The Innovator’s Mindset Quotes

“if students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If we want to do better things for students, we have to become the guinea pigs and immerse ourselves in new learning opportunities to understand how to create the necessary changes. We rarely create something different until we experience something different.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“The innovator’s mindset can be defined as the belief that the abilities, intelligence, and talents are developed so that they lead to the creation of new and better ideas.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“What I care about is that kids are inspired to be better people because of their experiences in my school.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Right now we have many twenty-first-century schools with twentieth-century learning.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Consider how much deeper learning could be if “creation” was a non-negotiable in the learning for both us and our students.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Compliance does not foster innovation. In fact, demanding conformity does quite the opposite.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Effective leadership in education is not about moving everyone from one standardized point to the next but moving individuals from their point “A” to their point ”B.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If we are going to help our students thrive, we have to move past “the way we have always done it,” and create better learning experiences for our students than we had ourselves. This does not mean replacing everything we do, but we must being willing to look with fresh eyes at what we do and ask, “Is there a better way?” We would expect the same mindset from our students, and, as educators, that question is the first step on the path to a better future for education.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“As leaders, if we ask teachers to use their own time to do anything, what we’re really telling them is: it’s not important. The focus on compliance and implementation of programs in much of today’s professional development does not inspire teachers to be creative, nor does it foster a culture of innovation. Instead, it forces inspired educators to color outside the lines, and even break the rules, to create relevant opportunities for their students. These outliers form pockets of innovation. Their results surprise us. Their students remember them as “great teachers,” not because of the test scores they received but because their lives were touched.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If students leave school less curious than when they started, we have failed them. #InnovatorsMindset”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Compliance does not foster innovation.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If we want meaningful change, we have to make a connection to the heart before we can make a connection to the mind. #InnovatorsMindset”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“In our world today, what is a student more likely going to need to be able to write: an essay or a blog post?” This question pushes some people to a place of discomfort”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Individualizing education and starting with empathy for those we serve is where innovative teaching and learning begins.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“we must inspire innovation, rather than demand compliance.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Change almost never fails because it’s too early. It almost always fails because it’s too late. —Seth Godin[7]”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“School should not be a place where answers go to die but questions come to life. #InnovatorsMindset”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“The ability to innovate—to create something new and better—is a skill that organizations worldwide are looking for today. #InnovatorsMindset”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Perhaps the amazing thing we can do is make growth mandatory—for ourselves as educators, as well as for our students. That is how we can truly serve our children.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“This is your opportunity to design schools that value creation over compliance and making over memorizing. This”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Our job, sometimes, is simply to be the spark, help build confidence, and then get out of the way. If innovation in any school or school division is solely dependent upon one person, it will continue to happen in pockets. In contrast, when we focus on empowering learners to become leaders, they help spread ideas.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“It isn’t how much you know that matters. What matters is how much access you have to what other people know.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Making across the curriculum means students as novelists, mathematicians, historians, composers, artists, engineers—rather than being the recipients of instruction.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If leaders want people to try new things, they have to openly show that they are willing to do the same.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“If we create a culture where every teacher believes they need to improve, not because they are not good enough but because they can be even better, there is no limit to what we can achieve.—Dylan Wiliam”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Teaching students by example to be self-starters and to continuously evaluate how they might improve their education helps them learn how to effectively learn. When we stop simply telling students how to learn, and, rather, act as a “guide on the side,” we can support them in a way that encourages them to find their own solutions.”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“In our world today, what is a student more likely going to need to be able to write: an essay or a blog post?”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity

“Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.—William Pollard[13]”
― George Couros, The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead a Culture of Creativity