The NEXT Normal Story Studio Network, Dave Trafford and iContact Productions

In this episode of the NEXT NORMAL, we explore how our experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic have sharpened or changed our sense of meaning – the meaning of words, the meaning of rituals, the meaning of relationships and values. Ujwal Arkalgud is a Cultural Anthropologist, CEO and co-founder of Motivbase. He and his team have made some interesting observations over the course of the pandemic. [6:48] Ujwal- “One of the fascinating areas of change is how we think about joy in our lives...Meaning always changes. It's just, the pandemic has accelerated it in certain areas. ” Sarah Thorne is President and CEO of Decision Partners. She says this intense focus on the meaning of our health and values has informed and shifted the behaviour of most people since the pandemic hit us in March 2020. 8:40] Sarah- "They were taking risk assessment into their own hands and trying to make decisions about trade-offs, what they could do and couldn't do and what they felt comfortable doing. And what kind of self protective behaviours, whether or not they would go to a restaurant or ride public transportation. And here we are over a year later, we are making those same decisions, only much, many more decisions and much more complex now.” Dave Hardy, President and CEO of Hardy Stevenson and Associates, is an urban planner who says our collective COVID experience has caused a shift in values when it comes to where we live and how we live. [11:17] Dave - “And we're reassessing, should we be living in the core of a city? We're rethinking living in a suburban or rural area. We can see a transition now of a lot of people, you know, lost jobs and people, and there’s so many cities around the world have lost people, but suburban or rural areas, that’s where people are rethinking their values. And I need to be in a place where there's space, where it can be with family, friends, and so on. And I need to be in a home that I can be safe in as well. So that that's a huge value shift going on that has been significantly affected by COVID.” And Lisa Taylor specializes in the #FutureofWork. Lisa is the President of Challenge Factory. Clearly the economic lockdowns not only affected how we work, but we’ve been left to our own devices in many cases to make decisions we may have otherwise taken for granted. [13:08] Lisa- “I think one of the things that it has really shaken is the way that you're ‘supposed to’ navigate through life. So Dave, the way that you are ‘supposed to’ choose where you're going to live and what your relationship is between work and life and learning and time horizons. And should you take transit or shouldn't you, how do you make health-related decisions? Because we've been put in the driver's seat in some ways to make all kinds of decisions without social cues, without being in contact with other people where we can see, well, ‘How's everyone else making this decision?’” In the next episode, Lisa will reflect on the deeper challenges and opportunities we will need to address head on as employers and employees in the post pandemic workplace.

In this episode of the NEXT NORMAL, we return to work and explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the workplace- redefining the what, how, where, and why as we focus on the future of work. Lisa Taylor is the President of Challenge Factory and specializes in the #FutureOfWork. Lisa says re-opening strategies aren’t one-size-fits-all and it’s okay to have new needs as we re-imagine work. [04:08] Lisa- “From a practical perspective, even individual employees don't want the options to be endless. They want to know what's the framework? What’s the way that we're going to do this? We hear it over and over again to our politicians, but also to our employers, what's the plan?” Dave Hardy, President and CEO of Hardy Stevenson and Associates, is an urban planner who is cognizant of the fact not everyone is going back to the workplace, many never left. [12:08] Dave Hardy- "There are a lot of professions and jobs that have never stopped working. They've had to adapt. I’m thinking skilled labourers, bankers, retail, service sector. They don't work from home. But it's interesting, we have a lot to learn from them.” Ujwal Arkalgud is a Cultural Anthropologist, CEO and co-founder of Motivbase. He and his team have noticed that our pandemic experience has shifted our meaning of productivity. [18:54] Ujwal- “It's still a small percentage of the workforce that has changed what productivity really means to them in their minds. But, even if it's a small percentage, it's significant enough that it's actually impacted work environments.” Sarah Thorne, President and CEO of Decision Partners, acknowledges the acceleration of managerial challenges and implications around career change and voluntary turnover. [20:52] Sarah- “I would just say, watch the women. I've had this conversation with at least four women in the past two weeks who have decided that they've done what they needed to do. They are going to step back. They are going to refocus. They're thinking about their values and what's really important to them at this point in their life." In the next episode, Dave Hardy will bridge how we accommodate the future of work in our immediate environments through urban planning of our homes and cities to facilitate and accelerate needed changes.

In this episode of THE NEXT NORMAL, we reimagine our cities and our physical environments. What immediate and long-term needs has the pandemic exposed in our communities and what opportunities do we have for inspiration and innovation that lay ahead? Dave Hardy, President and CEO of Hardy Stevenson and Associates, is an urban planner who is looking at the short-term and long-term needs of communities and cities. He talks about the health divides created by the push and pull of the pandemic. [03:50] Dave Hardy- "COVID has shown us that healthy cities mean we have to come to grips with the health divide in the cities. We, Pre-COVID, thought healthy cities were walkable. Now we're saying, ‘Well, hold on’. We have hospitals that are over capacity. We have seniors’ homes that have been vastly neglected that have to be rethought. So COVID is pushing us to think about that. It's also pushing us to think about where we’re being pushed into a digital world. Our families are being pushed together. We have food insecurity that has been eliminated or illuminated.” Lisa Taylor specializes in the #FutureOfWork. Lisa is the President of Challenge Factory. She illustrates three categories of community members that must be in the spotlight for planning healthy cities. [08:45] Lisa- “So when we get to health and wellness and when we look at what it means to build a healthy city, we really need to be looking across the board at many different categories, and really look at how do we build our cities so that they're good for the youngest members of our society, for the oldest members of our society and for the most vulnerable.” Ujwal Arkalgud is a Cultural Anthropologist, CEO and co-founder of Motivbase. Ujwal says the consumer sees past the excuses provided by government and corporations now more than ever. The community members are fuelled for change and are the drivers for healthy city conversations. [07:09] Ujwal- “And I think what's interesting about that is for the first time the consumer’s saying I'm tired of relying on the government to do this stuff. So I'm asking the question to private entities, ‘What are you going to do? How are you going to innovate?’ Now's the time.” Sarah Thorne is President and CEO of Decision Partners. She points out that we’ve become more aware and appreciative of the people and programs in our communities and how they’ve helped us. [10:20] Sarah- “I think there's a new respect but there's also a new recognition that the way that we've been living isn't sustainable. And we need to build more integrated and resilient communities. " In the next episode, Sarah brings us back to the questions of being adaptive and resilient. As we continue to explore THE NEXT NORMAL, we’ll highlight adaptive capacity and the point that everybody benefits from the resilience perspective. The things that we would think of as contributing to resilience might surprise us. Have comments questions or ideas for our hosts? Feel free to drop us an email at hello at StoryStudioNetwork dot com. If you enjoyed this episode be sure to SHARE it, RATE it, and SUBSCRIBE to the show!

In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we address “adaptive capacity”. It was stressed and tested during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic and it highlighted our collective need and ability to be resilient. Sarah Thorne, President and CEO at Decision Partners, leads the discussion in this show. [00:03:38] “What have we learned so far about our own adaptive capacity, that of our families and people we have relationships with. And what are we learning about adaptive capacity in our communities and in society?” Dave Hardy, President of Hardy Steveson and Associates, isn’t convinced we’ve adapted well because we haven’t learned well from past experiences that tested out resilience. [00:05:00] “We're actually missing the fundamentals and we continue to do so. I looked at the, ice storm back in 2013 and the huge power outage in 2003. We still haven't learned our lessons from that in terms of making sure we are stronger and more resilient.” Motivbase CEO and Cultural Anthropologist Ujwal Arkalgud says our experience during the pandemic has forced a major shift in our understanding of resiliency to be included in our discussion about equity. [00:09:30] “There is an increased recognition of the fact that thre’s an equity problem in how resilient we can be as people and in the expectations that we tend to impose on other people, without realizing that their experiences, their background, their own infrastructure may prevent them from actually being resilient, from actually adapting the way one might be able to.” On one hand, we’ve all become more aware of the cultural challenges we face because of the pandemic. On the other hand, Challenge Factory President Lisa Taylor says we run the risk of the general public and policy makers being overwhelmed by the depth of the problem, to the point where we feel incapable of seeing real solutions. [00:12:18] “I think we saw that in spades with the outrage that started to happen when the realization happened, that there wasn't paid sick days or ways for these vulnerable workers, to be able to take time off, to go get vaccinated and to recover from the vaccination and the outcry that happened over the days and weeks leading up to the modified policy that started to come in was outrageous. I mean, it was really, it's such a high level, never before had we really seen such focus on what it means to be in a precarious employment situation and what the real implications are, not just to those workers, but to everyone and why this is an issue that everyone needs to get behind.” Have comments questions or ideas for our hosts? Feel free to drop us an email at hello at StoryStudioNetwork dot com. If you enjoyed this episode be sure to SHARE it, RATE it, and SUBSCRIBE to the show!

In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we explore the changing meaning of self-care. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we adopted puppies, scheduled sessions on the exercise bike, and developed at-home spa rituals but the definition of self-care remains misunderstood. The hosts of The Next Normal share examples of how self-care has evolved in their personal lives and professional environments, and relate the shifts to what life could look like moving forward. Ujwal Arkalgud, CEO and Cultural Anthropologist of MotivBase, leads the discussion in this show and serves up a definition that takes self-care to a deeper level beyond bubble baths and vitamin-infused food products. [05:04]- “What you'll realize, especially in North America, in the US and Canada in particular, it's all about understanding oneself better because self-care is really about understanding the things that trigger a sense of anxiety, stress, mood, swings, even depression, whatever it is that I am struggling with, trying to understand, not just what triggers it, but what I can do, the different aspects that contribute to it and what I can do to alleviate some of those feelings… .”   Challenge Factory President Lisa Taylor shares remarks on the shift that she’s seen happening in the workplace with employers taking keen interest in their employees’ physical health and wellness perhaps to an even greater degree than before. [07:06]- “We've seen budgets increase in the area of being able to help teams have more holistic analysis where they go through a stress assessment that has nine dimensions that helps them understand, is that a relationship that's causing them anxiety or is it their personal physical health and wellbeing? What is it that's actually at the heart of some of these things and give employees the language so that they actually can bring these things up within a corporate setting.”   Dave Hardy, President of Hardy Steveson and Associates, acknowledges that, through our pandemic self-care practices, like going for walks, we’ve come to covet the local park and rural areas sparking a need to preserve them. [ 13:34]- “And we see the usefulness and the importance of [environmental design] in this pandemic. What we really need to look at is how do we use the parks? How do we preserve them? And my concern is that sometimes we are having, as a planner, I'm seeing a worshiping of density and sometimes those non-dense parts, rural areas, are so therapeutic to us and have to continue to be so in terms of other pressures that we have to deal with in cities.”   Sarah Thorne, President and CEO at Decision Partners, highlights the importance of facilitating self-care for others and suggests that getting to know your neighbours by name and meeting them where they are in the moment is key. [17:48 ]- “I found it's really important to ask people, how are you doing today? I think it's a better question and it's a more honest question than ‘How are ya?’ Just kind of a throwaway or how are you today or have a good day, but how are you doing today? Because one of the things that certainly I've experienced, I expect you all have too, is that, my friends, my family, my colleagues going through this pandemic, it's been, different people have had different days. Some days are tougher than others to get through. And sometimes for really no apparent reason. There's just days that are tougher than others. ​​And I think that just taking the time to ask people, how are you doing today is so powerful and it's such an important connection to where you are and who you're with.” In next week’s episode of The Next Normal, Sarah leads the conversation into recovery planning and ground-level opportunities for innovation. Where are the opportunities? What were the learning moments and how good will we be at taking advantage of them? Have comments questions or ideas for our hosts? Feel free to drop us an email at hello at StoryStudioNetwork dot com.   If you

In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we take the conversation to recovery planning, policy change and ground-level opportunities for innovation. Who will the leaders be? Where are the opportunities? What were the learning moments and how good will we be at taking advantage of them? This episode unlocks a few ah-ha moments that you won’t want to miss!   Sarah Thorne, President and CEO at Decision Partners, today’s host, highlights innovation as critical to building an adaptive and resilient society as key players plan to move forward citing the unprecedented innovation in public health during the pandemic as an example of what’s possible. [07:18 ]- “The innovation in public health and medicine is just extraordinary and there's such an important future ahead for our scientists and researchers. But what if we all focused our thoughts and our innovation? What if we all focused on the pressing changes ahead? The radical changes in the workforce that Lisa's been talking about? Climate change? Imagine the possibility.”   History shows that we have the ability to innovate and get creative. Urban planner Dave Hardy, President of Hardy Stevenson and Associates, shares the example of the industrial revolution as the catalyst for food, water, and sanitation standards and points out that this pandemic has highlighted an area of planning that has been overlooked. [08:37]- “What we don't have is a virus standard. We do see people wiping down tables but have they all been wiped down? Where's the filtration? Where's the disinfection? Where's the inspection of viruses. It's not there and it needs to be there along with the standards and regulations. And so to me, I see that as kind of a very low-hanging fruit in terms of what we need to do in terms of innovation, creativity, and a standard to have that for our public spaces, our workplaces, our institutions and our homes.”   Challenge Factory President Lisa Taylor shares her perspective through the lens of working closely with some of these policymakers in the public sector. She is often struck by how plugged in they are with the information and data they have collected yet change remains a slow logger jam. [10:51]- “And, the proof point, I think that the pandemic really showed is all the public sector pivoting that took place. If they didn't know what could be possible they wouldn't have been able to do it so fast. If they had to go through a whole series of discussions and information gathering, just to figure out what to do. They couldn't have pivoted to working from home on a dime. They know what to do. It's just getting it done that becomes the problem.”   Because the nature of innovation requires starting with small cohorts or constituents, Ujwal Arkalgud, CEO and Cultural Anthropologist of MotivBase, shares a word of compassion around future planning and innovation by both the private and public sectors in the months and years to come. [22:06]- “Everybody does not embrace change at the same pace and in the same way. It doesn't happen instantly. So, I think the one barrier that the public sector has to get past and get comfortable with is the fact that they may be designing solutions and innovating on ideas that may not work for everybody at the same time or instantly. And there has to be a comfort level with that.”   In next week’s episode of The Next Normal, Lisa takes what we’ve learned about the forward-thinking definition of innovation and guides the conversation around post-COVID skill identification and development for the workforce AND for leadership in all aspects of life. Have comments questions or ideas for our hosts? Feel free to drop us an email at hello at StoryStudioNetwork dot com.   If you enjoyed this episode be sure to SHARE it, RATE it, and SUBSCRIBE to the show!