Kavyata: Enabling Wisdom At Work
With the pandemic still raging on, everyone and everything is in flux.
Businesses are changing, the way we work is morphing, and people are being pushed to pivot and reinvent themselves. While fear and worry take the forefront, this is the time to go back to the drawing board, introspect and ask the big questions:
What kind of work-life do I want?
What do I truly value?
What do I want to create for myself?
Kavita Neelakantan, the founder of Kavyata, helps professionals answer these questions and helps them work through them in a structured manner.
What does Kavyata do?
Kavyata helps people design their careers, gets them future-ready while helping them find and create the work that they love.
Kavita is a career coach who consults with organizations and helps people reinvent themselves. She conducts group workshops as well as individual counselling sessions. She also teaches Career and Self Development at IIM.
People used to ask these questions much later in their careers. But in the wake of the pandemic, many youngsters are asking the big questions very early on. This is further amplified with the opportunities that are present and the exposure they have, she shares.
She works on helping people identify their strengths, and values they believe in and build career options based on those.
Careers in the times of Covid…
‘These were dormant questions that the pandemic triggered,’ she shares.
Sharing a couple of examples of her client stories, Kavita shares the difference she could make to the trajectory of their careers.
Case study 1: A mid-senior financial professional working in UAE reached out to her. He was dealing with the new normalcy, the uncertainty of appraisals, growth and the security of his own job role.
Case study 2: A mid-senior professional working in a global manufacturing company in Dubai reached out to Kavita to talk about the difficult circumstances his organization was going through and how it was affecting him.
‘Both of them were going through a difficult time as the external circumstances were causing them anxiety. But everyone can control their personal reactions. We worked on managing their internal state of mind and how they can do things differently and effectively. We worked on improving their performance by identifying a few growth levers.’
‘I am happy to report that after working with them for about 6 months, both of them have shown significant growth in their roles. One of them received a tremendously positive annual appraisal. And the other one was given a significant raise, in spite of the trying times,’ she shares.
During this time, she was also instrumental in helping some of the IIMs pivot to a virtual experience of the MBA, manage the students’ expectations around their careers in the new future of work and help to develop camaraderie within the cohort.
Conclusion: What the future holds…
Kavita urges that coaching is valuable at all stages of one’s career. We all need support and guidance during these difficult transitions.
‘Sometimes it helps to have another voice than our own. I myself have been reaching out to my mentors and coaches to clarify the noise in my head that can sometimes interfere with my narrative.’
Kavita says that she is looking forward to holding that space for individuals so that they can figure out what they value and reinvent themselves.
Get in touch with Kavita for career and leadership development coaching/programs for mid-senior professionals at kn@kavyata.in
The pandemic is really changing our present and future ways of life. It will be a while before we can make sense of it all.
While frontline medical warriors try to save the nation, many small enterprises and individuals, like Kavita Neelakantan are making the effort to help people in their own way.
And we, at FlexiBees, want to honour and amplify their effort by sharing their stories.
During these difficult times, let us help one another. If you want to read more such stories, check out the work done by Educate Girls, senOcare and MyTree.
