Week 8: Religion or Science, Ambanis' Succession, 2021: a "Great" year?
Swaroop SHRM-SCP, ACC
Strategic HR Professional & Coach | Building #TraceYourMastery
This will be the last edition of my newsletter in 2021. Much has been said/written about this year.
Not much would change at the turn of the year at the midnight today but if we have to reflect on the year gone by, the topic of "Great" seems to recur again and again.
World Economic Forum called this The Great Reset , Ryan Roslansky, the CEO of LinkedIn called this unprecedented moment in the history of work The Great Reshuffle , Kate Bullinger called it The Great Wait , Josh Bersin The Big Reset , we had many others saying it as the period of The Great Reflection. By the way, if you noticed, I didn't cite The Great Resignation.
It is for each of us to judge if 2021 was really a "Great" year or not but if it was so, what will 2022 be? Let me know in the comments.
Personally, I think 2022 will be the year where we can see the continuity of some of the trends but we will clearly be in a better position to say what is a fad and what has fundamentally changed.
Topics of the week
1. Leadership succession of Reliance/Ambanis
As per Credit Suisse, Asia's family-run businesses still have more than 1/3rd of their founders in charge of their businesses and the pandemic is pushing them to think of leadership succession.
Reliance is no different and Mukesh Ambani's recent reference to the next-gen leaders is a part of the trend. This could even trigger thoughts in other groups.
Leadership succession is one of the biggest decisions any company will make and we must wait and watch how this will play out for Reliance.
If you are interested in this topic, read how the Tata-Mistry succession story played out, even though it is a thing of the past now.
2. Religion or/and Science
Few topics are debated more than "religion or/and science" . While the majority of us practice one particular religion with our faiths strongly linked towards one or at best two religions, I always wondered how ill-equipped many of us (myself to start with) are about other religions in highly inter dependable societies like our where multiple religions co-exist.
A recent blog under the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge mentioned the research work they are doing as a part of 'systematic theology' and the societal implications of astrobiology. This news triggered the debate one more time in my mind: religion or/and science .
"From religion comes a man’s purpose; from science, his power to achieve it. Sometimes people ask if religion and science are not opposed to one another. They are: in the sense that the thumb and fingers of my hands are opposed to one another. It is an opposition by means of which anything can be grasped," said the late British physicist William H. Bragg
From the internet
We hear a lot about the downsides of today's internet and its impact on children but think about the recent launch of the biggest space telescope. The live event was made available for the public to watch on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion.
It is mind-blowing to think of the fact of how much such an event can potentially influence and change the lives of many kids and students at an early stage of their life/careers.
We could whine about the rise of technology and worry about bad use cases but we must also celebrate good use cases like that of the James Webb Space Telescope (e.g.: launch event available to everyone with a mobile phone and internet access)
Personal updates
I am deliberating on kick-starting a podcast to augment my journey of learning + sharing and looking to learn about how to start a podcast, what does it take to start and most importantly sustain a podcast.
If you are reading this message and have any pointers, please feel free to share them in the comments. I will be forever indebted to you.
Can I also ask if you have any recommendations for the guests? I will definitely consider them in the list of potential guests on my podcasts, of course, subject to the fact that I must start one. But who knows, the guest could motivate me to start one!
That brings me to the end of the Week 8 edition.
Until next Friday,?keep?tracing your mastery.
#TraceYourMastery
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