This article was written as the closer for 2010 even though we didn’t go to press last week.  It will also serve as the opener for 2011. This is an opportunity to wish all my readers a New Year that brings better things than 2010. I truly appreciate your reading. Writing in itself has no value if there’s nobody reading. Otherwise, it becomes like a beautiful painting which nobody sees.

Creativity is always expressed through people. Peter Senge says: “Organisations learn only through people that learn.” My variant of this statement for this purpose of this article is “Organisations are only creative through their creative people.”
Corporate creativity is dependent on the type of employees hired. The nature of a company’s business should determine the type of employees it hires. An entertainment or media company will tend to recruit the maverick, out-of-box types. A professional services firm will be seeking the smart but regular species.
Corporate creativity is also a function of the scope employees are given to express their individual abilities. Let’s get a sense of how employee type and scope influence corporate creativity.

Research is linked to innovation and the willingness to take risks. Innovation is an expression of corporate creativity but it is aided by research. Companies that sustain market share regularly invest in research which hardly ever yields short-term results. This implies that research investment may and indeed sometimes lead to dead ends. Yet, in many industries such as cosmetics, household products, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology the long-term survival of companies is directly related to research spend and not just sales.

I continue the exploration of the relationship between the Creation Story and business strategy. I concluded last week’s article with the assertion that differentiation requires creativity. There are a few more aspects of this assertion which I want to highlight.

Business could begin with doubts in the mind of the promoter about its success.
It is good to start business with confidence about success but that confidence is sometimes in short supply. The chaos of starting an enterprise indicates that doubts are entertained by the initiator. Yet, in the midst of reservations, ideas are fuelled and individuals proceed against the wave of doubts. The internal dissenting voice can hardly be avoided as the “what ifs” from which ideas emerge change to “what ifs” about failure. In the real world, when a company or an enterprise takes its first steps of stumbling, shivering or sweating, then doubting usually joins the party. Of course, the stumbling may even lead to falling which in itself isn’t always a bad thing.

I have found the Nine Strategic Questions useful in thinking about corporate strategy. These questions enable organizations paint a strategy picture from start to finish. The first question addresses the simple but significant issue of the strategic time horizon.

In order to understand the Genesis Strategy Process, it is useful to firstly examine expert models, ideas or frameworks of strategy.

THE Creation is defined in the Illustrated Oxford Dictionary as "the creating of the universe regarded as an act of God." The story of Creation is generally well known by children and adults all over the world regardless of backgrounds or beliefs. This is more so because of the never-ending debate of creation versus evolution as origins of life. Many of us, particularly of Judeo-Christian persuasion have either heard or read those words "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth".