"Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together"

As I wrote a few weeks back, I was delighted to discover that our interview with Brad Bird in The McKinsey Quarterly was the most downloaded in 2008.  I confess, however, that I had not got around to re-reading it until today.  It reminded me what a charming genius he is all over again -- one of the most fascinating people I've interviewed. I was especially taken with his points about how long it took to persuade his team on The Iron Giant to start challenging his ideas -- to engage in constructive conflict (to argue as they are right and listen as if they are wrong, as Weick put it).  In the interview, Bird described show he urged his team that they would learn the most and do the best work if they showed their work to each other, critiqued it, and improved it -- as the quote says "Everyone will get humiliated and encouraged together."  That is one of the best lines I've ever heard about the best atmosphere for encouraging creativity and innovation. At the same time, the interview shows that saying "trust me" is a lot easier than earning trust, as Bird reports it took a full two months before people started challenging his ideas.

P.S. Brad not only directs, he "acts" in his films, he was the voice of Edna Mode in The Incredibles, the half-Japanese half-German superhero costume designer.