Nuggets On
resilience
Research by Angela Lee Duckworth (of Wharton) talks about a special blend of passion and commitment that she calls Grit. Leaders from various fields (Armed Forces, Writing, Sport, Entrepreneurship and more) talk about their experiences in cultivating resilience.
Dealing with failure
Confused about listening to your heart or your head? We all face those crossroads in life and Amish did too, especially while facing initial rejections from publishers. Dealing with failure, enlisting support, recognising what works for you and ultimately making it work for you: Amish touches upon these important themes in this nugget.
Perspectives on Resilience
Vijay discusses how he has dealt with challenging moments when he was on court. He talks about navigating forks in the road where you often have to choose between low risk and decent outcomes and high risk with a potential of making it big. He shares an insight from Billy Jean King who says “Every challenge is an opportunity and pressure is a privilege”. He discusses the frame of mind with which one could approach such crucial moments.
Building Grit
Grit can be defined as ‘courage and resolve; strength of character’- something we all need to live our lives and face successes and failures. Raghu says, “We all have the DNA to create that reservoir of strength.” Hear him talk about the elements of grit and how an organization can create an environment to foster it.
Building the Grit muscle
Viren talks about where he (and some of the athletes OGQ works with) gets his strength during difficult times. There is enough and more research (if interested, please look up Angela Duckworth’s book Grit) on the role of Grit and performance. He specifically alludes to the need for having clarity of why people do what they do in the context of building that muscle.
Entrepreneurial Resilience
There is a lot of literature around how entrepreneurs should demonstrate resilience when hit with failure or tough times. Avnish talks about the role of preparedness in navigating choppy waters.
Harsh realities of Entrepreneurship
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted. Avnish talks about how the need for resilience is intellectually understood but not fully internalized till events happen. He talks about how entrepreneurs could build that capability. He also talks about how he has been influenced by Rudyard Kipling's poem IF.
Being tenacious through the transition
Transitioning from one path to another is not easy. We often celebrate individuals after they have demonstrated success. But we often miss the iceberg that is below the sea surface. Atul talks about how he persisted through multiple hurdles when he transitioned from studying Chemical Engineering to pursue photography.
Building an anti-fragile culture
Dheeraj talks about the parallels across the fragility spectrum (that Nassim Nicholas Taleb refers to in his book Anti-Fragile) and the Honesty spectrum (that Mike Robbins refers to) and talks about the similarities across the two. He discusses how he has gone about building authenticity and anti-fragility in every aspect of the business.
Dealing with losses
Vishy discusses his approach to dealing with losses. He candidly talks about how his approach to dealing with losses has not changed significantly over time. He talks about how he tries to clear the baggage of the past to ensure that he is fully present on the Chess Board at any point in time. He also discusses about how Chess is like other disciplines such as Science and History where you are often standing on the shoulders of giants in the context of discovering the next breakthrough.
Identifying and unlocking potential
Vishy talks about what he looks for when he is looking for long-term potential. He talks about the criticality of consistency in performance coupled with an attitude where someone is willing to grind away at a goal. He also discusses the success of academies that have produced a pipeline of talent and juxtaposes that with examples of a Roger Federer emerging from Switzerland or a Magnus Carlsen emerging from Norway.
Dealing with shocks
Meher talks about how she and her mother (Anu Aga) dealt with the sudden loss of her father and her brother within a span of a few months. She talks about how they got the strength to deal with the loss and the soul-searching she went through to come to terms with it. She talks about the criticality of gratitude and cherishing the relationships that matter when people are still alive and the importance of not having the guilt that you didn’t give it what you could.
Maggi crisis and decoding resilience
Suresh talks about how he took charge when he came back to India during the Maggi crisis. He talks about how he prioritized the various elements of the business and how he spent time for the first 6-9 months. He also shares his views on where he got his strength and what it takes to build resilience in the organization while dealing with a shock.
Resilience
Jay talks about what the bad days in politics look like. He talks about how easy it is for people to assign motives when you have none. He also talks about the good days when some of your ideas take hold and people see you as an individual who championed that change.
Early formative years
Roopa talks about how she grew up amidst nature in the North Eastern part of India and how some of her perspectives on working women started getting shaped right from an age of around 10. She also talks about her first brush with Mumbai when she comes to pursue a B.Com in Sydenham College but quickly find the city overwhelming and goes back to Guwahati to pursue B.Sc in Mathematics. She also talks about the peculiar situation where despite clearing the entrance process for IIMA, she is unable to join. She decides to teach in a primary school and appears for CAT yet again.
Managing time, unfettered curiosity and resilience
Vinay talks about Narasimha Rao spent his time at various points in his career. More specifically, he breaks down the pie chart of time across different phases - when you are campaigning, when you are in power and when you are in opposition. He talks about how Narasimha Rao had unfettered curiosity that helped him indulge his curiosity when he was in opposition which helped him evolve as a person but also ensured that he did not make any hasty decisions in the short-term out of anxiety that would hurt him in the long run.
Staying relevant through transitions
Vinay talks about how Narasimha Rao stayed relevant through the various transitions that he went through in his journey. He also talks about how he learns and grows when he did not gets a transition wrong. He also talks about how Narasimha Rao re-invented himself when Congress moved from the Indira Gandhi phase to the Rajiv Gandhi where the core group had several people from an Oxbridge background (far from Narasimha Rao’s comfort zone).
Dealing with two possible fatalities
Deepa recounts her twin-ordeal in 1999. Her husband was fighting in the Kargil war and she was anxious about his well-being. At the same time she had a tumour in her back that worsened which got her to a point where she had to make the choice between leading a normal life and facing a high probability of death or going for surgery to improve her odds of living but in a wheel-chair. She discusses how she navigated this passage of play.
Rebounding from a near-death event
Deepa talks about the mindset with which she took stock of life when she had chest-below paralysis and had to recalibrate her approach to her activities, schedule, relationships and aspirations. She talks about how she developed a sense of gratitude for what she had and how she and her family chose happiness. She also talks about how her hobbies enabled her to immerse herself into an activity and bring happiness to her life.
Getting people comfortable with the context
Deepa shares her thoughts on the trade-off between seen as a “different person” versus being seen as just another individual who can do most of the things that a regular person can. She talks about how it is about her taking the onus and putting the other person at ease rather than expecting the other person to react to her situation. She says “if I am OK with it, they are OK with it”.
Building resilience
Deepa talks about what gives her the resilience to deal with difficult situations and how people can build that muscle. She talks about the criticality of moving from a “wallowing in the problem” mindset to a solutioning approach where you think about how you want to drive change and be the change.
3 levels of resilience
Rich speaks about three levels of resilience – Inner calm, Emotional Resilience and Cognitive Resilience. He talks about the example of Captain Sully Sullenberger (who miraculously landed the plane on the Hudson river after his plane was hit by birds after taking off from LaGuardia) to talk about how calm and composed he was and stayed present during the ~3 minutes he had between the bird hit and when he landed the plane.
Toughness is not a differentiator
Matt mentions that in the “thin air of world-class performers” toughness is not a differentiator and speaks about the importance of training and rejuvenation in creating the recipe for sustained and consistent performance at the very top.
Expanding the mental reservoir
Matt speaks about how he works with athletes to expand their mental reservoir that they can tap into during a big event. He also delves into the detail behind how successful athletes debrief after a failure. He speaks about the importance of a grieving window and the need for perspective where the coach could offer significant value.
Dealing with the "wall"
Matt speaks about how athletes deal with “the wall” which often happens when you deplete your stored glycogen (carbohydrate stored in our muscles) and the negativity and the feelings of fatigue that come with it. He also speaks about how he gets athletes to deal with pain and the nature of the relationship they could develop with pain to derive the performance that they desire.
Dealing with failure
Paddy speaks about how great sportsmen deal with failure. We specifically reflect on how Kane Williamson handled himself when New Zealand lost the world cup to England despite being level on scores and how Roger Federer dealt with losing the Wimbledon finals despite having two match points earlier in the game. Paddy expands on the notion of focusing on processes versus outcomes.
Link between mentally tough and psychopaths
Paddy speaks about why mental toughness is a term that gets used a lot but there is limited research around what it is and how athletes can build it. He speaks about the criticality of embracing the doubts, insecurities and vulnerabilities rather than trying to suppress them.
Plateau of latent potential
James speaks about the shape of the compounding curve and speaks about how we should think about motivating ourselves to persist despite no visible progress in the lower parts of the curve where the outcomes are not apparent. He specifically talks about the notion of the plateau of latent potential where suddenly the cumulative efforts bear fruit in a dramatic fashion. He speaks about the kind of feedback loops we need to set for ourselves and the markers that will help us chip away at foothills of the compounding curve.
Securing the base for the other to explore
Jennifer speaks about the notion of a mutual secure base relationship and how individuals can enable their spouse to find their “sweet spot”. She speaks about the notion of how we could provide support but layer on top of that a gentle kick away from the comfort zone and be arm’s length about it. Both these elements are quite counter-intuitive to how a lot of people operate. She also speaks about the criticality of relational resilience that is required to weather this phase where there could be a high incidence of divorce.
More from Jennifer Petriglieri
Dealing with negative outcomes
Raj speaks about how we could reframe the way we look at negative outcomes. He speaks about the phenomenon where we end up having an intense negative feeling around an undesired outcome but often the intensity wears down over time. He suggests a “reminisce and reflect” exercise that could help us see things in perspective.
Riding two horses
Atul speaks about how had to straddle both the worlds concurrently – the world of business and stand up comedy. He had to ensure that the business partners didn’t feel that he would let them down and vice versa. He also speaks about the fact that he had been battle hardened in life to deal with the ups and downs that the world of stand up threw at him.
Leaning into constraints
Whitney speaks about how sometimes constraints bring out the best in us and drive us to innovate – at some level, I guess that is the whole raison d’etre of Jugaad innovation. She speaks about the need for an optimal number of constraints that bring out the best in us. She urges to leverage constraints as a tool of creation to gain the momentum up the curve.
Cutting our losses
Whitney speaks about the dilemma that a lot of face at the foot-hills of a new S curve. Should I persist with the pain or should I climb a different mountain. She speaks about the fact that even if we climb the right S curve, statistically, often, it is only a 36% chance of success which leaves us with a 64% chance of failure. She speaks about the 4 questions we need to ask ourselves to discern if we should persist or jump.
Managing diversity and handling disagreements
Vinay speaks about how the RSS and BJP use the interpretation of history to create a certain purpose for the institution which is beyond the individual. He also speaks about some of the institutional norms that ensure that the organization stays cohesive and there isn’t unnecessary “chatter”. He also uses the term “sulking on mute” to denote how leaders would disagree yet commit to a chosen path putting the institutional interests ahead of theirs.
More from Vinay Sitapati - Jugalbandhi
Dealing with lifequakes
Ramesh speaks about how he and his wife Charuta dealt with the trauma after losing two of their children to cancer. Their daughter Shruti was 9 when she passed away in 2009 and their son Aditya was almost 12 when he passed away in 2015. He speaks about how they dealt with the shocks and how they found meaning and purpose post that to move forward.
Shape-shifting instead of resilience
Bruce speaks about how resilience as a term originates from the Industrial age where our lives where shaped by manufacturing and the paradigms around it. He says that it implies that we sprint back to the earlier status quo. He goes on to say that life and transitions are complex and we rarely go back to the old (as we have seen with the COVID-19 pandemic). He urges us to think about shapeshifting instead. He speaks about how we could use lifequakes to rebalance our lives across 3 dimensions which he calls ABC (Agency, Belonging and Cause)
Metrics to measure green shoots
Dorie speaks about how we should think about situations where the green-shots might take a while to appear especially when we embark on something new. She shares some perspectives around how we should think about cutting losses versus persisting and what metrics we should track.
Goals and the long game
Ayelet speaks about how we should think about Goals for the long term. They need to be enough of a stretch but at the same time, they shouldn’t lead us to satisfice or burn out once we get there.
Motivating ourselves during the long middle
Ayelet speaks about the fact that we often have celebrations at the beginning of a journey and at the end of the journey and it is the long messy middle during which we often struggle to find the motivation to keep marching forward. She shares some insights on how we can overcome this long middle.
Myth of the false binary
Thomas speaks about the myth of the False Binary and how that can lead us to choosing from a limited set of options. It is a very powerful concept which can have a profound implication on how we make choices especially during key phases of transitions.
More from Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
Leaving the past behind
Manjari speaks about the challenges she experiences in her first marriage and how she had the courage to walk out of the relationship and rebuild her life and her career. She recounts the role of her parents and some of her friends in this phase of life.
Raising an independent girl child
Manjari speaks about what it takes to raise an independent girl child. We specifically touch upon the notion of ensuring that the girl makes choices that make her financially independent which in turn gives her agency.
Criticality of recovery
Michiel speaks about the criticality of rest and recovery for a leader to be effective. He speaks about how the recovery period could actually spark some creativity and new possibilities.
Bouncing back from a rough patch
Chris speaks about how Roger came back from different phases of his career when he was having a rough patch. He speaks about how, at each of those inflection points, his career could have taken a nosedive.
