“Ideas come from people. Therefore, people are more important than ideas.”

– Ed Catmull (President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation)

Ed Catmull in his NY Times bestseller book ‘Creativity, Inc.‘ poses a question to his audience: Which is more valuable, good ideas or good people? Then he quotes above line, which is an obvious answer to his question. Ed Catmull further says, “Too many of us think of ideas as being singular, as if they float in the ether, fully formed and independent of the people who wrestle with them. Ideas, though, are not singular. They are forged through tens of thousands of decisions, often made by dozens of people.”

As we see this every day, people go to movies or buy new electronic gadgets and praise how good the movie or gadget is. They give credit to the idea but somehow forget the people behind it. A movie or a gadget is not a singular idea, but it is a cumulative effort of thousands of ideas. And behind them are people. Therefore, if a company wants to build a creative work culture, it should focus on finding good people and empowering them as they are a backbone of any creative venture. In turn, such people will become a great source of good ideas.

Above quote is an extension to our previous post about how a great team can turn a mediocre idea into a good one.

Amazon link to the book is below.

Advertisement