Ignoring North Star:

When I ignore my North Star, larger purpose and higher aspiration lose their meaning to me. I focus just on immediate goals and short-term objectives and operate in the "myopia" zone. Even though I have clarity about my energy drains, energy triggers and core incompetence, in this scenario, without a clear North Star, my journey into the future depends on accidents and luck.

When I do focus on my North Star, my purpose becomes clearer and I gain meaning, directionality and motivation.

Ignoring Core Incompetence:

If I ignore my core incompetence, I start living in the land of "Utopia". Everybody, I would venture to say, likes to live in Utopia one time or another, but Utopia exists only in fantasy. Without awareness of my CI, I lose my ability to be authentic, aware and conscious of my leadership gifts.

Unleashing authentic leadership is closely linked to knowing my core incompetence or my "winning formula".

Ignoring Energy Trigger:

Ignoring my energy trigger leaves me in the zone I call "Stressopia". I love to facilitate board meetings, off sites and workshops and after they finish, I am really drained of energy. If I don't take care of myself by engaging in activities that replenish my lost energy, I fall sick or my productivity and creativity drop to low levels. By spending time by myself, meditating, taking long walks and playing tennis I rejuvenate myself. Deep reflection is my triggering mechanism that breaks me out of my stress and reconnects me to my passion and charges my batteries.

 

Ignoring Alarm System:

There were times when I felt great for no reason and at other times, I felt depressed and anxious. It was as if I had no control of my emotions and I could be feeling excited one moment and upset and angry the next. It took time for me to understand that when I don't pay attention to my body signals and other alarms that go off in my mind, I enter this zone of emotional roller coaster. I call this zone "Oscillopia" and we reach this zone when we don't pay attention to our energy drains. When my energy drains rapidly, my creativity goes down and I feel like I am sailing on a ship without a navigational system. When I recognize that my energy is draining at a faster rate and identify alarm system to warn me, I begin to gain control over myself and learn to harvest my creativity.

The four triangles shown above represent four potential scenarios in our lives. We could operate in life in an unconscious way and hit upon Myopia, Utopia, Stressopia or Oscillopia and not know what to do about them and how to break out of that scenario. These four scenarios represent lack of awareness of the missing cornerstone in each scenario namely North Star, Core Incompetence, Energy Trigger and Alarm System respectively. When we begin to pay attention to the missing cornerstone, we could convert the same four scenarios to help us clarify our purpose, unleash our leadership, ignite our energy and passion; and harvest our creativity.

The four triangles representing four scenarios are related to our personal DNA. If we organize all the four cornerstones of our DNA to be equidistant from each other in a three dimensional space, they form a tetrahedron (one form of pyramid). We can visualize one scenario on each face and we end up with a 3-D metaphor of our personal DNA.

What happens if we ignore two cornerstones and focus on only two cornerstones at a time?

When we focus on only two cornerstones, we understand the reflexive relationship between them. In real life, every idea has a hidden side or tacit dimension to it. In other words, Good has reflexive or polar relationship with Bad and has reflexive relationship with low. When we choose to pay total attention to good, we tend to ignore the other pole. For example, when we pay total attention to North Star and ignore our CI, we end up being too visionary and not appreciate realism or pragmatism. In other words, we lose our perspective. When we learn to ‘include and transcend’ the polarity between North Star and CI and recognize that they are two ends of the same continuum, we gain new competence. In this specific case of reflexive relationship -- it is ‘perspective’ that is gained.

Similarly, the other five reflexive relationships (four cornerstones have six unique relationships when taken two at a time) are: appropriate action, discernment, execution style (that evokes leadership in others), will/fortitude and motivation. When we pay attention to these relationships, we gain competency in each of these areas. These six competencies are discussion in the article, Six principles for 21st century leaders.
The article is available for download at: http://www.kaipagroup.com/pdf/six_principles.pdf.
Of course if we only focus on one cornerstone while ignoring the other three, we risk not make much progress in either our work or our life.

Summary

Every one of us has a unique DNA and most of us are not aware of our DNA. Clarifying our purpose, becoming clear about our core incompetence, learning to manage our energy, and creating an alarm system are the four cornerstones of our DNA. It represents of our unique and natural genius and by igniting it, we can find ways to distinguish ourselves, unleash our authentic leadership, evoke passion, harvest our creativity (potentially resulting in new intellectual property, innovative products and services) and build a brand. The key to ignite our natural genius is inquiry. Awareness, attention, action and reflection are processes that support the ignition process. This approach is basis for much of my coaching work.

About the Author

Prasad Kaipa, Ph. D., CEO of Kaipa Group, has advised senior executives from Adobe, Ford, Boeing, Cisco, Disney, HP, BAE Systems, Polaris and Mastek in the areas of strategic thinking and direction, decision making, business transformation and innovation. He coaches CEOs and entrepreneurs in the areas of personal mastery and soft skills, and maps DNA of organizations. He sits on the board of six companies and organizations in the USA and India.

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