It's going to be women who will lead the way: Arianna Huffington

Q In your book Thrive you speak of altering onersquos perception of life by meditating being mindful and dedicating a set number of hours to sleep But what about how our lives are structured around stress as one works for 60 to 80 hours in a weekAThe latest science unequivocally shows that increased stress and burnout have huge consequences for our personal health At work and in every aspect of our lives ending this culture of burnout begins with understanding that for far too long too many of us have been operating under the collective delusion that burning out is the necessary price for accomplishment and success As the science shows performance is actually improved when our lives include time for renewal wisdom wonder and givingPicSameer MarkandeQ In your book you write ldquoworking to the point of exhaustion and burnout is considered a badge of honour mdash was put in place by men in a workplace culture dominated by menrdquo What should be a proposed workplace culture that is conducive to both genders A It would be a culture that recognises that we donrsquot leave our humanity at home when we leave for work This means incentivising healthy work habits so that those who for some reason insist on overwork and burnout are the marginalised ones not those who guarantee their best performance by taking care of themselves If wersquore going to redefine what success means if we are going to include a Third Metric to success beyond money and power itrsquos going to be women who will lead the way We are already witnessing a global shift toward leadership values traditionally considered feminine flexibility compassion collaboration empathy and nurturingQ With HuffPost India now live what issues will appeal most to Indian readers What are the challenges you anticipate for HuffPost IndiaA India is facing huge and unique challenges mdash from poverty and sanitation to sexual violence and endemic corruption While HuffPost India will be reporting on all these challenges and all that is dysfunctional and not working wersquoll also be relentlessly telling the stories of what is working including spotlighting organisations that are tapping into Indiansrsquo collective creativity and compassion Beyond its 124 billion people India is vast in every way mdash its history its colours its food and its spiritual traditions Telling this and creating a platform for Indians to tell their stories themselves is naturally a challengeQ In your opinion what are the dynamics that determine digital journalism as compared to print journalism A The dynamics are more similar than dissimilar because there is a convergence Increasingly online news operations like The Huffington Post are adopting traditional basic tenets of journalism fairness accuracy storytelling deep investigations Mainstream traditional mediums are adopting more digital tools that can bring in the community to make it part of the creation of journalism through reports from the ground through video through Twitter feeds and through the new media available to us Despite all the dire news about the state of the newspaper industry we are in something of a golden age of journalism for news consumers Therersquos no shortage of great journalism and no shortage of people hungering for it Many different business models are being tried to connect bothThrive Arianna Huffington Ebury Publishing Random House Rs 550 Available at leading bookstoresDo you think people like us in developing countries have a choice where we decide not to work at a frantic pace mdash a norm in many companies of India IncIrsquod say that people whether in developing or developed countries who are struggling to put the food on the table or are juggling multiple demands on their time face the same questions Itrsquos not a lecture to take time to recharge Itrsquos what they say on aeroplanes that you put your oxygen mask first Itrsquos not a matter of time itrsquos a matter of energy You need to make sure that the quality of energy you bring to the task is high Letrsquos take the case of the people who are struggling with poverty or challenging circumstances you see some people fall apart and some people persevere the challenges Whatrsquos the difference The difference is resilience We all have that quality of strength Some people are able to tap into and some people are not Recently I watched Angelina Joliersquos Unbroken where a man survived the Japanese prisoner of war camp What this man went through he survived while others couldnrsquot have tolerated it I think itrsquos interesting to look at what makes that qualityAs machines have taken over our daily work creativity is going to matter more and more Employees will be more interested in identifying employees who can be creative and then how do we recruit them and retain them resulting in a higher premium on creativity