What's the problem? How can we improve? Why can't we see eye to eye?
Whether issues concern people, strategy, or physical things, the answers must come from people. The answers people come up with - for good and bad - or whether they come up with any at all, is down to the values that DNA investigates: the often unconscious mechanisms that make us tick: our instinctive motivational drives.
DNA lays bare the reasons why we see some things and not others, what we seek out, why we react as we do, and who we are attracted to or repelled from.
It tells us where we fit in best and how we can best develop ourselves and our relationships.
Cooperation, not competition, is the key to success: working collaboratively toward a common goal, sharing information honestly and openly, learning from each other's mistakes, forgiving yet accepting responsibility.
Yet many of us are more inclined to compete: motivated more by personal ambition, praise, status, control, material wealth, avoidance of blame, and other narrowly framed goals. Seeing only what we want to see, and hearing only what we want to, we race toward finishing lines that too often turn out to be trip wires.
DNA not only helps us identify our co-operative and competitive drivers, but helps us learn how to develop them and use what we have to best advantage.
When we find ourselves in the right environment, performing activities suited to and aligned with our values, we may enter a state of flow: where resistance falls away, everything seems easy, and yet we are totally absorbed and deeply satisfied.
Sometimes it's the role we perform, the people around us, or the nature of the goals we work toward that hold us back and hinders flow, but sometimes it's simply ourselves.
DNA not only helps us find roles, people, and goals sympathetic with our values, but it can identify the internal conflicts that prevent us from getting out of our own way.
Either way DNA can be a vital first step in taking the action we need.
One cap does not fit all. Different folks need different strokes. An orchestra is made up of many different instruments playing in perfect harmony.
Diversity is about more than virtue signalling. Diversity of experience, diversity of perspective, and diversity of thought are all essential to progress, discovery and innovation.
DNA helps people and organizations realize the liberating, creative potential of diversity.
Nothing is much more important than the way we perceive information, think on it, make decisions, and then act. Without our being aware, our values sift and slant the information we take in and then affect pretty much everything we do with it once it enters our brains.
Our values affect our irrational feelings and intuitions and the development of our rational capabilities. Different values = different biases and capabilities.
DNA helps us understand our biases so we can learn to develop our critical thinking and, in the longer term, alter the way we feel about things.
Connecting with other people is hugely important. Good relationships are not only deeply satisfying but make us better, more co-operative and happier people.
Connections are based on more than shared experience - more even than shared values. Sometimes it's the connections we make with people who see the world very differently from us that turn out to be the most productive and satisfying.
DNA helps us understand ourselves better so that we may better understand others and so make better connections.
