Growth, Creativity and Failure is OK

From the NYTimes early in July, If You're Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow. The gist of this article is that your attitude towards your potential has a huge impact on how you grow in your career. I have certainly seen that in my professional life. The people i have the easiest time working with have a real can-do attitude and a positive attitude about problem solving. Nothing makes me cringe more than "I don't know how to do that. Period. End of discussion." There are thousands of things i don't know, but very few of them stop me from thinking about a problem or trying to tackle it if i need to.

Also, a radio interview with the amazing Andrew Stanton, of Pixar and Innovation lessons from Pixar: An interview with Oscar-winning director Brad Bird from the McKinsey Quarterly. The thing i like about reading about Pixar is that they have an amazing ability to try things and fail in private before releasing something successful. Pixar seems to take a long view to team building and employee development and their work shows the difference between 'projects' (most films animated or otherwise) and something built by a real team that grows over the long term.