What are the common myths about creativity, and how can we think past them?
Michalko: It’s a myth that creativity cannot be learned, and that you are either born creative or you are not. Creativity is not genetically determined. Typically, the average person has been taught to think reproductively, that is, on the basis of similar problems encountered in the past. We analytically select the most promising approach based on past experiences, excluding all other approaches, and work within a clearly defined direction towards the solution to the problem. That’s why every delivery expert in the U. S. doomed Fred Smith’s idea of Federal Express to failure. They believed that based on their past experiences, no one would pay a fancy price for speed and reliability. And why, after Univac invented the computer, they refused to market it to business, because they said businesses had no use for a computer. If you always think the way you always thought, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. In contrast, creative people think productively, not reproductively. When co
