Principles that can help and guide even when one has lost hopes in life / job / career and one does not know how to go further. How to develop a beginner's mindset and switch to become an expert in any field. Integrating mind, body, heart and soul's efforts. Copyright of Dr. Prasad Kaipa Illustrations by Kiran

1. Dr. Prasad Kaipa's Discussion On
Vedanta & Guidance For Action
Oct 8th 2009
Cupertino CA
Contact Email : pkaipa@selfcorp.com

2. About Dr. Prasad Kaipa
Executive Director, Centre for Leadership, Innovation and Change (CLIC)
Indian School of Business (ISB)
Prasad splits his time between his role as the Executive Director of the Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change (CLIC) at Indian School of Business
(ISB) Hyderabad and Kaipa Group consulting practice. CLIC is an applied research center focussing on integral approach (marrying lessons from wisdom
traditions to traditional management approaches and scientific approaches) to develop global leaders. Prasad Kaipa has been an advisor and coach since
1990 for over 100 CEOs, executive team members and board members in Fortune 500 companies like Disney, Adobe, Sun, Boeing and also entrepreneurial/
International companies like Aztec, BAE Systems, Lunar Design, Mastek, Olixir, Scintera Networks, Aankhen, Polaris and VARStreet. Prasad co-founded
Entrepreneur Institute for the TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) in 2002 and over 13,000 entrepreneurs have gone through its programmes so far. He is a part-
time faculty in the areas of Organisational Systems, Creativity and Innovation; and Developmental and Cognitive Psychology at the Saybrook Graduate School
and a Visiting Professor in the areas of leadership, mindsets, and change management in the ISB. Prasad was/is on the board of directors/trustees for Society
for Organisational Learning (created around Peter Senge’s learning organisation concepts), i-Mantri, Aankhen, Hindu University of North America, Integral
Leadership Review, Intertec Communications and Catalyst.
The purpose of Prasad’s coaching is to ignite the genius within individuals, clarify and align individual aspirations with their corporate objectives. Prasad’s
unique competence is in helping his clients find their next significant step and take it. Prasad advises and coaches his clients to become clear about what they
aspire for and what their core incompetence is. He assists them in becoming effective in managing people and also managing oneself (personal mastery); get
reenergised and build new capacities; and explore more risk taking and make innovative and strategic decisions.
Prasad also worked with companies like Boeing, Disney, Mobil, Ford, Sun, Pepsi (Quaker Oats), Navteq, BAE Systems, Sasken, Syngenta, Mastek, Union
Bank, Canara Bank and AT&T (Pacific Bell) in the areas of change management, innovation and management team development. Executives from companies
like Cisco and HP have worked with Prasad in developing knowledge business models for creating a new business and in coming up with unique, “brandable”
product design that is consistent with their culture. Prasad has also developed approaches and tools that allow executives to “map the genetic code of
organisations” so that they can ‘re-wire’ their organisations for superior performance.
As a senior manager in Apple, Prasad was asked to create an educational menu for Apple technical staff using innovative learning approaches. Later, as a
research fellow in the Apple University, with a charter to help design ‘a learning processor that augments human intelligence,’ Prasad interviewed high
achievers and exceptional people researching how people learn and ‘unlearn.’
Prasad originally got his doctorate in Physics (optical information storage materials) and as a Professor in the University of Utah, helped build an international
research laboratory with Dr Ed Haskell (1981-87). Prasad also worked as an Educator (Saybrook Institute 1994-), as a Manager in international product
marketing (1987-88) and a technology advisor and research fellow (1988-90) (Apple) and received several awards for his contributions. Athena Interactive
released three award winning CD-ROMs for leaders based on his learning interface concepts and his pyramid building (thinking in three dimensions)
methodology.
Prasad has published an e-book ‘Discontinuous Learning: Igniting Genius Within by Aligning Self, Work, and Family’ (http://www.kaipagroup.com) and many of
his writings, blog, pyramids and tools are available on the same website.
Prasad is married to Dr Vinoda and is father of Pravin (22) and Vidya (18). He enjoys exploring and reinterpreting ancient wisdom (and its application in
developing highly effective and authentic leaders), photography (http://pkaipa.smugmug.com), listening to classical music and playing tennis.

3. Vedanta & Guidance For Action
• In today's session Prasad primarily talked about how Vedanta can help
and guide even when one has lost hopes, and one does not know how to
go further. He alluded real-life experiences and examples to illustrate
this point.
• He gave an example of how one day he found himself not in his best
form to play tennis, but still went ahead to play and was about to give
up due to his repeated mistakes and faults in playing. What prevented
him from giving up was the attitude that despite cumulative,repeated
failures one can still give one's best shot and the chances of success are
"that" close.
• In reality, each shot (event) is independent and perseverance is the key
to success.

4. Vedanta & Guidance For Action
• He formulated three (3) essential techniques to be fully engaged and
take action without getting stuck.
• Key # 1. Let go of the past failures and mistakes. They do not affect
your next shot unless you "catastrophise" to carry fwd. the past failures
into the future. If you are closed and easily give up then there is no
future. If you fear failure then that is the only reality you are left with.
• Key # 2. Develop a beginner's mindset to feel free to make mistakes,
explore it and enjoy it too! A beginner is open to learn and has many
choices where as an expert feels claustrophobic with less choices.
• Key # 3. Others (competitors, opponents etc.) do not care. They do not
have time for themselves!
• Prasad gave an example of how a robber on his death row (being caught
by King's men) uses his wit and seizes his last opportunity to survive
from capital punishment.
• On a side note Prasad explained how mind develops affinity / liking
when one spends a lot of time with anything (subject or object).

5. The “TACO” Quadrant
Skll Level
H (to sustain)
HANDYMAN / Mechanic EXPERT
(kinesthetic) Switch from
Switch from doubt/ confusion Resistance / Complacency
to TRUST to ACCEPTANCE
Knowledge
Body Heart (to create)
Low High
Spirit Mind
BEGINNER / Entreprenurial PEDANTIC / PUNDIT
(no skill, no experience) (proud / show off)
Switch from Fear /Closed to Switch from Anxiety to
OPEN / Risk Taking CONFIDENCE
L
Illustrations by Kiran_ks@hotmail.com

6. The Evolutionary Innovation Model
L4
Experimental
Innovation
el ty
Fu tivi
L3
ea
Cr
Breakthrough
Innovation
How To Innovate
Most people have creativity but
L2 don't have innovation
(they do not innovate)
Evolutionary
Next Steps
L1
Continuous
Improvement
Level 0
Best Practices
Illustrations by Kiran_ks@hotmail.com
Imitation/ Copyimg