Fuel Your Learning

  • Ross Taylor
It is impossible to grow in your career and self, whatever you do, without learning and much of that needs to be self motivated. Every leader, entrepreneur or business person I have worked with, or socialised with, has a thirst for knowledge and personal development and without doubt commits time and energy to this.
Taking time out and a step back from my career has given me a unique and welcome opportunity to spend more time than would usually be available reading books, listening to podcasts and exploring online learning resources.
There is so much to choose from, and with nothing more frustrating for a busy person, than wasting time, I thought I would share what I felt have been my learning highlights and experiences. With each blog I will look at a few different resources and give you a short summary of what they offer. I hope this will be useful and help you on your own development journeys.
1. Book: Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces that Stand in the Way of True Inspiration  by Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull co-founder, along with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter, of Pixar Animation Studios and now President of Pixar and Disney Animation delivers a must read for anyone with an interest in creativity in business. The book gives full access to the culture, processes and DNA of one of the most successful creative businesses of all time; responsible for films such as Toy Story (the first ever computer animated feature film), Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo.
As a Manager it will help you lead your teams to new heights and strive for originality, whilst unwrapping the unique Pixar philosophies and practices. These include their famous Braintrust feedback meetings during a movies development and their open Postmortems to identify and discuss key learnings.
Yes, it focuses on how to build a creative culture, but there will be takeaways in this book for anyone in business; from managing a sensitive merger (when they sold Pixar to Disney) to understanding key leadership traits such as the importance of candor in the feedback mechanism and embracing failure in order to learn. A brilliant book.
2. Podcast: How I Built This with Guy Raz
This is a fascinating series with honest and intimate interviews with the founders of some of the most amazing businesses in the world, that have in many ways become movements and shaped culture. The style of the interviews is very much their story and the openness is refreshing. The narrative focuses on the early struggles of entrepreneurs and innovators dealing with rejection and financial uncertainty. Rather than showing business people basking in their own brilliance.
Highlight episodes for me (so far) were Vice Magazine, Instagram, Air BNB and Patagonia. Yes, it can be spark a little bit of jealousy and frustration, particularly when you realise some of the 'luck' or 'right place, right time' elements of their journeys to extraordinary success, but you also appreciate the commitment and devotion to the cause.
About 45 mins an episode they can be a little long for the average commute but worth coming back to. Next up for me is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and then the most recently released episode, James Dyson.
I hope you enjoy these should you decide to check them out and we would love to hear from you with your own recommendations.
Thank you.

Skills