KURI: Intent–Action Bridge

Your World is inside YOU

It is my conviction that:   “What you do” is a function of “how you see”

It is not “ What is “ , but what sense any of that is happening to you makes , that will decide what you do next

Therefore, life is about ‘sense making’. You need to constantly try and derive meaning from what is happening around you. You need to think and reflect on what is and will be happening, what it means to you, whether it’s good/bad etc., thus helping you decide what you need to do. The sense that you make of what you see, is what is ‘real’ for you. In a way, your world is inside you.

Perspective Deficit – the Decider  

I have realised that in the ultimate leadership quest, more than a talent deficit, it is a perspective deficit, which will make a decisive difference between the ordinary, and the outstanding. The biggest constraint to human achievement, especially at senior levels , is not education, knowledge, experience, skills or even talent; but one’s own thinking. One’s approach to life is guided by how one sees things; a perception one holds of it.

What is ‘KURI’

In this context, I want to share with you an enlightening concept – KURI, which will help us see the construct behind perspective building and eventually lead to result oriented action.

KURI stands for Knowledgeà Understanding à Realisation à Implementation, in sequentially progressive stages, which connects knowledge and intent, to action.

· Knowledge – What is happening around me?

· Understanding – What does it mean to me or my circumstances? I.e. my interpretation

· Realisation – Given my understanding, what do I need to do?

· Implementation – Action on the realisation, as decided above 

Knowledge and Implementation are outside of you and your system, whereas Understanding and Realisation happens inside you. I call it your inside processor which helps you to analyse and make sense of what you see happening around. This inner processing differs from person to person, which is why different people react to the same situation differently. Thus, this processor is your Unique Differentiator!

The Digestion process

This inner processing is ‘internalisation’ which is very critical to one’s effectiveness. It is your sense making, which actually empowers you to effective action, and not mere knowledge, which is just an unprocessed or raw ingredient.

Our digestion process provides a good parallel to understanding KURI:

· The food we take in is equivalent to Knowledge - unprocessed ingredients

· Digestion inside our stomach is equivalent to our body Understanding

· Assimilation of the food post digestion into our bloodstream is equivalent to Realisation of essence of the understanding 

· Which in turn gives us nourishment, energy, and which is exhibited as action – Implementation

Unfortunately, we haven’t yet realised that our bodies have silently been practicing this process of KURI over the years. For most people in India, this inner processing is missing, where the inbuilt processor is either not activated or is rusted. That is why we notice that while India is high on knowledge, it is weak on action. Since the bridge to logically walk across from knowledge to action is found to be broken, in India we jump straight from knowledge to action, taking the aerial route. This is the reason why most Indians are full of empty talk – pure gas without substance. That is also why Indians make good advisors, academicians and consultants, but are poor implementors.

The bigger problem is that most individuals are not even aware of it. Only when we realise this gap can we think of reviving the processor – which is when most of us will start making sense and become more effective.

In India, we mistake knowledge for action or wisdom. I use this KURI bridge with my colleagues and clients, to bring awareness, and prompt them to move from the knowledge stage to the realisation stage, because unless the realisation hits you, action does not start.

Activate your Processor

Hence while the dark cloud is that most are mere carriers of information or knowledge and not processers of learning, the silver lining is that the processor exists in each person, though unused since no one in our parental or academic upbringing prompts us to discover it. All we need to do is to activate our inner processor to become more effective.

?Credit Line: KURI as a model is created by one of my entrepreneur colleague & friend, though elaboration below is my own ‘Sense making‘