Every Child Is Born an Artist: What Picasso Can Teach Us About Conformity, Creativity, and the Courage to Think Differently

Every Child Is Born an Artist: What Picasso Can Teach Us About Conformity, Creativity, and the Courage to Think Differently

Picasso’s words capture something we all know instinctively. As children, we begin curious, imaginative, and unselfconscious. We draw, build, question, and explore without worrying whether we’re doing it right. But somewhere along the way, that creative confidence fades.

Every child is an artist. The problem is to remain an artist once they grow up. – Pablo Picasso

The challenge isn’t discovering creativity; it’s preserving it. And the “artist” Picasso refers to isn’t limited to painters or poets; it’s anyone who imagines, experiments, or finds new ways to see and solve problems. Think of our innovators, creators, designers, architects, entrepreneurs, builders, technologists, problem-solvers, and leaders: anyone shaping new possibilities from original thinking.

The Creative Artist We Lose as We Grow

As we grow, we’re taught to value correctness over curiosity. Schools reward memorisation, regurgitation, and compliance over questioning, exploration, and independent thought. We learn to give the right answer instead of thinking for ourselves. Over time, education systems trains us out of experimentation and into conformity. The artist doesn’t disappear; it’s trained into silence by the systems we’re educated in and the workplaces we grow into.

The World That Rewards Conformity

When we enter the working world, the pattern continues. The logic of industrialisation still shapes how we work, but it’s evolved into something even more pervasive: a modern kind of machine logic. Most organisations are built for speed, consistency, control, replication, and accuracy rather than curiosity or imagination. That mindset keeps systems running, but it makes people smaller. When we fear getting it wrong, we stop experimenting. When we prioritise output over curiosity, we erode our ability to innovate.

Organisations say they want creativity, innovation, and problem-solving, but they’re often designed in ways that make those things almost impossible. The irony is that the very qualities these systems suppress (curiosity, risk-taking, problem-solving, imagination) are now the ones businesses need most.

The Neuroscience of Creativity

The neuroscience backs this up: our brains themselves learn to conform. The brain is an energy-intensive organ, so it naturally seeks efficiencies. Over time, it strengthens the neural pathways we use most, turning repeated thoughts and behaviours into automatic patterns. It’s a bit like a path worn into the ground; the more traffic it gets, the smoother and easier it becomes to follow, while the untrodden routes grow over and harder to find.

It’s our brains' elegant system for conserving effort, but the trade-off is flexibility: what we practise most becomes easiest to repeat, and hardest to rethink. The capacity for creativity doesn’t go away, but it becomes harder to reach when the brain defaults to the well-worn paths of habit and repetition. What brings it back online are the moments of curiosity, novelty, and play that invite the brain to explore again.

Neurodivergence and the Systems We’ve Built

Neurodivergent people often think, learn, and process information differently, spotting patterns others miss, connecting ideas in unexpected ways, or approaching problems from angles that defy convention. These ways of thinking aren’t tangential to creativity and innovation; they sit right at the heart of it. Yet the systems we’ve built, from classrooms to boardrooms, are optimised for uniformity rather than originality. When we force everyone to think and work the same way, we suppress the very diversity of thought that fuels progress.

If we truly value innovation, creativity, and problem-solving, we have to design environments where different kinds of brilliance can thrive; where the unconventional ways neurodivergent people think are not just accommodated, but treasured and harnessed.

Education systems built on memorisation and standardisation can make their natural ways of thinking seem like flaws rather than strengths.

From an early age, neurodivergent children are often told they’re too much, too distracted, too intense, or not doing it right. Education systems built on memorisation and standardisation can make their natural ways of thinking seem like flaws rather than strengths. The same pattern continues in adulthood: workplaces built for predictability, scale, and control leave little room for difference. Many neurodivergent adults learn to mask, editing or suppressing parts of themselves to fit a system that wasn’t designed for them. Masking might make survival possible, but it comes at a high cost. It drains the cognitive and emotional energy that could otherwise fuel creativity, focus, and innovation.

Because their brains are wired differently, many neurodivergent thinkers naturally bring distinct strengths, from creativity and pattern recognition to deep focus or unconventional problem-solving. Those same differences can also bring challenges, especially in systems built for uniformity. But the problem isn’t their wiring; it’s that our structures aren’t designed to recognise or support the value it creates.

When organisations create conditions that allow neurodivergent people to work in ways that enable them to be at their best, everyone benefits. The more we design for difference with awareness, flexibility, and respect for how people think and process, the more space we create for creativity, problem-solving, and artistry to thrive.

Creating spaces where different minds can thrive isn’t only inclusion; it’s how we recover the artistry our systems have lost. And that benefits everyone.

Re-engaging the Creative Brain

While neurodivergent thinkers often show us what’s possible when difference is nurtured and valued, this is an important check-in for everyone. We’ve all been shaped by environments that reward conformity and caution over curiosity and originality. Every one of us benefits from finding ways to reawaken the creative parts of our brain that have been quietened by routine, repetition and our work environment.

And here’s the truth: it’s not your fault. The systems you’ve lived, learned, and worked within were designed for predictability, not possibility. They were built to value correctness, consistency, and control over experimentation, imagination, and play. Over time, those systems don’t just shape how we think; they shape what we believe we’re capable of.

But the capacity for creativity never disappears. It sits quietly beneath the surface, waiting for better conditions. With curiosity, trust, and the right kind of environment, the pathways open again. The more we make space for exploration, questioning, and imperfection, the more easily creativity returns, not as a spark to rediscover, but as something that’s been there all along.

The artist in us never truly disappears; it just needs to be invited back.

The task for leaders, and for each of us, is to design environments where that artist can surface again. Where thinking differently isn’t something to manage, but something to learn from. Because creativity isn’t rare. What’s rare is creating the conditions where it’s allowed to thrive.

Final thoughts

Creativity hasn’t vanished; it’s been conditioned out of us. The ways we’re taught and the systems we work within slowly replace curiosity with compliance. We don’t lose the ability to think creatively; we simply forget the habit. And habits can be relearned.

In future articles, I’ll share more about how I work with clients to do this, and some of the techniques that help reignite creativity, rebuild confidence in original thinking, and restore that natural sense of possibility.

For neurodivergent people, those abilities never go away. They’re simply surviving in a world that doesn’t yet recognise, value, or harness their different ways of thinking and their natural brilliance. That must change too. Because when we create systems that nurture difference and imagination, everyone rises.