Global Convergence Forum 2008 -- Leading a Culture of Innovation

Sir Ken Robinson Creativity Expert Organizations from small private schools to large publicly-held multinational companies need to tap into their people’s nearly limitless creative and innovative capacities. That was the marching order from Sir Ken Robinson, an international expert on creativity and innovation. Speaking at an April 9 Accenture Global Convergence Forum session, Robinson touched on a number of areas where organizations are lacking in creativity and innovation and what they can do about it. Failing to make innovation an organizational priority, Robinson said, will lead to failure across the board.

Robinson said the key question is why is it so difficult to make creativity and innovation—which are not necessarily synonymous—systematic and operational. Most adults believe that they are not creative (while nearly all children believe that they are). That, however, is a glaring misconception, he said. Everyone is creative. Those who believe they are not simply do not know how to harness their creativity.

Further compounding the problem, Robinson said, is that creativity and innovation are systematically suppressed on an institutional scale, beginning in schools. That means that the pattern is established at a very young age. On a corporate level, most companies suppress imagination while targeting innovation. But, Robinson said, you cannot have innovation without imagination. The power of imagination is the most important resource humans have, he said. The other key ingredient for innovation is creativity, he added.

Understanding creativity in part requires an understanding of its relationship to intelligence. To demonstrate his point, Robinson polled the audience on how they rank their creativity and intelligence. About 23 percent of the participants ranked their creativity at eight on a scale of one to 10 (ten being the most creative). But 36 percent gave themselves the same ranking on intelligence. Why the 13 point difference? Indeed, roughly 63 percent of the audience gave themselves two different rankings on the individual creativity and intelligence polls.

We believe that creativity and intelligence are two different things, Robinson said, which is “the heart of our problem.” Many people believe that you cannot be intelligent and creative. But Robinson said that creativity is the highest form of intelligence, so you can’t be one without being the other. The trick is finding ways to cultivate each. Robinson said we need to make creativity “operational” and reconnect it to intelligence.

Other common misconceptions are that creativity requires a very limited special set of skills and that only “special” people are creative. Everyone has the capacity to be creative, Robinson said. And there are different forms of creativity, he said, even on a corporate level. For example, Walmart may not manufacture—or create—any products but its genius lies in its command of supply chain management. Similarly, Robinson said, Starbucks did not invent coffee, but it practically invented the modern coffee culture.

Robinson said that education is part of the innovation problem. When people say they are not creative, they simply have not learned how to be, he said. They need to be given the skills to practice creativity, just as they are given the skills to learn to read and write.

Another key element to innovation—and subsequently how education often works against it—is in what Robinson terms “divergent thinking.” This is a nonlinear concept where people connect seemingly disparate and unassociated ideas—it is a fundamental aspect of all thinking. These people tend to think metaphorically and symbolically.

In a study of divergent thinking among 1,500 people, 98 percent were ranked at the “genius” level. These happened to be Kindergarten students. A study of the same group five years later ranked only 32 percent as geniuses at divergent thinking and only 10 percent received that ranking another five years later. Why? We are all born with the capacity to think divergently but lose that skill as we grow older, thanks largely to learning structures and rules instilled in the classroom, Robinson said. Looking someone else’s answers on a test, for example, is considered cheating in school, he said, but in business we call this “collaboration.”

Creativity is putting your imagination to work, Robinson said. Part of solving the creative puzzle is finding the right medium to flex your creative muscles. It is a dynamic process, he said, that requires a medium. And innovation and creativity need to be an organization-wide priority that takes group dynamics into consideration. Ideas must flow freely and we must get at the heart of what stops that flow if they don’t, Robinson added.

The questions we must ask, Robinson said, are not how creative and intelligent are you but how are you creative and intelligent. What tools to you have at your disposal and how do you best use them to realize your full creative potential? We don’t aim too high and fail, Robinson said. Rather, we aim too low and succeed. Cultivating innovation and creativity will help us aim higher and succeed, he said.

Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D., is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, not-for-profit corporations and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. For 10 years he was professor of education at the University of Warwick in England and is now professor emeritus.

In 1998, Sir Ken led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK government, bringing together leading business people, scientists, artists and educators. He was the central figure in developing a strategy for creative and economic development as part of the peace process in Northern Ireland, working with the ministers for training, education enterprise and culture. The resulting blueprint for change, "Unlocking Creativity," was adopted by politicians of all parties and by business, education and cultural leaders across the province. He was one of four international advisors to the Singapore government for its strategy to become the creative hub of Southeast Asia.

Sir Ken is in high demand as an inspirational speaker with a unique talent for conveying profoundly serious messages with enormous humor, passion and wit. He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies. His latest book is, Out of Our Minds: Learning to to be Creative. In 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN's "Principal Voices." In 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts.