“In 1980 virtually the entire market capitalization of the S&P 500 companies consisted of tangible assets (cash, offices, plants, equipment, inventories,etc.). In 2010 tangible assets accounted for only 40 to 45 % of the S&P 500 companies’ market capitalization. The rest of their capitalization consisted of intangible asset, and about half of that- more than 30 percent of total market capitalization- came from brand.  The growth in the importance of brand value over the last thirty years is unmistakable. Brand value is now most companies’ single biggest asset, and the consequence is that business leadership and brand leadership are converging in every industry and every sector of the economy. The world’s best companies have responded to this by ensuring that they bring together business leadership and brand leadership in the C-suite throughout their organizations.

In short, businesses are now only as strong as their brands, and nothing else offers business leaders so much potential leverage. That is why I believe every business leader – whether you are selling cars, chemicals, or cosmetics- needs to think and act like a brand leader.” Quote from Jim Stengel from his latest book Grow.

About two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending a book-signing event by Mr. Stengel. As a businessman and a coach, I believe that the point that he is making about importance of brand is essential and crucial for all business leaders to be aware of and to pay special attention. In the digital age, your number one concern should be your reputation and brand. Business leaders must start to attend necessary resources such as learning, accountability, and money to their brand building process.

In his quote, Stengel put an emphasis on business leadership and brand leadership. The single most important factor for all leaders is learning and accumulating leadership skills. This is what coaching and coaches are all about. Growth in businesses for the foreseeable future will be in the service provider sector. Service providers have begun to change the business landscape, and I have no doubt that they will continue to play a bigger role. For this sector, I would change what Stengel said about the Brand value being most companies’ single biggest asset to the following:  ”For business leaders in the service sector, after their people and their team the only other real asset is their Brand.”

The future of business will depend upon creativity.

The time that took us to go from being hunters and gathers to the industrialization was over five thousand years; however, the scientific revolution to information age took only 30 years to happen, and we went from the information age to digital age overnight.

The digital age is deeply organic and not linear. Just because industrialization forced us to organize and create an educational industry to secure a future that can be certain does not mean that this way of being will serve us now. In fact if the success story of a few young innovators such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg is any indication, the future of humans and business will depend upon creative individuals who clearly do not need multiple Ph. D.’s to have an impact or revolutionize our lives. Yet most schools and businesses still take a very industrial approach to their operations.

The human community has always been dependent upon creative individuals and diversity of talent.  Due to industrialization for the past hundred years or so our school systems, business, and other organizations have been too focused upon the intellectual mind. They basically have over mined the intellectual mind. There is too much attention on information transfer and not enough in cultivating creativity in these organizations. This is especially true in the business world. Although, in our recent history, we have had to depend upon gaining knowledge and words from now on this domain will be less and less relevant. The real challenge now is about cultivating and harvesting creativity in our emotional mind and body.

Unfortunately teaching these territories of learning is more an art than science. “They are more organic and less systematic. ” (Quote by Sir Ken Robinson)

The field of Organizational and Leadership coaching is where the promise of the future that can face these challenges lies. Yet leaders in government, universities, or business have a deeply dogmatic and irrelevant approach to coaching. Of course people in the business of coaching are largely to blame for this outlook. Their claim of certain expertise that is not founded on a sound practice is extremely intoxicating. The field is also affected deeply by experts who are trained professionals from other fields such as psychology.

Because of this fact, most people in corporate hire coaches mostly through their HR departments. And when they hire staff as coaches they are often given traditional HR tasks. This act lessens the value and impact that a coach can have on the leader and the team.

All teams throughout an organization need coaches to oversee their play; this is a reality that people in business must face. Coaches are not therapists, gurus or consultants. Although consultants and others from different fields address the concerns that are similar to coaching but coaching is a much bigger promise that can deliver far greater outcomes. Coaching is not here to replace rather it is a new category that must be added for the sake of addressing the new challenges that are present.

What most executives are blind to is that consultants or people is HR  are hired to provide answers to certain problem that are specific to their field, and history shows that are necessary concerns for the organization, but coaches are here to help the leader or the team to address different concerns and realize different outcomes. They are specifically here to support the team come up with their own answers. Who can tell the new Steve Jobses of the world what to do? Especially when they do not even know what people like Steve Jobs are up to.

Leaders have to take a different approach to leadership: they have to change their industrial approach to management and teams and take a more organic approach. This is more like an art form than a lenear approach. This approach is organic, relationship based, and not solution based. It leaves the problem solving to the expert and competent people and teams on the job, yet creates proper outside support from a coach or team of coaches to make sure that success metrics are met.

Coaching and coaches are here to address this critical concern. They are and will be instrumental players of creating environment that will help grow productive organizations and people. In the new age you cannot predict the outcome of a project or a venture, like making sure that you put in systems that ensures your Big Mac is delivered to your customers the same everywhere.

Since more and more businesses will be service providers in the future and are more complex, executives can only provide conditions that could provide their desired outcomes more possible.They must take a farming approach to management. It is not about cloning or copying systems; rather about customizing what works or does not work for your team or organization.

The new learning organizations of digital age are not scalable to one size fit all model. Leadership and leaders in today’s organizations must open up their minds to this new ontology. What they must realize and accept is that at the center of this new way of being are coaches and coaching. It is coaches who have the necessary expertise to address creativity, personal, and organizational development that will ensure success.