Collective Genius

If you want to know what “collective genius” can look like, watch a Pixar film. Pixar Animation Studios produce the first computer generated (cg) feature film, “Toy Story,” nearly twenty years ago. More blockbusters followed, including “Finding Nemo,” and “Monsters, Inc.” Pixar has thrived because it has never stopped innovating. Our guest on this edition of “The Business” is Harvard Business School Professor Linda Hill, one of the authors of the new book “Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation.” She says every one of these cg films has been an innovative tour de force, yet no solitary genius, no flash of inspiration, produced those movies.” Instead, she writes, they were the product of hundreds of people, years of work, and hundreds of millions of dollars.