Creativity, Inc. - March Book Report

Trust and Candor Braintrust for Creative Review

Don’t be Afraid of Randomness New Perspectives

“Easy isn’t the goal. Quality is the goal.”

Application to Dialexa

CANDOR IS A GREAT WORD

How can we create more?

How can we safely share more ideas?

Application to Dialexa

HONESTY TRUMPS FEAR

The truth is hard don’t shrink from it

Practice the mirror test

How can we be more honest?

Application to Dialexa

DO WE VALUE MISTAKES?

Do people feel OK to mess up?

Do we understand the randomness?

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DO WE NEED A BRAINTRUST?

How can we test our own ideas?

Are we settling and not striving for

greatness?

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ARE WE AFRAID OF FAILURE

We can’t build every risk into all plans

We need to continue to be iterative in all

aspects of the business.

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THE STRUGGLE IS WORTH IT

We need to invest in each other.

We need to invest in the long run.

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HOW DO WE CREATE AUTONOMY?

Do people feel empowered to fix what

is broken?

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DIALEXA ACADEMY

Are we doing enough to create the

space to tap into our company

brainpower?

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DO WE KILL THE NEW?

Can we find ways to protect the new

before it is killed?

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WHAT CAN’T WE SEE?

This is a hard question.

How do we stretch our flexibility?

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WHAT IS RANDOM AT DIALEXA?

Customer decisions

Market forces

Competitor decisions

Brad’s moods…

??

Application to Dialexa

DO WE LIVE OUR VALUES?

How can we change the world?

How can the values be more than

words on a page?

Broadening Our View

Dailies, or Solving Problems Together: Daily checkins to see how everybody is doing builds teamwork

Research Trips: Research is important to any enterprise and always helps rather than hinders

The Power of Limits: Setting parameters helps us refocus our efforts on what’s important

Integrating Technology and Art

Short Experiments: When you have a new idea, try it out in a small way first. It’s okay if a toy train

gets destroyed, it’s not okay when a full size locomotive gets derailed.

Learning to See: “…learn to set aside preconceptions.” Don’t let preconceptions precede problems.

Postmortems: Self evaluate! “Measure what you can, evaluate what you measure, and appreciate that

you cannot measure the vast majority of what you do.”

Continuing to Learn

Link to 37 Quotes Presentation:

http://articles.bplans.com/pixar-way-37-quotes-developing-maintaining-creative-company/#30ew0ccizuk.14241.pi