What Is Creativity?
Definition
Creativity is the ability to generate responses that are both new and useful.
When we talk about responses, we mean the term in its broadest sense. A response can be an idea, an object, a decision, a behavior, a conversation, a strategy, or a different way of understanding a situation.
The idea of going on vacation can be a response to feeling tired. An airplane is a response to the desire to travel faster. Changing a habit can be a response to the desire to become a better version of oneself.
For a response to be new does not necessarily mean that it has never existed in the history of humanity. It means that it introduces a relevant difference within the context in which it appears. An idea can be new for a person, an organization, a community, or an entire culture.
And for a response to be useful means that it serves some purpose. It may solve a problem, satisfy a need, generate wellbeing, enable an experience, facilitate learning, or open up a new possibility.
From this perspective, creativity is not a specific activity. It is a fundamental human capacity to respond to reality in different and valuable ways.
Why It Matters
We live in an unfinished world.
Millions of ideas, solutions, projects, conversations, tools, discoveries, and ways of doing things are still missing. In a sense, the world is always under construction.
That is why creativity matters.
Not because it is a fashionable skill or because it constantly appears in reports about the future of work. Creativity matters because it is one of the main ways we expand our possibilities when reality changes, becomes more complex, or confronts us with situations for which no ready-made answers exist.
Developing creativity can help us:
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Adapt more effectively to change.
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Find solutions when familiar options no longer work.
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Reduce feelings of blockage and frustration.
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Develop greater mental flexibility.
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Relate more positively to uncertainty.
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Take a more active role in shaping our own future.
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Detect problems before others do and propose valuable responses.
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Remain relevant in a rapidly changing world.
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Manage frustration more effectively.
Creativity also plays an important role in personal wellbeing. When we feel capable of generating new options, we stop seeing reality as something rigid and inevitable and begin to see it as a space filled with possibilities.
For this reason, creativity is not merely a tool for producing ideas. It is also a way of relating to the world.
Great Misunderstandings
Creativity is one of the most important human capacities and, at the same time, one of the most misunderstood.
For decades—and even centuries—we have inherited ideas that continue to shape the way we understand it.
Creativity Is Only Art
This is probably the most widespread misunderstanding.
The existence of highly creative artists led many people to assume that creativity and art were practically synonymous.
Yet a scientist, a teacher, a parent, an engineer, an entrepreneur, or a physician can be just as creative as any painter or musician. Creativity does not belong to a specific discipline; it belongs to the ability to generate new and useful responses.
Creativity Is a Profession
We often talk about "creative professions" or "creative industries" as if creativity were a specific activity.
But creativity is not a profession.
It is a way of practicing any profession.
Creativity Is a Gift
Tradition led us to believe that some people are born creative while others are not.
Contemporary research and everyday experience suggest something very different: every person possesses creative capacity, even if not everyone develops it to the same degree or in the same areas.
Creativity Is Rare and Scarce
We are surrounded by creativity.
Every object, tool, institution, language, or custom around us was once a new and useful response generated by someone.
The extraordinary thing is not that creativity exists.
The extraordinary thing is failing to see it.
Creativity Is for Children
There is a widespread belief that creativity matters during childhood but loses relevance as we grow older.
In reality, the opposite is true.
The more complex life becomes, the more valuable creative resources become for adapting, learning, relating, and solving problems.
Creativity Is Unproductive
Another persistent myth suggests that creativity belongs exclusively to leisure time.
In reality, creativity is one of the most productive forces that exist.
It produces solutions.
It produces wellbeing.
It produces innovation.
It produces learning.
It produces relationships.
It produces opportunities.
Creativity has done nothing less than invent wealth itself.
The ByBa Perspective
At ByBa, we understand creativity as a universal human capacity oriented toward the expansion of possibilities.
We do not believe creativity is a privilege reserved for a few exceptional individuals.
Nor do we believe it belongs exclusively to art, technological innovation, or specific professions.
We believe creativity appears whenever a person expands the set of options available within a given situation.
To create is to expand.
To expand an idea.
To expand a conversation.
To expand a solution.
To expand a relationship.
To expand a life.
For this reason, we believe creativity has a much deeper value than simply generating novelty.
When properly developed, it can become a source of intelligence, wellbeing, play, connection, freedom, and prosperity.
We call the relationship between creativity and human fulfillment Createfillment®.
We also believe that people do not create in the same way.
Through our work, we have identified different natural tendencies—or creative biases—that influence how we generate new and useful responses. Some people tend to transform what already exists. Others connect elements. Others combine different things. Others alter contexts and relationships.
Creativity reveals itself through countless faces.
But understanding how your own creativity works is one of the best ways to develop it.
Common Questions
Are people born creative?
Yes. But not in the way we have traditionally been told.
People are born creative because every person who has ever lived, lives today, or will live in the future is creative by nature. Creativity is not reserved for a small group of gifted individuals or "special people"—that is simply the traditional myth.
Can creativity be trained?
Yes. Like any other human capacity, creativity can be strengthened through practice, habits, exercises, and experiences.
But above all, it begins by recognizing that we already possess it.
Is creativity the same as innovation?
Not exactly.
Innovation is one form of creativity: incremental creativity, small creative improvements that accumulate over time.
It has often been said—and rightly so—that if our species only possessed the capacity for innovation, we would still be living in caves. Much more comfortable, sophisticated caves perhaps, but caves nonetheless.
Creativity may improve something, transform a part of it, or enhance an aspect of it, but other forms of creativity are capable of making major leaps and completely changing the game.
How can I become more creative?
First, by recognizing that you are already creative by birth.
Second, by opening yourself to more and more possibilities.
Third, by understanding how you currently generate ideas and solutions.
Finally, by developing creative biases that are less natural to you and exercising modes of creativity that you use less frequently through specific activities and exercises.
What types of creativity exist?
There are as many types of creativity as there have been, are, and will be living beings.
Creativity comes in infinite forms because diversity and multiplicity are among its defining characteristics.
Creativity is deeply connected to identity and personality, which means that you possess a unique and unrepeatable way of being creative.
Why do some people seem more creative than others?
Because people differ in factors such as practice, exposure to diverse experiences, curiosity, confidence in exploration, and the habits they have developed.
Some people have consciously chosen to cultivate their natural creativity and make it not only a way of working, but a way of being and standing before the Universe.
Others, unfortunately, have come to believe the story that they are not creative.