The first phase of reasoning is exploring images. This means exploring or expanding alternative views of our images. For example, when we explore our image of The American Enterprise System, we discover that American corporations have settled into Innovator–Commercializer positioning (see Figure 9). This is often referred to as “The Japanese Model:” slightly innovative commercialization. It has been adopted by many American corporations such as “Microsoft.”

Figure 9. Innovative–Commercializer Positioning

The advantage of this position is that it usually settles in running in the “draft” of the market leaders and, thus, minimizes the expenditures of leadership. Unfortunately, since America dropped out of Research and Development leadership, there is no nation for America to follow.

Nevertheless, American companies must once again consider its historical 20th century positioning of Generative – Innovative leadership (see Figure 10). Of course, this requires an upgrading of E & T as well as R & D: Education and Training as well as Research and Development.

Figure 10. Generative–Innovative Positioning