Sir Ken Robinson

"Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.” Sir Ken Robinson

Ouch.  On first reading, this could be a commentary on the HR professional who hides away in their office.  Thankfully, the full context is around the concept of learning and how we make poor use of our talents.  According to Sir Ken Robinson: 

"Education dislocates people from their natural talents. Human resources are like natural resources. They’re often buried deep. You have to go looking for them. They’re not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves. You might imagine education is the way that happens, but too often it’s not.

Every educational system in the world is being reformed at the moment, and it’s not enough. Reform is no use anymore because that is simply improving a broken model. What we need is not evolution, but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.

Innovation is hard, because it means challenging what we take for granted, things we think are obvious. The great problem for transformation is the tyranny of common sense."