I think you get "creative" when you discover or create a game with new rules, and then explore this landscape in an exhaustive fashion.

For example: Like Miles Davis playing both cool jazz and jazz fusion. Cubism, paint on a flat surface all sides of a 3D object.

Most people either do one or the other, thinking that just doing new things is enough to create something new but lacking the stamina to stick to it, or blindly follow the rules of an old tradition that has lost its relevance.

A good artist actually know this theory and will seek to apply it. But I think its also where modern jazz and art lost its way, just as the corporates, is that they are to buzzy being creative todo the actual work of creating.