COVID TALES - Guts, Glory & Story

The Sliding Door Moments

Andy Hedge is a close friend, an Executive Coach, and a leadership and OD consultant based out of London. We have run many programs together; but even when we don’t, we do call each other once-in-a-lazy-while to catch up on life. A casual ‘sliding door’ remark triggered this post.

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The Resurgents

Winston Churchill is attributed the above line when he was in Yalta and used the crisis represented by the World War 2 to seed the formation of the United Nations between the unlikely trio of himself, Roosevelt and Stalin.

The word crisis represents unprecedented change – the kind of change that disrupts the current order of things. It’s an out of syllabus question. Something that’s out of our comfort zone. Out of our rule book. It’s our most feared enemy – the Unknown.

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The Creatives

The world war started on horseback and ended in the nuclear bomb. Innovation and creativity has always been conceived in the womb of a crisis. And there is a reason why it so happens. Whats the definition of creativity ? Creativity manifests when two things combine in a completely different way. And those new combinations are amply evident when the regular order of things is shaken up. And that’s exactly what Covid has done. It has altered, decimated and destroyed many aspects of how the world was operating. And while a lot of us resist the new order, wishing for our old lives or waiting for things to come back to ‘normal’ a few embrace the new, accept the ‘new normal’ and importantly create beautiful things right in the midst of chaos. And its at such times, that one begins to see beauty in chaos.

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The Gastronomists

Pursuing one’s passion is a tricky subject. A few have it in them to pursue it with ease. Others do lip service, often citing other compulsions, distractions. “I never get the time” “I will do it one fine day when other responsibilities are done”. But the beauty of this Covid crisis is that, for many it killed the reasons that we had been giving ourselves. Work had slowed down. Travel time was down. Some of us suddenly had a lot of time. And yes, the household wasn’t around. The cook wasn’t around. So what did some people do ? They got into the kitchen. And some beautiful stories started cooking. Here are a few – of hobby home chefs, who focused hard enough to actually go pro.

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The Crisis Potters

Larger firms with many locations and multiple thousands of people had a multitude of complicated problems to solve. Their playbook was - safeguard and enable their people, ensure continuity of operations, and conserve cash - in that order. This story plays out how a software product company swam effectively through the impact of lockdown and Covid for many critical deliveries including to the health services. Listen to the story of Girish Kurudi.

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