Want to Know a Company’s Values? Wait for the Problem
A reflection from Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Hej! It’s William!
This is part of the "Meller Highlights" series with reflections and learnings from my personal book highlights. I read a lot of books, and as a way of giving more value to my paid subscribers, I now share great book lessons specially for them.
If you’ve been following along and enjoying the ideas I share, I’d love to have you join them. Becoming a subscriber not only gives you full access, but it also helps me keep creating and going deeper with the work I do.
How do these highlights work? Every day, I pick one idea from my reading and think about how to apply it in real life. Most stay as private notes, but once a week, I choose one that feels special.
That’s the one I share here, a highlight that turns into a deeper reflection on how it can change the way we do something.
Today’s highlight: Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
“New crises are not always lamentable—they test and demonstrate a company’s values. The process of problem-solving often bonds people together and keeps the culture in the present.”
Let’s reflect on that…
It is natural to dislike a crisis, to feel as if everything is falling apart or sliding off track. Yet crises often reveal something that ordinary times conceal. They show what a company, and the people inside it, are really made of.
Values do not live in posters or in the polished decks presented at off-sites. They live in reactions. They emerge when something breaks, when an error slips through, when circumstances become messy, and nobody has the time or energy to keep up appearances. It is in those moments that the real culture surfaces.
You can see it in how people step forward or stay silent. In who chooses to blame, who decides to protect, who turns to solving, and who makes the space to listen.
Culture is not only written in the choices but in the energy that fills the room.
Do people turn against each other, or toward each other? Do leaders disappear, or do they arrive with presence and calm? Do teams hide the problem, or bring it into the open so it can be addressed together?
Crises strip away the imagined future and force attention to the reality of the present.
They show not the company we aspire to be, but the company we actually are, right now. And in that reality, culture reveals itself most clearly.
What strikes me most is how problem-solving, even under strain, can bring people closer. It is not only the relief of surviving something difficult, but the memory of having had to think together, react together, and struggle toward a solution side by side. Those experiences create a kind of collective memory. You remember who had your back. You remember who kept their curiosity alive when the pressure was high. You remember who made it easier to keep moving.
And when the crisis passes, that memory remains. It shapes how the team works the next time. It influences how quickly someone speaks up, how safe they feel to ask for help, and how much trust they carry into the future. That, too, is culture.
We do not have to romanticize crises or welcome them with open arms. But we can choose to see them differently.
Not just as problems to fix, but as moments to observe, to ask: what is surfacing here? What are we proving to ourselves about who we really are?
The strongest teams I have been part of were never the ones with flawless plans. They were the ones that stayed human under pressure, that cared more about how we solved the problem than about who caused it, and that found strength in doing the hard work together.
So let me ask you: have you ever gone through a difficult situation at work that unexpectedly made your team stronger? Or one that exposed something in the culture that needed to change? I would like to hear your story.
This thought came from one of my Readwise highlights in Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull. Culture is built one honest moment at a time, and often, the most honest moments come when things do not go according to plan.
This is part of the "Meller Highlights" series with reflections from my personal book highlights.