Using time under the COVID-19 cloud to build a silver lining

Acute Angle

In six torrid months, the virus that looks like a wreath has killed hundreds of thousands, sickened millions and disemboweled the world economy. Could it also have done some good?

In India, don’t ask that question yet of those whose relatives drop lifeless in affluent Delhi, or of those in a Mumbai hospital who lie next to dead bodies in black plastic bags. Don’t dare pose the query to migrants who rest their blistered feet after walking for weeks to a future even bleaker than their recent past. And don’t breathe a word to the kid who tried to awaken a dead mother as she lay on a railway platform in Muzaffarpur.

Yes, an incredibly nasty microbe has brought horrors into many lives. As we Unlock, cases seem to be exploding, and a paralysing fear may regain its grip. But for the past fortnight, an inherently optimistic country has been finding its feet. The famed Indian enterprise is open for business. There is some self-congratulation, community spread flatly denied.

So it’s time to ask the question: Can something be salvaged out of the debris? And is there a chance, that in so doing, we could build better structures for the future?

If there is one clear outcome of the virus, it is diminution. The diminution of ambition, the diminution of expectation, of businesses and individuals, is very real and here to stay. In excess, it could sap the animal spirits of a dynamic country; in moderation, it begins to look like a dose of realism.

So you will find auto drivers who were in the past seldom guilty of using their meters switch the thing on the moment they get a ride. Landlords are happy to discuss a cut in rent, fearful of losing their tenants. Technology vendors are open to discussing tariff cuts. Newspapers are tightly edited to fewer pages because there is little ad revenue. Exporters of exotic vegetables sell locally at reasonable prices because they can’t ship their product. Salary cuts have become the norm in several sectors, never pleasant, but forcing a recalibration of lifestyles. In short, everything is becoming a little less. A friend has even lost eight kilos in the lockdown by eating healthier.

It was apparent even before Covid-19 that one had to plan for two or three careers in a lifetime; now, for those who have lost their jobs, a second career may have become a necessity. The diminution of expectation is probably a saving grace: It makes life easier because ambitions can be pegged lower in a tighter, less expansive world.

For hard-driving alpha-type managers, all this is going to take a bit of getting used to. They can bang their fists on the table, but the external dependencies of their businesses make sales graphs hostage to factors they may not even have considered in better days. A worthwhile metamorphosis would be from the merely hard-driving to the more rounded, and no less successful, leader who can ride out the tough times intelligently, and capitalise later when things are better.

This would involve taking out costs and removing inefficiencies, while nurturing employees even though there is precious little materially to give them, perhaps through personal coaching. It also means ensuring that the company’s products do not suffer because of a focus on costs: Some firms will actually come out with improved products in straitened times. Can a biscuit maker introduce a healthy new variant that is also cheaper to make?

Working from home will have spin-off effects well into the current decade. Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest software company, will have its workforce working for 75% of its time from home by 2025. Assuming all other IT companies do similar, it will result in more affordable commercial real estate for others, less traffic on the roads — with less pollution — and per force, better broadband connectivity to cater to a demanding clientele. Diminution in investor overgenerosity will mean that the fluffier start-ups will fall by the side as shareholders seek realistic business plans and a route to real profits. This can only be a good thing.

Ingenuity is the offspring of diminution and necessity, and it is seldom in short supply in India. Watch carefully and you will see how Indians make more out of less in the lean months to come. Then there is the pious triplet of tolerance, appreciation and empathy: Being cooped up together for months has built a level of patience with each other that family members would not have thought possible. A spell of mopping floors and washing dishes holds a salutary lesson in appreciation for those who do the job day in and day out. And your kids understand the value of empathy when you pay salaries out for house help despite their having been unable to come to work.

To complete the picture, what about diminutising our political leaders? This pandemic has brought a little humility to a highly centralised government, forcing it to be more consultative with the states than it might have liked to be. Incidentally, and unrelated to the pandemic, statues are being toppled worldwide, a marker of the hollowness of hagiographies, and a reminder to today’s strongmen to be inclusive and fair.

So, take heart. As the world around us shrinks, chances are that an improved You will be waving a relieved goodbye to the killer as it makes its exit, whenever it does: Slimmer, more grounded, and fighting fit.