Looking back, looking ahead - 2

So much happened this year that I have struggled to find a good structure to this note, so do pardon me for the set of random musings that touches a few topics and by no means a complete take on the year gone by or what is to come

After the challenging 10-12 months of 2020, 2021 had started on a very hopeful note. I even had a password that captured this thought! My final lines on the note last year went like this - “2021 is a year of hope, of new beginnings. It promises to be better, but not necessarily easier, at least not immediately... I hope that you get a chance to get back to doing things you love, yet keeping a bit of the lives we lived in 2020. Life will never be the same again, yet in every way, we would have moved forward”. I believe this had captured the thoughts and hopes of many.

2021 had its own plans. From beginning to think that Covid was behind us in early 2021 to seeing the lows in the summer, we saw the ups and downs within the first half itself. In the early months we, as a family, started stepping out, meeting people. The big high for us was our first summit trek to Kedarkantha (12.5k ft) with kids. Watching the glorious sunrise from the peak was (literally) breathtaking. With Holi, the festival of color in late March, came the wave 2 and the world changed, before it started easing again in a few months. Between the waves got together to celebrate within the family, I starting visiting offices, meeting teams and clients. During Diwali, I had messaged to all that “hope is in the winter air”. Alas that was premature too. Post Diwali, I too tested positive (thankfully very mild), after having been quite careful for the 18+ months. Importantly, the world around us started to go South quickly and Omicron changed the mood as we closed on the year. New records are being hit as we speak, and the uncertainty continues. 2021 has been a complete yo-yo and some of that is creeping into early days of 2022. This played out across the world at different points. Infections, vaccines, doses, variants ruled the prime time and yet again we are ending the year on a somber note.

I had said last year that we have all ‘seen more in this one year (re 2020) than in the long time’. As I reflect on 2021, I was wrong. This is the one BIG learning! Life has more things in store than we know. Resilience and agility will continue to be key to surviving and thriving. I was reminded of the motto from my boy scouts days ‘be prepared’. Resonates well. On a lighter note, if it cannot be predicted, how will AI function…or will it find a grand pattern in all this!

Wave 2 in India was very close, way more than what we saw in the post festive period of 2020 when some known people were impacted. This summer one only hoped that the loved ones remained safe, that one does not have to deal with the helplessness as one looked for a bed, oxygen, and medicines when everything looked broken, and it looked like we are in war zone. Covid struck deep and the unprepared system meant everyone one knew was hurt. However, in all of this, humanity stood tall. Support groups sprouted and one did not care who you were helping as long as a life could be saved, or someone could be helped. It stretched people and their resources, but guardian angels come out of nowhere to help. That to me was the bright spot in all that madness. While I wish this does not happen again and I hope we are better prepared for an eventuality like this, the stories of good Samaritans, selfless individuals and groups working day and night, helping unnamed and unrelated when everything looked bleak does warm ones heart.

While one could argue that the healthcare challenge could have been expected, what I have been surprised is the “stated resilience” of the economies. I have often wondered that with an event like Covid, something has to break deep down! It is hard to fathom that so much is looking good. While the metrics have been volatile through the year, I have struggled to see enough deep fissures. Maybe I don’t understand enough and read enough. But then I start to wonder – do our measurements and metrics really capture all that matters. Do the bottom half matter to our economic metrics in the near term, does the impact reflect other issues - mental health, life of our children who are growing in an unbalanced way – limited physical / social interactions and a high dependence on devices (at least for the ‘haves’). What will happen over the long term? This is a worry I continue to carry. I just think it will be na?ve to believe we could weather this tsunami without an aftermath. At some point, these fissures will surface - either through economic front or through the circuitous route of societal issues.

On the positive side, for someone who tracks technology space closely, the year has been euphoric. The heady run continued, accelerated and became an exponential. Funding was pouring through the hose and India produced a new unicorn every 10 days. The number of unicorns doubled within 2021. A speed that even China may not have seen in the heady days. To add to it, the race to the fastest unicorn was heating up and the fastest achieved that status within 9 months. The joke I had with a senior client that the fastest unicorn will be born out of a few slides – imagine the value of those pages! What has been inspiring is the confidence of the young entrepreneurs to pursue their visions, the desire to make a difference and then putting everything behind such ambitious pursuits. I feel heartened by the ideas and the courage of the founders in Gig, Ed-tech, Credit, SMB, health spaces. For someone who passionately believes that technology has a significant role and potentially the only lever in uplifting challenged environments, I wish them all the successes. Of course, the crowning glory has been a series of digital natives who managed to go public and barring a few, most are doing well. That was coming of age of the Indian start up eco-system.

Two other things continued to play out during the year in my discussions. One was around how will we come back to work, how will organizations operate in the future, what will be the future operating models? Of course, there is a bigger discussion on the new world order which I will skip. Whenever times eased there were discussions of trying to, in parts, get back to doing things like the past – working together, visit offices, co-locating. But there was a difference - much of this is now assumed to OPTIONAL by employees/ individuals. With the passage of time, the behaviors are taking deeper roots and the next normal will be less and less like the past. This has been combined with the unprecedented challenges on the talent side which has made it even harder for companies to ‘impose’ anything on the employees for the fear of losing them. Challenge that has been extreme in some economies and in some parts of the economy. The great resignation of the US is showing clear desire of some to break away from old norms and do something different with their lives. The extreme demand supply gap in technology and white-collar talent has made supply the most critical lever for success. Winners will be those who manage the supply challenge, as one leader said. So true! A senior client from a blue-chip tech company said it right that it is time we stop behaving like prissy organizations who were finding reasons to refuse a candidate using a high selection bar and start figuring out how to attract them. He went on to say, we need to put talent at the center and recognize that the power has shifted away from organizations. It’s a profound one. While some would argue that they always had talent at the center of their thinking, the processes and methods have not reflected that shifting balance of power.

The few days of 2022 continue to show the uncertainty we are living in. From the time I started writing this note to finishing it, things have been tightening up as infection starts to spread wide, and at the same time more and more messages indicating that the severity and the impact could potentially be lower. Not giving up caution to the wind, but as I end this, I do want to strike a hopeful tone for 2022. ?I continue to remain hopeful that we will find a way around the virus – combination of less severe (even if virulent) mutations (hopefully omicron is a sign!), and improving healthcare capabilities (understanding of the virus, medicines and even vaccines) will get us to a point where we can co-exist, even if we cannot eradicate the virus completely. I am really hoping that in 2022, we will get to (avoiding the phrase ‘get back to’) do things we all like. While things will never be the same again, I do think things will be better.

With that I wish you all a wonderful year ahead!