An amazing tool to make a personal SWOT — This concept can also be applied to corporate cultures!
Have you ever wondered why you behave a certain way in certain situations? Have you ever thought about what drives your personality? The Core Quadrant is a concept that can help you answer these questions. It’s a tool that can help you understand yourself better and improve your relationships with others. Understanding what drives us and sets us apart from others is crucial to living a fulfilling life.
Core Qualities are characteristics that belong to the essence or the core of a person. They ‘color’ a person; it is the specific strength that we immediately think of when we have someone’s in mind. Examples of qualities are caring, diligence, orderliness, decisiveness, receptivity, empathy, and so on. There are hundreds of them. Some of them are so specific to you that you could call them core qualities. With our core qualities, we express who we are. Core qualities are not primarily behaviors, but rather possibilities that one can be attuned to. Just as the quality of sound on the radio is partly determined by the precision with which it is tuned to the right wavelength, so can one also become more inspiring when he is tuned to his own core qualities. Just as the power of the amplifier influences the final sound quality, so too is the creative power of man also decisive for the effect he has on his environment.
A core quality can be recognized by someone’s special ability about which he himself says: “Surely everyone can do that!” But not everyone can do that. In fact, if you were to remove this core quality, you wouldn’t even recognize this person anymore. That’s because that one core quality permeates or radiates through all the other, less pronounced qualities.
A core quality is always potentially present. You can’t just turn a core quality on or off, though you can hide it or keep it dormant.
So, how do you identify your core quality? Let’s start with an exercise. Think about a time when you were exceptionally happy or proud of yourself. What was it that made you feel that way? Was it your ability to organize things efficiently? Or maybe your creativity in solving problems? Perhaps it was your ability to connect with people emotionally?
Identifying your core quality can take time and self-reflection; it is not always immediately apparent. But once you have identified it, consider how it affects other areas of your life — work, relationships, hobbies — and use this insight to make more informed decisions.
The difference between qualities and skills lies mainly in the fact that qualities come from the inside and skills are taught from the outside. In English, it’s about the difference between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’. Skills are ‘nurture’, nurtured, or learned, core qualities are ‘nature’, innate, and developable. The clearer the image we have of our core qualities, the more conscious we can let them shine through in our lives. Those who have ‘perseverance’ as their core quality, for example, know that they will be able to function well, especially in situations where a long period of time is needed. And they also know that this persistence is something they will always be able to do, both at work and in their private life. Whether they will do so in their private life is another matter. Everyone was born with a number of core qualities, but that’s not all, because as a logical consequence of each core quality, you automatically receive three more gifts. The first is your pitfall, the second your challenge, and the third your allergy.
Pitfalls (If the light shines too bright, it becomes dark again…)
Just as there can be no light without darkness, every core quality has a sunny and a shady side. The shadow side could also be called the distortion. The distortion is not the opposite of the core quality, like how active is the opposite of passive and strong is the opposite of weak. The distortion is a core quality that is taken too far and overshoots the mark.
For example, the core quality ‘flexibility’ can turn into ‘fickleness’. When this happens, the power of a person becomes their weakness. This is popularly referred to as ‘too much of a good thing’ and that is exactly what it expresses. Someone who is too careful runs the risk of becoming fussy. In the same way, helpfulness can be taken too, which then becomes experienced as meddling. This will sometimes be thrown at the person as an accusation. The distortion of one’s core quality is one’s ‘pitfall’. The pitfall is that which is often labeled as such. For example, a person with the quality ‘decisiveness’ may be accused of being pushy. Whether this is justified or not, the pitfall is simply part of the core quality. They are inextricably linked, so consider it as a gift.
“Most people think they know what they are good at,, , they are usually wrong, “It’s more common for people to know what they are bad at,, ,but even then more people are wrong than right! -Peter Drucker -
Challenges
With the associated pitfall, one also finds their ‘challenge’ when it comes to their core quality. This is the second gift, as it were. The challenge is the positive opposite quality of the pitfall. The positive opposite quality of being pushy, for example, is something like patience or restraint. In other words, the pitfall of ‘tightness’ necessitates the challenge of ‘patience’. As the figure shows, the core quality and the challenge are always complementary qualities. What matters is to find a balance between flexibility and consistency. When this balance tilts too far towards flexibility, there is a chance that this flexibility will turn into fickleness. In other words, in order to avoid falling into one’s pitfall, it is advisable for one to develop the challenge.
There’s an elusive SWEET SPOT in your life where you simply shine brighter in everything you do.The place where you connect your Core Qualities to your Challenges. When you’re in it, there’s no stopping you. You are more energetic, more disciplined and more creative. You achieve incredible results with more speed and focus than ever before! It’s called being “In the Zone”.
Allergies (Resistance)
Usually, a person’s pitfall is a source of conflicts, irritations, and tensions that the person has with their environment. This is especially true if the pitfall also turns out to be someone else’s allergy. The problem is that the average person turns out to be allergic to too much of their challenge, especially if they find it in another person. For example, the energetic person will have a tendency to freak out when confronted with passivity in another person. They are allergic to passivity. If you look closely, you can see that this is because passivity is too much of his challenge (= patience). He/she often doesn’t know what to do with it.
The more you are confronted with your own allergy in another person, the more likely it is that you will fall into your pitfall. The person with the core quality of ‘decisiveness’ then runs the risk of acting even pushier, while he or she accuses the other person of being passive, and so on. In other words: if you encounter your allergy in another person, your pitfall is lurking. So what makes a person most vulnerable is not their pitfall, but their allergy, because it is mainly the allergy that makes a person fall into their pitfall.
The formulation of the allergy completes the core quadrant. In the core quadrant, the connection between your quality, pitfall, challenge, and allergy quickly becomes clear.
A Core Quadrant can be explained in 5 minutes and will keep you busy the rest of your life because of its depth and beauty. Discovering your true core quality is a profound and touching experience. I am very grateful for the work I can do and the numerous responses from readers I get every week..
- Daniel Ofman-
Applying Core Qualities at Work
Now, it’s time to apply these ideas in a work context.
Work is where we spend most of our waking hours, and our core qualities can make a significant impact on our success in the workplace. Understanding how to leverage these qualities is essential for achieving career satisfaction and advancement.
Firstly, it’s important to recognize that everyone has unique core qualities that they bring to their work. These are innate strengths that can be used as assets when leveraged effectively. For example, someone with a core quality of empathy can excel in customer service roles because they are able to connect with customers on an emotional level.
However, it’s equally important not to fall into the trap of overusing our core qualities. This is where navigating pitfalls comes in handy. For instance, someone with a strong sense of responsibility may become overly controlling or micromanaging if they are not careful.
Therefore, it’s crucial to strike a balance between utilizing our strengths while also being mindful of potential pitfalls. This requires self-awareness and the ability to recognize when we may be operating outside of our core quality.
One way to ensure that we’re using our strengths effectively is by setting goals that align with them. When we’re working towards something that resonates with us deeply, we’re much more likely to succeed.
Additionally, being aware of other people’s strengths can also be beneficial in a work context. By understanding what drives others around us, we can build stronger relationships and collaborate more effectively.
Using real-world examples from various industries such as healthcare or marketing could help readers understand how they can apply this theory into practice by creating teams based on complementary strengths rather than similar ones which could lead into conflicts later on.
In conclusion, applying the core quadrant to work requires a delicate balance. It’s about being self-aware, setting goals that align with our strengths, and recognizing the unique qualities that others bring to the table. When we’re able to do this effectively, we’ll find ourselves excelling in ways we never thought possible.
This model makes the complex workings of our inner world (“I”) and the world of interactions (“WE”) more understandable.
But the quadrant itself is an “IT”, a model. It can be an inspiring model, but only if you don’t use it mechanically. The purpose is not to find the right words in the four boxes of the quadrant. Make sure the words you write down are your words; and words that touch you.
If the awareness your core quadrants bring you doesn’t show in the way you behave and interact (“WE”) and if it does not bring a smile on your face (“I”), you have wasted your time. Then the Core Quadrant® was an interesting but useless (“IT”) exercise.
But when you use the core quadrant® in an integrated way (“I”, “WE” and “IT”) it will keep you busy, alert and fulfilled the rest of your life!
A person can perform only from strength one cannot build performance on weaknesses -Peter Drucker-
You can always reach Albert Heemeijer personally by sending me a message at info@heemeijer.com or +31612325250 (also WhatsApp)
I speak English, German and Dutch
More information?
http://www.corequality-education.com
http://mission9.space (The book Mission9 — The secret of the Core Quadrant)