Where Do Stories Come From?

 "The definition of superb animation is that each character on the screen makes you believe it is a thinking being. Whether it's a Trex or a slinky dog or a desk lamp, if viewers sense not just movement but intention - or, put another way, emotion- then the animator has done his or her job. It's not just lines on paper anymore, it's a living, feeling entity. This is what I experienced that night, for the first time, as I watched Donald Duck leap off the page. The transformation from a static line drawing to a fully dimensional, animated image was a sleight of hand, nothing more, but the mystery of how it was done - not just the technical process but the way the art was imbued with such emotion - was the most interesting problem I'd ever considered. I wanted to climb through the TV screen and be a part of this world. "

What does it mean to manage people well?

The tension between the individuals personal creative contribution and the leverage of the group is a dynamic that exists in all creative environments, but this would be my first taste of it. One one end of the spectrum I noticed we had the genius who seemed to do amazing work on his or her own; on the other end, we had the group that excelled precisely because of its multiplicity of views. How, then, should we balance these two extremes? I didn't yet have a good mental model that would help me answer that, but I was developing a fierce desire to find one. For the first time, I saw a way to simultaneously create art and develop a technical understanding of how to create a new kind of imagery. Making pictures with a computer spoke to both sides of my brain. 

As I traversed the challenging question: "what does it mean to manage well?" I would learn much about what managers should and shouldn't do, about vision and delusion, about confidence and arrogance, about what encourages creativity and what snuffs it out. As I gained experience, I was asking questions that intrigued me even as they confused me. 

To attract the sharpest minds; you have to put your own insecurities away. When faced with a challenge: get smarter. You will need to make a policy of hiring people smarter than you are. Because the obvious payoff of exceptional people are that they innovate, excel, and generally make your company - look good.