ACE it with ADAPTABILITY - HNY 2021 !

CY 2020! Phew, What a year….

It is indeed difficult to summarize this year without talking about what we all have gone through most of the year – physically, emotionally & visually – the red-ball with spikes swimming across all the TV channels, the tiresome visuals of hospitals & care centers, COVID-19 counts scrolling in the media just like election results, WHO’s somersaults, testing administrations across the countries and a new vaccine claims every other day etc..

Well. All these are new experiences for us as an entire generation. I am not sure how posterity will remember us as we handle this situation. They will certainly look for the learnings if not appreciating our survival instincts !

At the outset of a new year, it’s important to reflect what we *learnt* from all this - beyond saying our prayers to the Almighty in deep gratitude of our survival throughout this year.

I certainly learnt about the word ‘pandemic’ to start with – adding it to my English vocabulary! I learnt about Spanish Flu more than what I studied in my History class, learnt that out of all that he has done Nostradamus had time to cover about COVID-19 as well. I learnt a lot about high immunity foods beyond figuring out where Wuhan is in the World Map and how it is connected to Italy. All this by myself. BTW, I also learnt that we needed celebrities to teach us about how to wear masks ??

My kids fared better – beyond adjusting to the routine of online class & exams and enduring my presence throughout the day at home. They learnt lot of new words - ‘lockdown’, ‘unlock period’, ‘quarantine’ & ‘home- quarantine’, ‘second-wave’, ‘PPE Kits’, ‘immunity’, ‘super spreader’, ‘social distancing’.. etc..

We have also witnessed how global supply chains broke down, how local buying created local brands, how factories were locked-out, how people started working from home, the sad stories of migrating labor and dents in global economies.

Perhaps, this is a year where strategies never showed up beyond the board rooms, ambitious plans still remained on paper, personal goals relegated to mere dreams, host of promises left open, few achievements never mattered, the only accomplishment being ‘our survival’!

Speaking about survival, a deeper reflection of all this, may lead us to ‘Darwinism and Theory of Evolution’. I always got amused at the thought of applying Darwinism to Enterprises and Individuals alike, almost giving it a Corporate Darwinism kind of tag.

Yes. Try analyzing the prognosis of corporates or professionals with respect to the ‘Natural Selection’ theory and you will be surprised to find the striking analogy. Similarly, ‘Survival of the fittest’ theory is applicable to the career graphs of enterprises or professionals as much it is applicable to any of the species. 

That brings us to the most important Darwinism about ‘Adaptation’ – “It is not the strongest of the species that survives nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

As the new year ushers in, Adaptability may be the most important trait which all of us have to embrace in our personal and professional lives – being adaptable to the changes happening around us and within us, influenced by this pandemic situation and days ahead in the new normal.

Because, Constants can’t, Variables won’t ; Only the Adaptable ace it !

Here is Wishing you & your family a Very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year – 2021.

God Bless.