The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles that built Pixar’s singularly successful culture, and on all he learned during the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve.

For nearly thirty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner eighteen Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Here, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques that have made Pixar so widely admired—and so profitable.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie’s success—and in the twenty-five movies that followed—was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:

• Give a good idea to a mediocre team and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team and they will either fix it or come up with something better.
• It’s not the manager’s job to prevent risks. It’s the manager’s job to make it safe for others to take them.
• The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
• A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.

Creativity, Inc. has been significantly expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. It features a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and changes and updates throughout. Pursuing excellence isn’t a one-off assignment but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.

As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the world's first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream first as a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah, where many computer science pioneers got their start, and then forged an early partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. Since then, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner twenty-seven Academy Awards. The joyousness of the storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is. Now, in this book, Catmull reveals the ideals and techniques, honed over years, that have made Pixar so widely admired-and so profitable. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation Studios-into the story meetings, the postmortems, and the 'Braintrust' sessions where art is born. It is, at heart, a book about how to build and sustain a creative culture-but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, 'an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible.'

Does your organization support creativity&#8212or squash it? If you read nothing else on cultivating creativity at work, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you ignite the creative spark across your organization. This book will inspire you to: Discover the elements of creativity and learn how to influence them Harness the creative potential of a diverse team Encourage curiosity and experimentation Avoid breakdowns in creative collaboration Overcome the fear that blocks your innate creativity Bring breakthrough ideas to life This collection of articles includes "Reclaim Your Creative Confidence" by Tom Kelley and David Kelley; "How to Kill Creativity" by Teresa Amabile; "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity" by Ed Catmull; "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work" by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus; "Find Innovation Where You Least Expect It" by Tony McCaffrey and Jim Pearson; "The Business Case for Curiosity" by Francesca Gino; "Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life" by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade; "Collaborating with Creative Peers" by Kimberly D. Elsbach, Brooke Brown-Saracino, and Francis J. Flynn; "Creativity Under the Gun" by Teresa Amabile, Constance Noonan Hadley, and Steven J. Kramer; "Strategy Needs Creativity" by Adam Brandenburger; and "How to Build a Culture of Originality" by Adam Grant. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever-changing business environment.

'Just might be the best business book ever written' Forbes Magazine 'This book should be required reading for any manager' Charles Duhigg 'Full of detail about an interesting, intricate business' The Wall Street Journal ______________________________________________ Part autobiography, part history of Pixar, part business book, Creativity Inc is the story behind the company that changed animation forever. Here, the founder of Pixar reveals the ideas and techniques that have made Pixar one of the most widely admired creative businesses, and one of the most profitable. As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the world's first computer-animated movie. When an early partnership with George Lucas led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter in 1986, he couldn't have known what would come. Nine years later and against all odds, Toy Story was released. It was the start of a new generation of animation. Through its focus on the joy of storytelling, inventive plots and emotional authenticity, Pixar revolutionised how animated films were created. Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights - a manual for anyone who strives for originality, with behind-the-scenes examples from Pixar itself. It is a book about how to build and sustain a creative culture with a unique identity. And through this story, we learn what creativity really is. _________________________________________ Readers love Creativity, Inc. 'Incredibly inspirational' 'Great book. Wish I could give it more than 5 stars' 'Honestly, one of the best books I've read in a long time' 'Read it and read it again, then read it again and then again' 'Great book!! Fantastic read'

2018 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner What if you could unlock a better answer to your most vexing problem-in your workplace, community, or home life-just by changing the question? Talk to creative problem-solvers and they will often tell you, the key to their success is asking a different question. Take Debbie Sterling, the social entrepreneur who created GoldieBlox. The idea came when a friend complained about too few women in engineering and Sterling wondered aloud: "why are all the great building toys made for boys?" Or consider Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, who asked: "would it change economic theory if we stopped pretending people were rational?" Or listen to Jeff Bezos whose relentless approach to problem solving has fueled Amazon's exponential growth: "Getting the right question is key to getting the right answer." Great questions like these have a catalytic quality-that is, they dissolve barriers to creative thinking and channel the pursuit of solutions into new, accelerated pathways. Often, the moment they are voiced, they have the paradoxical effect of being utterly surprising yet instantly obvious. For innovation and leadership guru Hal Gregersen, the power of questions has always been clear-but it took some years for the follow-on question to hit him: If so much depends on fresh questions, shouldn't we know more about how to arrive at them? That sent him on a research quest ultimately including over two hundred interviews with creative thinkers. Questions Are the Answer delivers the insights Gregersen gained about the conditions that give rise to catalytic questions-and breakthrough insights-and how anyone can create them.

Does your organization support creativity&#8212or squash it? If you read nothing else on cultivating creativity at work, read these 10 articles. We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles and selected the most important ones to help you ignite the creative spark across your organization. This book will inspire you to: Discover the elements of creativity and learn how to influence them Harness the creative potential of a diverse team Encourage curiosity and experimentation Avoid breakdowns in creative collaboration Overcome the fear that blocks your innate creativity Bring breakthrough ideas to life This collection of articles includes "Reclaim Your Creative Confidence" by Tom Kelley and David Kelley; "How to Kill Creativity" by Teresa Amabile; "How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity" by Ed Catmull; "Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work" by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus; "Find Innovation Where You Least Expect It" by Tony McCaffrey and Jim Pearson; "The Business Case for Curiosity" by Francesca Gino; "Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life" by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade; "Collaborating with Creative Peers" by Kimberly D. Elsbach, Brooke Brown-Saracino, and Francis J. Flynn; "Creativity Under the Gun" by Teresa Amabile, Constance Noonan Hadley, and Steven J. Kramer; "Strategy Needs Creativity" by Adam Brandenburger; and "How to Build a Culture of Originality" by Adam Grant. HBR's 10 Must Reads paperback series is the definitive collection of books for new and experienced leaders alike. Leaders looking for the inspiration that big ideas provide, both to accelerate their own growth and that of their companies, should look no further. HBR's 10 Must Reads series focuses on the core topics that every ambitious manager needs to know: leadership, strategy, change, managing people, and managing yourself. Harvard Business Review has sorted through hundreds of articles and selected only the most essential reading on each topic. Each title includes timeless advice that will be relevant regardless of an ever�changing business environment.