We are at our best when we have no choice!!!

"C u soon” - I watched this Malayalam (Indian) movie earlier today. The speciality of the movie was that it was entirely conceptualised and completed during the lockdown and mind you India had one of the more stricter lockdowns at least during the 1st 2-3 months. 

And what was amazing was that quality wasn’t compromised. The acting, BGM, storyline and messaging was impeccable. A very heavy story left me with a very heavy heart in the end and going on my usual trip of how the society has so many problems that we don’t talk about enough or more importantly do much about. Alas - thats for another blog

This got me thinking. When we go back to our corporate lives, we have seen something similar. So many stories about people doing things faster. Yet in the old world of definition, they should have been slower as many are working from home? How is that even possible. Let me lay out 3 reasons in my view. I am sure there are many others and I am happy to hear them out.

1. Survival instincts - Mankind discovered most of lives essential skills when something was at grave risk. This has resulted in more meaningful time-bound energy being spent by people across teams to solve “real” problems. This time-bound discipline has made us much more efficient
2. Focus - In my view, CoVID has done what Industrial revolutions after Industrial revolutions couldn’t. As human beings we have become more productive. this is because the lines between work and family have merged even more now and this has forced us to be more efficient about work in a shorter time and worry less about life (what would kids do after coming home, traffic, etc.)
3. Manage by objectives - We had no choice but to finally practice what we always said we want to. i.e. measure people on what they deliver and not so much on how long they were in office or how long they worked on something. Reminds me of those school days were essays were marked higher when we wrote more

Finally, we all realise technology works (it was always us people who found ways to not adopt tech). 

Next time you want urgency, lets learn from this situation and find the 3 golden drivers”

1. How can we create real urgency?
2. How can we create smaller goals?
3. Who can do this the best and how can we empower them to go there? Instead of having layers and layers working hard to dis-empower them!