Re:Thinking with Adam GrantHow Pixar’s Ed Catmull and Pete Docter make magic on and off screen | ReThinking with Adam Grant
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
35 min read · 7,461 words- 0:00 – 0:02
Intro
- AGAdam Grant
[upbeat music]
- 0:02 – 1:50
Why Pixar’s creative culture is worth studying (and who’s in the room)
- AGAdam Grant
Hey everyone, it's Adam Grant. Welcome back to ReThinking, my podcast on the science of what makes us tick. I'm an organizational psychologist and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking. My guests today are two of the brains behind some of my favorite films. Ed Catmull is a computer animation pioneer. He co-founded Pixar and served as the longtime president there as well as at Disney Animation. Ed is the author of Creativity Inc., which in my opinion is the best book ever written about building teams that build great ideas and cultures that enrich them. An expanded edition of Creativity Inc. just came out, and it's filled with new stories and insights. Pete Docter is the Chief Creative Officer at Pixar, and an accomplished director, producer, screenwriter, animator, and voice actor. The first film he both wrote and directed was Monsters, Inc., and he went on to become the first person ever to win three Oscars for Best Animated Feature for Up, Inside Out, and Soul. I've learned a lot from Pixar over the years, and Ed and Pete worked together for decades, so I couldn't wait to talk with them about making creative magic in teams where people have strong opinions, and of course, about working with Steve Jobs.
- PDPete Docter
Adam, have you and Ed met before?
- AGAdam Grant
We have. We've met-
- PDPete Docter
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Several times.
- PDPete Docter
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
And Ed lived to tell the tale.
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
I, yes.
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
I'm still around.
- PDPete Docter
And he's willing to talk to you again, which I take as a good, good sign.
- AGAdam Grant
I mean, we'll see. We'll see what happens today.
- PDPete Docter
Okay. [laughs] I've had a few conversations before, so I'll do my best.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] I feel like we need to set the scene a little bit. Um, Ed, you co-founded Pixar, you ran it for many years. H- How did this come to be?
- 1:50 – 3:36
Ed Catmull’s step-by-step mindset: expect to be wrong a lot
- ECEd Catmull
For me, it's a, a, a journey that took more than 50 years, and it started with something which was, I'd say very lucky in that my first teacher of computer science was Alan Kay, who later received the, the Turing Award, but he's the one that gave this, the principle which, which I did get, which was that things are gonna change more dramatic than you think. If you've got a vision in your head, you still need to take a step-by-step process of getting there. So when I went to the next place, I had these theories, half my theories were right and half were a complete crock. And when I went to Lucasfilm, I realized that I'd keep the stuff that worked, I was gonna try some new theories, but I'll bet that my ratio of wrong to right was probably gonna stay the same for the rest of my life. Which is true. And I don't know what the actual number is, but I do think it was important to believe and understand that I was wrong more than I thought I was.
- PDPete Docter
We didn't even know we needed that when we started. [laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
I know. [laughs] And, and that's the whole point-
- PDPete Docter
Yeah
- ECEd Catmull
... like, you don't know, and then you find it and say, "Oh, this is gold."
- PDPete Docter
Yeah. Well, I like you were talking from a scientific standpoint, the idea of solving problems one step at a time. It's exactly the same in the creative end of things. I think people generally have this idea that, you know, there's a genius like Walt Disney and he's just lying in bed, [clicks] "Dumbo" and he has the whole thing in his head. And really, it's one step at a time. I have an idea about a Dumbo who maybe could fly with big ears. Well, where would he live? Well, maybe let's try the circus. And having met the guy who came up with that story, it's the same thing they did then as we're doing now. It's st- problem solving one step at a time.
- 3:36 – 5:50
Creativity as a “long, dark tunnel”: holding a North Star—loosely
- AGAdam Grant
Pete, you've said that directing, and I think this might be true of creativity more generally, is like going into a long, dark tunnel.
- PDPete Docter
Oh, yeah. I fall for this every single time. There's this delusion that this time I'm gonna solve it right off the bat. This time, the vision is clear. So at the very beginning, you're like, "Okay, this is gonna be great," and you get in just enough into the tunnel that the light starts to disappear from where you came, and then it's just all dark. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
And that stays the case for a long, long portion of the journey.
- ECEd Catmull
The thing is, the colleagues around it understand that. You've got the thing in your head, and once you get lost, who helps you get un-lost? [laughs]
- PDPete Docter
'Cause so many times, and this is something we talk a lot about, too, is, like, given that you could change anything at any time, which you can, what are you gonna hold on to? 'Cause if you don't hold on to anything, it's just a s- I don't know, what? Slippery fish? You know, whatever analogy you wanna come up with, it's not good. [laughs] You have to hold on to something, and yet there are times inevitably that I think you have to let go, even briefly, of the things that got you into it, the things that seemed like that North Star that you were holding onto, if only to prove that yes, indeed, that is the North Star.
- ECEd Catmull
What does it mean to hold onto something tight and also be willing to let it go? Like, these are contradictory statements.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
That's why it's hard. And, and Pete can do that. It's like, okay, they're both true.
- PDPete Docter
Well, that was something that Steve Jobs modeled time and again, and you probably saw more than I. He would, what was he called? The strongly held beliefs held loosely, right?
- ECEd Catmull
Although I don't remember him saying that.
- PDPete Docter
Okay.
- ECEd Catmull
I, I do know-
- PDPete Docter
That's just my interpretation, because he would, like, go at it, right? If he believed something, he would pitch it with 100%, and then if he decided that was wrong, throw it out.
- ECEd Catmull
He said at one point that if he dies and comes back, he'd like to come back as a Pixar director.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
And he really bonded with the directors because he understood the concept that you commit to something. You really commit, and when it doesn't work, you, you let it go.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
With Steve's force of personality, they think when he's committing, it's like he's really, like it's overwhelming commitment.
- PDPete Docter
It sets the law now. Yeah, we better nail that to the door of the church, you know?
- 5:50 – 6:14
When strong opinions look like gospel: making disagreement safe
- AGAdam Grant
Th- this is what's always bothered me about the idea of having strong opinions weakly held, is when you express an opinion strongly, people don't know that you're holding it weakly. [laughs] They, they think-
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm
- AGAdam Grant
... it's a deep conviction. They think it's a gospel.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah. Well, and you're right, Adam. Unless somebody- Lays down the ground rules. How are you supposed to know? What if I argue with the boss and he thinks I'm cutting him at the knees and I get fired? I mean, that could happen, too, right?
- 6:14 – 9:07
Pixar’s Braintrust: a challenge network that diagnoses problems
- AGAdam Grant
I, I think that what you're describing is, is something I've come to call a challenge network as opposed to a support network.
- PDPete Docter
Hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
The, the group of people that you would say are core to your brain trust, who hold up a mirror and help you see your blind spots more clearly, who bring you the critical feedback you did not want to hear [laughs] but you desperately needed to hear.
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
And I think this is so central to the creative culture that you've built at Pixar. How did the two of you shape that? Um, how do you set those ground rules so that people are not afraid to disagree?
- ECEd Catmull
As the brain trust was being developed, and, and originally it was five people, maybe six, I think, the very first time. But then it evolved because the thing that it was built for was as the feedback mechanism for the director, and it didn't quite do that because they were also lost in the vision of the director, so they weren't objective about it. But we found that it was an incredibly valuable feedback tool. So it evolved into a way of running certain meetings, not all meetings, just these meetings to help solve problems.
- PDPete Docter
I know on Up, when I was working on that, it, it w- it was a particular tone and reality that we were setting in the film with a old man who flies his house. So what we did instead was to go back and say, "Well, let's have Carl as a balloon salesman." His cart starts to float up into the air, if you remember. That's very subtle in this montage at the beginning. But what that did, little things like that, I think we had one or two more, that just set up, okay, these are the sorta rules we're playing with in this world. So instead of being quite as literal as Brad was talking about, we were able to take the spirit of what he's going after and solve it in our own way.
- AGAdam Grant
Part of what's interesting about that example is I think oftentimes when, when people bring in dissenting voices or they invite a challenge, they think then that if they don't listen to the feedback, they're being defensive. And what [laughs] I always wanna remind people of is, listen, the reason it's helpful to have that kinda sounding board is they have psychological distance. They can see problems that you can't.
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm.
- AGAdam Grant
But because of that distance, they often don't know what the right solutions are to those problems, and so the brain trust is often more helpful at diagnosing a problem than at fixing it.
- PDPete Docter
That was certainly true of Disney early on. We always felt like we have the benefit of making a movie with Disney. So we'd fly down, we'd get great notes, and often they would offer up suggestions, and we would be like, "Ooh, boy, that stinks," you know?
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
But we would fly back and we could be like, "All right, how do we wanna solve this?" And I think that's what they wanted anyway. They're just trying to help by offering up some solutions, and that's certainly what we're trying to replicate here. I'll usually, even if I'm directing, I'll offer up, "Here's what I would do. That's just my dumb idea. The spirit of it is I'm trying to get to this." You know, the more you ar- you can articulate the underlying emotional reason for something, I think the more helpful those things are if people understand that.
- 9:07 – 10:51
Complaints as data: listening without promising to comply
- AGAdam Grant
This goes to one of your most counterintuitive philosophies, which is, Ed, you like, or at least you tolerate complaining.
- ECEd Catmull
There are always people who complain.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Whether you like it or not.
- ECEd Catmull
Like it or not.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
And a- at first there's a recognition that they do see things that I don't see. Or I just don't know everything, and I can't know everything, and they have a view of things that I don't have. Now, I also can see things they don't see because I'm dealing with a different group of people.
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
So what it means is they might be right, I might be right, or there's some combination, or you have to make a choice because you can't have it every which way.
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
But the, the critical thing is if somebody pokes their head in the door and they've got something that is wrong, I do need to listen, and I need to hear them out. So while I will learn things and sometimes it does change what I see, I, I actually think one of the most important things is it's just accepted that they're seeing things and they need to be heard. And basically at every level, it's like people are participating and we're doing this together, and if people see things d- different ways, what you want is to know that the other person values what you've got, even if we can't do it that way.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
And like always with the films, what makes the outside force valuable, like we had at Disney, was that we knew they wanted us to succeed. So as long as we know they want us to succeed and that's their motive, not something else, but that's their motive, then that gives their observations a great deal of power for us.
- 10:51 – 11:53
Peer Pirates: getting unfiltered truth without leaders warping the room
- AGAdam Grant
Sometimes I think th- it's still hard for people to bring complaints to the table. You created what I think is a really clever solution to this problem, called Peer Pirates, which is a great label, by the way.
- ECEd Catmull
The, the interesting thing about this particular thing is that we took the suggestion as they gave it, and so somebody was picked from every department, and they made their issues for their department known. And when we did that, we then said to the peer from each department, "Okay, you pick somebody in your department to represent your whole department," to, like, five or six people, small groups. Then they would come in, and then they would focus on the needs for their department and go through all their issues. We got a view that we didn't get before, and that's what we were looking for. What are people seeing and believing that we're not seeing? Because if we walk in the room, it changes the dy- dy- dynamics. W- we don't wanna change the dynamics. We wanna hear it, but how do we make it safe for them to do it?
- 11:53 – 15:57
Turning criticism into gratitude: Ed’s emotional dual-track
- PDPete Docter
Well, something I've always been curious about you, Ed, is how, like most people, at least I'll speak for myself, when people load on you and tell you what's going wrong, you, you take it very personally, and so you don't really want that. And yet somehow you are able to live with this idea of complaining and, uh, dissension as somehow a positive thing. Is there some psychological trick you play on yourself, or is that just the way you're wired that, that that's...
- ECEd Catmull
I know if somebody pokes my head in my room to tell me a complaint-
- PDPete Docter
Uh-huh
- ECEd Catmull
... then my feeling is... I, I, I have two feelings. One is, uh-oh, this is probably [laughs] gonna be hard.
- PDPete Docter
Here we go.
- ECEd Catmull
It's- But it's true, right?
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
It's a real feeling.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
But the other one was I feel actually happy that they're willing to come and talk to me. And I remember one time three people c- came, called me or came into my office and said that I made a mistake. I screwed it.
- PDPete Docter
Hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
And my feeling at the time was that, that I was so happy and lucky that they're willing to tell me-
- PDPete Docter
Yeah
- ECEd Catmull
... that I said something which wasn't helpful. And it got me to rethink also the thing I, I had thought.
- PDPete Docter
There was another time that, I think this may have been Cars 2, which came out, didn't do so well. At any rate, whether it was that or something, all, all of us felt like we have a major problem. And for a lot of us, it was very dark, gloomy, like a sense of oppression. And for Ed, he was almost buoyant. Like, "Oh, boy, a problem to solve."
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
And I always thought, okay, it must be that, that you sort of lead with a sense of curiosity for those kind of things. You've had a career as a creative scientist observing and affecting this whole experimental project, but looking at it very analytically, getting in and stepping back and going, "How do we affect change in this?"
- ECEd Catmull
The outside world likes the simplified story. The reality is, as you know very well, it's really like this mesh of people and this-
- PDPete Docter
Yeah
- ECEd Catmull
... network that solve these problems, and it's hard to convey to the outside world the depth of appreciation or the contribution of all the friends around-
- PDPete Docter
Yeah
- ECEd Catmull
... who are all aligned in trying to solve a difficult problem.
- AGAdam Grant
Well, uh, you know, it's, it's interesting to me, Pete, that you frame this as a question about a psychological trick. Because first of all, as a psychologist, I'm not a fan of tricks in any way, shape, or form.
- ECEd Catmull
Okay.
- AGAdam Grant
I just can't get on board with that.
- ECEd Catmull
Call it a skill.
- AGAdam Grant
It's a skill. Thank you.
- ECEd Catmull
There you go.
- AGAdam Grant
But I think the skill stems from character. And Ed, if I can embarrass you for a second, a number of people who have worked with you closely and know you very well have said, "Listen, the reason this is easier for Ed than the rest of us is because, Adam, Ed exemplifies everything you've spent your career studying. He is a giver, not a taker. He's always trying to figure out, how can I make other people better? Um, he's a humble, curious rethinker who doesn't worry about being wrong but wants to get it right. Um, he's an original. He has no attachment whatsoever to the status quo and is basically highly motivated to find a better way whenever there is one." I'm like, "Yeah, you are all those things, Ed Catmull."
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- 15:57 – 19:05
Steve Jobs and Ed’s presidency: being ‘unmade’ twice and adapting
- ECEd Catmull
I've never kept it secret, but most people aren't aware of even here at Pixar, but I was president of Pixar three times, which meant that I was unmade the president-
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
... of Pixar twice.
- AGAdam Grant
Was that Steve Jobs both times?
- ECEd Catmull
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. Predictable.
- ECEd Catmull
We start, and I'm the president of the company, and the truth was nobody knew what they were doing, from marketing to sales to manufacturing.
- PDPete Docter
Is that making the Image computers?
- ECEd Catmull
Yeah, we're making the Image computer. A- and Steve had never had experience with a high-end product before, so he said, "You don't really know enough to be the president, so I need to have- to take a different role like this CTO, and I want to bring in somebody else as president."
- PDPete Docter
Hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
So he brought in this, this very nice guy, and we got along very well. But it was actually a painful thing to go through because I knew he was right, and because he was right, say, "Okay, I can live with that. I want to let go of the b- of the long-term vision." And then we weren't really making it in the hardware business, so we went back to me being the president, and then we started to make the commercials and the software-
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm
- ECEd Catmull
... and then got into the contract to make the film for Disney with, in 1991 for Toy Story. And then as we got near the end of it, Steve wanted to take us public. And he said, "Well, as we go public, you don't really have the experience to be the CEO of a-"
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
"... or the president of a-"
- PDPete Docter
Yeah
- ECEd Catmull
... public company." So, uh, again, that was not fun. [laughs]
- PDPete Docter
You weren't... By that time, you're like, "All right, we'll, we'll see how long this lasts."
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs] Maybe a year and a half in or something like that, Steve came to me and says, "Okay, now you're ready to be president again."
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
So then I was the president. On- only this time, when he announced it to the company, they all kind of scratched their heads and said, "I thought he already was the president." [laughs]
- PDPete Docter
Yeah, exactly. [laughs] I remember that.
- AGAdam Grant
Now, Ed, did that make you feel like an imposter?
- ECEd Catmull
It wasn't that I ever felt like an imposter, but I did have a recognition that I wasn't like the people who were the presidents of other companies where I knew the people pretty well and I wasn't anything like them. So I knew that I didn't have the skill set or the public persona that they did, and I wasn't likely to get it. But having gone through that I could then recognize that one of the things that happens to a lot of people when you actually get the role, that the actual job you have isn't what you thought it was. And, and Pete went through this, too.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
It's like-
- AGAdam Grant
You're imposing imposter syndrome on Pete. Just Pete, we- I feel like we should get your consent for that.
- PDPete Docter
No need for a imposition.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- 19:05 – 19:50
Directing and leadership authenticity: growing beyond comfort without pretending
- PDPete Docter
There's the story cliche which is be yourself. Just be true, authentic to who you are. It's actually, it's not quite that simple. For me as a director on Monsters, the first thing I did, I was taken out of my comfort zone every day. I was not used to addressing people and saying, "All right, here's what we're gonna do," you know, but that's the sort of clarity that is required of the job, so you have to step out from where you were, but then do it in some way that's authentic to you. I remember people trying to be helpful, saying, "You know, in these situations..." And what I would hear from them is, "You're a failure," you know?
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
So I think what you have to [laughs] in the long run figure out, like, okay, again, what's the spirit of the note? What are they trying to get to, and, and how can I do that in a way that feels comfortable and authentic to who, who I am?
- 19:50 – 22:24
Steve Jobs’ transformation: kinder, more empathetic, still intense
- AGAdam Grant
I wanna come back to Steve Jobs, uh, because I think, Ed, you worked for him longer than anyone else that I can count.
- ECEd Catmull
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Pete, you had a chance to work with him from the very early days, for better or worse. I've heard a lot of stories about how he evolved into, I don't wanna say kinder, maybe less-
- ECEd Catmull
I would say that
- AGAdam Grant
... a less, a less cruel version of himself is the-
- ECEd Catmull
No, I say-
- AGAdam Grant
... less charitable?
- ECEd Catmull
No, no, I think the stronger story is, is that Steve, whom we knew at the beginning, we saw the behavior that, that resulted in being booted out of Apple in a very public and humiliating way for him, but he still had that behavior. The first version of Pixar, we failed as a hardware company.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
And then n- and next failed as a company. Now, in both cases, he had something of great value. That is, there was this team that had been built at Pixar. That's when Pete came in and Andrew came in, and there was a bonding that took place, and, and Steve recognized that was of great importance. And next, they had this operating system we called, you know, Next Step. It's based upon Berkeley Unix, and that was of great value, and it resulted into the return to Apple. So around the early '90s, when we were working on Toy Story, then... And, and he also got married to a wonderful woman and, you know, had kids. He went through a fairly dramatic change, and he became kinder and more empathetic. Now, he was always passionate-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm
- ECEd Catmull
... and always had that persona. That didn't change. But he did have the empathy and kindness, and I didn't see it before. I didn't know you could change that way, but he did. But once he did that in the early '90s, the people who saw that stayed with him for the rest of his life. So the public story about him, the stuff that's written, didn't even have access to that story because nobody was talking about it.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
So the story gets skewed, and the reason I think it's an important story is that it's more like [laughs] the classic hero's journey.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
And the person who came back to Apple to, to turn it around was not that thing that's known publicly. It was that changed person. And the important thing to realize, it was the changed person who had those abilities to make this amazing impact in the world. So that's what we were seeing.
- 22:24 – 26:46
Why Pixar got ‘the best Steve’: self-awareness, restraint, and dynamics
- AGAdam Grant
It's interesting to hear you narrate the temporal arc because I've heard that even though, you know, the, the [laughs] it was a more generous, more caring Steve Jobs that came back to Apple, Pixar got a better version of him than Apple did at the same point in time, that late '90s Steve was more likable and more helpful at Pixar-
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... than he was at Apple. So I wanna know what the secret sauce is. How did you guys-
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs] Yeah
- AGAdam Grant
... bring out the best in him?
- ECEd Catmull
Yeah.
- PDPete Docter
I thought we got a better Steve Jobs even earlier than that, in the '90s. Is that true or not?
- ECEd Catmull
Part of this phenomenon was that Steve actually recognized that, that the directors on a film were doing the kind of thing which he got and he liked. He loved it when people really committed to something, and then when it didn't work, they changed what they were doing, and that we'd set up a system to get the feedback. He loved that. The only time Steve would see the meetings, because Steve never came to a braintrust meeting because he knew we had a delicate kind of, of dynamic in the meeting, and he recognized in himself that it wasn't possible for him to be in that room-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm
- ECEd Catmull
... without screwing up the dynamics in the room. So that was a self-awareness.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
So when did he see the films to give his feedback? It was at the board meetings. So the night before a board meeting, Steve would call me up, and he would say, "How's it going?"
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs] Leading question.
- ECEd Catmull
A leading question.
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
But I would only say one of two things. I would say, "It's actually going well," and he'd say, "Oh, great," end of conversation.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
Or I would say, "We have a problem," end of conversation.
- PDPete Docter
[laughs]
- ECEd Catmull
I never, ever did I tell Steve how to think. It was part of our relationship. I could be very stubborn, but I never argued with him. So if we disagreed, then that disagreement may last over weeks, but it was never resolved by arguing. But I never believed that if somebody has a powerful personality or has a lot of power, that that makes them right.
- PDPete Docter
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- ECEd Catmull
But the weird thing I saw, because I was in every one of these meetings, is there was nothing that Steve ever said that had not been said by the other directors or people in the brain trust. But they also had learned how to ignore each other. It's one of the phenomenons in a group. Like, you get to know each other really well, and you also know, like, what they're gonna say, so you sort of write it off, and then you don't hear it. You couldn't ignore Steve, though, so. [laughs]
- PDPete Docter
No. No, yeah, he was super articulate and clear and strong in the way he would state things. I remember once seeing him in a, a bathroom somewhere and talking about some completely small topic, and he said, "Well, there are three things involved here." It was as though he had rehearsed it or thought about it. He just always had just a, a real gift with expressing himself in a very clear way, unlike I'm doing right now. He would say, "I'm not a filmmaker," which I- I've seen so many people in positions of power, they think it's their job to have the final say. And so to actually have that position and pass it on to other people, I think was super empowering for us. It made us more receptive to his notes, and it also gave us a little bit more pressure because we realized-
- ECEd Catmull
Oh. [laughs]
- PDPete Docter
... oh, there's nobody I can point to. You know? This is on me.
- AGAdam Grant
My colleague Brad Owens has, from his research, labeled Steve Jobs, in those kinds of moments, as a humble narcissist. It's such a paradox, and I don't love the use of the term narcissism here, but what's intriguing about it is that I don't think, from my outside perspective, Steve Jobs became any less grandiose in his vision or his estimation of his capabilities. But he did add in a sprinkle of humility. He knew what he didn't know in ways that were clearly not present earlier in his career. I, I think it's really interesting to recognize that even somebody with an abundance of confidence, uh, can develop the self-awareness to, to say, "You know what? I'm in one of my areas of ignorance right now, and [laughs] I should probably acknowledge that so that the room doesn't put too much stock in what I say."
- 26:46 – 29:10
Dissent as critical thinking: valuing disagreeable people and changing your mind
- ECEd Catmull
Yeah, and I think one of the things people miss even a- a- about him at Apple was that he wanted people who disagreed with him.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
Because as you all know, you know, you know the history there, is that he originally thought they should do the iPad first, followed by the iPhone. And, but it was his people that convinced him he was wrong, and he went with them and said the iPhone comes first.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
But he was adamant that he wanted to have... that Apple provide the apps for it. His own people didn't agree, and he overrode them, but within a few months of the phone coming out-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm
- ECEd Catmull
... he recognized that they were right, and he changed his mind.
- AGAdam Grant
Mm.
- ECEd Catmull
Now, the point of all this was he had people around who didn't agree with him. He wasn't getting rid of people just because they disagreed, he disagreed with them, or he thought they were wrong. He actually wanted them. And that- that's the thing I think that people are missing about how this dynamic works, is you really want to value the people even if you think they're wrong. You want them there to be pushing because we're doing this as a group. We all have this ownership in whatever these solutions and these problems are.
- PDPete Docter
Often, I will be kind of fuzzy on whether I believe something until someone pushes me on it, and sometimes it's as valuable to have somebody that I disagree with because it'll bring out of me like, "No, that's wrong. I know exactly that is the wrong decision," but I wasn't really aware of that until you have that sort of confrontation, so.
- AGAdam Grant
I think he understood that the ultimate purpose of dissent and debate is not to produce consensus, it's to promote critical thinking.
- ECEd Catmull
Mm.
- AGAdam Grant
And sometimes that critical thinking crystallizes your own ideas.
- ECEd Catmull
Yes. We've gotten in the chats, "Well, this person is the complete package," only to realize, no, they're not, actually. They're brilliant at some things, like two or three things. But because they're brilliant at those two or three things, that's getting in their way of actually solving their real problems. Sometimes people come up with these really amazing pearls, but a movie is not a string of pearls. Right? So you can admire every one of these amazing pieces, but if... That's not this ending is holding together-
- AGAdam Grant
Mm
- ECEd Catmull
... on how it works.
- 29:10 – 39:19
Lightning round + sustaining Pixar’s mojo: culture as ongoing adaptation, not stability
- AGAdam Grant
Lightning rounds. Tell me something you've both re-thought about creative culture.
- ECEd Catmull
Inside Pixar, even though we don't shy away from the term if something goes wrong, people don't use the terminology of failure. They refer to it as, "This doesn't work. What do we do to fix it?" And it's one thing I just was, was like, I didn't actually get it right the first time. Instead of saying w- it needs to be safe to fail, it's like, no, we have to think about it as what did we do that didn't work, and what do we do next?
- AGAdam Grant
I kind of love that you failed in your analysis of failure. [laughs] You meta failed.
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs] It's so true.
- PDPete Docter
Mine's a super psychological one. People say, "Oh, I, my, I had an idea. My idea is this," and now I kind of feel like none of these I can take any credit for. It's not like I can work harder and have better ideas. Like, the, I guess the Greeks I've read had an idea that they wouldn't say, "You're a genius," they'd say, "You have a genius." And so the more you can kinda, like, open your head to the ideas coming through you seem more accurate to me than earning it or doing it yourself.
- AGAdam Grant
Excellent. Uh, worst career advice you've both gotten.
- PDPete Docter
Oh, wow.
- ECEd Catmull
Oh, I've, I received a lot.
- PDPete Docter
Oh, yeah?
- ECEd Catmull
Just when we started Pixar, really, it's like, focus, focus, focus. What the hell does that mean?
- PDPete Docter
[laughs] Uh-huh.
- ECEd Catmull
It's not even the problem. We're... [laughs] I can focus. What am I supposed to focus on? And that's just one that pops to my head.
- PDPete Docter
I remembered in high school writing class, my teacher [laughs] literally wrote across the top of the paper, "You seem to think p- you can get away with bad writing because you like to draw cartoons." It wasn't even, "You're good at drawing cartoons," it was just, "You like to."
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
I was close to, when I first got nominated for an Oscar for writing, to say something for her-
- ECEd Catmull
[laughs]
- PDPete Docter
... but I, I, I didn't.
- AGAdam Grant
Vindication.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
What do you think is the most underrated Pixar movie?
- ECEd Catmull
I think that, uh, A Bug's Life was underrated.
- PDPete Docter
That's, that seems to be the consensus, yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
Yeah.
- PDPete Docter
We still have Bug's Life appreciation day here at Pixar, 'cause nobody talks about it, but the animators have a big shindig that day, the day it came out. Do you know that? It still goes on.
- ECEd Catmull
No, I did not know that.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
I did not know that.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
- ECEd Catmull
I'm glad.
- PDPete Docter
Yeah.
Episode duration: 39:21
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Transcript of episode W4o6Ufot-Dc
