Working at the intersection of Business, Science, and Spirituality:
A conversation with Founding SoL Council member Prasad Kaipa

March 2005

Q. What are you working on right now?
A. I am working on three major projects this year :

1. CEO coaching in which I incorporate both business advice and executive coaching.
2. Teaching executive development courses on Transformational Leadership, Developing Reflective Mindset, and Igniting the Genius Within through the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India, and the Leader Academy in Belgium. My courses focus on application of transformational thinking and learning into their business transformation and personal transformation.
3. Creating a pilot project for a global version of the Entrepreneur Institute where I have been focusing on bringing both hard skills and soft skills for becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Q. What is the vision that is driving your work?
A. Everybody talks about the 21st century being the age of knowledge. It is about people and service. How people can tap into their genius within and how they align personal aspirations with their organizational goals are two questions that pay off handsomely for both individuals and organizations. I envision that at the intersection of business, science & technology, and spirituality (three polarities) there is unexplored wealth to be discovered. That is the area I have been digging into for the past 17 years and will stay with for the next 20!

Q. Who are you working with?
A. Currently I am working with a medium sized design company which is planning to grow by 500% in the next 3 to 5 years. In addition, I am working with a senior executive of a Fortune 100 entertainment company, and the CEO, a division president, and a board member of another software services company. In terms of research, I work with Saybrook Graduate School in San Francisco; and in my teaching practice, I work with the Indian School of Business and Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, India.

Q. What are the challenges you are facing?
A. The Intersection area between business, science & technology, and spirituality is a gold mine -- but a tricky area to work in. Many people already have their opinions and judgments about each of these three areas. Businesses don't want to discuss spirituality and feel that professors and scientists don't think about business in the right way. There has been a huge conflict between science and spirituality for quite some time; and scientists distrust the intentions of business people. Spirituality has its roots in religious traditions, but is a quite distinct and larger field than religion. It is only recently that spiritual leaders are having real dialogues with scientists and business leaders.

As a physicist by training who also has deep roots and scholarship in Indian Vedantic tradition, and who came into business through Apple 20 years ago, I still feel that I am not an expert in anything; I see myself as an observer and an experimenter. I don't have a language for describing what happens at the intersection of these three fields, but there is definitely magic that is coming through. My challenge is to find meaningful ways to express what happens at the intersection and make this field of multiple polarities grow over time.

Q. What tools and methodologies are you using?
A. I use business stories, scientific metaphors, movies, poetry, art, visualization, case studies, parables and meditation, in addition to conceptual models and frameworks in my work. Obviously systems thinking is at the root of my work and appreciative inquiry and dialogue are part of my tool kit.

Q. What do you feel is working? What’s not working?
A. There is definitely magic that is taking place with the people I am working with. It is happening because they are able to tap into their own genius and my role has been to provide a sacred mirror and be a sounding board if nothing else works. There is growing interest among very senior executives to explore their spirituality in the context of their work and life in a seamless way.
What is not working is generating more interest in further research into this intersection area -- getting more people to create tools and processes, and scale it up to make this wisdom-based approach available to the larger world. I don't even know how to communicate the richness and the complexity of some of the tools yet and that is my struggle. For example, I have developed a way to think three-dimensionally and even map it onto a three-dimensional tetrahedron. I have used those 3D maps in working with large Fortune 500 companies. Still when people ask me “what do these pyramids do?” I don't know how to answer succinctly. If I say, “it is not about doing, but it is about 'being' so that your actions will emerge out of that being context,” most people are lost! Are you still with me? (smile)<>/p

Q. Finally, how do you invite the community into your work?
A. I would be delighted to share what I know and what I have developed over past 15+ years. My writing is not very clear sometimes because I freely bring in science, spirituality, and business examples and the best way to work with me is through conversations and dialogues. There is a huge gold mine waiting to be discovered at the intersected area that I am working with and lots of research and tool development is possible. We need new ways to simplify and find meaning in our work and our lives, and to help us tap into our magic.

Organizational learning and individual learning are key to my work. The SoL community can definitely benefit and I will too if more people can understand and communicate the work that I am attempting to learn and think though. I will be happy to assist anybody who wants to take this on.

Prasad Kaipa lives in Campbell, California, and splits his working time between clients in the US and India. He has been a research member of the SoL Council of Trustees since June 2002; Prasad can be reached through his website blog at http://www.prasadkaipa.com, or at pkaipa@selfcorp.com