Downsizing, Strategy Office and Transforming via Language
Three articles that I found interesting:
Cal Newport wrote this essay in the New Yorker on why so many knowledge workers are quitting, especially after the pandemic. He postulates that these knowledge workers are not quitting because their jobs have disappeared, rather ‘are generally well-educated workers who are leaving their jobs not because the pandemic created obstacles to their employment but, at least in part, because it nudged them to rethink the role of work in their lives altogether’. In effect, many are downsizing their lives consciously to experience a more richer and relaxed lifestyle. Newport believes that this trend may accelerate as people realise that they have more than what’s needed to live a comfortable life. ‘Venetian blinds are nice, but if they require you to work extra acres of land, which in turn requires extra hours of labor from you per week to maintain, are they nice enough to justify all of that squandered life,’ he quotes Thoreau to make the point.
Here’s a 2014 article from McKinsey Insights that I stumbled across last week and felt that it is still quite relevant. This piece captures the role of the Strategy Office in an organisation and given that this is what I do, I could resonate with most of what’s written (and it makes for an excellent primer for anyone interested in the topic of strategy). The article lists down various archetypes of a strategy officer based on the role they play. For instance, the role of a ‘visionary’ is to forecast the trends and identify new opportunities for growth, while the ‘fund manager’ may focus more on which projects to start and carry out the budget allocation accordingly. I could see shadows of my daily job across multiple archetypes and realised how much of strategic work is often an outcome of the previous experience the Strategy Officer brings on the table.
Finally, here's a fun piece on learning a new language during the lockdown that came out in the FT. While it’s a fun piece on how the author decided to learn Danish to escape the guilt, anxiety and boredom, a particular reflection stood out for me which was that ‘the most important thing that I’ve learnt in the 15 months since then is how transformative the process is: the more you speak, think or dream in another tongue, the more you can morph into someone else. And your new persona will be a surprise.’ This essay absolutely nudged me to keep practicing my Swedish!
A quote that I came across:
“You don’t know how the world is going to change. You do not know how you are going to change. You can dream 10 years ahead, but it’s best to limit your (career) plan to a year or two ahead.”
- Adam Grant
