{"id":3243,"date":"2008-04-16T13:24:15","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T13:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3243"},"modified":"2008-04-16T13:24:15","modified_gmt":"2008-04-16T13:24:15","slug":"innovation_less","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3243","title":{"rendered":"Innovation lessons from Pixar: An interview with Oscar-winning director Brad Bird"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hayagreeva Rao, Robert Sutton, and Allen P. Webb<\/a>: <\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing successful innovators have shown over the years, it\u2019s that great ideas come from unexpected places. Who could have predicted that bicycle mechanics would develop the airplane or that the US Department of Defense would give rise to a freewheeling communications platform like the Internet?
\nSenior executives looking for ideas about how to make their companies more innovative can also seek inspiration in surprising sources. Exhibit One: Brad Bird, Pixar\u2019s two-time Oscar-winning director. Bird\u2019s hands-on approach to fostering creativity among animators holds powerful lessons for any executive hoping to nurture innovation in teams and organizations.
\nBird joined Pixar in 2000, when the company was riding high following its release of the world\u2019s first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and the subsequent hits A Bug\u2019s Life and Toy Story 2. Concerned about complacency, senior executives Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter asked Bird, whose body of work included The Iron Giant and The Simpsons, to join the company and shake things up. The veteran of Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, and FOX delivered\u2014winning Academy Awards (best animated feature) for two groundbreaking movies, The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
\nTen days before Ratatouille won its Oscar, we sat down with Bird at the Emeryville, California, campus of Pixar, which is now a subsidiary of Disney.1 Bird discussed the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of \u201cblack sheep\u201d\u2014restless contributors with unconventional ideas. Although stimulating the creativity of animators might seem very different from developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs, Bird\u2019s anecdotes should stir the imagination of innovation-minded executives in any industry.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hayagreeva Rao, Robert Sutton, and Allen P. Webb<\/a>: <\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing successful innovators have shown over the years, it\u2019s that great ideas come from unexpected places. Who could have predicted that bicycle mechanics would develop the airplane or that the US Department of Defense would give rise to a freewheeling communications platform like the Internet?
\nSenior executives looking for ideas about how to make their companies more innovative can also seek inspiration in surprising sources. Exhibit One: Brad Bird, Pixar\u2019s two-time Oscar-winning director. Bird\u2019s hands-on approach to fostering creativity among animators holds powerful lessons for any executive hoping to nurture innovation in teams and organizations.
\nBird joined Pixar in 2000, when the company was riding high following its release of the world\u2019s first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and the subsequent hits A Bug\u2019s Life and Toy Story 2. Concerned about complacency, senior executives Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull, and John Lasseter asked Bird, whose body of work included The Iron Giant and The Simpsons, to join the company and shake things up. The veteran of Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, and FOX delivered\u2014winning Academy Awards (best animated feature) for two groundbreaking movies, The Incredibles and Ratatouille.
\nTen days before Ratatouille won its Oscar, we sat down with Bird at the Emeryville, California, campus of Pixar, which is now a subsidiary of Disney.1 Bird discussed the importance, in his work, of pushing teams beyond their comfort zones, encouraging dissent, and building morale. He also explained the value of \u201cblack sheep\u201d\u2014restless contributors with unconventional ideas. Although stimulating the creativity of animators might seem very different from developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs, Bird\u2019s anecdotes should stir the imagination of innovation-minded executives in any industry.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,21,32,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}