Is there a mental cost of#WorkfromHome? Is permanent work from home desirable?

These are some questions that I have been mulling for the last couple of days, because:

I miss sitting around the lunch table with colleagues

I miss the “I’m glad the weekend is here” banter

I miss the 2 minute informal connect with clients before & after a meeting

I miss just the “#humanconnection” that comes with a physical workplace

In a recent interview with the New York Times,Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella said that permanently working from home can be “damaging for social interaction and mental health for workers”.

This statement resonated with me.

Humans are social beings. If you take them out of their natural habitat, it will be damaging in the long run.

While the current pandemic has made it necessary for us to Work from Home, communicate via video conferences, its not the same as the connect of a physical meeting.

Attending online classes for students is not the same as being at school or college. One of the nicest parts of growing up is being around friends at school.

Virtual classrooms are necessary in today’s times and can be a valuable tool to reach audiences at multiple locations. However, the richness of communication that emerges in a physical classroom cannot be ignored, especially while addressing competencies related to Personal transformation.

I personally feel, Work from Home is great in some situations but moving to this paradigm as a permanent state of affairs will come with a cost!!!!!!

Read on:

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/permanent-work-from-home-can-be-damaging-for-mental-health-of-employees-says-satya-nadella-1679313-2020-05-18

I choose to look at the silver lining in the dark clouds.

“The times that are most troubled are also the ones where we learn the most.” If we reflect on this maxim, I think it holds true for most of us!!!!!!

The current crisis is exactly the same. It should be a time to #reflect on what #life post COVID will be. What the skills we need to develop in order to thrive? What are the lessons for leaders from this crisis? What do organizations need to do in order to grow?

All of the above questions are causing a fundamental shift in the way even business schools evaluate success. Some important themes that are emerging are:

1. Its not just balance sheet management that is an important criterion for Leadership evaluation; stockholder welfare to stakeholder welfare is equally critical

2. How organizations treat their stakeholders during these difficult times gets reflected through the characteristics displayed by its leader

3. Leaders have some tough decisions to take during these difficult times, how they communicate these decisions to their stakeholders is going to be extremely crucial

4. Above all resilience, how do we shape up and take proactive steps to deal with this situation

This article has some interesting thoughts on how the current crisis is getting even business schools to change their curricula, sensitize potential managers to the changing world view and the new competencies needed to Grow in chaos

Read on:

https://www.livemint.com/education/news/iims-to-tap-covid-learnings-in-a-bid-to-mould-resilient-leaders-11587316237496.html

Lady-er-ship amid COVID-19

Why are Women managers and leaders told to be more like Men?

Taiwan, Iceland, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Norway and Denmark have 2 things in common at the moment: a woman that is Head of State and an outstanding response to the COVID crisis.

This article details their responses to the crisis and the outstanding leadership these Women displayed during the crisis. The response from leaders has been empathetic yet tough when required, to beat the crisis.

For me, its not about feminism or decrying the responses of male Heads of State; its just about playing to your strengths.

Women have often been instructed to behave more like their male counterparts to be effective leaders. However, I feel that by being authentic and playing to their strength, these women leaders have come out ahead and been trailblazers.

For all of Women leaders and Managers, it’s a Powerful lesson to take inspiration from and to implement in our lives!!!!!!

Read on:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/04/13/what-do-countries-with-the-best-coronavirus-reponses-have-in-common-women-leaders/

Work from Home has gained status of the New Normal. Do we have the necessary skills to Work from Home?

Ask yourself the following questions to get an answer:

Communication: Can you accurately convey ideas & interpret thought/ideas using Technology?

Self Motivation: Can you take initiative without being prompted or rewarded?

Trust Worthiness: Can you fulfill expectations without supervision?

Discipline: Are you in control of your own time, tasks, and energy?

Can you independently analyze, evaluate, and strategize an issue?

Adaptability: Can you adapt to and accurately prioritize tasks based on the changes around?

Accountability: Can you measure your own productivity?

Empathy: Are you aware & considerate of other peoples’ feelings?

To my mind the skills required to flourish in a Virtual environment aren’t very different from those required to do well in a Brick & Mortar environment. What makes it a little more challenging is that we need to do it largely by ourselves.

As the workforce becomes Virtual, it isn’t the Technology that will make or break the situation, it’s YOU!!!

This article expands on the 8 Critical Skills required to succeed while Working from Home. Very interesting read !!!!!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2020/03/19/academic-research-proves-8-skills-critical-to-work-from-home-success/

One of the Key Themes of the Webinar “Attitude for Altitude” that we recently conducted was: How do you” Change Proof your Career”?

The Solution is really to enhance your “Go To” Skills.

What are your “Go To” skills?

If you are sitting in a job interview and you are asked to quantify what you bring to the table; your answer will largely be around your “Go To” skills.

Why is it Critical to Build “Go To” Skills Today?

Change is the only Constant. The Post pandemic economy will affect the employment landscape tremendously. The Pace of Change is only set to quicken in the immediate future.

It is very likely that we will see a definitive shift towards a Work from Home culture. This will result in many categories of jobs becoming redundant & many being lost.

A preventive and long term solution would be Up- Skilling and Re- Skilling yourself & mentoring team members do the same. In order to remain relevant, employers and employees need to identify skills that will be essential to function in the new normal.

At Individuals & at an Organization level, I personally would look at this as a Growth Opportunity as opposed to a negative Change. It will require everyone to make that stretch but I do feel it will be well worth the effort, given the current situation.

If we look at the Macro picture, the current scenario isn’t necessarily bleak. If we play our cards right, the Pandemic could turn out to be a huge opportunity for the Indian economy. US, Japan and South Korea among other countries are relocating businesses out of China, which was so far the factory of the world. India, Thailand, Vietnam and other Asian countries are preferred hubs. This would be the perfect time for India to leverage its demographic dividend and approach the lockdown and post lockdown period with hope and optimism.

At a Country level, this would again require a huge stretch. Our “Go To” skills would need to to be enhanced: put processes in place to make the eco system more “Business Friendly”, Deliver Quality & Productivity and have the necessary skilled manpower in place to deliver.

This calls for an integrated approach, where Stakeholders in the economy should collectively devise a strategy to promote life long learning.

We are clearly at a juncture; how we respond NOW will determine our direction, as individuals, at an organization level and as a country.

When I came across this article, I couldn’t help but notice its perfect timing. Amid the COVID-19 lockdown, Work From Home and Social Distancing are posing as challenges of unprecedented magnitude.

https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/feelings/are-you-emotionally-intelligent-enough-to-deal-with-work-stress-6351965/

This is an extremely stressful situation and the need for emotional intelligence as a coping mechanism has been highlighted.

The first step is Self – Awareness which eventually leads to Self – Management. Introspection and Organizing one’s thoughts help us understand and analyze our trigger points.

Additionally, ability to look at a situation you are involved in from a third person’s perspective is a sign of an emotionally intelligent person.

This doesn’t imply that people with higher EQ are immune to Stress, it only means that they are better equipped to handle it.

It is important to note that Emotional Intelligence doesn’t develop overnight, to help you tap this potential and practice it in a consistent manner.

At SHRD, Emotional Intelligence forms the foundation on which our programs on Personal Transformation rest.

Neuroscience talks about two networks our brain switches between under different circumstances.

TPN (Task Positive Network) is activated when we are consciously engaged in an activity for example when working under pressure and trying to meet the deadline. Goal setting and accomplishing a task at hand are features of TPN.

DMN (Default Mode Network), like the name suggests is our “go to” mode when the mind isn’t actively involved. This is where the mind wanders as opposed to being focused in TPN. DMN is often linked to introspection, relationships, creativity and visualization.

Emotionally intelligent individuals know how to create a healthy balance between the two networks & function at an optimum level. It is a misconception that EQ is a weakness, in fact the ability to know when to focus on target completion & when to focus on relationships is a uniquely human trait often seen in Highly Successful Leaders.

This is what is truly required during such testing times from Leaders…Strike the Right Balance!!!!!!

Why would Tech companies want to hire people with a Humanities background? When I came across this article, I was intrigued.

The reason made complete sense. Technology has two aspects

1. One is the technical work that goes into making it such as codes and tools, and the other is the user’s end.

2. Technology is made for the use of humans, hence a thorough understanding of people is critical

Those with a background in liberal arts are seen to have a better understanding of customer needs and good communications skills.

The Left brain and the Right Brain needs to work in tandem

At Shradha HRD, we understand and acknowledged the need for going above and beyond technical degrees. We recognize the importance and centrality of the human element in every aspect of life.

Emotional intelligence and Empathy are at the heart of training designed by us. Communication skills, Conflict Management, Negotiation, Lateral thinking and many more are offshoots of the same. These help us hone and effectively utilize people skills for maximum results.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/why-tech-companies-are-hiring-people-with-humanities-degrees/articleshow/74828373.cms

https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/importance-of-emotional-intelligence-for-today-s-leaders-1616580-2019-11-07

This article echoes a situation we came across just before the lockdown. We recently had a request for a training program to help Generation X Managers develop a harmonious and more productive relationship with their Millennial team members.

During our Training Need Analysis, we came across 2 interesting findings.

1. Generation (X) Managers came from an environment where they had complied with their manager’s requests, without asking too many questions. They expected the same behaviour patterns from their Direct Reports

2. Generation (X) Managers had a stickiness to their organizations and often put their work before personal commitments. They expected the same from their team members

Our program design centred around the theme of Emotional Intelligence and the ability to Listen and see things from the other person’s perspective. Emotional Intelligence is also about the ability to put aside your “mind-lens” and view things from another person’s mind-lens.

You may not agree with everything the other person feels or says but at least you understand. This ability helps good managers and leaders respond to such situations in an empathetic and emotionally intelligent manner.

Some of us that are die-hard Football lovers, might remember the 2006 World Cup Final game. In front of 28.8 million viewers in 213 countries ZinedineZidane, a world-wide soccer role model, lost his self-control and head butted Marco Materazzi.Zidane was kicked out of the game. France lost the World Cupto Italy and Zidane’s career ended in disgrace and wonderment

 “What was he thinking?” Again, he wasn’t.

In organizations where Corporate Governance is very strong, a 10 second outburst can tarnish a leaders’ image forever. Everyone looks at their leadership do live the values that the company espouses. Self awareness of your emotions and learning how to deal with them is critical at any stage in life, more so for leaders.

Dealing with out of control emotions

When faced with danger, the primitive flight, fight or freeze response kicks in. Even though we are not faced with physical danger, anything we perceive as a threat, our mind views as danger. This releases a flood of hormones and hijacks our better sense.

Examples of threatening situations in our daily work life:

1. An angry email from a key stakeholder

2. Being put on the spot to answer an uncomfortable question in front of your team

3. A crisis that came out of the blue

Any of these common everyday situations can release a flood of hormones due to the survival mechanism kicking in. If you are unaware of this and flow with your emotions, you will take actions that will most likely be against your better judgment.

This phenomenon is known as the Amygdala Hijack!!!!!

The Amygdala,an almond-shaped mass of nuclei (mass of cells) located deep within the temporal lobes of the brain. It is involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival.

 Dealing with the Amygdala Hijack

1. Become aware of your “hot buttons”: Recognize the situations that cause you to lose your cool. This will help you respond effectively as opposed to react

2. Name the emotion: When faced with threatening situations, research has shown that naming/labelling the emotion helps calm you down

3. Practice using this technique regularly until it becomes a part of your mental routine

If you don’t come out of the Quarantine with

 1.  A New Skill

2.  Some New Knowledge

3.  Something that adds Value to your Life

You never lacked the Time…You possibly lack the Will

For all of us that are working from home due to the corona lockdown, it’s a completely new and unknown situation.  One that we have never previously encountered.  For a lot of us, this situation brings with it, stress and anxiety about the immediate future & what it holds in store for us.

To feel anxious during uncertain times is natural. However, what is important is how we deal with this and emerge stronger. This requires Self Awareness & Self Management: essential components of Emotional Intelligence. If we look back on previous experiences when we went through a rough time, a lot of us emerged More Resilient, Stronger & Wiser.

Challenging times = Learning Times

It’s a time to draw strength from coping strategies that have worked in the past & utilize them to make this a time of learning, reflection & adding value to our lives.

When we entered the lockdown, our first thought at Shradha HRD was, we are going into a downturn & we don’t know how long it will take for the upturn to begin. However, our 2^nd thought was: how can we turn this into a time into an opportunity to add value to ourselves and our clients.

We looked at it as a time we had been given to pause, think, reflect and possibly learn something that will contribute to us in the future. We used this time in the following ways:

 1. Research on different competencies that we do not get the time to, in a Business as Usual environment

 2. Reach out to clients and understand pain points. Everyone being at home, allowed us more time to catch up with clients that are normally busy with ongoing projects.

3. Use insights gathered as an opportunity for new business. We realized that HR teams wanted to reach out to their employees and boost morale during the lockdown.

We leveraged Virtual Platforms to run several bite sized learning programs on dealing with anxiety, stress etc. Even though we have conducted several trainings virtually for our clients, this was the first time we designed Virtual programs as a special offering for our clients.

From being a difficult time where training in general was put on hold, we moved to a space where we could offer our clients a viable solution to build engagement with their teams.

The ability to look at situations with the Solutions Mindset (as in what is the opportunity that can emerge) as opposed a Problem mind-set (now we are in trouble) definitely requires Emotional Intelligence and pays rich dividends in Life!!!

A couple of years ago, I attended a Learning & Development seminar. There were over a hundred senior professionals from the industry attending the seminar. The themes largely revolved around how to make learning more effective at the workplace.

The challenges most professionals articulated were the shortening attention spans for learning, especially amongst the millennial population. Increasing difficulty in getting learners engaged with learning. Coupled with this, the increasingly difficult VUCA environment & the need to be constantly evolving.

The solution, some participants felt, lay in introducing bite sized learning, using technology innovatively and similar strategies to enhance the learning experience. The inherent assumption here was, if learning was made more interesting, it would draw more people towards learning and make learning more effective.

Looking at ways to enhance the learning experience is always a great idea. At Shradha HRD, clients that we have worked with over 15 years come back to us because of the innovation we continuously introduce into the learning process.

However, I felt we were missing a crucial piece over here. The first step in learning is to make participants aware of the need for the training. Learning should ideally involve contemplation around where we currently are, where we would like to go and the journey in general. If we are able to move participants to become mindful about these processes, learning will automatically become much easier. Once participants sit back and view the bigger picture, they will automatically recognize the importance of learning for them to achieve their goals.

Technology and bite sized learning have their own utility in the learning process. However, to my mind if we are able to encourage mindfulness, stepping back & reflecting, the impact will be higher.

We are now slowly seeing the theme of mindfulness gain traction. It is a slow process but there is a definite movement towards reflection, being in the moment & recognition of the benefits that being mindful bring.

A couple of years ago, during a training session we conducted at Shradha HRD on Managing your Emotions, a participant stood up and narrated an interesting story. He said “last week I was under a lot of pressure due to a client dead line. A team member walked into my room and insisted that he wanted to speak to me about a project he was working on. I was aware that he was working on this project but I also knew that the project did not have an immediate dead line. At any other time, I would have answered, without losing my temper. I would have possibly given him a time later in the day to speak. Instead I ended up yelling at him and saying that he had no respect for another person’s time. He should send an email and request for a time to speak, as opposed to barging in unannounced and insisting that we have a conversation”

The participant said that he felt terrible about the way he had behaved. His team member began to send him emails, every time he wanted to speak. The easy & collaborative relationship they had shared earlier morphed into a formal exchange. One unpleasant interaction created a rift, which took months to heal. His questions were:

 1.Why does this happen?

 2.How do I prevent this from happening?

We explored why this had happened. Why is it that we behave irrationally when confronted with stressful situations? You can actually “Blame it on your Genes”.On your “Amygdala” that gets hijacked.

The term “Amygdala Hijack” was coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman in his 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Goleman used the term to recognize that although we have evolved as humans, we retain an ancient structure in our brain (Amygdala)that is designed to respond swiftly to a threat.

In other words, if we are faced with a situation that we perceive as a threat, even though it may not be life threatening, our body will react in much the same way as if we were faced with an actual physical threat to our life. This is what is responsible for us “losing it” when faced with subtler threats at the workplace.

How do we deal with such a situation?

1. Build awareness of the Amygdala hijacking

2.Watch your emotion. Tell yourself, “I’m entering the danger zone. Beware”

3.You have 3 seconds to calm yourself, before the hormones flood your brain.Practice watching your emotions. Take control, before its too late

We might have mental wiring that is “defective” & cause us to “lose it”.  Simultaneously we also have the built in capacity to control our emotions before they spin out to control.

 Controlling your emotions takes Self Awareness and Practice!!!!!!!

https://www.capgemini.com/in-en/news/emotional-intelligence-report/

I recently came across this report that Capgemini has compiled on the need for Emotional Intelligence. The research surveyed 750 executives & 1500 employees from large organizations in the Consumer Product and Retail, Retail Banking and Insurance, Automotive and Utility sectors.This need is estimated to increase by six times in the next 3-5 years, in the current environment where there is a steep growth in the use of Artificial Intelligence. However, an interesting aspect the report highlights is that organizations have currently not taken the necessary steps to adapt to this growing need.

The Key findings of the report are:

 1.  As AI and automation accelerates, emotional intelligence is becoming a must-have skill

 2.   Organizations with an emotionally intelligent workforce are reaping the benefits

 3.  People processes in organizations have not been adapted to tackle the age of the machine, especially for non-supervisory employees

Anyone that has worked with the younger Millennial population and interacted with the Centennials will vouch for the fact that this generation is far more comfortable texting, as opposed to having face to face conversations. Written texts have their ownutility, however they cannot be a substitute for face to face conversations which build real relationships. The more technology invades our lives, the greater will be the shift towards using technology to communicate and poorer will become the quality of our communication.

These finding fit into the entire Neuroscience framework as well. Whichever Neural paths are activated become our default mode for working& communicating. The greater the use of technology, the poorer will be the quality of our communication. This is bound to follow naturally, unless we take proactive action to Change.

Bridging the Emotional Intelligence gap may well be the Key to Success in the coming years !!!!!!!!

“One can’t please everyone” – they say… and ruthless as it may sound,“the job has to get done”… It’s great to be a task-master, but eventually, it is one who has a way with words and dealing with people tactfully, who emerges the winner.

• Consider this scenario:
• Open office setting with multiple seating in one large hall
• Last working day of a team member
• Rest of the team preparing to huddle for a send-off party of sorts for a colleague, who has completed all exit formalities

One of the senior team members has been instrumental in hiring the replacement for this exiting employee, makes this statement loudly:

“Although the person who will replace you is much more competent than you, we will miss you”.

 *Pin-drop silence ensues in the hall*

It was a well-meaning comment, intended to make the exiting employee feel missed, and also to excitedly introduce the new joiner to the rest of the team. While the objective of the comment was far from making the former team-member feel miserable while bidding farewell to the organization, the effect was that the said person swore never to set foot in the office premises ever again. Not to mention the effect it had on the team members that heard the comment. A few tactful team members changed the topic quickly to shift the conversation towards friendly banter as everyone shuffled into the farewell party zone.

Blame it on a case of lack of emotional intelligence. The person that made the comment did not intend to hurt anyone but lack of self awareness and the inability to see the impact of one’s words turned a happy moment into a bitter one for all those around. If it can happen to team members, it is only a matter of time before an external customer is at the receiving end of words that are not carefully chosen and weighed before being uttered. The ramifications may not be as simple then. Instances of poor customer experiences,due to lack of empathy, spelling doom for reputed brands aboundand this is reason enough to invest in emotional intelligence sensitization for team members.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/68880310.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Based on the statistics mentioned in this article, 70% of Organizations in India were looking for a CEO who is humble, has high EQ with good people skills.

I read an article a couple of months ago where a senior executive being considered for the position of a CEO was turned down because he was extremely rude to the driver that had come to pick him up for the job interview because he was running late.

Several companies may overlook senior leaders riding roughshod over the emotions of team members, however we see this trend changing. Slowly but surely, the value of control over one’s emotions, demonstrating emotional intelligence & being empathetic are slowly competencies that people hire for.

Way back in 2008, when Shradha HRD was conducting an intervention on Conducting appraisals for a Global Bank, it was interesting that the only thing that managers scored their team members on were hard skills. Even though there was a detailed matrix describing expected behaviors to be demonstrated, these were largely overlooked. Less than an hour in an entire year was spent talking about these competencies!!!!!!!!

Thankfully Change, ushered in by the growing Millennial population in the workforce & other factors has brought Emotional Intelligence to the forefront.