Creativity Is Not a Personality Type
Your most “uncreative” team member might be your most untapped creative asset.
Let me guess. You already know who the creative people on your team are.
There’s the one who color-codes everything with a sense of genuine joy. The one who shows up to brainstorms with Post-it notes already filled in. The one who, when given an open-ended prompt, somehow turns it into a vision board.
And then there’s everyone else.
Here’s what I want you to sit with: that division is costing you. Not because your “creative people” aren’t talented. They are. But because you’ve quietly written off a significant portion of your organization’s creative potential, based on a myth.
The myth is this: that there are “creative types” and “non-creatives”. That creativity is a personality trait and it’s either something you’re born with or you’re not.
Creativity is not a personality trait.
Creativity Is a Competency. That Changes Everything.
I define creativity as the ability to toggle between wonder and rigor in order to solve problems and deliver novel value. Notice what’s missing from that definition: artistic talent…natural flair…an aesthetic sensibility… or a certain kind of brain.
Creativity, at its core, is the practice of asking better questions, building on ideas with agility, juxtaposing things or concepts that are seemingly in opposition, and trusting the internal wisdom that pattern recognition gives you over time. These are learnable skills.. And they are scalable, both for individuals and for organizations.
When I interviewed 56 people across wildly different fields for The Creativity Leap, I talked to farmers, lawyers, plumbers, perfumers, architects, and physicians. None of them described creativity as something that they simply had. They described it as something they did. A practice. A discipline. A choice they made, often under pressure, to keep asking, keep trying, and keep trusting their instincts and keep gathering data even when the path wasn’t clear.
The Three Practices That Build Creative Capacity
Your creativity quotient (CQ) is not fixed. It is dynamic. And it grows when you consistently practice three things:
Inquiry. The discipline of asking better questions. Not just any questions, but the kind that expose assumptions, invite reframing, and open up space for new thinking. Curiosity is not a mood. It’s a method.
Improvisation. The ability to build on what’s in front of you, adapt in real time, and embrace productive uncertainty. Great improvisers aren’t winging it, they are deeply observant, structurally flexible, and remarkably brave. Think and act like jazz musicians. Think about a surgeon navigating the unexpected once they’ve made the incision. Think about any leader who has ever had to pivot mid-strategy.
Intuition. The internal wisdom built from experience, observation, and pattern recognition. It is not a hunch. It is a well-developed signal. Harriet Tubman, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs: all of them described trusting an internal knowing that their rational minds couldn’t yet fully explain. That capacity can be strengthened, if you pay attention to it.
Together, these three practices are what I call the 3 I’s and they form the engine of your creativity quotient. Now here’s the part worth underlining: your CQ can increase. It just requires practice, not personality.
What This Means for Your Team
Look around your organization. The person who asks the uncomfortable question in the meeting? That’s inquiry. The colleague who figures out a workaround when the plan falls apart? That’s improvisation. The senior leader who made a call that defied the data but turned out to be exactly right? That’s intuition.
Creativity is already in your building. But most organizations haven’t created the conditions to name it, develop it, or deploy it with any consistency.
This matters urgently right now. As AI takes on more of the rote, the repetitive, and the routine, what remains distinctly human is exactly what creativity requires: the capacity to wonder, to question, to connect dots across unexpected domains, and to act with both courage and discernment.
The organizations that thrive in this environment will not be the ones that identified their creative people and let everyone else off the hook. They will be the ones that built a culture of creativity: one where inquiry is rewarded, improvisation is practiced, and intuition is treated as data.
One Place to Start
This week, try what I call a “quietstorm.” Set a timer for 90 seconds. Give yourself or your team a prompt, for example, In the next 90 seconds, generate at least 5 “What if…?” questions about [your current challenge]. Notice that you are not asking people to generate answers and solutions, but rather questions- and specifically “What if…?” questions. These questions will become fodder for your imagination. Don’t edit. Don’t filter. Let the stream go. Then look at which questions surfaced.
This exercise isn’t about coming up with the right answer. It’s about building the muscle for curiosity and reframing your perspective. It’s about practicing the wonder that makes rigor possible.
Creativity is not reserved for a certain type of person. It is available to every person willing to practice it.
The question is: who on your team have you quietly stopped expecting it from?
Second Edition coming June 30! ⬇
The Creativity Leap
Creativity fuels every breakthrough — but it doesn’t happen by accident. Natalie Nixon shows how creativity thrives when we learn to move between wonder and rigor to solve problems, spark innovation, and deliver novel value.
About Natalie
Dr. Natalie Nixon is the creativity whisperer to the C-suite, helping leaders make better business decisions through wonder and rigor. At Figure 8 Thinking, she’s a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker and author of the award winning The Creativity Leap and the upcoming book Move. Think. Rest.: Redefining Productivity & Our Relationship with Time.
Real Leaders named Natalie one of the Top 50 keynote speakers of 2022 and she’s been featured in Forbes and Fast Company. She received her BA from Vassar College, and her PhD from the University of Westminster. These days you can find her on the ballroom floor fine-tuning her cha-cha and foxtrot.
Follow Natalie on Instagram: @natwnixon.
