More than one quarter of all companies employing 100 people or more are doing some form of creativity training according to a recent Training Magazine survey. Managers realize that change is here to stay. Technology, markets and customer needs are changing more rapidly than ever before in history. Companies must be able to respond quickly and creatively to these changes if they are going to survive and grow.

Eileen Kaminski at DK/Carlson, a division of Draper & Kramer, which provided a seven-week Quantum Creativity™ Training for its entire staff this past winter, reports that, "The structure of retail and the industry as a whole has changed dramatically over the years and will continue to do so. It behooves us to explore new ways of working. Our society is more sophisticated, shoppers are more sophisticated and its a little more difficult to reach out to them. Managers now need to view their objectives and goals with a creative and innovative mind--not just facts and figures"

The most difficult obstacles to overcome are the myths and negative messages many individuals and organizations have learned over the years. I believe that many of us are actually socialized out of our creativity. We are taught to "get it right," "fit in with the crowd," and, above all, "don't look foolish." Here are just a few of the myths that can keep us from expressing our full creative potential:

It takes too much time to be creative. This is one of the most common excuses I hear from seminar participants. Many people feel that they are so busy dealing with the work that is right in front of them and 'putting out fires' that they cannot imagine making the time to discover a more innovative approach to problem-solving. This was the initial response of some of the people in the trenches at DK/Carlson, who are now making collaborative problem-solving part of their weekly agenda and finding that they are accomplishing more in less time due to their organizational commitment to creativity.

Only artists are creative. Early on in our lives many of us began to be compartmentalized (or compartmentalize ourselves) as creative "have's" or "have nots." Unfortunately, this was largely a response to a very narrow range of possibilities for our creative expression. If we were "good at" painting or writing or acting in plays, then we were labeled "creative," if not, then we forged ahead with some other label: "organized," "out-going," "good with numbers," etc. These are the boxes that we became comfortable with, and they are the same boxes everyone is now talking about "thinking outside of."

You can't be creative and make money at the same time. Tell that to Bill Gates, at Microsoft! This myth falls in the "be practical" category. Today, business needs to respond quickly and creatively to change. As the saying goes, "If you keep doing what you always did, you'll get what you always got." Or worse, you'll slip off the map altogether. In today's market, we must replace this myth with the new adage : You must be creative to make money.

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