Learn to unLEARN

“Be Agile and adapt to the changing times”, I thought to myself, as I stood in my balcony on the 100th day of the lockdown.

What else had I learned, you ask? I had – ‘learned to unlearn!’

The Covid-19 pandemic traveled faster than the speed of light and before we realized, the entire World was in a lockdown mode. Suddenly, the rapid pace of the World had come to a standstill with a screeching halt.

Since inception, erratic weather conditions, bizarre natural disasters and uncontrollable geopolitical turbulences had been driving the unpredictability of our planet. Hence, #COVID-19 only substantiated that this is truly a #VUCA World.

Akin to how the World had changed drastically pre and post the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Covid-19 further divided the World in 3 eras: BC-Before Covid, DC-During Covid, AC-After Covid.

The global pandemic, which had applied emergency brakes on the World’s economy, got us thinking - What would we do in such a situation? How would we refuse to hesitate in the face of challenge and not give up because things were out of our control? How would we bring in clarity and carve out a way forward? What would we do in the AC World?

To these endless questions was one common answer – Adapt.

While looking for an answer to ‘How’ we would adapt, we remembered Alvin Toffler’s famous quote– ‘The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn’. So, we decided to #unLEARN WHAT we had been doing this whole time and reLEARN the new way of doing business. Once we accepted this fact, our mind facilitated a positive thought process to adapt to the changing circumstances and drive the business within the limited means of getting back to life.

The beauty of the human mind is that it is capable of unLEARNing and reLEARNing things quite easily. It’s as simple as formatting a hard drive and writing it all over again. There are various segments of this transformation journey… some of which work flawlessly and some which are accepted due to lack of alternatives.

There are several instances demonstrating the agility adopted by corporates and us as individuals to get moving with life:

Let’s start with business – how can one not speak about the series of investments done by the World’s largest organizations into #Reliance for their #Jio platform. This was the biggest FDI amount which came into the country (through a single company) in such a short span and that too in the lockdown period. This was so meticulously planned that it seemed like it had come out straight from a movie. An ideal example of successfully adapting and transforming to keep up with current times.

On the other hand, there are numerous examples of how we as individuals adapted to the new normal… whether it is the shopping habits or the way routine household chores were managed. Life may not have been easy in this DC period, however it surely went on… people were not fixated to their routine… they changed… they adapted… and found solutions to their problems. 

On the education front, the entire system went through a transformation with physical classes being replaced by connectivity through electronic devices… We can’t say that it was the ideal way of studying but it surely was a whole lot better than missing out an academic year due to the pandemic.

Lastly, even things like tele-consultation with Doctors, which had been in existence for a while now, suddenly gained prominence in this period. Nobody was willing to ignore his or her health on account of the lockdown which is why this digital medium became so effective. 

Conferences turned to Webinars; physical meetings turned to Video Conferencing meets; endless signatures on forms turned into digital signatures… certain complexities and certain conveniences… but endless examples to see how the World quickly transformed and adapted to the changing needs with one single aim: To keep the ball rolling! 

These are no doubt tough times but as they rightly say, “Tough times never last, tough people do”.

I am consciously trying to unLEARN what the last 18 years of real estate experience have taught me and I am trying to relearn the game... It’s Work in Progress for me but I’m certain to keep adapting to the changing times and I’m sure the same goes for you! 

Will be good to get your perspective on the biggest change you’ve observed in the last few months. This could be your own experience or even something from the corporate world!! Let me know in the comments below.