An Interview with Sir Ken Robinson [Video]

The thing that really struck me was his idea of the “element,” a place where your passion and talents collide. His basic premise is that if you can’t find your true calling  - your element – then chances are you are not living a truly fulfilling life. In fact, you’ll probably just endure it. 

This is the whole premise of my first book, and sort of a missing piece for me. It ties together my idea of seven different gifts or talents that we are all born with. Personality, Passion, and Purpose together with the People we surround ourselves with, the Path we choose to take, the Problems we must overcome, to end up at the Place that truly fulfills us. When you tie all seven of those together, you get Sir Ken’s idea of “element.”

What a timely message. I am currently working on a manifesto about the seven talents and I realized that I actually ordered “The Element,” sometime back but never got around to reading it. Hearing him speak made me realize that I need to pull my copy off the shelves, and devour his work. This will certainly help me pull all the pieces together.

Thank you, Michael for these impactful interviews. These are truly great voices we all need to hear.

These are some fantastic interviews. What struck me most was his connection between creativity and leadership – to be a great leader you don’t need to have all the great ideas, you just need to cultivate them in your team and harvest them. That’s freeing as a leader, but it also requires a new set of skills – the ability to look beyond what YOU can do and show your team what THEY can do. Providing the context for your team to reach their highest potential.

THE MYTHS

I loved  Sir Ken Robinson’s myths about creativity: #1, that there were special people, and #2 the myth that there are special activities (viz. painting and music) where creativity is best applied.

But the third myth, that a person cannot grow in creativity, really struck me. People can develop, can grow, and through diligence can achieve tomorrow what they were unable to accomplish yesterday. This principle we readily apply to the unseen parts of ourselves (to wit the hundreds of thousands of adults who earn college degrees and then advanced degrees each year), yet Robinson is right: we relegate creativity to a separate, ephemeral spot, black and white, you either are creative or you’re not.

Great concept about the farmer.  As creatives, sometimes all we have to do is set the right conditions for a plentiful harvest.  Cannot wait to check out his book.

As an educator, I always find Sir Ken Robinson to be inspiring! One very practical way that he has inspired my classroom is that my students keep a blog (in Spanish) during the course of the semester. Each class as we go over the blog posts of a few of the students, we all learn new things! Both about Spanish vocabulary and grammar, but more importantly, we learn new things about each other, about life and it has been the best conversation starter activity I have ever done in 15 years of teaching. (Before all teachers reading this run out and do that with your classes, it does take a lot of time! and it isn’t teaching to the test.) Thanks Michael for posting this interview! It was great as always!

I decided I’d take some notes while I listened to this interview. Here’s some things that struck me:

Creativity can be developed – Like Ken said, often we think of creativity is something we either were born with or not. However, it can be developed by doing creative things. There are musicians that had to take lessons, artists that had to take lessons, business people that had to take lessons. I think you have to want to be creative in what you’re doing to be creative.

Creativity is not just in the arts – We tend to get so caught up in the arts being the space where creative people go. I see this as a fallacy also. I currently work for a manufacturing plant and there is a lot of creativity that goes on here. Whether it is figuring out how to make a piece of tube stronger, how to properly weld pieces together, or how to cut costs. These things all require some sort of creativity.

Original ideas that have value – This is Ken’s definition of creativity. I really liked it.

Recognize ideas come from people -> Innovation more often than not comes from groups and not individuals -> Learn what gets in the way of creativity – I liked this process of thinking.

A good leader creates the right climate, not necessarily the ideas – This is another great point. If a leader is producing the proper climate, those under him should be flourishing.

You can’t respond to a challenge that you’re not aware of – A great point. This could be expanded to include “If you sweep the challenge under the rug, it won’t be responded to”.

This was a great interview.

The one person that kept popping into my mind during the interview was Thomas Edison.

Thomas Edison had imagination and he acted on that by creating things.

He was also a great leader in that he developed a team of scientists and inventors to form basically an invention company.  We are still enjoying the benefits of his inventions.  It would be interesting to do a study to see if we have a modern day Thomas Edison among us.

I think it would also be a great book if someone wrote a book about the leadership skills of Thomas Edison, both his successes and his failures.

Great interview, Michael. I loved the farmer analogy with the application for leadership. The farmer cannot make his plants grow, he can only provide the right conditions. Very insightful. 

It certainly looks like the secret of a fulfilled life, reflecting backwards over 66 years…  Great way of expressing it.

“Why our model of educational model is broken and what we must do to fix it”. This intreged me the most and I want to know more.
Moira Gardener

Has he actually been knighted?

When both our parenting (as a parent, I’ve been guilty too) and schooling have taught us to conform and perform, it takes a paradigm shift in these two areas to rekindle creativity.

I appreciate Sir Ken’s mention of the need and benefit of diversit: synergy. Even though America has had a wide variety of people living in this country, employers, churches, and other social groups, persist in aiming for homogeneity (as an Asian woman, I experienced this firsthand.)

If I am really honest, I would admit that creativity scares me! :) It means stepping out to the unknown territory and sailing uncharted courses in unfamiliar waters. Ultimately it challenges each one of us to BECOME, and this requires a lot of self-leadership!

Having said all of the above, I must add that creativity is part of the Imago Dei (the image of God) in us. As Christ-followers who are being restored in the Imago Dei, we have a duty to God to maximize and utilize our creativity for the good of the world and for the sake of the Kingdom.

I really liked the Titanic metaphor he used about the entire ship sinking, not just coach class. I think America needs to understand this principle well in order to thrive with the rest of the world as opposed to regressing educationally and increasing our debt while others are making leaps and bounds in these same areas. We will sink arguably faster than the lighter (less materially congested) parts of the “earthship” if we don’t become a more conscious society all around and buid the avenues of creativity in our education system.

I’m intrigued by his statement about 19th century teaching model being used in the 21st century. First of all, I’m not a fan of sitting in a class, listening to a lecture, and being tested on material. That said, what does a 21st century educational model look like? The answer to that question intrigues me.