What Is Creativity, Really?

Creativity is one of the most searched and most misunderstood words in modern culture. It gets used to mean everything from an artistic gift to a business skill to a personality type. To make the term useful, it needs a working definition that holds across fields. Below is the definition, the history behind it, and the working anatomy of what creativity actually is.

The working definition

Creativity is the production of ideas, work, or solutions that are both novel and useful. Novel meaning original enough not to be a copy. Useful meaning that they solve something, illuminate something, or move someone. Both halves are required. Something novel but useless is eccentricity. Something useful but unoriginal is competence. Creativity is the intersection.

Where the definition comes from

The definition above traces back to J.P. Guilford's work in the mid-twentieth century, was extended by Teresa Amabile at Harvard Business School, and has held up remarkably well across five decades of subsequent research. Different fields use different language, but the underlying idea is stable. Creativity is not what the work looks like. It is the fact that the work is both new and genuinely valuable to someone.

What creativity is not

Creativity is not restricted to art. Scientists, engineers, teachers, cooks, coaches, and lawyers all do creative work when their solutions are both novel and useful. Creativity is not the same as talent, which is more about aptitude for a specific medium. Creativity is not eccentricity, which is novelty without usefulness. And creativity is not a fixed trait; it is a practice that can be developed over time.

The four kinds of creativity

Researchers often split creativity into four levels. Mini c is personal insight, the small original connections a person makes for themselves. Little c is everyday creativity, useful contributions inside a specific field. Pro c is professional creativity, sustained expert output that shapes a field. Big C is transformational creativity, the historically significant work that reshapes what a field considers possible. Most creative practice happens at Mini c and Little c. Pro c and Big C are what happens when the practice compounds over decades.

The four p's of creativity

Creativity research also uses another shorthand: the four p's. The Person doing the creating, with their traits and history. The Process by which the work is made. The Product that results. And the Press, which is the surrounding environment that either enables or constrains the work. Every question about creativity is really a question about one of these four, and mixing them up is the source of a lot of confused advice.

Why creativity matters more now

The parts of work that can be automated are being automated quickly. The parts that require novel and useful judgment applied to specific human contexts are becoming more valuable, not less. Creativity is the underlying capacity for that judgment. It is also the layer of work that stays human even as tools improve, because novelty tied to usefulness in a specific context is exactly what general purpose systems find hardest to produce.

Where creativity finds its audience

Novel and useful work needs a specific audience to register as either. On platforms where reach is optimized for engagement, novelty is rewarded regardless of usefulness, which pulls creative work toward provocation. On community based platforms, where reach is earned through voted, deliberate audience backing, both halves of creativity are rewarded together, because backing is a judgment about whether the work is worth carrying. Cracy is built for that shape, so the creative work that is both novel and useful finds the audience it actually deserves.

Read next: why creativity is a skill, not talent and why creativity matters.