They tried loud noises to scare them away. Nothing worked. In the end, they arrived at a solution: They added a new rule to the game - "Play the ball where the monkey drops it. — Ed Catmull

we didn't know what was impossible. Neither, apparently, did he: He was among the first to believe that Hollywood movie execs would care a fig about what was happening in academia. — Ed Catmull

Seeing is 'making,' whether you see with your mind or your true self. Try to see with your self, your self and your beast together, and not your busy, frightened mind. — Katherine Catmull

That's because success convinces us that we are doing things the right way. There is nothing quite as effective, when it comes to shutting down alternative viewpoints, as being convinced you are right. — Ed Catmull

We have friends in every woods we walk through, though we walk through them not knowing. — Katherine Catmull

Because your rational mind knows that tunnels have two ends, your emotional mind can be kept in check when pitch blackness descends in the confusing middle. Instead of collapsing into a nervous mess, the director who has a clear internal model of what creativity is - and the discomfort it requires - finds it easier to trust that light will shine again. The key is to never stop moving forward. — Ed Catmull

Rather than trying to prevent all errors, we should assume, as is almost always the case, that our people's intentions are good and that they want to solve problems. Give them responsibility, let the mistakes happen, and let people fix them. — Ed Catmull

When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality - a beginner's mind, open to everything because, well, what do they have to lose? (This is often something they later look back upon wistfully.) But when that company becomes successful, its leaders often cast off that startup mentality because, they tell themselves, they have figured out what to do. They don't want to be beginners anymore. That may be human nature, but I believe it is a part of our nature that should be resisted. By resisting the beginner's mind, you make yourself more prone to repeat yourself than to create something new. The attempt to avoid failure, in other words, makes failure more likely. — Ed Catmull

At Pixar, Toy Story 2 taught us this lesson - that we must always be alert to shifting dynamics, because our future depends on it - once and for all. Begun as a direct-to-video sequel, the project proved not only that it was important to everyone that we weren't tolerating second-class films but also that everything we did - everything associated with our name - needed to be good. Thinking this way was not just about morale; it was a signal to everyone at Pixar that they were part owners of the company's greatest asset - its quality. — Ed Catmull

if not anyone else - that what we'd created at Pixar could work outside of Pixar. Both the run-up to the acquisition and its execution provided the ultimate case study, and as such, it was enormously exciting to be a part of. First, I'll talk about how the merger came to pass in the first place, because I believe we did several things in the very early stages that put our partnership on a strong footing. "GET TO KNOW Bob Iger," Steve had said. So a few weeks later, I did. — Ed Catmull

The trust comes from knowing that we are safe, that our colleagues will not judge us for failures but will encourage us to keep pushing the boundaries. But to me, the key is not to let this trust, our faith, lull us into the abdication of personal responsibility. When that happens, we fall into dull repetition, producing empty versions of what was made before. — Ed Catmull

I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. — Ed Catmull

This is not a call for working faster or doing more overtime or making do with fewer people," he said in one town hall forum. — Ed Catmull

How did you know," Summer would demand, and then decide: "It's probably a coincidence."
"It's not a coincidence," Bird would say. "It's just obvious. Your body just knows."
"But how do you know?"
"How do you know a story is a good story or not?" asked Bird. "Like that. you know like that. — Katherine Catmull

IF YOU CREATE a fearless culture (or as fearless as human nature will allow), people will be much less hesitant to explore new areas, identifying uncharted pathways and then charging down them. They will also begin to see the upside of decisiveness: The time they've saved by not gnashing their teeth about whether they're on the right course comes in handy when they hit a dead end and need to reboot. — Ed Catmull

In the thirteenth chapter of Creativity, Inc., Catmull talks about how the leadership teams at Disney and Pixar found solutions to the problems that arose during the merge of the two companies. They solved the problem by asking everyone who worked in the company for solutions rather than just leaving it up to the executives, which became known as Notes Day. — Top 50 Facts

The Braintrust, which meets every few months or so to assess each movie we're making, is our primary delivery system for straight talk. Its premise is simple: Put smart, passionate people in a room together, charge them with identifying and solving problems, and encourage them to be candid with one another. — Ed Catmull

Most people have heard of the Eastern teaching that it is important to exist in the moment. It can be hard to train yourself to observe what is right now (and not to bog down in thoughts of what was and what will be), but the philosophical teaching that underlies that idea - the reason that staying in the moment is so vital - is equally important: Everything is changing. All the time. And you can't stop it. And your attempts to stop it actually put you in a bad place. — Ed Catmull

I'm not the first to say that failure, when approached properly, can be an opportunity for growth. — Ed Catmull

I remember his assertiveness. There was no small talk. Instead, there were questions. Lots of questions. What do you want? Steve asked. Where are you heading? What are your long-term goals? — Ed Catmull

The bird music sank into her, like a song you used to know but forgot long ago. You hear a piano play it some day, and for a minute you feel a happy pain, but you don't know why. Bird felt like that. — Katherine Catmull

The antidote to fear is trust, and we all have a desire to find something to trust in an uncertain world. Fear and trust are powerful forces, and while they are not opposites, exactly, trust is the best tool for driving out fear. — Ed Catmull

Trust doesn't mean that you trust that someone won't screw up - it means you trust them even when they do screw up. — Ed Catmull

In dreams and in making, you choose what you are. But you do not choose only once. Over and over, at every turning you must choose. This felt like a turning, a time to choose what she was. — Katherine Catmull

Her grief was like the evening sun behind the trees when you ride your bicycle west: sometimes you get a glimpse between the branches, or you hit a bump in the road, and the sudden blaze of sun in your eyes hurts so much, it blinds you. But mostly you're just riding quietly along in the dusk. She — Katherine Catmull

When faced with complexity, it is reassuring to tell ourselves that we can uncover and understand every facet of every problem if we just try hard enough. But that's a fallacy. The better approach, I believe, is to accept that we can't understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus, instead, on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints. If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse. In a healthy, creative culture, the people in the trenches feel free to speak up and bring to light differing views that can help give us clarity. — Ed Catmull

Failure was being used as a weapon, rather than as an agent of learning. — Ed Catmull

I believe that no creative company should ever stop evolving, and this would be our latest attempt to avoid stagnation. — Ed Catmull

What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it. This, more than any elaborate party or turreted workstation, is why I love coming to work in the morning. It is what motivates me and gives me a definite sense of mission. — Ed Catmull

When Jobs was losing his footing at Apple in the summer of 1985, he went for a walk with Alan Kay, who had been at Xerox PARC and was then an Apple Fellow. Kay knew that Jobs was interested in the intersection of creativity and technology, so he suggested they go see a friend of his, Ed Catmull, who was running the computer division of George Lucas's film studio. They rented a limo and rode up to Marin County to the edge of Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, where Catmull and his little computer division were based. "I was blown away, and I came back and tried to convince Sculley to buy it for Apple," Jobs recalled. "But the folks running Apple weren't interested, and they were busy kicking me out anyway. — Walter Isaacson

While the allure of safety and predictability is strong, achieving true balance means engaging in activities whose outcomes and payoffs are not yet apparent. The — Ed Catmull

there is a sweet spot between the known and the unknown where originality happens; the key is to be able to linger there without panicking. And — Ed Catmull

Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea. — Ed Catmull

We are striving to tell you something impactful and true. When attempting to make good on that promise, no detail is too small. — Ed Catmull

We realized that our purpose was not merely to build a studio that made hit films but to foster a creative culture that would continually ask questions. — Ed Catmull

Art isn't about drawing; it's about learning to see. What organization doesn't need this ability? — Edwin Catmull

But the truth is, at some point, our films - almost every single one of them - are really bad. And it's largely hats off to John Lasseter and Ed Catmull who have set up a system whereby they're expecting it. — Pete Docter

Ed Catmull has thought a lot about the role luck plays at a great company, and how businesspeople manage that luck. It's all in the preparedness, he says, and in creating a culture that can adapt to the unexpected. "These things are always going to happen. What separates you is your response, — Brent Schlender

It's difficult sometimes to tell the difference between what is impossible and what is possible (but requires a big reach). At a creative company, mistaking one for the other can be fatal - but getting it right always elevates. — Ed Catmull

Fear makes people reach for certainty and stability, neither of which guarantee the safety they imply. — Ed Catmull

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. — Ed Catmull

I know that a lot of our successes came because we had pure intentions and great talent, and we did a lot of things right, but I also believe that attributing our successes solely to our own intelligence, without acknowledging the role of accidental events, diminishes us. We must acknowledge the random events that went our way, because acknowledging our good fortune - and not telling ourselves that everything we did was some stroke of genius - lets us make more realistic assessments and decisions. The existence of luck also reminds us that our activities are less repeatable. 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? My view, of course, is that working with change is what creativity is about. — Ed Catmull

Who better to teach than the most capable among us? And I'm not just talking about seminars or formal settings. Our actions and behaviors, for better or worse, teach those who admire and look up to us how to govern their own lives. Are we thoughtful about how people learn and grow? As leaders, we should think of ourselves as teachers and try to create companies in which teaching is seen as a valued way to contribute to the success of the whole. Do we think of most activities as teaching opportunities and experiences as ways of learning? One of the most crucial responsibilities of leadership is creating a culture that rewards those who lift not just our stock prices but our aspirations as well. — Ed Catmull

Things change, constantly, as they should. And with change comes the need for adaptation, for fresh thinking, and, sometimes, for even a total reboot - of your project, your department, your division, or your company as a whole. — Ed Catmull

Merely repeating ideas means nothing. You must act - and think - accordingly. — Ed Catmull

It's pretty popular today to say that everybody should learn to fail and that failure's a good thing. Intellectually, it's an obvious thing. But in fact, it gets conflated with another meaning of failure, so when we grow up as kids, failing in school was a really bad thing. — Edwin Catmull

Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new. — Ed Catmull

one of my core management beliefs: If you don't try to uncover what is unseen and understand its nature, you will be ill prepared to lead. — Ed Catmull

A better measure of our success is to look at the people on our team and see how they are working together. Can they rally to solve key problems? If the answer is yes, you are managing well. — Ed Catmull

Consolidate What's Been Learned While it is true that you learn the most in the midst of a project, the lessons are not generally coherent. Any individual can have a great insight but may not have the time to pass it on. A process might be flawed, but you don't have time to fix it under the current schedule. Sitting down afterward is a way of consolidating all that you've learned - before you forget it. Postmortems are a rare opportunity to do analysis that simply wasn't possible in the heat of the project. — Ed Catmull

Do not fall for the illusion that by preventing errors, you won't have errors to fix. The truth is, the cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them. — Ed Catmull

But I should caution that if you seek to plot out all your moves before you make them - if you put your faith in slow, deliberative planning in the hopes it will spare you failure down the line - well, you're deluding yourself. For one thing, it's easier to plan derivative work - things that copy or repeat something already out there. So if your primary goal is to have a fully worked out, set-in-stone plan, you are only upping your chances of being unoriginal. — Ed Catmull

Our job as managers in creative environments is to protect new ideas from those who don't understand that in order for greatness to emerge, there must be phases of not-so-greatness. Protect the future, not the past. — Ed Catmull

great animators carefully craft the movements that elicit an emotional response, convincing us that these characters have feelings, emotions, intentions. — Ed Catmull

Our job is to protect the new. — Ed Catmull

An adage worth repeating is also halfway to being irrelevant. You end up with something that is easy to say but not connected to behavior. — Ed Catmull

At the U of U, we were inventing a new language. One of us would contribute a verb, another a noun, then a third person would figure out ways to string the elements together to actually say something. — Ed Catmull

Finn said, "You feel the wind is a bully, beating you. But that is your seeing. That is your story, not the wind's. To a bird who rides it, that wind is only a kind hand. Because the bird rides the wind's power. Do you understand?" Clare, bitter, cold, and wind-battered, frowned stubbornly. "But a bird can fly. I can't fly." He turned to look at her, and his face was troubled. "If you cling to the safety of the rock, indeed you can't. To fly, you open your arms and fall, heart first, trusting the wind to bear you up. That's what the birds do. — Katherine Catmull

In a fear-based, failure-averse culture, people will consciously or unconsciously avoid risk. They will seek instead to repeat something safe that's been good enough in the past. Their work will be derivative, not innovative. But if you can foster a positive understanding of failure, the opposite will happen. — Ed Catmull

When downsides coexist with upsides, as they often do, people are reluctant to explore what's bugging them, for fear of being labeled complainers. — Ed Catmull

You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged. — Edwin Catmull

Every creative person can draft into service those around them who exhibit the right mixture of intelligence, insight, and grace. — Edwin Catmull

When we put setbacks into two buckets - the "business as usual" bucket and the "holy cow" bucket - and use a different mindset for each, we are signing up for trouble. — Ed Catmull

His method for taking the measure of a room was saying something definitive and outrageous - "These charts are bullshit!" or "This deal is crap!" - and watching people react. If you were brave enough to come back at him, he often respected it - poking at you, then registering your response, was his way of deducing what you thought and whether you had the guts to champion it. — Ed Catmull

failure is a manifestation of learning and exploration. — Ed Catmull

We tend to think of emotion and logic as two distinct, mutually exclusive domains. Not Steve. From the beginning, when making decisions, passion was a key part of his calculus. — Ed Catmull

When managers explain what their plan is without giving the reasons for it, people wonder what the "real" agenda is. There may be no hidden agenda, but you've succeeded in implying that there is one. Discussing the thought processes behind solutions aims the focus on the solutions, not on second-guessing. When we are honest, people know it. — Ed Catmull

If everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. — Edwin Catmull

She was only half Bird now, and the other half song. She liked it that way. — Katherine Catmull

I actually feel awkward being at the center of attention. — Edwin Catmull

She knew what it meant to want to return to safety and seed-husk again. But you cannot get back into your seed-husk, once it is cracked open and no longer yours. — Katherine Catmull

I've always been intrigued, for example, by the way that many people use the analogy of a train to describe their companies. Massive and powerful, the train moves inexorably down the track, over mountains and across vast plains, through the densest fog and darkest night. When things go wrong, we talk of getting "derailed" and of experiencing a "train wreck." And I've heard people refer to Pixar's production group as a finely tuned locomotive that they would love the chance to drive. What interests me is the number of people who believe that they have the ability to drive the train and who think that this is the power position - that driving the train is the way to shape their companies' futures. The truth is, it's not. Driving the train doesn't set its course. The real job is laying the track. — Ed Catmull

Hindsight is 20-20. — Ed Catmull

When it comes to creative inspiration, job titles and hierarchy are meaningless. — Ed Catmull

Her voice was warm and husky as a clarinet, but not so sad as a clarinet: friendlier. When she laughed, it was like a clarinet blowing bubbles. — Katherine Catmull

Steve had a remarkable knack for letting go of things that didn't work. If you were in an argument with him, and you convinced him that you were right, he would instantly change his mind. He didn't hold on to an idea because he had once believed it to be brilliant. His ego didn't attach to the suggestions he made, even as he threw his full weight behind them. — Ed Catmull

If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse. — Ed Catmull

What is the point of hiring smart people, we asked, if you don't empower them to fix what's broken? — Ed Catmull

A map is a song. It's different when different people sing it ... You will make this your own song, sing it your own way. — Katherine Catmull

Our mental models aren't reality. They are tools, like the models weather forecasters use to predict the weather. But, as we know all too well, sometimes the forecast says rain and, boom, the sun comes out. The tool is not reality. The key is knowing the difference. — Ed Catmull

Paying attention to the present moment without letting your thoughts and ideas about the past and the future get in the way is essential. — Ed Catmull

I feel like the only reason we're able to find some of these unique ideas, characters, and story twists is through discovery. And, by definition, 'discovery' means you don't know the answer when you start. — Ed Catmull

the future is unmade, and we must create it. — Ed Catmull

Making the process better, easier, and cheaper is an important aspiration, something we continually work on - but it is not the goal. Making something great is the goal. — Ed Catmull

good managers - don't dictate from on high. They reach out, they listen, they wrangle, coax, and cajole. — Ed Catmull

there seemed to be two kinds of reviewers: some who would look for flaws in the papers, and then pounce to kill them; and others who started from a place of seeking and promoting good ideas. When the "idea protectors" saw flaws, they pointed them out gently, in the spirit of improving the paper - not eviscerating it. — Ed Catmull

Have I heard all the stories I need to hear?" she asked, stupidly. But he answered as if it were a good question.
"No, you haven't. But you don't have time to hear any more from me. So listen for stories wherever you go. It won't always be someone telling them; sometimes they come in other ways. And Summer, when you tell yourself stories, make them true. And make them surprising. That's how you will know they might be true. — Katherine Catmull

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. — Ed Catmull

We never really know what might me beside us or ahead, but most days we walk as if we do — Katherine Catmull

the human tendency to treat big events as fundamentally different from smaller ones. — Ed Catmull

I believe the best managers acknowledge and make room for what they do not know - not just because humility is a virtue but because until one adopts that mindset, the most striking breakthroughs cannot occur. I believe that managers must loosen the controls, not tighten them. They must accept risk; they must trust the people they work with and strive to clear the path for them; and always, they must pay attention to and engage with anything that creates fear. Moreover, successful leaders embrace the reality that their models may be wrong or incomplete. Only when we admit what we don't know can we ever hope to learn it. — Ed Catmull

You don't drown because you can't breathe. You drown because you try to breathe what is not breathable. — Katherine Catmull

Many managers feel that if they are not notified about problems before others are or if they are surprised in a meeting, then that is a sign of disrespect. Get over it. — Ed Catmull

Keep on going, even when things look bleak. — Ed Catmull

The future is a direction, not a destination. — Edwin Catmull