How can one best prepare for the future? There’s no way to prepare for the future other than being part of the team that’s creating the future. In Uganda, we often play catchup. But that formula is long gone and dusted. Why? Because the world is moving so fast, you just can’t play catchup. You must be part of the people creating the future. You must have an element where you’re pushing the frontlines, you are defining, shaping, forming that future.
And there’s only one skill for that. It’s creativity. What do the next CEOs, COOs, Top Managers all need? It’s creativity. The next competitive advantage is the creativity capital. Organizations must find ways of measuring this creativity capital, of accumulating it, growing it, developing it and preserving it. Why? Because creativity scales in multiplier effects. One creative employee is going to produce 5X, 10X, 30X. There’s no end to the possibilities.
You can think creativity in everything that’s happening. Think what creativity means for sustainability. What happens when one applies creativity to sustainability? What about creativity to the production process? We can’t define the future while looking back at the past. We can only define the future with a bold dose of creativity. Creativity-infused organizations are the new big players. Those without creativity will be pushed out of markets. Build creative capital or get wiped out.
Thus, the number one mistake all organizations should avoid is ‘killing creativity.’ Forget how things worked in the past. Forget how the theories say things should work, give creativity a room to thrive. That’s why NVIDIA is NVIDIA. Because creativity combined with an intense work ethic, that’s milk for market giants.