qaspire.comQAspire by Tanmay Vora - Insights and #Sketchnotes on Leadership, Learning and Change

QAspire by Tanmay Vora – Insights and #Sketchnotes on Leadership, Learning and Change QAspire by Tanmay Vora Insights and #Sketchnotes on Leadership, Learning and Change LinkedIn Twitter Facebook Instagram Mail Skip to content Home About Books Sketchnotes Workshop Store Subscribe Contact Well-Being in the Time of Social Distancing It is as critical to ensure our mental well-being in the times of Corona Virus pandemic as it to stay safe physically. The world is gripped by anxiety caused due to spreading infections/deaths, a constant bombardment of news updates and the looming economic uncertainty because of the lock downs. It all feels like an assault on our mental well-being from multiple fronts. How do we stay sane during such disruptive times? A few years ago, I had taken a note of 2008 research from New Economics Foundation, UK on Five Ways of Well-Being in my journal and had created a rough sketchnote. When I revisited it recently, I found it to be very useful in our current context. The five ways of well-being (with quotes from the report ) are: Connect With the people around you. With family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. At home, work, school or in your local community. Think of these as the cornerstones of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day. Be Active Go for a walk or run. Step outside. Cycle. Play a game. Garden. Dance. Exercising makes you feel good. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and that suits your level of mobility and fitness. Take Notice Be curious. Catch sight of the beautiful. Remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Savour the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you. Keep Learning Try something new. Rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course. Take on a different responsibility at work. Fix a bike. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun Give Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you Since bringing some of these lessons into my own practice during the lockdown helped me a great deal, I revised that old rough sketchnote to summarize some of the core elements of well-being from the report. Buy a High Resolution Version of This Sketchnote Related Posts at QAspire.com 8 Factors of Happiness Lockdown Learning or Lifelong Learning? Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life (Book Review) Future of Work: Back to Crafts in Blog , Creativity , Improvement & Development , Leading the Self , Learning , Sketchnotes | Comment Reinventing Career in Disruptive Times Disruptive times like the current pandemic may not seem like the right time to think about alternative career possibilities, especially if you are doing well in your current context. But often, disruptive times push us to think beyond the box we are in, question our choices and reimagine what it means to work. Then, there are people who are facing the uncertainty in the face with high probability of being laid off, going through business disruptions and being impacted in an economic slowdown situation. These situations often force us to reinvent ourselves. “It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than think your way into a new way of acting.” ― Jerry Sternin The first disruption in my early career came due to 9/11 attacks on US. The team I worked with was building a dotcom for a US investor. We were more than half-way through (with several months of unpaid salaries) when the investor backed off because of economic downturn. The company closed down and all of us were left scrambling for work. Me and two of my colleagues however continued supporting a customer (voluntarily) who used our software for their automobile workshop. When the customer came to know about our situation, he offered us funding/resources to start a business together and offer web development services to customers globally. That crisis led to an opportunity to do something radically different in a new context. Now, almost 20 years later, I can see how that experience of accidentally reinventing myself as an entrepreneur in midst of struggle for survival helped me adopt an entrepreneurial mindset even when I pursued a corporate career thereafter. I can recount similar stories from my own career and from friends who reinvented themselves. “The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps.” – Bob Black When we intend to change the shape and form of our career, several things are crucial: It starts from being able to reimagine/envision ourselves in a different context. Adopting a growth mindset helps. We often reinvent ourselves around our alternative pursuits or side gigs. (if we have invested in having them in first place) Having a network (personal, professional and extended via social tools) lifts you up with possibilities. In this context, I found Herminia Ibarra’s article on HBR titled “ Reinventing Your Career in the Time of Coronavirus ” very helpful. I came across Herminia’s work through Deepak Jayaraman’s Play to Potential podcast where Herminia shared amazing insights on our working identities and career reinvention. Herminia Ibarra is the Charles Handy Professor of Organizational Behavior at London Business School. In the HBR article, Herminia outlines five insights that enable career reinvention in disruptive times like the one we are going through now. This might be a very useful read for those who are thinking about a career change or simply going through a situation where some level of personal reinvention is inevitable. Here is a #Sketchnote summary of the HBR article. Related Posts and Sketchnotes at QAspire.com The Neo-Generalist Being a Self-Aware Leader: Tasha Eurich Taking Charge of YOUR Learning Micromastery: A Hidden Path to Learning and Happiness 3L’s of Self-Directed Learning: Insights from My TEDx Talk Emilie Wapnick on Being a Multipotentialite in Blog , Career Development , Improvement & Development , Leading the Self , Learning , Sketchnotes | Comment Leadership: COVID-19 and Beyond Crisis elicits real leadership, and when crisis is of this scale, it becomes a leader’s moment of truth. At a global scale, we are seeing leaders of different countries responding differently to COVID-19 pandemic. Countries like New Zealand where leadership is proactive and empathetic, we see limited impact compared to countries where leaders continued in denial mode before initiating actions to control the pandemic. For organizational leaders, the old playbook may not be relevant anymore when people return to work after lockdowns are gradually lifted. Opening again after such an unprecedented shut-down of activities means people will return to work with fear of the unknown and anxiety about the future. Remote working will be a norm and many people are not yet comfortable with the blurred line between work and life. Leaders may find it difficult to build trust in virtual environments. Many careers may be disrupted, people may lose jobs and businesses will be impacted by the overall slowdown. Slowing businesses would also mean leaders will be challenged to do more with less. “The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators” – Edwards Gibbon What mindset should managers and leaders adopt in a post-COVID19 world of work to be able navigators into the future? Here are a few recommendations based on my experiences and understanding: Put human element at the center of efficie...