Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of Pepsico International, was once asked in an interview about lessons that she had learnt on leadership in the years that she had been at the helm of Pepsi. She responded by saying, and this is now common knowledge across the world, that she has 5 C's that have been the guiding force for her in growing as a leader. She went on to elaborate by saying: "Those 5 C's are –
· Competency – everybody has got to have a core competency. You need to be the go-to person for a particular thing that the company needs.
· Courage & Confidence
· Communication skills
· Consistency
· Compass—make sure that it always points north. Need to have complete integrity.
But what made me think about her today was this whole idea of core competency. We've got to have something that makes us stand above the crowd. Today, it seems like everybody has got all the desired pre-requisites for a particular job. It's going to be very difficult to be first among equals. It's only the core competencies that we have, that we excel at, that sets us apart, that will help us to grow in the areas that we want to grow in, or excel at in terms of leadership. When we look at ourselves sometimes, we find that we've got into a company, we came in excited, we saw the things that we could contribute and do. Then, over the years, we've ended up doing what our firm or the company expected us to do (which is right) but found that we've settled into a role that is just going on and on. It's almost like the mundane has taken over and we are in a default mode. It's also sucked out some of the excitement from our lives. Every day we show up, we do what's needed and it's just an unimaginative meandering along the path of life.
I don't know whether I'm over-generalizing here, but maybe it's touching a chord with some of you, and you're thinking – that could be where I am or it seems like that's where I'm headed. I read a book many years ago by Bruce Wilkinson called 'The Dream Giver'. In it, he has a wonderful way of moving us along life's path. In the first chapter, he writes, "Not long ago and not far way, a nobody named Ordinary lived in the land of Familiar. Everyday was pretty much the same for Ordinary. In the mornings, he got up and went to his usual job. After work, he ate almost the same dinner he'd eaten the evening before. Then he sat in his recliner and watched the box that mesmerized most nobodies on most nights. Sometimes, Best Friend came over to join Ordinary in front of the box. Sometimes, Ordinary went to his parents and they watched together. For the most part, not much happened in Familiar that hadn't happened before. Ordinary thought he was content. He found the routines were reliable; he blended in with the crowd and mostly, he wanted only what he had. Until the day Ordinary noticed a small nagging feeling that something big was missing from his life. Or maybe, the feeling was that he was missing from something big. He wasn't sure. The little feeling grew, and even though nobodies in Familiar didn't really expect the unexpected, Ordinary began to wish for it."
Well put, isn't it? Sometimes we can get into a rut and say, "This is just who I am. I'm just a nobody in the land of Familiar doing what everybody does." And yet, it could be that we need to just move ahead a little bit; to stick our head above the rest of the crowd and maybe say, "Here's my core competency that's going to set me apart."
I wonder whether today is that time, whether today is the day to say, "I'm not average, I'm not mediocre. I'm not going to be just satisfied with safety in numbers. I'm not going to be a person who doesn't take risks and just stays in my comfort zone. I'm not going to kill any desire that I have to be innovative and imaginative." I wonder whether it's time for you to take that core competency that you know you always had, and hone and sharpen it. Let it stand out from the rest of the crowd.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote this beautiful poem – 'Where The Mind Is Without Fear'.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Beautiful words! But what caught my attention was this: "Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit." Have we got caught in that quagmire, into the dreary desert sand of just doing things over and over and over again? I wonder whether it's time to just think differently, to look beyond the resources that we have or may not have and begin to use our imagination. Begin to think big, begin to dream big. Begin to look at our core competencies and say, "This is what needs to shine forth for me; this is who I am."
The late Dr. C.K. Prahalad, in an article said this, "Executives are constrained not by resources but by their imagination." Let's not curtail imagination. Let's not put under the carpet or suppress that inner excitement about a core competency or a dream that must see the light of day. I pray that today would be a day where you say, "I'm not going to stay in the land of Familiar and be a nobody. I'm going to be a somebody and step out of this mundane existence," if that's where you are.
Our Scriptures say this beautifully:
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
You formed me in my mother's womb.
I think you, High God – you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration – what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
You know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
How I was sculpted from nothing into something.
We are somebodies; we are not meant to be nobodies. I wonder whether today would be the day to take that stride of moving into being a somebody and honing that core competency. My prayer is that it will be.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, let the blessing of the Almighty come upon each person. May they understand that they were not meant to be nobodies but somebodies because we are uniquely made. Sculpted from nothing into something! I pray that today that first step will be taken. Empower it, I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
• Indra Nooyi, "The 5 C's of Leadership," http://ed.ted.com/on/NtcrU3gB
• Bruce Wilkinson, "The dream Giver," Multnomah Publishers Inc, Oregon, 2003. Pages 13-14
• Rabindranath Tagore, "Where The Mind Is Without Fear," http://allpoetry.com/Where-The-Mind-Is-Without-Fear
• Dr. C.K. Prahlad quote: http://icreporting.blogspot.in/2010/04/have-we-realized-importance-of-core.html
• Bible reference: Psalm 139:13-16 MSG, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+139&version=MSG
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