Creative behavior does not always produce an innovative outcome. An employee might generate a creative idea and never share it. Management might reject a creative solution. One study showed that most people have a bias against accepting creative ideas because ideas create uncertainty. We can define creative outcomes as ideas or solutions judged to be novel and useful by relevant stakeholders. Novelty itself does not generate a creative outcome if it isn’t useful.

Solutions are creative only if they help solve the problem. The usefulness of the solution might be self-evident or it might be considered successful only by the stakeholders. An organization may harvest many creative ideas from its employees and call itself innovative. However, as one expert stated, “Ideas are useless unless used.” Soft skills help translate ideas into results.