Women are progressively getting equal opportunity to a seat on the table
Published on : Tuesday 08-03-2022
Dr Kanan Khatau Chikhal, Licensed Psychologist, Mind Celebrations.
What was the inspiration that prompted you to pursue this career path?
My own journey of poor physical health (severe Asthma) as a child encouraged me to become a doctor. When you have had a near death experience it changes you profoundly. Adding to that my curiosity to get to the root cause facilitated my journey in psychology. It was equally fascinating to study how our past impacts our present and future choices.
Once I was able to help myself, my inclination and later on purpose became to help others to come out of such situations and enable them to live their full potential too.
Can you recall your early days – say the first few days at work – and anything you would like to mention about that?
I learnt the value of patience in entrepreneurship. A senior doctor taught me early that you need 4 things to start your practice – a stethoscope, a tendon hammer, blood pressure apparatus, and a fly catcher!
For a woman, it is a matter of finding the right balance between the jobs and managing the home – how do you manage this?
I personally don’t fall for the trap of work life balance. Balance is always more of one thing and less of other(s). Work-life Harmony allows things to co-exist. In my journey of integrating both aspects of life, I focus on myself and what makes me happy. For me satisfaction in life is a combination of pleasures, engagement and purpose.
What challenges (or privileges) do women stereotypically face, based on their gender?
An archetype that defines women in India is that she manages the kitchen (responsibility to cook and feed the family). In major metros and large cities even though we have seen an exponential jump in women working in different fields, yet the responsibility of kitchen lies on her either directly or indirectly through managing house help. This archetype has always portrayed profession or work assignment as secondary responsibility for the women leading to biases towards their career.
The situation is improving but yet demands a lot of effort from different forces to make it completely redundant. Today, our work has a critical component of building psychological safety at work where these archetypes are not only challenged but also new behaviours for inclusion are taught and encouraged.
Have you ever missed a career opportunity or promotion due to gender?
While things are improving now, many times personal biases of people become a block in industries or sectors which are predominantly filled with one gender type. In the manufacturing industry, leadership coaching or training assignment until a few years ago was mostly done through men facilitators. They had false beliefs that women lack the aggression and know-how of the job.
Are workplaces today more sensitive to gender issues than say, a decade ago?
Definitely yes and thankfully workplaces are looking at men to women ratio and aiming to correct it as well. Women are progressively getting equal opportunity to a seat on the table as they call it. The advantages of the same are also being derived by organisations deploying healthier gender ratios. Women bring compassion, creativity and are more vocal and expressive in their suggestions.
Which women's 'cause' needs to be challenged and changed, first?
I believe in a cause that is gender neutral and it needs to be challenged and changed immediately.
Today, post pandemic it is imperative that support in mental healthcare is provided as a preventive measure rather than reactive at the workplace. Investing in mental fitness of employees provides a competitive strategic advantage.
Building psychological safety at the workplace should be treated as organisational priority.
Are there areas at work that still restrict women when it comes to leadership roles?
As we speak, women in leadership and strategic roles are increasingly seen globally. Every day we see new frontiers being breached. New levels being achieved. While we celebrate these individual achievements there is still a lot of work needed to be done and consistency to be demonstrated in celebrating gender equality and inclusiveness.
I still observe in factory settings and manufacturing set up, defence forces (Army, Navy and Airforce) women need to be further integrated in leadership roles.
What women-related myths or taboos need to be broken?
Well, many of them, but in work context some of these are:
A woman is not strong enough, she has other priorities. She won’t be able to put in the extra hours needed to get the job done.
Do you have a mentor or a role model? If yes, you may state briefly how it inspired you.
My mentor is my teacher Dr Rajan Sankaran, a world renowned Homeopathic doctor. I learnt to view an integrative and holistic approach to human suffering and I found the same thinking approach helps me look at organisations too, when we facilitate psychological safety.
At Mind Celebrations we use the learnings and principles from disciplines like Homeopathy, psychology and neurobiology to help employees have daily mental fitness. It also helps us create leaders who are emotionally safe to work with in a team setting.
What would be your message to the youth who are just starting their career?
To the youth I would urge them to rethink the future. The future will belong to 3 economies:
1. i. The focus economy – those that can focus will survive.
2. ii. The creative economy – the ability to innovate, think differently and challenge the status quo will thrive.
3. iii. The energy economy – time will no longer matter in productivity and performance. Your energy levels will define how much you can achieve.
Describe yourself or your aspirations, dreams in 3 words.
My vision At Mind Celebrations is to build a world that is Emotionally safe. Create a community of 10 million happy people by 2030. We hope to build the first Happiness ministry for India and be the Happiness minister for the country with a Psychological safety contingency plan in place along with Enhancing Emotional literacy levels of India.
A doctor of Homeopathic medicine and Psychologist, Dr Kanan Khatau Chikhal is the founder of Life Cures Wellness Clinic that strives for wellness /happiness in families and individuals since 2001. She is the Co-founder at Whole Brain Consulting, a coaching, consulting and training organisation. A Marshall Goldsmith Certified Coach, Dr Kanan has blended her knowledge of Behavioural Science with Neuro Linguistic Programming to enable Business Leaders to unleash their full potential. She works to ensure sustained behavioural changes, by letting go of their self-limiting beliefs using innovative coaching techniques. She believes that no problem can be solved by the same mind-set that created it, she enables Leaders to challenge conventional logic and be counter intuitive in business.
She is a Certified Happiness Coach from Berkeley Institute of Wellbeing and a firm believer that Happiness drives Performance in organisations. Whole Brain Consulting has pioneered in creating a culture of Emotional Safety by developing and delivering an innovative initiative called MINDSPATM – a program that helps organizations break the stigma towards mental health in a fun way by changing the paradigm of mental health from being reactive to the proactive approach. This helps employees to recharge, refocus and energize to lead happier and productive lives.