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March 22, 2005
What is your Core Incompetence?
This article was published in the November 2004 issue of Managementnext. You can see the table of contents of the current issue by going to http://managementnext.com/
Editor: Benedict Paramanand <benedict@managementnext.com>
Past successes are holding many companies and managers back from moving forward. Is there a way out?
Theoretically, our core strengths alone are sufficient to move us forward with velocity towards living our larger purpose. But there are times when we have the nagging feeling that despite having identified a motivating purpose, we are not making fast enough progress. To resolve this dilemma, we must understand that each of us has ingrained behaviors that hold us back.
CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the notion of the �core competence� of an organization in a Harvard Business Review article and expanded it in their book Competing for the Future. They also coined the concept of strategic intent in the context of organizations. As I reflected on it over time, I found that it is important to pay attention to the concept of core incompetence as well to understand why a person or an organization often get stuck.
Core incompetence (CI) is unique to each of us and it prevents us from moving towards our purpose. It seems to have its roots in our past successes and behaviors that lead to automated patterns because we get comfortable with certain well-tested and successful formulae. When CI takes over, our capacity to think and act rationally is seriously impaired and we act on an autopilot.
Instead of being aware of the current context and engaging in fresh thinking, we react from past memories and dysfunctional patterns and hope for success because we developed that pattern based on past successes. In other words, our debilitating weaknesses come from unconscious application of our strengths inappropriately and out of context.
I have come across many executives in my practice who are very passionate and don�t know when to tone down their intensity and passion and scare others in the company. So they rarely receive appropriate information or bad news in time to make right decisions. Volatile tempers, excessive distractibility, and chronic tardiness � all have roots in core incompetence.
How do you discover your core incompetence?
Look at areas where you get repeatedly stuck and where you think you already know the answer and you are sure that you are right. Pay attention to behaviors and attitudes other people complain to you about? What is the one thing that you want to justify at all costs or hide from others?
Core incompetence arises out of lack of contextual and self-awareness. When you don�t pay attention to it, slowly but steadily it sabotages you. Once you identify your CI, I recommend you find a coach you are comfortable with to help you gain deeper awareness.
Then find your highest aspiration that inspires, gives direction and challenges you. Faced with such a challenge to reach your higher purpose, you may find it easy to work with your core incompetence. When I work with executives during personal coaching sessions I pay special attention to CI because it is a serious growth-limiting factor. Once you are aware of your CI, you can partner with peers who have more awareness in the area of your incompetence and let them point it to you till you become very aware of it.
CI is like a hook: it�s an unconscious, addictive pattern. Once you become conscious of it and also find an opportunity that truly inspires you and challenges you, your CI begins to lose its grip on you.
India�s core incompetence.
CI is very relevant to India. In India, we have a rich tradition. Along with rich tradition comes rich set of memories of the past. Those memories are supposed to provoke us and not stop where we normally do but to keep pushing on and create, invent and go beyond. Unfortunately, we use our heritage and tradition to be proud of our past successes but rarely do we examine the context and appropriateness of applying the past rich processes and concepts in the current context. So we create major problems in the society in terms of caste differences, religious disturbances and other such issues. So the rich heritage of Bhagavadgita, religious tolerance and diversity is not used to grow beyond but used as crutches to support our own view point. Our core incompetence is our inability to reinterpret the rich tradition in the 21st Century context.
Similarly, our intellect and our educational systems are gifts that we are able to take advantage of in this BPO climate. Thanks to these gifts, we are making a mark in the world IT industry. Still our core incompetence is not to go up the value chain and learn to create � we just support and do backend work. We are making progress but it is happening at the individual level instead of collective - organizational or societal levels.
If we can find a way to dig into our own failures and embrace them and reflect on them, the grip of CI will be much less on it and our inventiveness and creativity will be greatly enhanced because our intellect will work from inside out.
The author is a CEO advisor and coach based in California. www.prasadkaipa.com.
Email: pkaipa at selfcorp dot com
Source: Managementnext (November 2004 Issue)
Posted by pkaipa at March 22, 2005 10:49 AM
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