Core Rigidities

A definition:
Flip side of core competencies, and caused by overreliance on any advantage(s) for too long. While a successful firm's management relaxes its improvement efforts, others keep on getting better and obsolete its competitive advantage.

Are we by nature also like this?
We stop challenging ourselves - and relax our individual improvement efforts - and what used to be a core competency for me when I was 30 yr, becomes a core rigidity by the time I'm 35??
If its true for me - in past few years - imagine the rigidities I have developed over last 32 yrs of my life!!
And now think of a culture that goes beyond decades - and is measured in Centuries!!

Came across this concept of "Capitalization Problem" by Malcom Gladwell. It talks of what stops us from reaching our full potential!
He gives an example:
He refers to James Flynn, an academic who got really interested in why Chinese immigrants to the US vastly outperform white Americans. Within one generation, they’re achieving at an extraordinary rate. The difference is not usefully described by differences in IQ. The cap rates for people who are smart enough to be a professional who end up being a professional is vastly different in different communities: 78% in Chinese American community rather than 60% in the white community? How are they able to capitalize on this? Flynn suggests it’s because they work harder, and Gladwell agrees. But why?
If you take a group of Chinese schoolkids and a group of American 10-year-olds and give them a complex maths task and time them at it, you’ll find the American kids give up after 2 minutes; the Chinese kids will still be working after 15 minutes. It’s about persistence: it’s the consequence of ingrained cultural notions of how hard you should work.
This is a cultural problem.

Core Rigidities and competencies of Indian Population?
So how do we go about unlocking the great potential we have within our nation?
Do we have core competencies and core rigidities that need to be unlocked? How do we go about identifying them and then leveraging them?
In my quest of contributing to alleviating poverty - to go beyond mental masturbation - and really act - I feel the key is in:
identifying these rigidities - against which I will have to fight, and
identifying the competencies - they will have to be leveraged

Let me start with identifying the core competencies of the "Rural Indian Market" - thats where the 70% of people reside - people who do not participate in the great debates in popular media - people who still die of hunger, malnutrition and preventable diseases...
I'm sure they don't want to die - and I don't have any data, but I'm sure their IQ and zest for life is not below their Urban bretherens..

So why do they die? Why are they poor? What core competencies can we leverage upon and get them going?
I need your support in identifying the core competencies first.
Please do post comments about your ideas - what could be the core competencies of the "Indian Rural Population"