Managing Change in Uncertain and Volatile Times with Vanessa Akhtar and Gaurav Gupta

Most organizations, at some point in their lifecycle, come to points where they have to carefully navigate through volatile and uncertain times. And throughout the last couple of years, we all have been going through a period of extreme uncertainty. One of the keys to successfully handling volatile times is the ability to change. Since not all organizations are built the same way or with the same culture, some are better at change and transformation than others. In today’s episode, we have a deep conversation with Vanessa Akhtar and Gaurav Gupta, co-authors of Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times.

We start the conversation by asking our two guests what motivates them personally and professionally. They also share their message to our listeners. In the last two years, our lives were drastically changed due to COVID and its ripple effects. Although this has been the same for organizations, many industries have been changing rapidly over the last century. We dive into the discussion by talking about what change means to organizations and people.

According to Gaurav and Vanessa, there are two aspects of our minds that they call the survive channel and the thrive channel. The survival channel is an instinct we’ve developed over millions of years that responds to threats in the environment. Thrive channel, on the other hand, is what enables us to look for new opportunities. We dive deep into how these two sides of our minds come into play in today’s work environments. We talk about how organizations can implement practices that allow the members to activate thrive and how it helps organizations progress in volatile environments.

Project management is another key aspect we talk about that is important for many organizations. We analyze some of the project management frameworks that became popular for some time and then faded away, why they failed, and how to overcome the shortcomings that caused the failures. We also touch on how organizations can approach restructuring the right way. Towards the end of the episode, we talk about how we can utilize these concepts in our personal lives for family decision-making. 

Resources:

Change: How Organizations Achieve Hard-to-Imagine Results in Uncertain and Volatile Times:
goodreads.com/book/show/57961293-change

Connect with Vanessa:
linkedin.com/in/vanessa-loverme-akhtar-86530624

Connect with Gaurav:
linkedin.com/in/gauravguptadc