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Vivienne Kay - Build Innovative Teams: Insights from Google, Pixar and Shopify
- 1. How to build a culture of creativity
- 2. WHAT HOW YOU culture & creativity as a company on your team
- 3. WHAT HOW YOU culture & creativity as a company on your team
- 5. me culture
- 6. meculture
- 11. WHAT HOW YOU culture & creativity as a company on your team
- 12. Pixar Braintrust
- 13. Trust comes from knowing that we are safe. That our colleagues will not judge us for failures, but will encourage us to keep pushing the boundaries. “
- 15. Psychological Safety Brain Trust Trust Battery Fresh Eyes Relationships
- 19. WHAT HOW YOU culture & creativity as a company on your team
- 22. youculture
- 24. Culture of creativity Relationships Trust & acceptance Group activities & chats Attitude of “Yes and …”
Editor's Notes
- “Mean girls” / high school cliques. Microcultures. Culture = group attitudes and behaviours. Project team thrown together = mixed bag. Must build culture.
- Outside of me, and slightly above. Key point. I saw culture as external - responsibility of HR, culture team, token extrovert. Culture radiates in and out. You receive and create culture around you.
- We are all equally creators and receivors of culture.
- It's up to us to create the cultures (of creativity) that we want on our teams. Creativity = not Art. Human need: explore, build, play. Using imagination to see new possibilities. Connecting dots = innnovation. “Intelligence having fun” Einstein (element of play).. Is a primal need - regardless of what discipline you’re from, creativity and creative outlets is something we all need to thrive. Because it’s ultimately how we learn, grow, and have an impact. Link: play is a vehicle for creativity.
- Play has a purpose. Try new moves, build strength, agility, réflexes - in a space for learning. Implicit trust - safe to make mistakes, to push boundaries, experiment. They help each other learn. They grow faster together. metaphor for our work - playing with ideas. We try new connections, test new skills, explore the unknown. It means we need to take risk, experiment, make mistakes - that's how we learn! We can be much more creative/ go further when we have teams to bounce ideas off. A safe space for play is the key to collaborative creativity on our teams. It can either be an enjoyable experience or a painful and frustrating one - depending on the other “lion cubs” around us and their attitude.
- 2012. People Analytics dept. 180 teams. Not who but how. Psychological safety = authenticity. Share new ideas, without fear of judgement. A safe space to play with ideas, with others. Cubs = take risks and it is physically safe. We = vulnerable with new ideas and stay emotionally safe (ego) - safe from judgement. We need to trust our teammates not to shoot us or our ideas down. Creativity is about taking risks - there’s an inherent vulnerability in that. Let's be real - imagine you're on a team. You have a new idea. You're not sure if it's wildly good or terrible. It can go either way. You take it to your team: two scenarios: #1 teammates say “yeah, but this is a block” or”yeah but we tried that three years ago.” ( #2 “yeah, and we haven't tried something like that in a while, and this part could work if you add this idea…” Which one feels more empowering? Which scenario are you more likely to share other new ideas in the future? To take the risks / leaps of faith needed to be truly innovative? This is how creative teams innovate! Safe spaces of acceptance - where we can play with vulnerable, raw ideas.
- A lot of overlap with the idea of the Trust Battery. Interactions compound—every interaction builds or drains the psychological safety and trsut. The battery fuels creativity. The greater the charge, the stronger the team.
- How do we design spaces to build trust, acceptance, safe space to share new ideas?
- happened during crisis in making of Toy Story. Urgency of project meant they had to put ego aside, no authority - feedback to support idea/save project. All ideas accepted/built on. No judgement. Become regular meeting for any project. Group of people from different levels (interns, directors) to give peer feedback. Great ideas can come from anyone. An environment to build on ideas, with no pressure of judgement. Brain + trust.
- Ed Catmull “A hallmark of a creative culture is that people feel free to share ideas, opinions and criticisms.” Like the lion cubs - trust is knowing our peers will help us become the best, fastest, strongest lions we can be.
- Literally “fresh eyes” Started just design, now is UX (design, research, content, FED) Peer feedback / fresh perspective Once a week No authority/ judgement / pressure Share Anything: Raw ideas, wireframes, docs, spreadsheets, high fidelity mocks Compare to Kit team expereince - it takes work to get here. To build trust across a group of people, but it’s not impossible.
- Relationships at the center of building cultures of creativity — relationships are the foundation of innovative individuals and teams. /RECAP: Spaces of open feedback and acceptance boils down to attitudes of acceptance. Comfort communicating with each other. (Trust battery at Shopify) - half charged. LINK Personal story - small things we did on our team to build team culture
- New team, complex area, established relationships. No team bonding. Dinner = important shift. Separate merit of ideas from value as individual. Put ego aside because didn't feel judged. Better communication, learned about different teammates = less miscommunication. Easier to have the hard conversations. Easier to give feedback. Trust that feedback is about ideas, not who they are. It's important to take the time away from work discussions to build relationships/have bonding activities.
- In health checks we don’t ask about culture, acceptance, comfort. Went over at a health check. Shared with other teams (happy to share). How comfortable are you sharing partially formed ideas with your teammates? How much do your teammates know about you beyond your professional capabilities? Do your teammates support your growth? Do you feel you are an important part of your team’s culture? How creatively satisfied are you with the work that you do?
- I’d love if everyone was at #5 here.
- Turn to the person next to you. Goal: Plan a vacation. Rules: One person will share an idea (keep it short). Partner’s response will always begin with “yes, but + new idea” Example: “Let’s go to Hawaii” “Yes, but Hawaii is hot, let’s go to Alaska” “Yes, but we’d probably cruise and I hate boats so let’s go somewhere dry” etc.
- Turn to the person next to you. Goal: Plan a vacation. Rules: One person will share an idea (keep it short). Partner’s response will always begin with “yes, (repeat the first idea) + offer a new idea THAT BUILDS ON THE FIRST” Example: “Let’s go to Hawaii” “Yes, let’s go to Hawaii. Because then we can go surfing!” “Yes, let’s go surfing, because then we’ll get killer thighs!” Etc. Which one was more fun? This is a subtle shift in attitude that seems small but has a HUGE impact. I tried implementing it (I still do) and it’s really really hard. It’s changing habits, and that takes time. Essentially it’s not about agreeing to everything. This is about true acceptance—being open to new ideas, even if you have strong opposing opinions. Making space for people to share anything without fear of judgement (personal or professional). “Yes that's interesting but it doesn't work with our pattern library.” Or “yes but this team’s work is a block.” VS. “Yes, interesting approach and if we solve it here it could fix other similar problems and we can improve our patterns across our product…” Now the idea might work, or it might not. But one interaction builds trust between teammates, and the other squashes it. One fuels more exploration and curiosity and play. The other redirects. Let me give you a few specific examples.
- Outside of me, and slightly above
- Relationships at the center of building cultures of creativity — relationships are the foundation of innovative individuals and teams.
- What could be: Like those lion cubs-through play they grow, and that brings up the rest of the tribe. Like a rising tide each individual’s success lifts up the whole team. Where play fuels work, work becomes play! We can build teams that leave us charged—with more energy. With a yes and attitude, we can create this energy around us. We take risks by sharing new, raw ideas fast and often. By using each other to learn and grow. Where we trust that we’re being supported and where we actively work to accept our teammates and their ideas. That’s how we can, as individuals, affect change and build the cultures of creativity around us.