Take care of the babies

When a book strikes my imagination and finds relevance in my work, I mention it to many of the people in my professional and work lives. A recent book that reached this level for me is Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace.  Catmull is the President of Pixar Studios and became a leader of DisneyToon Studios when Disney acquired Pixar. The book is about Pixar, but also about fostering creativity. The book shows what works and does not work. It is humble and honest. The authors have taken the story of Pixar and expanded it so that the lessons are relevant to all organizations that care about new ideas.
 
An organization easily kills creativity. I’ve seen this, and I am sure you have too. It is hard work to sustain the generation of new ideas and innovation. How can we survive as individuals and organizations without it? Healthcare has a particular problem with supporting new ideas and innovation. It may seem otherwise when the news reports advances in training by virtual dissection or development of digestible sensors. On a day-to-day basis, changes occur slowly. Researchers report that it often takes an average of 17 years for new evidence-based findings to reach clinical practice. Wow.

We can take steps in our professional lives and our organizations to foster creativity. Catmull offers stories that show what works and does not work. His book shows the personal side of building a company; successes and failures. From these lessons, he teaches a few principles.

• ·Foster a culture that asks question
•  Getting the right people is more important than the right idea
•  The unknown is not an enemy
•  Creativity starts somewhere; it is flawed at first and needs reworking iteratively

In healthcare we like to shoot the baby, any new idea. It is difficult, messy, and does not look right. We can find many problems with it. If we destroy it right away, we cannot find out what it can become. I like the idea of protecting the baby-ideas, at least until we know if they can grow into something better. That is how we are going to improve healthcare. Take care of the babies.