The Myths of Creativity: The Truth About How Innovative Companies and People Generate Great Ideas

Every company wants creative, innovative employees that can bring them not only the next big thing, but the next twenty or thirty big things. Unfortunately, these companies aren’t maximizing their potential to encourage creativity; instead, they follow poor methodologies and misapplied advice based on thirdhand success stories.

David Burkus is here to set the record straight with The Myths of Creativity, analyzing the truth behind many of the falsehoods and misinterpretations about the creative process that plague the modern business world. This book is an attempt to harness and optimize creativity, first by overturning long-held notions (the breed myth, the eureka myth, etc.), then by offering real-world examples of solutions that argue for creativity as a universal tool to be cultivated, not the domain of certain “types” of people. Most importantly, Burkus has put in the time and energy to root out where the myths came from, in order to better allow the reader to separate worthwhile avenues of change and advancement from ghost stories, buzzwords, and dead ends.

The Myths of Creativity can’t give you the big idea, but it can help you find your way there, which is a much greater gift.