Schools Kill Creativity

We Still Can Learn From “The Ken”

Sir Ken Robinson Leaves a Legacy That Still Inspires

Educators, Creators, and Innovators, Revisit His Work!

The creativity and innovation world has lost one of its finest just this last week. Sir Ken Robinson was the most articulate speaker and author in the field of applied creativity we’ve ever known. His insights are profound, and his unique verbal delivery is simply unparalleled.

His sense of humor colored his work and is the secret sauce of his success; he had the wit of a natural born comedian and the incisive insights of a brilliant satirist.

His original TED talk (“How Schools Kill Creativity) is without a doubt the most influential 18 minutes of video on the topic of creativity. If you’ve somehow missed it up to this point, please watch it. It’s the Best TED talk you’ve ever heard, bar none. He’s that good. I use the present tense because in some ways he will never leave us, he’s been that influential, and he leaves a valuable legacy of books and video. Time to revisit this content, and that goes for business leaders who don’t understand the touchy feely quality called creativity.

Many would say his primary field is education, and that’s a fair point. He told an essential truth — it’s how children are educated that kills their creativity before they’re even out of grade school. Robinson’s knowledge about this, and his subsequent fame, evolved from the work he did in England related to revitalizing the arts in British education.

It’s Not How Intelligent You Are, It’s How You Are Intelligent

I had the honor to work with him several years ago on a small project. Behind the scenes he was funnier and smarter than he appears on camera. In person Sir Ken had another quality I admire. He was kind. He had a heart as big as his IQ. His big-heart work included rural Oklahoma; he assisted in boosting that states educational system, and it will have a lasting impact (Oklahoma Creativity Forum is a notable event Ken appeared at several times). We shared an admiration of Elvis! Sir Ken notes that Elvis wasn’t allowed to join the Glee Club in high school — his unique skills were not recognized; they saw him as “different.”

Sir Ken was born to a working class family in Liverpool. He suffered from Polio as a child — and its crippling effects lingered his entire life. Sir Ken didn’t let it stop him from achieving. In fact, his empathy probably derived from being labeled “different” as a child.

Creativity is Not a Nice to Have — Business Leaders

Business people, results oriented leaders, and CEO/C-suite types would be wise to listen to Sir Ken, if they haven’t to this point. Here’s why:

You can’t get innovation without creativity. People with creative thinking skills make innovation happen.

And creativity is in short supply because education is geared towards forming adults who are not creative, not risk takers, and not self-expressed. More Testing is making it worse. Schools, and organizations have still not taken Sir Ken’s words to heart. We need to push the reset button on people’s minds to enable great creativity and innovation results.

So, when you go to hire a new engineer, marketer, or even a top salesperson, you’re going to have a difficult time finding one who is fully creative — and you’ll not get the innovative results you’re looking for. The remedy is creativity and innovation training.

If you want to encourage creativity in the workplace, or in your own mind and heart, heed the words of Sir Ken Robinson:

“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”

If you want to push the reset button with your workforce, consider creativity and innovation training from, you guessed it, Gregg Fraley Innovation (GFi).

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