PURPOSE & IMPACT

Month: October 2024

About Fear And Resilience In Organizations

Content Credit: BiancaVanDijk (Pixabay)

I wanted to share some useful notes from the book, “The Psychology Of Fear In Organizations” by Dr. Sheila M Keegan, a Chartered Psychologist, and Fellow of the Market Research Society and Bath Business School. A lot of these play out in organizations every day and it helps a lot for leaders to be aware.

*Business psychologist and coach, Chris Welford identifies five telltale signs of a fear-based culture.
1. There is a preoccupation with status and conformity, and where rules have precedence over common sense.
2. Distinct in-groups exist and there is little opportunity to cross the boundaries between them.
3. Everything is measured but nothing is questioned.
4. Appraisals are only ever one-way.
5. The accent is on pace but short-term gain is known to be at the long term cost.

…Not surprisingly, in a fearful working climate, employees tend to mirror the behaviour of their managers. Management over-control generally has the effect of discouraging risk-taking, squashing initiatives and dispelling creativity and novel thinking.

… Feeling fearful, threatened or undermined at work can have a major effect on our work performance, as well as on our mental and physical health. Fear impacts our relationships with our colleagues and managers. We bring fear home with us…

How To Develop Personal Resilience, A Critical Element For Working Effectively Through Fear
…On a personal level, developing resilience is an ongoing process that involves a mixture of adjustments. Resilience can be developed by:
* having supportive work networks and healthy relationships.
* focusing time and energy on things we have some control over, rather than expending energy on aspects that are outside our control.
* actively looking for opportunities for self discovery and broadening our perspectives.
* practising cognitive restructuring: changing the way in which we think about negative situations.
* paying attention to our body as well as our mind, paying attention to one’s own needs and feelings.
* keeping a long term perspective, and considering the broader context.
* taking decisive actions.
* maintaining a hopeful outlook…

These are only few perspectives on a much broader topic.

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi 

On Mahatma Gandhi’s 155th birth anniversary, we remember his life and wisdom.

We continue to live in times of high uncertainty, violence and wars threatening to spread. As much as everyone likes to focus on their own world/environment, we live in a more interconnected world, and the impact of good and bad outcomes will be felt wider.

Is it becoming increasingly difficult to wish for a world of peace and harmony?
Are we speeding up our Doomsday clock/own extinction?
How could we get out of a vicious cycle of violence?
—-

* Blessed is the man who can perceive the law of ahimsa (nonviolence) in the midst of the raging fire of himsa (violence) all around him. We bow in reverence to such a man by his example.
* Gandhi objects to violence because it perpetuates hatred. When it appears to do ‘good’, the good is only temporary and cannot do any good in the long run.
* Gandhi feels that violence is not a natural tendency of humans. It is a learned experience.

Satyagraha, the Centre of Gandhi’s Contribution to the Philosophy of Nonviolence
Satyagraha is the quintessence of Gandhism. Through it, Gandhi introduced a new spirit to the world.

What is Satyagraha?
Satyagraha (pronounced sat-YAH-graha) is a compound of two Sanskrit nouns satya, meaning truth (from ‘sat’- ‘being’ with a suffix ‘ya’), and agraha, meaning, “firm grasping”. Thus Satyagraha literally means devotion to truth, remaining firm on the truth and resisting untruth actively but nonviolently. Since the only way for Gandhi getting to the truth is by nonviolence (love), it follows that Satyagraha implies an unwavering search for the truth using nonviolence. Satyagraha according to Michael Nagler literally means ‘clinging to truth,’ and that was exactly how Gandhi understood it: “clinging to the truth that we are all one under the skin, that there is no such thing as a ‘win/lose’ confrontation because all our important interests are really the same, that consciously or not every single person wants unity and peace with every other”.  Put succinctly, Satyagraha means ‘truth force’, ‘soul force’ or as Martin Luther Jr would call it ‘love in action.’

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”

Source: https://www.mkgandhi.org/africaneedsgandhi/gandhis_philosophy_of_nonviolence.php

Quick Evolution Of Skill Demand In Jobs – Data Analytics, AI, ML

India is already among countries with the greatest demand for data analytics from the workforce, around 17% of job postings already looking for data analytics skills.
Looks like the India job market is evolving fast, even in comparison with rest of the world. This also holds valuable food for thinking for the education ecosystem and how much/how well they cater to these requirements.

The snapshot above is from the Business Standard (based on data from Cornerstone) yesterday.

With all of the data push, there is an ever increasing need for focus on quality leadership, management practices and processes, and employee health and well being.

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