Saying 'I'm Not Creative' Is a Cop Out

I’m not creative. Only some people are creative. I just can’t think that way.Those are common stories we tell ourselves about the creative process, but it turns out they aren’t true, according to David Burkus, author of The Myths of Creativity: The Truth about How Innovative Companies and People Generate Great Ideas. “For most adults, it’s been a while since we’ve been given the chance to exercise our creativity,” he says. Yet anyone can tap those skills with effort and practice. “We’ve convinced ourselves that certain jobs are for creatives and the rest of us don’t need to exercise our creativity in our jobs. But  every organization needs the new and useful ideas that come from its people. To get them, we need positive reinforcement as our people build back their courage to start creative thinking again.”

Here are his best tips for fostering creativity in your company and your life.

Rethink Teams. We’ve all heard that diverse teams generate the best results. However, says Burkus, “Few of us realize that diverse teams become homogenous over time.” To avoid this fate, “The most innovative organizations build their organizational chart like a network, from which teams can form and disband as the needs of a project dictate. This way teams are constantly refreshed with new ideas, but also benefit from a common structure and language since some members of the team have likely worked together before.”

Rethink Criticism. You’ve probably been schooled in the sacred tenet of brainstorming – that “no idea is a bad idea” and that we should temporarily suspend judgment. Not so fast, says Burkus. “There is a really intriguing study done by a team of researchers led by Charlan Nemeth that took aim at brainstorming. We tend to assume that all creative thinking activities require suspension of criticism, but their study found that even in brainstorming…teams generate more and better ideas when they criticized and defended each other’s ideas.”

Let Ideas Percolate. Some healthy debate and criticism can sharpen ideas – but too much, and they can wither. Burkus suggests that managers should help encourage their employees’ ideas by protecting them from being quashed too quickly by higher-ups. “Most ideas, when they first appear, aren’t all that good—they need time to develop and improve,” he says. “At the same time, organizations are often really bad at judging the potential of ideas. We all have a hard time taking a new idea and using our old experiences to judge the idea’s potential. When ideas get killed too quickly, the folks who had the idea learn that it’s just easier not to submit new ideas.”

Rethink the Process. Many of us believe in what Burkus calls the “eureka myth” – the idea that creativity arrives in a magical flash of insight, like Newton and the apple. “So many people believe that creative insights come from somewhere unknown,” says Burkus, “but they come from inside ourselves and through a process that can be replicated. If we put too much faith in the eureka myth, though, then we can end up sitting around waiting for something to happen instead of engaging in that process.”

Build Diverse Expertise. Over time, it’s natural to hone your expertise in a particular field. As a result, your skills often become quite narrow and deep. That’s great for many things, but not for creativity, says Burkus. “Creative people are ‘T-shaped,’ he says. “They build that expertise like the vertical part of a capital letter ‘T.’ But they also learn about a diverse set of fields and expand the horizontal bar of the ‘T’ as well.” Most of their best ideas come from combining that breadth with depth in new ways. “It’s easy to build vertical expertise,” he says. “It takes a deliberate effort to expand your horizontal.” Investing the time to do so will set you, and your creativity, apart.

How are you developing your creativity?

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out, and you can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment Workbook.