Rakesh Wadhwa:

What according to you or other top skills for a unit for people at various levels. What are the top skills that you see people should focus on, at the entry level mid level and then at senior levels to remain resilient in post COVID-19 age?

Rishad Tobaccowala:

The first three points I'm going to make is for all three levels. So the three things that are common for all levels and the first one is that you must spend one hour every day learning. Learning is perpetual. You don't stop learning. When you stop a training program or you stopped going to school. You have to learn and the reason you have to learn is how fast the world is changing. So most people will have a 50 year career. In the US the average company presence in the SMP 500 is 12 years. Which basically means your career will outlive most companies. And that's the rate of change that we're basically dealing with. So you have to continue to basically learn. So you must invest an hour a day learning. And you might say that you don't have an hour a day, well you spend at least an hour a day doing stupid things like social media or a whole bunch of other things. Do one hour a day learning. Lesson number one.

Number two is try to do one new thing every day. Why do I say a new thing? Because whenever you do something new you actually are alive. So just like when you're travelling and you suddenly find yourself in a new city or a new country you actually paying attention even when you're traveling and your itinerary gets cancelled you start paying attention right? So you actually pay attention when something new happens. And today locked at home, you can read or watch a new movie or try to have a conversation with someone you've not had for the last few days. Do something new once a day.

And the third and this is the most difficult one. Whenever you believe something, whenever you're recommending something to your boss, whenever if you're a boss you would have to do something build a case for why the exact opposite of what you're recommending is true. And if you can't build a strong case I'm not sure you actually know what the hell you're recommending. .