Common foundation of great engineering cultures

I am reading / listening to Pixar Founder Ed Catmull's "Creativity Inc" which is utterly brilliant and based around this topic too - and his take is that so much of these rules are platitudes. The four mentioned in this article are close but still feel like platitudes. I would check out Catmull's book if this post interested you.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0812993012/

If at all interested please check out http://Blog.paul-Brian.com - I am posting ideas as I listen but will try to carve something real - it is well worth your time and money getting the book / audible version. Highly recommended

Honestly I Would try and make intelligent comments on the post - but the book is far better and needs a lot of foundation laying before we get onto a sensible discussion.