A Look at Innovative Leaders Outside of Education

With an extra four to seven hours a week in my car this year for my commute, I’ve been listening to some great audio content. I’ve filled my drive with NPR broadcasts, both seasons of Serial, educational books, and my Avett Brothers Amazon Music station. At the end of January, I was ready to push my thinking a bit more in the areas of innovation and leadership. I had seen Kaleb Rashad posting on Twitter about reading books about innovation outside of education and decided to ask him for some specific recommendations. I’d recommend all of the books that were recommended to me: Simon Sinek’s books Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last, Adam Grant’s Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, and Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc.

The first of these books that I read was Creativity, Inc. written by Ed Catmull, Chief Technical Officer and founding member of Pixar. It was surprising how many parallels I found in a book chronicling Catmull’s leadership through change and innovations in his industry and educational leadership. Listening to this book solidified and pushed many of the thoughts I was having about leadership and change theories. Catmull goes into great depth about the ups and downs of Pixar and how he maintained his focus on cultivating the creativity of people in the organization while also seeking out the problems that undermine culture and productivity.

Prior to listening to this book, I hadn’t thought deeply about working to uncover problems and challenges within the organization I lead. My past experiences involved leaders who announced “open door policies,” where employees were charged with presenting the issues they faced. Catmull takes it a step further. He works hard to uncover the problems, claiming there is room for substantial growth and trust within the organization when we all work together to solve those problems. In addition, when problems are uncovered, we all must work together to make things better. As a school leader, we will need to have a culture that supports bringing problems to the surface so we can connect together and solve them. This also relates to a culture where it is safe to take risks, where a foundation of trust and respect is present.

“What makes Pixar special is that we acknowledge we will always have problems, many of them hidden from our view; that we work hard to uncover these problems, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable; and that, when we come across a problem, we marshal all of our energies to solve it. This more than any elaborate party or turreted workstation, is why I love coming to work in the morning. It is what motivates me and gives me a definite sense of mission.”

Another part of the book that resonated with me is Catmull’s supportive leadership practices. He describes holding lightly to goals and firmly to intentions. It’s not his vision and path for the company that he carries out everyday; he takes in the wide scope of needs for the organization, talks with people regularly and sets the course to serve the organization and its people in the best way possible. In this same vein, Catmull expects candor at the workplace in a space that allows for open discussion. In many organizations, candor happens in the hallways or behind closed doors. In schools where I have worked in the past, this has been the case. As a new school leader, I hope to support a workplace where we can have candor and show support for the concerns and ideas of others.

Looking back over my notes and many bookmarks within Creativity, Inc., I can see a need to reread the book. There are so many lessons to be gained by Catmull and his work at Pixar for those of us in the education field. Looking forward, a quote that I will keep close is, “Driving the train doesn’t set its course. The real job is in laying the track.” I intend to spend my time as a school  leader laying track that promotes teacher leadership, allows for risk-taking, and serves a human-centered approach with love and respect for the people involved.

I’ll be following up soon with notes on the books by Simon Sinek, Adam Grant, and Tony Wagner.