Have you ever heard the following?
"You have to be an artist to be creative".
"Ideas have always happened."
"Creativity is a talent that some people have and others do not".
"Creativity comes from rebels".
"Being liberated is enough".
"Tools and techniques are confining".
Here are some thoughts on these misconceptions.
"YOU HAVE TO BE AN ARTIST TO BE CREATIVE".

This is totally untrue. There have been many creative engineers, scientists, financiers, entrepreneurs, etc., who have not been artists. Creativity, and especially Lateral Thinking, are also concerned with changing perceptions, concepts, and ideas. In any situation where perception and concepts are important, creativity is also important. That applies to most situations.
Because artists are creative in their own field does not mean that they have a general skill of creativity that can be applied to any field. An artist usually has the motivation to try something new, and sometimes the artist can provide an "innocent" mind on a subject. But it is certainly not true that creativity is limited to artists.

"IDEAS HAVE ALWAYS HAPPENED".

There is an attitude which say that great new ideas have always happened in different fields and that they will continue to happen from time to time. So there is no need to pay special attention to creativity. It is enough just to wait for new ideas to happen. A related version of this says that new ideas happen by evolution and that this cannot be speeded up.

There is a story about the origins of roast pork. It is said that roast pork was discovered when a pagoda burned down in China and a pig in the yard was also burned.

Pagodas will burn down from time to time, but we do not have to wait for such occasions to get roast pork. We can roast pork more directly whenever we choose. In the same way new ideas will continue to happen from time to time, but we can also seek to get ideas in a more direct way through the use of deliberate creativity. One does not exclude the other.

"CREATIVITY IS A TALENT…."

This is a very traditional view and one of the best excuses for not doing anything about creativity. It is true that some people have a natural curiosity. It is true that some people have an active imagination. It is true that some people are always trying to change things. But all these effects can also be obtained through developing the formal techniques of Lateral Thinking.

If a number of people run a race, someone will come in first and someone second and someone last. This is determined by natural running ability. Ability can be altered by coaching, training, and fitness regimens. If everyone who ran in this first race is now given a set of roller blades and it taught how to use them, then everyone will go farther in the same amount of time. Someone will still come first and someone last, but not necessarily the same person as before.

It is the same with creativity. If we do nothing about it, then we can only depend on natural talent. But if we develop formal techniques and offer training in these techniques, then everyone will be much more creative than before. Some people will still be more creative than others, as with any acquired skill.

"CREATIVITY COMES FROM REBELS."

Rebels are creative because rebels want to be different. They are not much good at playing the game everyone else is playing. They may not even want to play the game at all. They want to play their own game. This has been a good starting point for creativity in the past.

Today things are changing. We are beginning to understand the "game" of creativity. We can understand how self - organizing information systems form asymmetric patterns and how we can move across patterns. From such an understanding comes the formal tools of Lateral Thinking. It may well be that the conformists will also be better at playing this new game of creativity. The rebels will not want to play this game and may not be any good at it. So we may have the very strange paradox that the conformists may actually become more creative than the rebels.

Of course, the conformists have to want to be creative. They have to want to learn the game of creativity, and they have to want to play that game. The rebels always have the motivation to challenge and to be different. So the conformists can become creative but they have to want to.

"BEING LIBERATED IS ENOUGH."

Many of the approaches to creativity in North America are based on the notion that everyone is creative but is inhibited. So the effort is toward freeing people up and liberating them so that they can be creative. People are encouraged to be playful and childlike. Traditional brainstorming itself is an attempt to liberate people by permitting them to say what they like without fear of censure.
But this notion of liberation is not enough.

An ordinary person tied up tightly with a rope cannot play a violin. That is obvious. But if we now cut the rope, does this make liberated person a violinist? Cutting the rope is indeed a necessary step but only a small step. The person still has to acquire the skill of violin playing. It is the same with creativity. Being liberated may be a necessary step, but it is by no means the whole process. It is also necessary to acquire creative skills. Indeed, understanding the logic of provocation achieves the same effect as liberation.

The analogy comparing creativity with the playfulness of children is not a good one. Children have the creativity of innocence because their minds have not yet formed many patterns. But the minds of adults are full of patterns, so the creativity of innocence does not work. We have to develop techniques for getting out of these established patterns.

"TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES ARE CONFINING".

Some people protest that any development of systematic tools and techniques will be contrary to the very nature of creativity, which must be "free". This shows a complete misunderstanding of tools.

Language is a formal tool that allows us to have and to express creative thoughts. A ladder is a tool that allows us to get to places that might otherwise be difficult to get to. A carpenter's saw is a tool that allows the carpenter to make beautiful furniture. Mathematics is a tool that allows us to handle complex relationships.

Tools are liberating devices that amplify our sklls and enable us to do things that would be very difficult to do otherwise. A key is a formal tool that allows us to escape from a locked room. But the key does not determine where we then go.
In general, a lot of the thinking about creativity is very old - fashioned and much influenced by notions of artistic creativity. Too often creativity is just seen as "being different" Creativity is also seen as the opposite of being formal. Yet music and ballet are both creative and formal at the same time.