Thoughts from home office

This began as a self- reflection initially for me as a leader and soon extended itself into a post which i thought would be good to get feedback on...

 Vision

 With coronavirus challenging almost all aspects of our work and home life, as hard as it is, we should not completely lose vision of the potential of ourselves and the organization we have in mind.

 As leaders, we must, lead at the intersection between what is good at short term and what will be beneficial at the longer run. The short-term view, currently, is demanding and challenging of all resources we have; should we then let go strategies and projects which would have made us more redundant and resilient and robust in long term. Right now, there is a tendency to let go of any big projects and let go of strategies that would have made organizations more stable and secure and robust in lieu of something short term, tactical and urgent. Whilst we have to indeed take the short term decisions we are taking as we live in extraordinary times; we should realize that we are here  in this situation for long haul and hence we have to refocus our attention for the long journey.  We have to find a way to take reasonable and collective decision which allows us to secure today and start building up on from today to a future which will make us fight similar systemic and unexpected challenges.

 Leading from intersection also means that we must adapt to the times. Working for home is a huge change in the way most of us have trained ourselves. We need to retrain ourselves to work from home when we can, and this of course is hard and is painful. Technology does not always support.

Some other things we need to adapt to is to read carefully, listen to more carefully and trust each other better. In my view, working from home is not only a short-term approach to solving the current situation but could become a more prevalent solution to counter demands of a carbon neutral task force. We need to invest in technology which can help collaborate and work better without being in the same room.

 Authenticity

 The current crisis has brought out in us what is most dominant trait. Some of us have leapt to the crisis as we have natural trait to lead from the front. While some of us are lead from behind managing to preserve what is important to us – our resources. The authenticity demonstrates who among us has strategic mindset and who among us is operational minded. Some of us are can easily toggle between being operational and being strategic.  And some of us struggle in such a set up.  Those of us who struggle because we have not yet found our element in these demanding times should not feel despair. We need to list the questions and concerns which make us despair. These questions will provide questions and ideas for introspection. Those who receive questions and ideas from people who are struggling could use it further to enhance the quality of the decisions we are taking now and will take in future.  Finally, we owe it to us to observe these natural traits and instincts and develop our authentic self in order to become better leaders as we go about now and further beyond this crisis.

 Resilience

 A number of us have also been forced to ask questions on how resilient we are– how indefatigable we are with the current crisis handling we are doing. Also, the need to know the status of the what is happening with the world can be a constant distraction. Can we go back to being what we were after this crisis is over? Can the organization go back to what it was before the crisis began? What makes us tenacious and resilient – surely it would be us - the people and in parts systems of operations (process, tools etc.). The question of resilience and robustness will help us reflect on how to make both our lives and our community robust and resilient and make our organizations resilient.  We should not push the questions of resilience to the side or to the end of the current situation. We need to start work on it right now in real time and make slow and steady improvement by absorbing lessons we learn today and nurturing our own resilience and that of the community and organization.

 The question of resilience and robustness of an organization will also make us think on supply chains and whether we should become global oriented or local oriented. The politics of globalization vs localization will be discussed and debated. Those of us who always wanted to close our doors to the connected world will find new meaning in the current crisis. All this needs to be discussed in a sensitive way and we need to evaluate virtue of self-reliance with the virtues of being interdependent and interconnected in a globalized society.

 Mindfulness and Empathy

 These times of social distancing also allows us a bit more time to reflect. We are in one way or the other reflecting on how we preserve and thrive in such an extraordinary time. To survive and thrive, we need extraordinary focus and mental strength. This is the time to adopt some mindfulness and to deliberately slow down some of our tasks at hand. I have not yet tried but maybe I could take a virtual meeting online while walking outside along the trees or while sitting outside in our own balconies. Each one of us can find small things that help us become more present than usual. The focus on breath and letting it flow in full cognizance of life within us helps me get calmer and less restless.  Empathy is yet another thing that we will develop by virtue of the current crisis. Whilst we are not together, we experience some of the same emotions in the current crisis – that of severe distraction, agitation, loneliness, sense of overwhelming confusion and chaos, life turning upside down etc. When we experience this, we can lend our mind to others feeling same emotions. We can find in our daily struggles, emotions that will support our colleagues, our neighbors, our elderly and our students.

 Happiness

 The experts say that with purpose and a plan, we become productive. And days when we are productive with something meaningful, we feel content. And when we feel content, we feel happy and that is what we should all work for. Leaders must think whether we consistently and consciously strive towards providing meaningful content for the work we and our colleagues do. We should express the purpose and remind ourselves and our colleagues of it again and again clearly and consistently provide a lending hand in making others and our colleagues feel productive. Right now, some of us as leaders have abandoned things that gave us an meaning because we are consumed by the crisis, we need to take a step back and create a short term, mid-term and a long term view which will allow us to consistently project how we will remain purpose oriented and productive across the different time periods.