These days the bookstores (physical as well as the e-com sites) are full of books that claim to inspire you by giving so much gyaan – on startups, management, leadership etc. Trust me, almost 90% of them are a truck load of crap you don’t wanna waste your time on. Unless the book really talks about learning lessons from one’s own life and his/her ups and down, I never pick up such a management lesson book for reading.
Reading a book, for me, is an investment of time. Sometimes I do invest in not so great books but then mostly the returns for me have been very high. Creativity Inc. is one of those books which gave me an amazing return, I will always refer to this one whenever I can. Yes, its that sensible. It moves slowly but makes so much sense in all its chapters.
Creativity Inc is written by Edwin Catmull, the current President (and the co founder) of the animation company Pixar, which is now a Disney company. Unless you have been living under a rock you would know Pixar because of the films it produced like, The Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, Wall-E, Up and many more. Pixar has won 15 Academy Awards till date, among hundred other awards!
Ok, now to the book. Ed gives management lessons from his professional life with examples from his company and team. He does not do it for the sake of writing a book but actually gets deep into the problem and talks about common sensical things that we mostly miss out in the large spectrum of things – in doing regular business.
Even though his company’s basis is creativity, you and I can learn a lot from how a company managed all the projects (read animation films) and how most of the movies which are now blockbuster hits were going thru major management problems and how it was handled at Pixar.
Does not matter if you are software engineer, a CEO or a sales manager. You could be a team member in a large room who attends the weekly review meeting or the project head/ area manager in the same room, this is a book that all of you should read to know how to run a meeting, a team and in turn a company! Especially good for those who are running or working at a startup.
How things changed for the movie Wall-E, the best from the Pixar lot – Toy Story, what went wrong, where. What could have been prevented but was not. What was changed, what went right and what went very right. All about it in a very well organised book.
Am ensuring this one is a keeper. You should have one of this in your library too. Go pick this one up right now!