Ed Catmull (co-founder of Pixar and former President of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation) and his leadership team asked themselves a string of questions following the astonishing success of their early films \u2018Toy Story\u2019 and \u2018A Bug\u2019s Life\u2019:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had done some things right to achieve success, how could we ensure that we understood what those things were? Could we replicate them on our next projects? Perhaps, as important, was replication of success even the right thing to do? How many serious, potentially disastrous problems were lurking just out of sight and threatening to undo us? What, if anything could we do to bring them to light? How much of our success was luck? What would happen to our egos if we continued to succeed? Would they grow so large they could hurt us, and if so, what could we do to address that overconfidence? What dynamics would arise now that we were bringing new people into a successful enterprise as opposed to a struggling start-up?\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Creativity, Inc published by Transworld Books)<\/p>\n I\u2019m impressed by these questions \u2013 their humility, depth, insight, creativity and challenge. But I\u2019m even more impressed that they didn\u2019t accept their then box-office-smash, award-winning success as \u2018a truth\u2019 and realised that asking some piercing questions would help them sustain success.<\/p>\n