'Subtle Shifts of Radical Change': GoDaddy's Nikhil Arora pens eBook on Covid-era insights

Since the start of 2020, the world has watched as the Coronavirus crisis evolved from an outbreak in far-flung Wuhan to a global pandemic that has impacted just about every aspect of normal life. The health crisis has been swiftly followed by an economic crisis, with the world economy in recession as even granular-level transactional business has taken a hit. About 5 months into India’s active battle against COVID-19, as employers and business pilot new strategies for the continuance of their operations, they have perhaps been handed a guiding light by a person uniquely placed to weigh the ever-changing situation.

'The Subtle Shifts Of Radical Change' by Nikhil Arora

‘The Subtle Shifts of Radical Change: Navigating the everyday shifts in Business, work and leadership’ traces its origins to the very first day of India’s Covid lockdown, Nikhil Arora, the MD and VP of website and domain hosting leader GoDaddy India, tells me on a Zoom call about his debut book which has just released on Amazon’s Kindle books. Like the subject it covers and the concepts it upholds, its very existence is an indication of that very business uncertainty. In a world where people don’t venture out, where book shops aren’t open, and the tangible has become often undesirable, the eBook-first approach is perhaps the only book approach.

“It was at a webinar,” he recounts, observing “Webinar culture began during lockdown.” “The first webinar I attended during lockdown, on day 1, as I was listening to people there were some new learnings coming out for me and perhaps for others, and so I wondered ‘how to capture them?’ I felt it could form a knowledge base, and so I began journaling them, starting from a personal point of view.”

Work From Home versus Working Remotely

Correctly predicting then that the three-letter acronym that would come to embody the future of work in a post-Covid world was WFH (work from home), he talks about setting his expectations. “It was initially to share learnings and perspectives with co-workers. It was a new experience not working with people in person - it’s obviously a new shift. The good thing was we’re already used to this business culture. Nevertheless, it was a mental shift to be able to say that you’re going to be just as effective.”

“At a macro level, the book talks about shifts at a leadership and innovation level. It’s almost a shift to a beginner’s mindset. Covid has redefined what leadership is,” he says, and tells me how:

“In Covid, if I have 20 (years) and you have zero, we are effectively both at square one. Our ability to deal with short-term uncertainty is the same. One of the things for a leader is to examine data, and there are generally many data points coming in each day - only now you can’t compare data with past trends.” Calling it the Recency-Frequency principle, he describes, “managing that became an exercise in short-term thinking, and I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. As a leader, mining data with intuition has become the new normal, and the role of intuition has been amplified. We used to say data doesn’t lie, but with data like this your intuition has to come out.” 

He chuckles when I remind him of how WFH in the previous era used to sometimes be construed as an excuse to work in one’s PJs, and then sets the record straight. “In the past WFH was a perk but now it means remote working - working from your home environment. For me, the challenge in the first few weeks was to keep engaged with the team. ‘How to be in touch?’ Always being on audio-only calls would never work. Appearing on video allows you to feed on each other’s energy. People need that from each other” he explains, going one step further to add, “we did 10 minute meetings too, smaller byte-sized ones.”

Donning his organisational head’s cap, he didn’t leave the brass tacks out. “In terms of slacking off, at some point we need to give autonomy to the team. The responsibility on them is high, and as long as they’re getting their work done, if they can’t be available at a certain point, maybe they can later. As leaders we now have to be sensitive to people’s living situations. How do we help them set up a good home working environment? It could be something as simple as getting them a chair. Or be sensitive that if someone’s children or pets appear on a Zoom call, it’s not a big deal.”

In the same vein, “Nobody need be very formal anymore. For me, the lesson I talk about is to embrace the change for your employee rather than micromanaging. The best we can do is to provide our flexibility”. To this empathy-first approach, he adds, “lastly, I think mental wellness is the other shift. As a leader and company we have to spend enough time to help employees and stakeholders with their mental wellness. For instance, we’ve tried something as simple as an hour of fitness over Zoom.”

How to be better at WFH?

When asked for his take on what he recommends at a personal level, for a professional to ace WFH, Nikhil Arora doesn’t beat around the bush, making a big statement. “We’re essentially looking at a gig economy, within a company.” A gig economy is one that is characterised by short-term contracts and freelancing. “As employees you have to become more generalist, less specialist. I would look for someone more multifaceted than specific. We’ll all become freelancers within the company and so you must think of yourselves that way. The business conditions are changing so fast, as an employee you must tool up, add more general skills to your repertoire.”

In terms of the tangibles, “Make sure you have some basics. A good background (for your Zoom calls), good call quality. Online education and upskilling are important. If you commute, are you using that time effectively?”

“Also, make sure your mental and physical resilience is up to scratch. Invest an hour to hour-and-a-half on this daily. That’ll help you in a professional and personal way. Earlier it was optional.”

Is WFH going away anytime soon? And what comes next?

When I ask him about where he sees this going - if people are going to come back to work, of if what we’ve experienced has fundamentally changed ‘the future of work’, Mr Arora, who under his last charge led the APAC operations of shared workspace giant WeWork, forecast something a little in-between.

“My view is the shift is going to be towards a hybrid model and that hybrid is going to evolve. Many of us have been wired in a certain way. Now, we’re observing everyone’s working 24x7. Over time, it’ll evolve into a hybrid where certain days people will work in office. Some innovative ideas do need working in office. It could evolve into some kind of 4+1 or 3+2 formula between WFH and WFO, and this requires a change in how companies design their policies. Digitisation is even more important now. Companies may have to provide courses, etc.”

On what other things companies must do, what he says essentially encompasses a stakeholder model - based on the survival of others and the active enabling of that by corporates. “Business continuity planning is not something anybody thought about if you're a smaller brand. Small businesses didn't have anything to fall back on. As far as we can help provide them some resources, if it helps…,” he ventures, first hand given that GoDaddy is the digitisation fundamental for scores of SMEs.

'Corporate purpose is important - Missionary versus Mercenary approach'

“Every company needs to re-look at goal setting. Corporate purpose is important. The purpose of the brand is going to be front and center. If you’re not vocally talking about why you exist and what you’re giving back to the community - consumers have a long memory.” Every company has CSR, he says, but giving back to the community is an imperative now rather than an option or vanity. “What fund-raising efforts are you taking up? How does your platform help in enabling the government? How does it help in health initiatives? That reset needs to happen in every brand.” He goes on to even speak of a ‘collaborative competition’.

“In the lockdown I was talking to customers every evening. We recently started a fund-raising for small businesses,” he reveals, going on to broach a very interesting sub-aspect of survivability. “The public partnership has never been more relevant. I can’t operate unless you meet guidelines. The dependence on the public sector is very high. Every business leader should build a public sector association, and also find ways to give back. The consumer must know you’re helping out. I call it the Missionary versus Mercenary approach. ”

Subtle Shifts, not-so-subtle learnings

Towards the end, I ask him of his learnings while writing the book as well as generally on doing business during lockdown.

Alongside a ‘contribution to community’ versus CSR approach, one of the biggest learnings was the reliance on people, on governments and on states. This is also especially true hyperlocally. In lockdown, knowing every neighbour becomes important. We will get more deglobalised, he forecasts, ‘the definition of globalisation as it was in the past won’t be there. We’ll have to be more Aatmanirbhar.’

“Another is that the women’s participation in the workforce is still low. Being online more is an opportunity to change that. It removes constraints of various kinds and allows for gender equality to a new level.” On this front he adds a lament. “This was also a lost opportunity for gender equality. At a webinar with a company called Ungender they were talking about women’s representation in webinars, and we found that it was only 10%. For whatever reason it wasn’t high earlier, we can change that now - it’s an opportunity.” 

Given that consumers are also spending vastly more time online, he adds, “Trust factor is important. Trust in a brand, trust as a leader is going to be front and centre. What kind of conversations do you allow? Some guidelines have to be there to ensure that they’re conducive in nature. It cannot be a bashing or hate platform. Define your purpose, your engagement with government, with community. In India, many societies had a sense of entitlement. Now it’s humility that’s important.”

He concludes with an upbeat outlook, venturing, “Globally, Indian leaders I feel would be more equipped to deal with it as we are more used to battling crisis. We are more mentally resilient and acceptable of uncertainty. In the west everything is homogenous, you don’t expect everything to change. I think a trend will emerge that Indian leaders worldwide will emerge stronger.”

Nikhil Arora’s ‘The Subtle Shifts of Radical Change: Navigating the everyday shifts in Business, work and leadership’ is available here. All proceeds from its sales will be donated towards Covid causes and relief efforts.