Creativity is not innovation

At first it seems confusing to say that creativity does not automatically lead to innovation. After all, we encourage more creativity in the workplace with the hope for more innovation. However, when one looks at a definition of creativity, like the one by Teresa Amabile (1997, 40), which is widely used in organisational research:

At its heart, creativity is simply the production of novel, appropriate ideas in any realm of human activity, from science, to the arts, to education, to business, to everyday life. The ideas must be novel–different from what’s been done before-but they can’t be simply bizarre; they must be appropriate to the problem or opportunity presented. Creativity is the first step in innovation, which is the successful implementation of those novel, appropriate ideas.

In this paradigm that means, that one can be creative and leave it at that- creativity is only the beginning of what is maybe an implementation of a new idea.  Therefore the often unspoken expectation in organisations to introduce more ‘freedom and courses to express creativity’ may lead to disenchantment down the track when the playful creativity has not lead automatically to ground breaking new processes and practices. Perhaps we have to acknowledge that innovation needs creativity, but that in return creativity does not need innovation.