The NEXT Normal: Recent Episodes

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we wrap up season one with a focus on where the pandemic created bright spots. What conversations happened because of our young people? What impact did they have? How are we now facing gaps in our education systems? Our co-hosts share the positive lessons they’ve learned through the pandemic and through this series.

Decision Partners President, Sarah Thorne kicks off the conversation and says there remains a lot of unanswered questions as we move forward from our pandemic experience. However, we’ve learned a lot that we can take forward through creativity, with clear purpose, and to work collaboratively to tackle the big issues.

Sarah [00:03:22] “We really need to enable and encourage system thinking because certainly the pandemic has taught us that all of these things are interconnected. Mother nature has been telling us that for years.”

Lisa Taylor, President of Challenge Factory, goes deeper on a question from episode seven, ‘What do we want the future of work to look like?’. Whether we’re discussing workplaces, the environment, food security, health equity, the list goes on, it begins by having a seat at the table for everyone, facilitating dialogue- including with our grandchildren- some of the most imaginative minds available.

Lisa [00:06:29] “There's a concept of, ‘Nothing for us without us.’ It starts within certain demographic groups and certain disadvantaged populations that says, don't create programs for us without including us. And we can certainly apply that to an age lens as well.”

Ujwal Arkalgud, cultural anthropologist, CEO and co-founder at Motivbase, elaborates on the idea from episode 11 that we don’t need to mythbust rather we should embrace the new myths to learn better lessons. Using surfing as an analogy, he suggests leaders ride the wave of the new consumer beliefs and understanding coming out of the pandemic and use it to find a new way forward.

Ujwal [00:10:15] “One of the things that we teach when we go into these organizations is to figure out what are the areas where you don't have control and one of those areas is how myths, ideas about anything and everything in culture develops. There's very little control over that. And certainly brands cannot dictate that and certainly politicians cannot dictate that. So then the question becomes, okay, so what do we do about it?”

Following the thread of going with the flow, Sarah says we’re not going to solve problems of the future with solutions of the past.

Sarah [00:12:57] “I think it's the same thing with education and policy-making, we need to be thinking about, we need to put on our adaptive management brains and we need to combine it with a passion and a commitment to continuous learning because there's no check-the-box solutions.”

We started season one with meaning as currency. Additionally it’s become clear that creativity is also currency as we move forward. Urban planner, Dave Hardy is President at Hardy Stevenson and Associates believes there are two very important positives that have come out of the pandemic.

Dave [00:14:37] “We need to open up our minds and allow that creativity to come in. I see two areas of better coming out of COVID. One is senior care, the vulnerable care. We need to do a much better job there but COVID has shown a light on that, unfortunately. We need to do a much better job in designing our cities. We have vacant office spaces. We redesigned public spaces and places of gathering. So that has been a result of COVID as well to have forced us to think, how do we be creative and make that happen?”

Ujwal suggests that no matter the subject we’re talking about there is one underlying, positive theme.

[00:15:52] “I mean, the big thing that I've learned, I think just going through this series is that there is an underlying message of optimism in everything we're talking about. And I think the pandemic has actually made us more optimistic than the other way around.”

Lisa believes that one of the positives that has come out COVID is zoom, and not the virtual meeting technology.

[00:18:05] “...but zoom in terms of the level of focus that we put very tight up on a certain topic or very broad. And I think one of the things that we've learned going through COVID is we need to be able to [00:18:20] readjust the level of focus that we have all at the same time.”

Sarah highlights that one positive lesson learned through the pandemic is the power of connection and getting to know the people in our communities.

[00:20:45] “We learned, to Dave's point, to value the people in our community who are looking after us, the people who were working in healthcare, the people who were delivering food, the people that were producing food. I think that we learned about our communities. We learned about people who are vulnerable in our communities, including seniors living in their own homes who didn't have access to the help that they needed during the pandemic. We've got to do a better job. So, I think that we learned about connection and I think that we learned a lot about our personal values, which is what we need to really build on going forward.”

The Next Normal is sponsored by:

Challenge Factory: Shaping the future of work.

Decision Partners: Our world is a better place when we make better decisions.

MotivBase: Decoding implicit meaning behind what people talk about.

Hardy Stevenson & Associates: Planning the cities of the future.

This series is produced for the Story Studio Network by iContact Productions

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we look at the big picture of energy and environmental considerations post-pandemic with a focus on the opportunity ahead of us. What has shifted in the minds of the consumer? What are we missing? Where should we be looking next? Who is obligated to respond?

Urban planner, Dave Hardy is President at Hardy Stevenson and Associates sets up the episode by stating how COVID has created a global climate science experiment.

Dave [00:04:23] “Who would have thought, 18 months ago that we could say, well, what would happen to climate if we took all the cars off the road, if we removed the airplanes from the air, if half the Western workforce worked from home for 18 months? And the results that I can see from the climate scientists I follow is that there's been a global fall in carbon emissions of 21% below 2005 levels. And the ozone layer is starting to repair.”

Ujwal Arkalgud is CEO and co-founder at Motivbase. As a cultural anthropologist he says the research is showing another positive that has come out of the pandemic. The distinction between good technology and bad technology and how it’s slowly becoming clearer in the mind of the consumer. The old “boogeyman” narratives are on their way out.

Ujwal [00:08:03] “I'll give you one example, the realization that we can now use technology to effectively reduce our reliance on certain types of fossil fuel, especially nuclear technology, as an example, is seen in a slightly different light now because the meanings around it, as long as we talk about technological innovation, the meanings around it are very positive.”

Lisa Taylor, President of Challenge Factory, says we all need to be in the sustainability game including career development and workforce strategy firms and that there are two dynamics that are pushing companies to make changes; market opportunities and the desire to highlight sustainability as a core value through certifications such as B Corp.

Lisa [00:15:01] “... Core to how they operate, [companies] think about these things and they demonstrate the impact that they're having. And I think that as we look at the number of companies like ours, that are pursuing B Corp certification, or whether it's other levels of certification and qualifications, it's also transforming the work that gets done inside of the companies.”

Decision Partners President, Sarah Thorne says they’ve recently completed development of engagement framework for the Army Corps of Engineers to involve people in a way that is purposeful and meaningful to them so that they contribute to solutions that address climate change.

Sarah [00:19:09] “We are what we measure and what we're seeing is that corporate social responsibility is actually being replaced with more comprehensive Environmental, Social, and Governance, ESG it's called, measures. And these are really, really important because they're elevating the social measures, including stakeholder and community engagement, dialogue, co-creation. They're elevating those to the same levels as financial and climate change reporting.”

Next week we’ll wrap up season one of the series with an energized conversation amongst our co-hosts on the topic of Education, Youth and Creative Empowerment. Collectively setting up the future for generations to come and confidently taking steps towards The NEXT Normal.

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we confront ageism – particularly in the workplace. Lisa Taylor, President at Challenge Factory debunks two myths about older workers. Whatever we call our ageing workforce, Lisa shudders when we refer to it as the “grey tsunami”.

Lisa [00:03:39] The grey tsunami, my least favourite phrase for this very normal and very positive demographic trend that we are living longer. It casts such a negative light into the concept that we have added years of engagement and productivity and relationship building. It makes it seem like it's a disaster that's happening instead of a triumph.”

North America’s traditional retirement age of 65 was set in 1935. It’s worth noting life expectancy in that year was 62. Today, life expectancy is closer to 83.

Decision Partners President, Sarah Thorne says our collective perception of ageing assumes seniors are all vulnerable. And that’s not entirely true.

Sarah [00:09:44] In times of change, times of uncertainty, what determines how seniors can respond are the social determinants of health, not age. So, we can't simply assign a number and say, this is the age where we need to retire or, as a company I used to work for called it, decelerate.”

Ujwal Arkalgud is CEO and co-founder at Motivbase. As a cultural anthropologist he says we can’t just wait for or rely on policy changes. It’s up to each of us to force a shift in culture.

Ujwal [00:20:40] “People themselves have to change how they think about their careers. They have to change the ideas that they have been born and brought up with. There’s a massive cultural shift that is also necessary because as long as you have people flocking to buy anti-aging products, taking Botox injections, as long as you have…these kinds of narratives…there is no one way that this is going to change.”

Urban planner, Dave Hardy is President at Hardy Stevenson and Associates. Four of his recent hires are in their 70s. He says they not only bring experience and historic perspective, they bring a sense of values to the workplace.

Dave [00:22:43] There's a set of values and a work ethic that's really important in the senior population that I think still needs to kind of trickle down into gen Zed, like: spelling counts when you produce something, showing up to work counts, you know, talking to your boss and not your friends count. All of these things aren’t filtered down. They need to, and that's why I hire people in their seventies.”

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we explore the changing nature of the American social contract and the decisions we entrust to our leaders. What does it mean to lead post-pandemic? Whose responsibility is it to build a better normal? And what can we expect from leadership moving forward?

In the last twelve months, today’s host, Ujwal Arkalgud, CEO and Cultural Anthropologist of MotivBase, has been inundated with questions and conversations with C-suite executives about the changing nature of the American social contract and the challenges experienced by members of the workforce.

[04:27]- “I wanted to set the tone by just explaining what the American caste system really means, not from an academic standpoint, but really means to people, to the average American that's. You know, learning about this and talking about this, uh, it's really about the ability for all types of workers to have. The forum to advocate for themselves to have the same privileges that others might have to be able to stand up, raise their hands and say, no, I will not do this, or no, I need better. Or, here's what I need in order to do my job better and there's an increased recognition of the fact that there is a huge divide…”

Challenge Factory President, Lisa Taylor, presents the analogy of putting together a puzzle versus solving a mystery for how we can reframe what needs to happen within the current social contract.

[13:31]- “Instead, we're leaning on what Sarah referenced earlier more of the scientific model, which is to say we're on pursuit of solving a mystery. We have questions of what's going to unfold and we're trying to solve the mystery and we're looking for clues along the way. And not every mystery gets wrapped up really neatly. And we may not actually have all of the answers that we need. So the leadership that we have to have has to trust that we're going to be able to do the right things. and our people need to be able to trust that, together, we're going to continue to solve this mystery without feeling like we have to give what's the picture on the front of the box and here's the six steps of how we're going to get there.”

Leaning into the theme of trust in our leaders in the environments we’re in including the workplace and where we live, Sarah Thorne, President and CEO at Decision Partners, shares the three key questions from her world of risk assessment and decision making and how it could impact the public’s trust in leadership.

[18:10]- “I think if we could get people to think more broadly and, in terms of our leaders, not focus so much on communicating the absolutes, the whats, but get people thinking about the ‘so what’ and the ‘now what’, we'd be a lot further ahead.”

Urban planner Dave Hardy, President of Hardy Steveson and Associates, believes that the trust issue runs very, very deep but it is possible to build trust in corporate and community leadership.

[18:29]- “I'm constantly trying to get people to trust that something's going to happen 25 years from now. And that's a hard communications piece. So I share and tell with my spokespeople, politicians, corporate leaders, I said there are two things you want to get across about trust: First, the public trust your values. They don't know if you're competent, you quite know what you can do, but they do know you're going to make the decision they would. The same way they would had they been you. The second is they may not know who you are, but they trust your competence. So you could be a misanthrope, but they know you're doing, you're competent to do the right thing. And if you, as a member of the public had that information, they would make the same decision based on that information that you would.”

In next week’s episode of The Next Normal, Challenge Factory’s, Lisa Taylor builds on the discussion around the shifting and changing social contract and explores the outdated career thinking that society is experiencing. We’re being challenged to think about our own longevity and about our careers in a way that's relevant for 2021.

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we’re in a better place today than we were pre-COVID. In fact, co-host Dave Hardy, President and CEO of Hardy Stevenson and Associates, expects things to improve even more.

[00:06:10] Dave Hardy “I'm excited about the future. We'll have cities with lower energy consumption. We'll be able to educate people better in terms of how to sustain our natural environment. We even could be able to create smart streets that do their own snowplowing. So, I'm optimistic that the next normal will be a very positive.

All of Dave’s optimism hinges on the accelerated development of new technologies, particularly those driven by artificial intelligence. He says the pandemic pushed governments and industry to reassess the role of tech in our daily lives. That’s meant being able to educate our kids and run our business from the kitchen table.

[00:05:25] Hardy “If you have a cell phone or an iPad, anywhere on the face of the planet, you'll get a first-world education, access to a doctor and you're able to run a global business.”

But the buzz about technology and AI creates concern in some quarters. It raises the spectre of machinery replacing humans in the workplace.

[00:07:03] Ujwal Arkalgud “It's a real fear at the moment. And in particular, a real fear for those once again, who are older, who are less privileged.”

Ujwal Arkalgud is a Cultural Anthropologist and CEO at Motivbase. He says artificial intelligence is artificial.

[00:07:52] Ujwal “It's really not that intelligent…We're at least 50 to a hundred years away from true intelligence from anything artificial. So that term is a bit of a mis-characterization of technology…So what does that mean? It means it can allow us to do things better. It can allow us to use our brains better.

Essentially, this emerging technology is a companion. But Lisa Taylor, President at Challenge Factory, says we’ve also created a culture of “technological determinism.”

[00:09:50] Lisa Taylor “We spend all of our time talking about the technology and what's going to happen with AI. And that's because we have this sense that now that it exists, we have to use it right away. So not only is it not ready to be used, we don't have to use it right away. This is where our own humanity and our own desire for what we want to see for our own societies really needs to kick in.”

The use of tech and AI needs to be purposeful, part of the plan – not something pursued as “bright, shiny objects.” Sarah Thorne, President at Decision Partners, says we miss the opportunities if fail to ask the right questions up front.

[00:11:10] Sarah Thorne “What do we want to be? What do we want to have? How can we be more inclusive and where can we use technology to help us get there. I think it's really about the future. It’s really about coming together and figuring out what our shared values are and what we want to create going forward.”

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In this episode of The NEXT Normal, we myth bust some of the assumptions and outdated ideas around career and skill development. What do we need to foster in our workforce now that we’ve gone through this experience? What have we discovered about education and training? Have retirement expectations shifted? Are there new skills gaps to address?

Today’s host, Challenge Factory President, Lisa Taylor, kicks things off by highlighting the assumption that that older workers were going to struggle the most with the rapid shift to working remotely. As it turned out it was the younger, less experienced workers that faced greater challenges in adapting to working at home. The divide between who needs what in terms of skill development was amplified during Covid.

[04:44]- “It's not the hard skills of, ‘How do I use a technology?’ that really makes a difference. It's how do I communicate? How do I relate? How do I have empathy for my colleagues? How do I know what's happening with them in a way that's more on emotional connection?”

Sarah Thorne, President and CEO at Decision Partners, points out that the way we’ve approached skill development and training the workforce has always been very top-down- telling workers which skills they need to have to be employable. Sarah believes we’d be much further ahead if we engaged the workforce to determine what they need to be successful.

[07:43]- “I think what we've seen in the last 15 months is that people have really come to terms with their own skills, their abilities, what they like to do, what they don't like to do, and where they want to spend their time.”

Ujwal Arkalgud, CEO and Cultural Anthropologist of MotivBase, examines how the stigma of learning online has shifted to support skill development online as an acceptable avenue to develop new skills presenting unique opportunities that don’t always exist in the traditional learning environment.

[15:40]- “If I'm 60 years old, I don't have to learn from a 25-year-old who doesn't have my experience, the challenges I experience. I can learn from another 60-year-old, who sort of faced similar circumstances, has had to learn new skills later in life to keep their careers going, to manage paying for their kids' education or whatever else that might be. And I think that's the positive coming out of the pandemic.”

Entrepreneurship in Canada often faces a cultural barrier. It is often something to be pulled back from, the last resort. Urban planner Dave Hardy, President of Hardy Steveson and Associates, likens the Canadian versus American culture around starting your own business to lobsters in a pot.

[22:32]- “And, to me, that's the Canadian-US dilemma here. We just don't teach entrepreneurship enough. I'm a member of a service group, Rotary, and we take some of the brightest kids for a full weekend, kind of sabbatical, and introduce them to somebody beyond a teacher. That's what they want to be because that's the only people they see. So, to me, we have an awful long way to go to do that entrepreneurship.”

In next week’s episode of The Next Normal, Dave Hardy leads the conversation from skill development to post-Covid technology and fostering an environment for innovation. We touch on Big Data, AI, accessibility, sustainable technologies e.g Smart Cities, and more.

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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.

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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?

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Coming JULY 7, 2021.

As the world emerges from the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing is for sure. We aren't going to return to what we called "normal" pre-pandemic. In fact, we are about to embark on adjusting our lives to a series of normals as we recalibrate our economies, reimagine our cities, reorient our workplaces and rethink public health polices.

Our hosts, Lisa Taylor, President at Challenge Factory, Dave Hardy, President, Hardy Stevenson and Associates Limited, Sarah Thorne, President and CEO, Decision Partners and Ujwal Arkalgud, Chief Anthropologist & CEO, MotivBase explore "what’s next" in the NEXT NORMAL.

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NORMAL:
Characterized by what is considered usual,
Typical
Routine
Expected

It sounds safe and staid.
But our NORMAL, usual, typical, expected, routine – turned
Chaotic, dislocated, disorderly and out of control when COVID 19 hit us.

The pandemic sent the world reeling, forcing us to shut down economies, forcing us to recalibrate our NORMAL, forcing us to confront the WHAT’S NEXT? What’s next for jobs, for education, for families and our health and well-being.

This podcast ponders how we will live in this COVID era. What’s on the horizon? What should we expect? Where are the opportunities?

Our hosts, Lisa Taylor, President at Challenge Factory, Dave Hardy, President, Hardy Stevenson and Associates Limited, Sarah Thorne, President and CEO, Decision Partners and Ujwal Arkalgud, Chief Anthropologist & CEO, MotivBase explore "what’s next" in the NEXT NORMAL.