Core Prime

The CORE PRIME recognizes that context is decisive in causing or inhibiting CHANGE or TRANSFORMATION effort. When groups try to accomplish something bold, shared agreements create the context that enables extraordinary results.

The CORE PRIME distinguishes five essential agreements people must make and maintain to achieve extraordinary results. Get it right, you pass. Get it wrong, you fail.

The five CORE agreements are:

1. As Is — People must agree on the current situation as it really is.
2. Environment — People must agree on what’s happening around them, which they’re unable to affect, but which will affect them.
3. STAKE  — People must agree on what’s at stake if they stay where they are and don’t change.
4. To Be — People must agree on a cogent vision of the future they desire.
5. Strategy  — Finally, people must agree on how to break out of the As Is and chart an irreversible course toward the To Be.

The CORE PRIME is where everything begins and ends. It’s immutable and there’s no room for interpretation. Remove one of the five agreements and the whole thing falls apart. Not only is the CORE PRIME inflexible, it’s the most often violated, and there’s no learning curve. You get it right, or you don’t. 

IN ACTION

You will recognize when the CORE PRIME is working because all the people who are key to enabling CHANGE or TRANSFORMATION will have a shared sense of how their initiative gets them from the current state to the future state and what is at STAKE if they do not change.

SO WHAT?

The most important thing to remember about the CORE PRIME is that if you omit one of the five conversations, you don’t have four out of five, you have zero.