Product Description

The element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. This groundbreaking new book is all about how every one of us can find our element, connecting with our true talents and fulfilling our creative potential. Creativity expert Ken Robinson believes that we are all born with tremendous natural capacities, but that we lose touch with them as we spend more time in the world. Whether it’s a child bored in class, an employee being misused or just someone who feels frustrated but can’t quite explain why, too many people don’t know what they are really capable of achieving. Education, business and society as a whole are losing out. The Element draws on the stories of a wide range of people – from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney to renowned physicist Richard Feynman and many others, including business leaders and athletes – showing how all of them came to recognize their unique talents and were able to make a successful living doing what they love. With a wry sense of humour and a sense of optimism, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the element, and those that stifle that possibility. He shows that age and occupation are no barrier and he argues that there is an urgent need to enhance creativity and innovation by thinking differently about ourselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111630 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Ken Robinson is an internationally recognised leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, national and state education systems, non-profit organisations and some of the world's leading cultural organisations. He was knighted in 2003 for his contribution to education and the arts.

Customer Reviews

Lots of examples of natural-born talent - but no guidance on finding your own
I have never written an Amazon review before - but I was so annoyed by this book and how little I got from reading it, that I was moved to write one. Ken Robinson is apparently "an internationally acclaimed leader in creativity and innovation" and I had big expectations that this book would yield some new insights on this topic. It absolutely didn't.
This book's sub-title is "how finding your passion changes everything". Chapter after chapter lists case studies, rather clunkily and poorly written, of people who were mostly born with natural talent and a calling in life. For example, we read about world-class snooker players, dancers, writers...all at the top of their profession and making money from it. But what about all the millions of others who have found their element - as an illustrator or novelist, for example, but just can't make a living from it. For every Meg Ryan (there's a case study about her in the book) there's thousands of unknown actresses who love what they do but can't make money from it or get recognition. In the case studies described in the book, most are famous and the seeds of their talent were obvious from the start and Ken Robinson tells us how marvellous their lives are now that they have found their "element" or what gives them their creative kicks in life. Trouble is that most people simply don't know what their "element" is - and they will be absolutely none the wiser after this. In fact, they will even be demoralised by how easily the case-studies he describes seemed to hook up with their personal "element". There's information on how the education should change to teach creativity, but no clues about how to find it if you are older. Or what to do if your element doesn't actually make you a decent living and you have to spend most of your time working as an estate agent, say, when what you'd really love to do is write novels. I read this from cover to cover and found it utterly disappointing. The whole idea stems from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow. This is described in the book Flow: The pyshology of Optimal Experience, which is quoted in The Element and which you would be much better to buy instead of this rather disappointing book. At the end you are just left wondering at how lucky people are who are born with a natural gift that allows them to excel and achieve great fame in a field - and wondering where that leaves the rest of the population who muddle through. One of the most disappointing books I have read on the subject of creativity in a long time.

Inspiring book
I realy enjoyed Sir Ken Robinson's book which is highly readable and talks about the concept of finding one's true calling in life (which he says, is the point at which one's talents overlap with one's highest passions - 'the Element'). This he does, through the telling of people's stories. It is inspiring stuff for those who want to believe the quote from Confucius - "If you enjoy what you do, you'll never work another day in your life". The book introduces the topic wonderfully although readers should be aware that there is little within the book about how to actually go about pursuing your dreams, although I am sure this was intentionally outside the scope of the book (for that I'd refer people to Marcus Buckingham's excellent book 'Go put your strengths to work' and his video podcast with Oprah which is free on iTunes).

My one gripe (which is minor), is that the stories are all about immensely successful people (e.g.Paul McCartney, Matt Groening) which are amazing but it might of been nice to see a few 'real people' stories where people successfully pursued their passions and found happiness but weren't necessarily world beaters. If anyone interested in the book hasn't yet seen Sir Ken's TED talk I'd thoroughly recommend that you view in on YouTube.

Fairly mediocre
This is mostly a mishmash of disjunct storytelling ("yeah so, like, I was chatting to, like, PAUL MCCARTNEY the other day") with reheated self help ideas from other titles.

It shouts `But we could ALL BE DANCERS!', which I found annoying because I can't dance and I certainly can't draw. The future for each of us doesn't necessarily lie in us all becoming artists and artisans.

It has a good chapter on `Education'. Robinson is a keen promoter of reform and he makes a compelling case for change. The current system (in the West) was founded for an 18th century industrial society: a production line where the inputs are grouped arbitrarily into ages then educated en-masse, the bell going off on the hour every hour to keep the conveyer going, the curriculum strictly constrained, with QA testing at every stage, dumping adequate but mediocre skilled/qualified people off the end. He criticises the `hierarchy of subjects' with maths and english at the top and drama at the bottom. He says the system is inappropriate for the modern economy and society, that the way forward is student-centred learning, cross-pollination between subjects, the `re-professionalisation' of teaching - and most important the engagement with creativity to produce people that think for themselves and don't fit into a pre-defined set of boxes, where success is narrowly defined as academic ability in english and maths.

A readable book that provides some interesting insights, but padded out with too many unnecessary anecdotes.