Just a very deep Power nap

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We destroyed it. We were unjust to it. We overburdened it.  We almost committed a murder. We betrayed our origin. We did too much. Each one of us! But it was strong enough to heal itself, to use self-correcting mechanisms, and clever enough to stay safe.

 

Did we ever think what a great blessing it is? We were too busy satisfying our luxuries, our wants. We were too busy capturing the world, we were too busy being ignorant. We became too materialistic for our beloved land and thus, we forced it to press the pause button. But it is the mother after all, who cannot see her children suffer because of her, and so, it will emerge, more energetic, more resourceful. It just went on a break, too tired of us oblivious kids who would always keep their mom on its toes, who would never let her take a chill, who would never understand the true meaning behind Mother Nature, until they grew up. But the question that remains is, will us humans ever grow up?

 

Why are we strained of this pandemic? It’s simply the “reaction of our own actions”. We might not have seen this coming because we were too busy destroying our land, we were too busy being ungrateful, we were too busy complaining of what we did not have. We expected this earth to last forever – to provide us with whatever whenever we wanted, only so we could use and abused it, all the time.

 

It had to snooze off! To tell us that we are doing is erroneous. To teach us that we are not doing it right. But, will we ever understand what it is trying to tell us? We are all ready for it to wake up – heck, most of us have also disturbed her while it was taking the one-off power nap! What a stubborn mankind we have become.

 

Let us take this huge favor of time to reflect deeply, to slow down a bit, to understand what we are here for, to relax and to be moderate. We have had a great power nap, and are ready to emerge stronger than before, but we are yet to choose the direction that we want to go in now. So let’s choose wisely.

COVID-19 and the L&D Industry in Pakistan

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In the midst of the Corona crisis, businesses both global and local, are faced with immense challenges, and some are
on the verge of going bankrupt. COVID-19 has been spreading rapidly around the world and Pakistan is no
exception. Although a lock down has been implemented as a safety measure, it has either given birth to new
challenges or exacerbated existing ones.

In this context, Carnelian reached out and conducted qualitative research in the business sector with more than
26 clients across 20 different industries. This article incorporates findings and reflections from our primary
research alongside our study of current global trends. This exercise was conducted in the first half of April and
represents findings as of mid-April 2020.

The Current Situation

This pandemic is leading to not only mental health issues such as anxiety, stress and frustration but also physical
health issues like weight gain, back and neck pain. Unlike that of the workplace, the furniture in most homes is
not designed for prolonged sitting and neither are there separate/quiet spaces conducive to focus and concentration.
However, this is not the only challenge faced by employees and management during this lockdown.

Adapting to digital transformation has been an uphill task for employees across the country. It is crucial for
leadership in every organization to create engagement and stay connected with all its employees along with other
key stakeholders in times of such uncertainty. It has been encouraging to learn that this is now being done using
the internet through various methods such as virtual training, newsletters, webinars as well as ‘fun’ internet
challenges like setting up your desk.

With most of the businesses at a near standstill, industries, such as Oil and Gas, are struggling as their revenues
have taken a big hit. To remain viable, companies are having to find savings by cutting costs through salary
reductions, redundancies, unpaid leave, and also by looking for efficiencies in areas that were previously not
given priority. New investments have been shelved too, for the time being. These measures have spread a wave
of fear and insecurity among the employees in almost every organization.

According to a report “Impact of Corona virus on Pakistan’s Economy” by Dun & Bradstreet (1) due to global trade on
a downward trajectory, exports have also taken a hit with a 12.9% m-o-m decrease in March, 2020, and is
expected to decline further down to as high as 20% by the month of June. Many small businesses are also
affected and face the looming prospect of going under. As published in Tribune (2), in case of a complete lockdown,
a forecasted 18.5m jobs will be lost across the country.

 

flowchart one

The Coping Mechanisms in Place

Companies are trying to streamline their processes for different departments and have managed to set up an
efficient communication network. While some companies found it easier to switch from the traditional workplace
environment to a digital one, others still seem to be struggling to adapt to the new real. A leading ride-hailing
company for example, already had systems in place where their teams were working online and from home. They
were quick to start using platforms such as Zoom for their meetings and seamlessly adjusted to the new culture.
While on the other hand, a big player in the Oil & Gas industry, has yet to align its employees around its revised
strategy. Another petroleum company has told its male employees to work from their offices and the female
employees to work from their homes, an unusual move to combat COVID-19.

What will be the New Real?

Overall most companies believe that it would take at least 6 months to recover from this pandemic while a few
are hoping that lockdown ends soon, and things start moving towards normalcy. In reality however, the expected
recovery times seem to differ on an industry to industry basis. In the oil sector, companies expect their business
to get going by the end of June. On the other hand, retail-oriented businesses in textiles and footwear expect the
shocks of COVID-19 to go on for 12 to 18 months. Ride hailing services will recover faster than public transports
as people would want to continue physical distancing for a while even after the pandemic ends.

Regardless of the industry, being ever ready for change through flexibility and adaptability, agile working is
expected to be the norm. Agile working is a form of flexible working environment where employees are
encouraged to choose how, when, and where to work. The basic idea behind this is to remain focused on
business results by maximizing flexibility.

It is heartening to note that companies that were initially slow in moving towards a digital environment, have now
started to adapt to norms of the future. Schools have moved towards e-learning and almost all organizations as
mentioned earlier are encouraging work from home, which only a few months ago, was a distant idea.

Recommendations for the L&D industry in the face of these Challenges

A major shift in the L&D industry can be seen from conventional in-house trainings to e-modules and virtual
learning. It is interesting to see that e-modules are short (10-15 minutes) and focus on one or two learning
outcomes at most. Supporting analytics keeps the organization abreast with who is learning what and how well.
Likewise, virtual trainings simulate learning experiences even though the instructor and the participants are in
separate locations. Advantages and effectiveness of digital learning platforms have now become much more
apparent to decision makers. Cost-savings on travelling, accommodation, overheads etc have led companies to
prefer digital learning over traditional learning even after the pandemic.

However, with e-learning having its benefits, to increase its effectiveness, there is a dire need to increase
engagement and interaction with employees using digital modes of learning to significantly augment traditional
methods. We say this because one of the companies mentioned that it is not feasible for them to move towards a
digital environment as they are more of a ‘traditional’ company, with most employees not having a growth
mindset and requisite skills or motivation to willingly embrace new ways of working. So for such companies it is
necessary to realize that building virtual capacity is the vital next step for L&D organizations.

Although it cannot be denied that the attraction for e-learning is now higher than ever, only time will tell, whether
traditional training will be in demand at a level it once was. One thing is for sure, that digital learning has made
its way into the L&D industry and will be a regular offering in the future, alongside traditional learning solutions.

Based on the research and discussions so far, the demand for webinars and digital content is high in the short
term and is expected to remain or even rise after the pandemic is over.

Need for having localized online courses on stress management, work-from-home, and business communication
were some of the suggestions made by the participating organizations. A concerted effort is required to run
awareness campaigns to make such offerings accessible to every individual.

Conclusion

Data gathered from the business sector suggests that maintaining and flourishing relationships with clients and
key stakeholders is crucial for all consulting firms. From a financial standpoint, it is as important, if not more, to
minimize cost, while striving for revenues. For organizations with premium products or services, the focus needs
to shift from pricing to volume to keep the revenues stable. According to a senior HR manager in an automobile
company, consultancies can also begin supporting SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in business development,
growth, entrepreneurship, governance, and financial management, to help them stay afloat and sustain growth
over the long haul.

 

 

1. Published in the first week of April, 2020
2.  “Coronavirus forecast to render 18.5m jobless in Pakistan” by Shahabaz Rana published on 3rd April, 2020

Carnelian Research Team

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Our research team is based across the country and works together with our consultants to generate meaningful insights from different industries. Our Research Consultants ensure that content generated by Carnelian is world class and relevant to our audiences.

Out with the old!

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Words like targets, performance ratings, top company, competition, shareholders etc. sound so meaningless these days. Discussions around fashion and travel feel vulgar and frankly the opportunity to only deal with the emotional and not the financial side of social distancing looks like a privilege. The discomfort that most of us feel as a result has been termed as ‘grief’, ‘denial’ and ‘shock’ among others. Regardless of how you skin this cat, it is painfully obvious that we are still trying to make sense of this new context through an old frame of reference. It’s time to ditch the old lenses and get the new ones. Maybe it’s time to look beyond the prophets of capitalism to the wise old men and women of tradition to look for answers.

Here is what I have discovered so far and propose these for your consideration:

• Do less with less than doing more with less. Our drive to do more and more is a remnant of the industrial age thinking. Everything around us is over-optimized. Even nature allows for redundancies to counter any shocks in the system. Think of why there are two kidneys and not one. The current global supply chain disruption is mainly because of its over optimization; the idea that there must be no back-ups to be more efficient.

• Shift from becoming to being. Becoming assumes that you need to acquire a set of tools, being on the other hand assumes that you already have it in you. It’s just a matter of discovering and using it. We are too worried about our own mental struggles and most of the time they tie us down and don’t allow us to look at the human condition in totality. Breaking free from the tyranny of our own orbit will hopefully launch us into a newer and a grander orbit. I suggest we listen more. It is extremely difficult being with self. Most people want to express as we have become a hyper-expressive society. Maybe it’s time to listen more and talk less.

• Be skeptical. A skeptic is someone who doesn’t believe anything without any evidence. The urge to stay one step ahead of the virus has us externalize our worries and hopes in a weird manner. We share everything without wanting to dig deeper. Being skeptical will help us and others who are trying to help us.

• Don’t be cynical. Cynicism is thinking about and believing the worst of something or someone. While skepticism is cherished, cynicism isn’t. You are not helping anyone by dashing their hopes.

Project Oxygen

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Google made a profit of $9.18bn in the second quarter of this year. In the past decade or so it
has emerged as one of the most innovative organizations to have ever existed but this was not
always the case. Traditionally google has always been skeptical of managers. According to a
recent HBR article ‘How Google Sold its Engineers on Management’, Google’s engineers
believed that “management is more destructive than beneficial, a distraction from ‘real work’
and tangible, goal-directed tasks.”
In 2002 google experimented with a completely flat organization, eliminating all managers
and tried to replicate the college like environment they experienced in graduate school. This
obviously did not work. People started going to the founders for even mundane tasks and it
became pretty clear that management was important. But managerial systems could not be
implemented on a whim without date driven evidence in a company like Google. Google did
this in 3 stages Unfreezing, Changing and Refreezing.

Unfreezing (Taking on the status quo)
Google gave a small team in the ‘peoples analytics’ department the task to do rigorous
analysis on what made the highly rated managers at Google different from the lower rated
managers. This team was called “Project Oxygen”. They looked at 3 main factors when
analyzing these managers:
 Team Satisfaction
 Team Performance
 Individual Turnover
The analytics team did double blind interviews and tried to understand what these managers
did that made them so much more effective. After tabulating the results, they found out that
management actually makes a difference but this was just step one.

Changing (Rolling the findings into organizational practices)
Google first changed its feedback surveys to exhibit the traits that they discovered in their
research. They developed training programs and began to work with leading managers in
their functions and started convincing people that coaching, empowering et cetera mattered.
The Project Oxygen team gave in depth presentations to thought leaders in the organization
in order to bring them on-board this new vision of change. They essentially ‘socialized the
findings’ of the research. This leads us to the third stage of the change process.

Refreezing (Institutionalizing the changes)
Google took the practices discovered in their research, and made them a part of award
systems, performance reviews and the like. They essentially made people a lot more
promotable if they had certain traits. Google by taking these measures turned a culture that
was skeptical of management into a culture that was more open to the idea of management.
The research conducted by Google concluded that good managers are good coaches, they
empower individuals, they do not micro manage, they are results oriented, they are clear
communicators et cetera. But this begs the question, why would Google spend all these

resources to find out traits that are already well known? Any reputable management textbook
would list down these behaviors and a lot more. The simple answer is credibility.
Every organization believes that it is unique in a certain way. In order to bring out
meaningful change, evidence of the benefits of that change initiative should come from
within the organization. That is what Google did and this gives us a blue print on what needs
to be done when systems and status quos need to be challenged in organizations.

Are We Out of the World Cup, yet?

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Yes, if you are looking for a short answer to the question posed above. A few hundred million hopes and dreams have been dashed. Careers have ended. No fairy tales, no messiahs and certainly no heroes. Sarfaraz and his men have been runners-up in a race against themselves.

Now to the longer answer. No, we are not really out of the World Cup yet. See, our team is a patch-work at best. We did not even know our best combination until half-way through the campaign. You can attribute this lack of clarity to the think tank but only partly. It is a system-wide failure. For far too long, the cracks in the system have gotten papered over by a chance victory or three at the world stage. When that happens, we all buy into the narrative of the ‘unpredictable Pakistan’. This allows the entrenched mindset in the system to hold its sway thus never allowing in the vim of the youth and the unconventional. Think of World Cup 1992 or Champions Trophy 2017 and you will understand what I mean. It’s the performances after a victory which bring to sharp focus the inadequacy of the system.

In so many ways, our cricket team perfectly sums us up as a nation. We are mercurial: “One minute down the next minute up” to borrow from Nasser Hussain. Our approach to life is that if we win the toss and bat first, we will win the match. The problem is the coin also throws up a tail when opting for a head. If we are asked to chase a target that demands of us to show grit and determination, we tend to creak under pressure and resort to idiocy and self-destructive behavior to get ourselves out of trouble. With shaky foundations, our structures crumble and we end up making wrong decisions. Hello, IMF.

Our collective is such that we do come across world-class talent that somehow doesn’t let us fade away into oblivion. Think Dr. Mahboob Ul Haq, Abdul Sattar Edhi, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis among others. God only knows how many Wasim Akrams have slipped under the radar because the system failed them. Any talk of reforms and your uncle will stop seeing you.

Back to cricket. It is time for us to overhaul the system. It has been crying for it. It is only after a defeat do we start seeing paunchy players and an under-performing support staff. If we do not heed this call we will be out of the World Cup forever.

Just Keep Swimming

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Just keep swimming, go with the flow, accept the way things are; these are just a few of the things that we hear around us almost every day. They all point on to the one fact and that is, once a thing is done, there in nothing you can do about it, so let go and let god! However, as easy as it is to say these things, I’m afraid I see very few people who actually practice it too. As a result, people take more tension, become more anxious and irritable, and in the end put their mental health at stake, all because they think they are in control of their future, but are not ok with the fact that they cannot undo their past.

Let’s break this situation a little using a tree diagram to understand how things works:

flowchart one

Here’s the thing, you have a task/situation/chore/mission in front of you and you need to fulfill it. You have two ways to go about it; complete the task in a timely manner with all your heart poured into it, or complete the task half heartedly and get done with it just for the sake of it. Each case will have two scenarios; you will either get to the desired outcome, or the undesired outcome. The feeling of what comes from these outcomes is what will all be different. But what stands still is that you have next to zero control over any of them. Frustrating as it might be, it is the truth of life and you can not do anything about it.

Some of you might believe in destiny and some of you would not. I myself, being the tiny opinionated person that I am, strongly believe that whatever happens has been already written down. The path to choose to reach that outcome is chosen by you, but other than that, everything is already planned for you. So why worry, my friend? Why the despair?

The term “Just Keep Swimming” is my moto to life. It comes from one of my very favorite movies, Finding Nemo. Finding Nemo is an animated movie about a father fish who loses his son fish in the ocean. The father fish, on his quest to ‘finding nemo’ befriends a fish called Dory who has a short-term memory loss, and is usually good for nothing. Throughout the movie, she chants her favorite words of ‘just keep swimming’ which clearly imply that just keep going with the flow and you will end up where you need to be, and in the end helps the father fish find his son. The perfect example of letting go.

Now letting go here does not mean to fold your arms and sit in front of your television watching your favorite show all day because, hey God has everything planned for you right? No. Rather, it means to work hard and pour your heart into whatever you do, and then let go, because at the end of the day, whatever happens, happens for YOUR good.

My father often says that he wants to have my attitude towards life. In any critical situation, I am usually the one who says “chill kerein, relax kerein” and my father is usually the one who cannot sit still and has his forehead all frowned and his heart beat racing 150 km/h. I often tell him to relax because there is nothing he can do about the situation except pray.

I am no expert in maintaining my calm in tough situations. But I do know my power of belief, and I wish that everyone did too. It is pointless to put your beautiful heart through so much, so why not practice the habit of letting go once your job is done, and staying happy for the life that is planned for you. Just keep swimming and you will be where you are meant to be.

flowchart two

Surviving Adulthood

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My 30’s are already turning out to be weird. I’m a mom, a daughter-in-law, a wife, a mentor (yeah i know, weird), an ever-so-still-rebellious daughter, a friend, an ex-friend, a sister…the list just doesn’t end. That’s how many roles I, like many other fellow adults, have to juggle. See, the thing about life is the one million curve balls it throws at you. One moment you’re on top of your game and the next moment you’re falling apart, because, well, life happens. This may seem like your average day-to-day story, but the fact that you have all these insane roles to play, doesn’t make anything easier. You stop finding the time to heal, the time to process, and the time to move on — not move forward but move on.

Adulthood isn’t easy; it’s about containing yourself when you feel you’ve hit the end of the road. It’s about initiating a brand new start when you physically feel that you won’t be able to live through the day. It’s about making choices that may (did i say may…I meant most definitely WILL) be really difficult but are probably for the best (but you don’t know that yet…which makes it even more frustrating!!). 

Adulthood is an overwhelming process. It frightens you because you are constantly struggling to do the right thing and you keep brushing away the things that give you joy and happiness because it seems like the “right” thing to do (Terrible isn’t it? And you thought your 20’s were bad). 

For the benefit of you 30 somethings, (20 somethings, read and learn) I’ve put together a small list which may help you get through the day, especially when you feel like s*** has hit the fan and there’s no way you will be able to bounce back. I like to refer to this list as the ADULTTS (yes that’s adults with two T’s…): 

1. Always hug your mom – I like to start the list with this because it always makes things a tiny bit better than they were before. 

2. Distract yourself – Sometimes getting away from a situation, or the person causing the situation, or the negativity of your surroundings may just help you think a lot more clearly and objectively. 

3. Understand what is important – Prioritize and tackle each step as it comes. Once you understand what is important you will eventually make sure things fall into place.

4. Let it go! – This is the tough one. The really tough one. Especially for impulsive humans such as myself. It takes a great amount of self-control before you realize there’s nothing you can do to help salvage a certain situation. Once you do let go however, you will be in a more positive head space and will eventually realize that perhaps letting go of a certain situation was necessary for you to grow.   

5. Trivialize it – How difficult and unsolvable a problem is depends primarily on your own thought process. You might need to take a step back and really analyze the root cause of the problem and look into that as opposed to blowing the issue out of proportion. 

6. Talk about it! Cry about it! Laugh about it! Write about it! – Basically get it out of your system. Don’t let it linger on. The more you internalize your feelings the worse the pain will become.

7. Structure a game plan – Once you’re done analyzing the problems and the symptoms, exercise a bit of self-restraint and get into solution mode. A good idea is to structure your thoughts and decide how you will tackle each step. We all manage emotions in different ways and this may be a more practical take on the matter; however, once you get down to it you’ll realize that perhaps there was a pretty simple solution all along.

This list of course is fluid and may take a couple of iterations before you get it right but you get my drift. Lastly, always remember: Nothing and by that i mean NOTHING lasts forever. And if we’ll survive one day, we’ll survive the next one too.