Corporate Development and Growth

Hi there! My name is Oluwafemi 'Luyi, the Senior Partner of Nigeria's first corporate heritage company. In the next months the Nigerian business world would have its landscape redefined of its leadership and management thus by the next 5 years we will have us on the radar  of the  global community .

This is a thought that has grown out of the pain of experience, statistics and quest to be the solution to the developmental and strategic evolution of business and its management. With the laws of business turned into practical principles that would and does work in any part of the world, we have no doubt in our minds that this managerial evolution that will take place within the next decade will usher the global community to the thin line of business spirituality.

The business community has neglected or put to shallow use of the word  spirituality in its context of business. They have used it to mean RELIGION; but that is far from being the complete truth. The spiritual context of business is so relevant to its economical and management existence and development.

As a student of business and its many different angles that have kept the thought process of gurus thinking over the last century and decade, I was amazed to find little being talked about the spirituality of business. It is so much of great importance that we take to notice that business is the idea or thought of an individual well thought through and given the life line of opportunity to find a market, niche, need, community of person, network and season in meeting a demand. 

It is an accepted fact that man has a sub-conscious, conscious mind and has with him a Divine intelligence that functions the world in a perfect synchronization that man cannot fathom. How did Bill Gates and Paul Allen know about the era of the computer age? How did Thomas Alva Edison come to moments of great inventions? How and where did Richard Branson find the spiritual capital for Virgin Atlantic? How did Aliko Dangote find the structure for Dangote group of Companies in a country that crushes many other businesses? These guys did not just think it through alone. 

 They contacted a depth that is not explained in any text book in the world. It is only hidden in the quiet of their beings. What they did can be studied and taught but there are depths that cannot be explained to any man. They seem to know it but cannot articulate it. These are business decisions that have come out of the depths of “aha”. Many great change makers have this experience and seem to have this spark for their moments.

These experiences form the developmental stages of both individual and corporate development. In overcoming challenges corporations have leadership and managerial strategy in place to help its corporate decisions. These decisions are made to sharpen its competitive edge - an edge that is economical and resourceful to its existence.

In understanding its competitiveness in the market place, it is believed that it has to have more than a strategy but an understanding of its developmental stage as it relates to its corporate soul and intelligence. The gains of this knowledge not only give any corporation its heritage but its guarantee of productive cycle and longevity.

Every corporation with heritage went through 7 developmental stages of challenges during the growth of its corporate entity. These 7 challenges are each characterized by different elements we will call a 'sense'. These senses form the content of each challenge. Mastering each sense is mastering the skill-set and mind-set for overcoming each developmental challenge. This is a fact as various case studies of corporation around the world have been known to have come through all these stages and today have a pedigree that outleaves the founder or visionary. Each developmental stage defines and challenges the core of leadership and management as they do require a progressive skill-set and mind-set. These developmental  mind-sets are effective in visionary decision making and leadership intelligence. Business spirituality and Leadership intelligence in the 21st century is the revolution in the soul of any corporation willing and bold in the face of these challenges to set it aglow. 

Upon this premise  and with its well articulated study of these 7 developmental stages of challenge into a training curriculum, we at 7th Stage Inc extend to you the moments of truth that every business that has its spiritual capital as its source would not only grow but develop into mega or successful corporation depending on the vision of its Leadership and not its management. 

The leadership management would determine the succession process of the corporation and the terms of its success. It would not be on anything on the outside but success would be an internal factor in the soul of the corporation. The soul of any corporation would be the sacred altar of all leadership elements upon which decisions are made based on its context and content. This is a leadership litmus test. It is not the skill test of management but that of leadership. 

Every corporation that will make a trend statement in this century would be unleashing the venom of its soul. This is not a sequence of right or wrong but false and true. It is the strength of the soul of any corporation taking its business to its greatest heights. The top is for the one corporation that is true to its corporate soul. The top in this business world is created not fought for or attained. Every leadership will create what it sees within its corporate soul. The corporate soul holds the compass for its leadership.

Corporate heritage is the equilibrium balance of development and growth, thus the balance between Leadership and Management. It is the dynamics of leadership in rhythm with the complexities of management. The quality of leadership is not only progressive but is the mastermind behind overcoming its corporate challenges of development. The relationship between the challenge of development, the quality of leadership and the strategic skill/mind set are the mainframe of our corporate training.

The industry we become relevant will be our channel of creative experience. The industry will present a clean canvass to every visionary leadership. Leadership is not about the norms any more, it is creating the imaginative from the unimaginative, it is about creating out of creation, and it is about writing new principles of governing leadership.

As an advice, do not discard your everyday business experience because in it is the fine tunes of all leadership quest and successions.

I welcome you all to this time of great entrepreneurship.

Thank you and meet you where you belong - The Top!

Oluwafemi 'Luyi

Partner