Live Notes From Leadercast – 28 Leadership Lessons And Quotes From Ed Catmull

Today I am being dispatched by Injoy Stewardship Solutions (ISS) to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.  In an effort to grow in my skills to better add value to pastors and church leaders, I will be live blogging throughout.

The afternoon’s second speaker was Ed Catmull, Founder of Pixar and author of one of the top three leadership books I have ever read Creativity, Inc.

Before getting to Ed’s thoughts on being a brave and bold leader, INJOY Stewardship Solutions is offering a FREE download of Church Branding 101.  In this resource Ken Wilson, Director of NewSpring Creative, will be walking us through NewSpring Church’s recent rebranding process.  Click here or on the image above to sign up.

The following are  27 Leadership Lessons And Quotes From Ed Catmull:

1. At Pixar it’s our job not to become kids. – Scott Morse
2. When I think of Ed Catmull I think of forgiveness – Katherian Sarafian
3. With Ed there is a balance between compassion and innovation. – Jennifer Lee
4. Most people define creativity very narrowly. I define it as the process in which we solve problems.
5. What are the management and cultural forces that block creativity and change?
6. How can we face forces and problems we can’t see?
7. This industry is built around finding good ideas to make movies.
8. If you give a good idea to a poor team, they’ll screw it up. If you give a poor idea to a good team, they’ll fix it and throw it out and start over.
9. We began to focus on good teams rather than good ideas.
10. Peers talking to peers. Filmmakers talking to filmmakers. Not executives talking to filmmakers.
11. The creative leader makes the decisions.
12. Shared ownership in each other’s success.
13. Give and listen to honest notes.
14. For every one of our films, there is at least one offsite in which magic happens.
15. We’ve had a significant failure on every one of our films. But each gave us significant insights.
16. Failure is a powerful learning tool.
17. Failures are (falsely) used as bludgeons to attack opponents.
18. Failure is a necessary consequence of trying something new.
19. The ease of articulating the extremes is what complicates us.
20. Zero dumb ideas is a bad idea.
21. You need to make it safe for people to operate in the messy middle.
22. At the first all of our movies suck.
23. New ideas are fragile.
24. We had to protect our crew while they worked on ideas that didn’t work.
25. The beast wants clarity so it can work.
26. If we made just low-risk films, we would be creatively bankrupt. If we made just high-risk films, we would be bankrupt.
27. You must be brave enough to start something new.
28. It is better to fix errors than to prevent them all.

Getting ready for Seth Godin’s session.

Subscribe to this site and get my latest FREE eBook Skinny Jeans And A Tattoo Does Not Make You A Leader.  Featuring leaders like Andy Stanley, Bill Hybels and Perry Noble, this resource includes 999 additional leadership quotes from the 2014 Double, Global Leadership Summit, and Catalyst  Conferences.  Click HERE or on the image to the left to sign up and get your FREE resource.