This returns us again to the central point of this section; the primary challenge you face is not in increasing creativity per se, but in making your company receptive to the vast amounts of creativity that already exist. The point is not to build a company that depends on you for its innovation, but to continually work towards an organization that is as receptive to new ideas as if those ideas had come from you.

One of the best ways to make and keep your company innovative is to have people invent solutions to their own problems or needs. In other words, be your own customer and satisfy yourself. If that is not possible—if you are in a business where you cannot be your own customer—then figure out a way to experience the world as a customer experiences it.

There are some people who will take personal advantage of every situation. There are some people in whom the dark side wins. Your company should rigorously weed these people out. You can do it with compassion (remember, it was your mistake to hire them in the first place); but it should be done.

Fortunately, these people are rare. And we don’t base this claim solely on a personal faith in human nature.

If you run a business that is covered with any frequency by the media, you may face another challenge. Journalists tend to look for patterns that can be explained in a relatively small number of words. If you haven’t done the work of teasing apart what is random and what you have intentionally set in motion, you will be overly influenced by the analysis of outside observers, which is often oversimplified. When managing a company that is often in the news, as Pixar is, we must be careful not to believe our own hype. I say this knowing that it is difficult to resist, especially when we are flying high and tempted to think we have done everything right. But the truth is, I have no way of accounting for all of the factors involved in any given success, and whenever I learn more, I have to revise what I think. That’s not a weakness or a flaw. That’s reality.

Even if they have the exact skills that I’m looking for, it’s better not to try to fit a round peg into a square hole. Each of us ought to be working in an environment that we love with the people who share our passions. And if along the way we realize that we’re meant to do something else, let’s celebrate that instead of seeing it as a failure.