Creativity - Does Daddy Know Best?

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I’ve seen quite a few Ted videos lately, but my favourite by far is Sir Ken Robinson talking on the topic “Do schools kill creativity?“

He’s an amusing man and although his talk appears effortless and conversational, he ticks off a number of astute points about recognising and nurturing creativity. It’s a sure sign of an amazing speaker that he chats away, telling funny stories and holding a conversation with the audience, not a powerpoint slide in sight, while nailing a whole series of incredibly intelligent observations about education systems and society. His talk is not so much about teaching creativity, it’s about recognising it, creating opportunity for it and trying not to accidentally squeeze the life out of it.

My favourite take-home was how at the essence of creativity is a need to not be afraid to fail. You can’t be frightened to be wrong. It’s a seemingly simple thing to say, but the little spotlight of enlightenment went on for me.

He sets this part of the talk up by telling two stories of children and their approach to problem solving, with the conclusion that kids are prepared to take a chance, with a “if they don’t know, they’ll give it a go” attitude.

It’s not that being wrong is the same as being creative, but it’s almost certainly true that if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.

The problem is that in our education systems, and then later in life in our companies and even beyond into society, we stigmatise mistakes. They’re seen as the worst thing you can make. Certainly not encouraged or rewarded, and often punished.

So we’re basically educating people out of their creative capacities and then socialising them to stay that way.

I don’t doubt that this is something happening world-wide. I’ve been meditating on it recently though in relation to Singapore.

On top of all the things Sir Ken discusses, we also have a patriarchal society to cope with. If you live outside of this country you might be thinking that kind of thing went out generations ago, but anyone who lives here will tell you that that’s not true. It’s alive, well, and being passed along very effectively by the school system, the government, the compulsory military training and society in general. It’s threaded through the small (family), medium (company) and large (governance) levels of Singapore.

The “father knows best” way of thinking is an interesting one, and it threads in with the disgrace of making mistakes at a very basic level. Father rewards you when you’re good, but he gets very, very angry when you mess up. Singapore is famous for its harsh justice system, which is just a big macro version of exactly that. It’ll protect your trademark enthusiastically, hunt a hit-and-run driver to the ends of the earth, calculate your taxes fairly down to the last cent… but fall foul of the law and you’ll face fire and brimstone.

I know of some design companies here where it’s the same senario. Life is sweet while the projects are rolling successfully off the production line, but if one client calls to complain that the gloss lamination on their print job is not really as glossy as they were hoping, a full-scale witch-hunt is mounted. Daddy is displeased.

Even ignoring the often soul-destroying client-agency power relationship, where creative work is chiseled into its final shape by those least qualified to sculpt it (and that phenomenon is certainly not peculiar to Singapore), the very family that should be supporting and encouraging original, adventurous work isn’t.

I’ve worked for a few companies here, so I can throw an example or two without being too identifying.

I was editor of a magazine who’s publisher pushed and pushed for its writers to be opinionated and outrageous. Make a big noise, voice your opinion, if you don’t like something then say so, don’t hold back, fire on both barrels. Well, that was all sweet until the first complaint, the owner of a chain of sandwich shops who was enraged that we’d called one of his sandwiches “expensive” and were therefore obviously disrespecting his brand. Then it was the publisher blustering through the office demanding to know who had written the piece and calling for them to immediately get on the phone, apologise profusely and seek to make restitution. Who knows, the sandwich brand might one day be an advertiser.

More recently I’ve seen any number of truly disheartening things come and go. A “long copy” ad I did recently (complete with an explanation of this trend and reasons why I thought it was the way for this client to go) that came back with the old “no-one reads copy” chestnut. A piece for a hospitality client that was thought to be not good because it “doesn’t look the same as pieces being done by the other hospitality companies”. I could go on complaining for hours, but it’s the nature of my business and I’ve been in it too long to really be affected by it. What I am disturbed about though is that a client self-amputating is one thing, but often they’re being assisted in the surgery from inside “the family”, and that can’t be good.

It’s funny, because it’s very much a cultural thing. If I said I was off to the North Pole to sit in an igloo and meditate, my mother would be the first one to have her knitting needles out to knit warm clothes. I don’t remember my parents, any time in my life, falling into that patriarchal construct. Sure, they persuaded, cajoled, sought to influence, clandestinely steered…but once I chose a path they’d sword fight anyone with their knitting needles (or golf clubs) in defense of my decision. I got a few bumps and bruises along the way, but I could always make brave decisions knowing that I was supported and loved. How far can you fall when you have a safety net like that?

And I think in the workplace I manage much the same way my parents “managed” me.

I’m of that age where often it’s not my first time around the block (hey, haven’t I seen that lamppost before?), so sometimes it’s a bit like looking into the future and seeing all the hurdles before they’ve even presented themselves, but if someone I work with has given it some intelligent thought and really thinks that a graffiti font over rainbow vectors printed on metallic fleck paper is different, exciting and the way to go, then I’ll use any influence I’ve got to defend the decision.

And so what if that solution was “wrong”? So what if it’s rejected by the client or (by some freak of nature) reaches some kind of production phase and is then publicly stoned to death? I’d be the first to say “damn that was fun, let’s push it even further next time”.

pic: high voltage by creativespark

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Filed under Community, Singapore, Urban Life, Youth

Tags: education, Sir Ken Robinson, teaching creativity, Ted Talks