Mistakes
May 28th, 2013 | Published in Uncategorized
John Gruber highlighted this on Daring Fireball, and I think it’s worth repeating. From an interview with Eric Catmull, president of Pixar:
On managers self-destructive tendencies for creative work:
The notion that you’re trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I Think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It’s better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things.
Yes, the only way to avoid making mistakes is to not do anything, but that’s a mistake in itself. When management has no tolerance for bad things happening, nothing good will happen either.