Embrace Randomness and Change
Stop fighting uncertainty; build the resilience to recover from whatever comes
Catmull learned the hard way that promising stability is one of the dumbest things a leader can do. After Pixar's acquisition by Disney, he assured employees that Pixar would not change. For the next year, every normal organizational adjustment was met with accusations of broken promises. He had to give the 'of course we will continue to change' speech three times before it sank in.
The deeper insight is that fear of change is innate, stubborn, and resistant to reason. Even in organizations where everyone intellectually agrees that adaptability is essential, the emotional instinct is to cling to what is known, like players in musical chairs refusing to leave their seat. This resistance multiplies in groups: individual flexibility gets overwhelmed by collective conservatism because interconnected processes and mental models create inertia.
Catmull's prescription is not to fight randomness but to appreciate it. Uncertainty is the ground on which creativity occurs. Rather than reaching for illusory certainty and stability, leaders should build the organizational capacity to recover quickly when unexpected events occur. The goal is not to prevent surprises but to respond to them constructively.
- Fear of change is innate and stubborn; it cannot be reasoned away with a single speech
- Randomness is not the enemy of creativity; it is the ground on which creativity occurs
- The desire for stability is a false goal that leads to rigidity and decline
- Organizations are always more conservative than the individuals within them
- Do not make stability a goal; balance is more important than stability
- The job of leadership is not to prevent risk but to make it safe to take risks
- Never promise stabilityResist the temptation to reassure teams by promising things will stay the same. Instead, explicitly normalize change as a constant. Tell people that the organization will always be evolving and that their role is to evolve with it.
- Separate the fear from the factWhen people resist a change, investigate whether their objection is about the specific change or about fear of change in general. Often the stated concern is a proxy for deeper anxiety. Address the underlying fear directly rather than just debating the surface-level issue.
- Build recovery capacity rather than prevention systemsRather than trying to anticipate and prevent every possible disruption, invest in the organizational muscle to respond quickly when unexpected events occur. Maintain financial buffers, cross-trained teams, and flexible processes that can adapt to surprises.
- Distinguish between valuable traditions and mere habitsNot everything the organization does is worth preserving. Regularly evaluate whether practices are still serving the mission or just providing comfort. Protect the principles while allowing the specific implementations to evolve.
- Repeat the message persistentlyCatmull had to give his 'change is normal' speech three times before it took hold. Cultural messages about embracing uncertainty need constant reinforcement because the human instinct toward stability continuously reasserts itself.
Pete Docter's film Up went through radical changes during development. The first version featured a castle floating in the sky with two princes competing for inheritance. This concept could not be made to work because audiences could not empathize with spoiled princes in a strange floating world. The story was rebooted multiple times, eventually becoming about an elderly widower who flies his house to South America using balloons. Each version was completely different from the last.
The framework crystallized during the Disney-Pixar merger in 2006. Catmull's well-intentioned promise that 'Pixar would not change' became a weapon used by fearful employees to resist any adjustment, even ones completely unrelated to the merger. He observed that even routine changes like leasing a new office annex were attributed to Disney's influence. The experience taught him that people will project their fear onto any available cause and that leaders must actively normalize change rather than promise to prevent it.