We live in a business world accelerating at a dizzying speed and teeming with ruthless competition.

As most of the tangible advantages of the past have become commodities, creativity has become the currency of success.

A 2010 study of 1,500 CEOs indicated that leaders rank creativity as number one leadership attribute needed for prosperity:

Creativity is the most important leadership quality, according to CEOs. Standouts practice and encourage experimentation and innovation throughout their organisations.

Facing a world becoming dramatically more complex, it is interesting that CEOs selected creativity as the most important leadership attribute. Creative leaders invite disruptive innovation, encourage others to drop outdated approaches and take balanced risks. They are open-minded and inventive in expanding their management and communication styles, particularly to engage with a new generation of employees, partners and customers.

Unfortunately, many companies fail to unleash their most valuable resources: human creativity, imagination, and original thinking. They lack a systematic approach to building a culture of innovation, and then wonder why they keep getting beaten to the punch.

Obstacles that will need to be addressed if you expect to establish a sustainable culture of innovation:

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We are living in interesting times indeed. Geo-political revolutions throughout the Arab world, social justice protests in Israel, the tsunami in Japan that disrupted many global supply chains, financial crises and economic uncertainty,

And we live in a business world accelerating at a dizzying speed and teeming with ruthless competition.

But that is not the only challenge the business world is facing. Customers are voicing their opinions about companies they do business with, as constituents voice their displeasure about the poor job their leaders are doing on their behalf.

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Some say the traditional organizational hierarchy is soon history and we end up facing  with something completely new, a new way of how businesses communicate and create value.

In a Wall Street Journal article, “The End of Management,” Alan Murray makes a compelling argument that “modern management is nearing its existential moment.”  He focuses on the last 100 years or so when large organizations developed to organize people and allocate resources for tasks that seemingly could be done much more effectively than individuals contracting with each other.

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For many businesses, corporate value statements are little more than vague motherhood statements that sound nice but bear little relation to way business is done.

Recent high-profile scandals and crises have made it clear that many businesses do not properly or openly communicate their values.

Just look at how The News of the World phone-hacking scandal has exposed News Corp. to accusations over the company’s values and the efficacy of its leadership. Had the company more openly communicated what it stands for and the moral compass its employees follow, it likely would not have been vilified so thoroughly in the press. Despite numerous protestations from Rupert Murdoch and his top lieutenants that the company’s values align perfectly with the public’s best interests, the damage has been done. The public is left questioning what, if anything, does this company stand for?

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