What is creativity? The ultimate guide to understanding today’s most important ability.

Creativity is one of those traits that people seem to have an intrinsic understanding of, but if you actually ask them to define it, they get tripped up. It’s easy to come up with a list of creative people (Frida Kahlo, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Einstein), and the outcomes of creativity (a novel, an invention, a new way of looking at the world), but it’s difficult to wrap your head around the actual concept of creativity. The more I researched this article, the more I realized creativity is an incredibly nuanced phenomenon.

But you have to start somewhere, so let’s begin with a definition:

Creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ways of thinking or acting, and to develop new and original ideas, methods or objects.

Let’s break that down:

• It’s an ability
  It’s also an ability to run a mile, or to do calculus or recite a Shakespearean sonnet (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?). So creativity is a skill that is specific to an individual. For some people, it might seem to come naturally, but it is something that anyone can improve at if they give it the time and effort.
• It transcends traditional ways of thinking or acting
  Transcending means you’re going above and beyond. It’s recognizing the limitations of what already exists, and trying to improve upon it.
• It develops new and original things
  I think the key word here is develops. Creativity goes beyond imagining: it’s about developing. If it’s an idea, you go out and do the research to prove it. If it’s a new process you try and test it to see if it works. If it’s an object, you build it.

Great! And now that I’ve provided you with that enlightening definition, let’s wade a bit deeper and try to really understand what creativity is (and why you should or shouldn’t care).

Why should you care about creativity?
—

I hope I’m not being to presumptuous when I say everyone wants to develop new skills or grow their abilities. (Who wouldn’t want to be a faster runner or a better poker player?) But we all have limited hours in the day, so you can’t practice to get better at everything. Why is creativity one of those skills you should spend time developing?

Well, if you care about your career, it’s probably worth the investment. Both individuals and businesses value hold those with creative qualities in high regard. According to a survey by Adobe, people that identify as creative earn 17% more money than those who don’t. Similarly, in a survey of 1,500 CEOs, IBM found that creativity is the number one trait needed for business success.

And yes, the data from these surveys is based on opinion or self-reported creativity levels, but even if the scientists might squawk, it’s probably worth paying attention to. Basically, your boss and your boss’ boss both think creativity is important. And that makes sense as the definition of a creative person is literally someone who comes up with good ideas and can bring them to fruition. In today’s world, that is exactly the fuel that drives business success. So if you want to get ahead, start churning out those ideas like a barrel of monkeys. (Am I doing it right?)

Can you become more creative?
—

Absolutely! Creativity isn’t a magical gift bestowed to just a few lucky individuals, it’s a skill that you can hone and develop. The trick is figuring out how to flex your creativity muscles.

Originality

Originality is a necessary part of creativity, but creative things are more than just original. They also solve a problem, or more generally are somehow fitting or appropriate. Yet previous research found an inverse relationship between ratings of originality and ratings of appropriateness. The present investigation employed a different methodology — it focused on the generation of ideas instead of judgments about them — to reexamine the relationships between originality, appropriateness, and creativity. Undergraduate students (N = 170) from two large universities received either realistic or unrealistic divergent thinking tasks. These were given with one of four types of instructions. These asked them to give (a) as many ideas as possible (which is the standard type of instruction for these kinds of tests), (b) only original ideas, © only appropriate ideas, or (d) only creative ideas. Brief definitions of originality, appropriateness, or creativity were also provided. Comparisons of the four groups indicated that there were significant differences between the different kinds of tasks, with the realistic set eliciting more appropriate ideas than the unrealistic, but the unrealistic tasks eliciting more original and varied (flexible) ideas. There was an interaction indicating that the magnitude of the impact of the instructions varied across tasks. Correlational analyses indicated that the correlation between the originality and appropriateness scores was the lowest among all possible inter-index relationships (only 7% shared variance). Future research and practical implications are explored.