Incite Your Month: August '24
Pandemic Age Reflections, Hybrid Work and Future Readiness
Dear Uplevelers,
Welcome to our monthly edition of ‘Incite Your Month’, your go-to monthly collection of recommendations from our "Curiosity Diet", where we delve into a curated selection of recommendations for uplevelers and decision-makers.
You can also watch this episode on YT. And don’t forget to subscribe to our channel, where we release SmartCasts with leaders & SmartLevers to uplevel yourself.
Reflecting on the Past:
Harish opens up about an intriguing book, *The Age of the Pandemics* by Chinmay Tumbe, an assistant professor at IIM Ahmedabad. Tumbe, who previously wrote ‘India Moving’ about migrations in India, turned his focus during the lockdown to pandemics.
His book highlights the demographic disasters caused by four major pandemics—cholera, plague, and influenza—with India at the epicenter. Harish points out a critical insight from the book: despite the severe impacts of these pandemics, there's a lack of collective memory about them.
Unlike other disasters like floods or wars, pandemics leave no visual evidence like destroyed buildings, leading to a historical gap in our consciousness. This lost collective memory means we often repeat the same mistakes.
Hybrid Work - Navigating the New Normal:
Transitioning from historical reflections, Harish & Ramanand delve into the contemporary issues with a discussion on hybrid work. Drawing from an article by Rajiv Ayyangar in a16z's new publication called ‘Future’, Ramanand discusses the evolving nature of work.
The article, titled “Hybrid Anxiety and Hybrid Optimism, the Near Future of Work”, classifies the evolution of remote work from 1.0 to 3.0. Remote 1.0 was mostly characterized by asynchronous work cultures, whereas 3.0 is expected to blend synchronous and asynchronous elements, borrowing ideas from the gaming world where collaboration and a sense of community are digital.
Harish adds that platforms like Discord, initially for gamers, are becoming mainstream, emphasizing their role in creating virtual communities. These platforms foster trust and kinship among participants who may be far apart physically but work closely together digitally. This new model challenges the traditional nine-to-five workday and opens new ways to build trust and efficiency.
Future Readiness:
Embracing multiple scenarios In line with future preparedness, Harish talks about the book “How to Future” which introduces the concept of thinking about multiple futures rather than relying on forecasts.
Forecasting often fails because it tends to assert one possible outcome, placing too much on a single prediction. Instead, ‘How to Future’ suggests a framework to consider various potential futures using the STEEP (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political) model and prepare accordingly.
Ramanand shares his own experiences with a course on future thinking that mirrors the book’s ideas. Preparing for a range of possibilities rather than one predicted outcome can better equip individuals and organizations to navigate uncertainties.
Learning from Industry Leaders:
The SmartCast of the month features Vinita Gera from Dell Technologies, who speaks about personal and site-level growth at Dell. The conversation covers transitioning from individual contributor roles to management, diversity and inclusion, and her insights into leadership. Gera's “user manual” exercise on optimizing personal and team performance stands out as particularly instructive.
Podcast Pick:
This month’s recommendation is ‘The Huberman Lab’, a podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman, a Stanford professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology. The featured episode on productivity explores maximizing daily health and efficiency, stressing the importance of managing energy over time.
Quick Tip:
Ramanand offers advice on maintaining reading habits—tying habits to triggers is crucial. A simple alarm reminder can reignite a reading routine, proving that small measures can lead to significant habit-building success. As Harish emphasised, the goal of these monthly videos and emails is to spark curiosity and keep it alive throughout the month. We hope our conversation has incited some new thoughts and actions for you. See you next time!
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