Keep Write

Dear Friends,  It's been a long time since I have been posting recipes here.  The locked down time is a good time to learn and cook new recipes.  Hoping to share many more beautiful and exotic recipes with you'll. Eat nutritious. Stay home👍 Stay Safe👍. Sukanya Yogesh www.Sukanyasmusings.com WATERMELON RIND HALWA This locked down has given us a lot of valuable lessons and one such lesson is reducing wastage and conserving our resources, valuing nature and living quality lives, something that was by being practised by our previous generations but somehow forgotten by us. There are many parts of vegetables or fruits that we tend to throw missing out on the huge nutritional quotient that it offers. It’s time to start making wonderful recipes from them and getting more value out of your buck. Something that fancied me during this lock down was the watermelon rind halwa. All my life I never knew that we could eat the watermelon rind, imagine the gross wastage...

We all like to consider ourselves smart, but raw intelligence isn’t everything. When we get stuck on a problem, sometimes it’s because we’re overthinking it. Pay attention to when focused thinking isn’t getting you anywhere; perhaps it has turned into obsessing over the same answers or approaches. Consider whether experimenting with a new strategy or talking ideas through with others might be more likely to result in success. Take breaks to let your brain relax and get unstuck. Expand your range of skills for reaching insights and coming up with new ideas; don’t be someone who sees every problem as a nail because your only tool is a hammer. And when you do find yourself ruminating, disrupt it by doing a few minutes of an absorbing activity, such as a puzzle. This can be a surprisingly effective way to break your brain out of a rut. Adapted from “5 Ways Smart People Sabotage Their Success,” by Alice Boyes

Project overload is real. But as a leader, it can be hard to tell whether your team needs more resources or just could be working more efficiently. Start by asking people to identify their key activities and how much time they spend on them in a typical week. Use that data to assess workloads and priorities. Consider which tasks the team could stop doing and which might benefit from having their process rethought. Pay special attention to low-value projects that have to get done but that take up an inordinate amount of time. Are there ways to simplify the workflows to reduce the amount of time your team spends in these areas? And last but not least, look for tasks that simply can be done more quickly. If your team is still struggling after these steps, it might be time to hire more people. Adapted from “What to Do If Your Team Is Too Busy to Take On New Work,” by Dutta Satadip

Going back to work is tough for any new parent, but the transition is especially difficult for those suffering from postpartum depression. (Remember, postpartum depression affects both women and men.) If you manage someone who has recently had a baby, pay close attention to how they’re doing — a parent’s struggle doesn’t always show on the outside. Some people may overcompensate by working too hard, while others may show a loss of enthusiasm. Familiarize yourself with the services your firm offers — which may include groups for working parents, health care coverage for counseling, or post-natal yoga or meditation classes — so that you can help your employee access support. Offer options such as flex time, telecommuting, gradual return, or peer mentoring. In fact, it’s a good idea to offer these things to all team members so that the new parent doesn’t feel singled out. Find ways to make supporting employees and their mental health part of your culture. Adapted from " What Managers...

When managers delegate too often, their employees feel abandoned and unmotivated. There are a number of warning signs that you over-delegate, from miscommunicating with your team, to hearing about issues at the last minute, to misunderstanding how your employees set priorities. But the solution isn’t to overcorrect and start doing a bunch of low-level tasks. One approach is to signal that you’re reengaging by taking on a project that’s closely tied to your team’s work. Another is to reset expectations with your team. Use an offsite or planning meeting to reconfirm the vision for the department and get everyone on the same page about goals. It’s also a good idea to double down on communicating your vision for the team. Use every opportunity to stress and reinforce the message. You can remind people about the overarching vision at the beginning of a project, during town halls and other forums, or periodically through email. Adapted from " How to Tell If You’re Delegating Too Much — ...

A CEO whom we’ll call Melissa was exasperated. Having delivered seven years of breakthrough performance and nearing retirement, she was eager to select and prepare her successor. Members of her executive team were strong in their current roles but none was quite right for the top job. As we considered a broader group of potential candidates, the CHRO chimed in with an idea: “What about Tom? He is very strategic and his teams would take the hill for him. He might be worth looking at as an option.” Then the CHRO paused for a moment and added, “Of course there is this issue of his executive presence. Tom often hogs the spotlight in meetings unaware of how that alienates his peers. And…well…I don’t know how to put this, but he has noticeable body odor that’s a real turnoff.” Melissa agreed: “Tom is a brilliant business mind, but I just can’t see him representing our company.” As it turns out, for eighteen years Tom had received stellar performance reviews and top bonuses on the strength of...

What working parent hasn’t felt guilty about missing soccer games and piano recitals? When there are last-minute schedule changes at work or required travel to a client site, it’s normal to worry that you’re somehow permanently scarring your little one. But how does our work affect our children’s lives?  About two decades ago, in a study that surveyed approximately 900 business professionals ranging from 25 to 63 years old, across an array of industries, Drexel University’s Jeff Greenhaus and I explored the relationship between work and family life and described how these two aspects of life are both allies and enemies .  In light of the deservedly increased attention we’re now paying to mental health problems in our society, it’s worth taking a fresh look at some of our findings on how the emotional lives of children — the unseen stakeholders at work — are affected by their parents’ careers.  Our findings help explain what’s been observed since our original research abo...