A trend can be seen in the top echelon of the European transfer market, with hundreds of millions of pounds (and euros) spent on players from South America. But what do these South American footballers have that others don’t? Flair? Creativity? Arguably yes, but then why are these attributes developed so successfully in South America, or is it more important to ask why isn’t creativity developed in other cultures around the world?
Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk ‘How schools kill creativity’ gives a unique insight into this question. Lifting the lid on Pandora’s Box, he exposes the environments, traditional values and practices that crush our natural creative tendencies.
Engaging and delivered with passionate enthusiasm, Sir Ken’s talk has become a TED sensation. However, it isn’t just the exceptional delivery that has made it the most viewed TED Talk of all time, it’s because his message resonates with so many of us. We identify with the stories because, deep down, tucked away in our subconscious, we have a gut feeling that we know he’s right: ‘Schools kill creativity…mistakes are stigmatised…and we don’t grow into creativity we are educated out of it.’
We know he’s right because of our childhood experiences (you may or may not remember particular instances), we also know he’s right because the capacity for creativity is innately human, a concept supported by decades of research. Creative play is our default setting, inspiring growth and development in our earliest years.
But as Picasso said: ‘All children are born artists, the trick is to remain artists as we grow up.’
This trick – to remain creative – is something too few of us have mastered. Many of us are painfully aware that the opportunity for creativity is limited in our day-to-day lives, and this is because our environments – education, work and play – are often too structured and don’t value creativity or the values that produce creative behaviour. Research has found that creative behaviour is promoted by some values and undermined by others. (See infographic 1).
Infographic 1
Think about your experiences at school, work and in sport, now think about what we are teaching the next generation of kids? Our players?
Creativity is an attribute that brings joyful engagement and inspires learning, motivation and productivity in the pursuit of our potential. So why doesn’t modern society value this innate attribute? Robinson suggests the cultural conditioning experienced within educational settings is partly to blame, as they promote values that undermine creativity, stigmatise mistakes and foster a fear of failure: ‘If you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with anything original.’ He also calls for a re-prioritisation of educational value, saying: ‘Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.’
James Rodriguez: The fifth most expensive player in transfer history. © Celsopupo | Dreamstime.
Infographic 2Sir Ken’s message is simple: if you don’t value creativity you’ll never be creative. Our values energise our behaviour,
Sir Ken’s message is simple: if you don’t value creativity you’ll never be creative. Our values energise our behaviour, so we need to understand what we value, where these values come from and how they influence our behaviours in our day-to-day lives.
so we need to understand what we value, where these values come from and how they influence our behaviours in our day-to-day lives. Many of us have forgotten how to be creative, we have had the natural behaviours that embody self-direction, stimulation and universalism beaten out of us as we subconsciously conform to traditions, seek approval and battle for social power. This concept is found in more places than you may think – for a great example of these ideas take another look at the classic film Dead Poets Society.
Education, therefore, needs to re- prioritise its value in creativity, but what about football?
Look at the top 10 most expensive players in the world (see infographic on following page): false 9s, visionary #10s and mercurial wingers – all attacking players. Eight out of 10 come from South America; seven out of 10 are attacking midfielders. All were purchased by European clubs.
The monetary value placed on creative players suggests that football values creativity, certainly in the European market. The £197.7m Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and Manchester United spent on the South American trio of James Rodriguez (visionary #10), Luis Suarez (false 9) and Angel di Maria (mercurial winger) suggests as much.
However, monetary value is determined by the economics of supply and demand, so it seems the high value placed on these creative players is due to their rarity. If these players are indeed rare, does that mean there’s a gap between what is valued at the top of the game and what is being produced at the grass roots? Does player development mirror education and kill creativity?
Understanding the socio-cultural differences that influence the psychological, cognitive and motivational development of a player’s mindset is a new way of thinking about player development. Rather than spending hundreds of millions on transfer fees and state-of-the-art facilities, clubs could instead invest in understanding their environment and developing a team of people who can facilitate a creative culture; an optimal development environment for coaches and players. Crucially, this could be done for a fraction of the cost.
The trick, as Picasso highlighted, is to create a team of people that can embody creative values within a wider culture or society that doesn’t value creativity. The challenge becomes learning to embody creativity even though it has been educated out of us, and the key to this is organisational values. Organisations need to find and develop creative people – coaches, players, administrators and CEOs – who value self-direction, novelty, challenge and other people’s perspectives. Coaches and players need to be immersed in environments founded on creative values of self- direction, stimulation and universalism. We need philosophical alignment within organisations whose practices embody these values in their daily working relationships. To do this, however, we need to inspire change and in many instances this change needs to be cultural.
The self-determination theory provides a framework to achieve this. By understanding people’s ideas of autonomy (choice and self- expression), competence (success criteria) and belonging we can create environments that satisfy these needs and slowly reverse the constraining effects of controlling environments, like education. We can reprioritize people’s values and enhance their independent thought and action, ultimately paving the way for creative behaviour.
For a great example of revolutionary change in sport, check out the book or movie MoneyBall. MoneyBall tells the story of revolutionary thinkers (like Billy Bean), people willing to discard sacred cows and view baseball in a whole new light. They literally changed the way the game is played and what is valued. This change is an example of what Sir Ken Robinson believes is required in education.
The story of MoneyBall also highlights the cost of this thinking, the cost of swimming against the tide. In the movie, John W. Henry (Liverpool FC and Boston Red Sox owner) says to Billy Beane:
“I know you’ve taken it in the teethout there, but the first guy through the wall: it always gets bloody, always. It’s the threat of not just the way of doing business, but in their minds it’s threatening the game. But really what it’s threatening is their livelihoods, it’s threatening their jobs, it’s threatening the way that they do things. Andevery time that happens, whether it’s the Government or a way of doing business or whatever it is, the people are holding the reins, have their hands on the switch. They go bat shit crazy.I mean, anybody who’s not building a team right and rebuilding it using your model, they’re dinosaurs.”
Henry is describing the scarcity mentality in modern society; he is highlighting our need to overcome this, swim against the tide and battle to change people’s views. Inspiring change is a painful process which scientists refer to as a paradigm shift, and it’s long been believed that this shift is facilitated by a ‘revolutionary scientist’ – often a younger person not schooled so long or so deeply engrained in the current practices. MoneyBall paints Billy Beane as a revolutionary practitioner, someone who was willing to question the status quo and fight for change.
We need to fight to change the environments that kill creativity and create environments that foster our innate creative capacities. We need to develop creative people – not just in football or sport but in life.
I believe we need to swim against the tide, we need to fight to change the environments that kill creativity and create environments that foster our innate creative capacities. We need to develop creative people, not just in football or sport but in life. In his most striking argument, Sir Ken Robinson points out that only human creativity can respond to the unforeseen challenges of the future; we need to inspire creativity in future generations and to do this we need to inspire creativity in ourselves – after all, Who We Are is How We Play.
Pep Guardiola may be football’s best example of a revolutionary thinker, to read more about him in the article ‘Play with Style’, CLICK HERE.
Cover Image:
Neymar for Brazil. Photo: Danilo Borges
