The Hidden Cost of Harmony: Wissam Adib on Leadership in the GCC

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Welcome. This is Jonathan Kirschner and we are on a podcast about leadership. I'm here with Joy Nissen, one of our managing partners and business psychologist at AEHR Consulting. And we also have with Sam Adib, who is a leadership advisor and one of our amazing coaches in Dubai. And today, like we do always on this podcast, we're going to talk about leadership. Um, leadership is actualizing a clear and compelling vision through others. So real simple, right? Yeah, real simple. Um, and yet, uh, it manifests so differently, um, based on leadership profiles, based on styles, based on points in time in history, based on, and context. And one of those really fascinating contexts would be the regional context. And today we're going to talk about leadership broadly, but also specifically in the GCC region, the Gulf Cooperation Council, six countries, Saudi Arabia, uae, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. It's fascinating because in some ways leadership is leadership. Right? Um, there's no doubt about it, if you're going to be a good leader, you got to do that formula. Set a clear and compelling vision and actualize it, not yourself, but through others.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: And yet the way that manifests is so different, um, based on cultural heritage context, regional, um, differences. And so we're going to really lean in broadly to the concept of leadership, but also very specifically to the region. And there's no better person to have on this podcast than Wissam, who has had basically like front row seats to uh, sing some incredible, incredible acts of leadership and the evolution of, of, of one of the highest growth regions in the world. Mhm.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Miracle in the desert.

Speaker B: Miracle in the desert. Yeah, it's uh, it's fantastic. So you know, I thought, Wisam, maybe you could just, you know, tell us about yourself and how you got to where you are right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Hi Jonathan. Hi Joy. It's so great to be here with both of you, uh, on the podcast to talk about leadership in the region. I think something that's so important and a lot of people kind of assume that leadership is the same everywhere, but you're right, there are elements that are common and there are elements that are different. Let me tell you a bit about myself and how I kind of found my way here. I'm actually not from the region originally. I'm Lebanese who grew up, uh, a little bit all over the world. Part of my childhood was spent in Saudi Arabia and part of it in Canada. And after graduating from university I had the opportunity to work with a management consulting firm, uh, based out of Dubai and doing a lot of Organizational restructuring work. Uh, this was seven years early on in my career where we would undertake these major restructuring programs. And that's where I developed, uh, an early love for change, uh, for change management. I worked with an American consultant who, as you do, kind of on these consulting assignments, you'd spend late, uh, nights over dinner talking about the projects that you're working on. And he shared a lot of knowledge on the psychology of change and why teams and people resist change and why some programs succeed and others don't. And I found this fascinating and this kind of intersected with my own life story of constant change. Uh, growing up, I went to nine different schools. My parents were constantly moving around. And so my life was a life of change, a childhood of change. Uh, so for me, change was kind of, uh, something that was perfectly normal. And I found it fascinating that for other people it wasn't the case. And he would spend hours explaining to me why, uh, that's what happened. Anyway, fast forward kind of to 2005. Uh, Dubai had already started on this huge reform program to go from being kind of a desert oasis, uh, and leadership here having this vision of creating a global tourism, logistics, economic hub. And, uh, 2005 was still kind of early days for that. Uh, but the vision was very much alive. And they were building a team to drive, uh, the reform agenda, to make that vision a reality. And one of the programs was around restructuring Dubai government. Uh, in 2005, Dubai government was just like any other government, quite bureaucratic, um, quite slow to adapt. And there was recognition by leadership here that government, in order to succeed with the grand vision they had, government also had to become, uh, one of the most innovative, most advanced governments in the world. And in my case, it was, know, a case of being at the right place at the right time. Uh, I got headhunted into this role, uh, to be part of the team that restructured Dubai government. Uh, it was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. And very soon I was, uh, kind of in the hot seat, given, uh, responsibility for driving the government agenda, Government reform agenda here. So that's how it started. And then the next 20 years, as they say, you know, uh, past, you know, passed in a blur. And, uh, I, you know, I can share a lot of what happened then, but that's kind of how it got started.

Speaker B: So you went from consulting, um, for a, uh, Big four consulting firm. And, and, um, yeah, and, and then, and you, I guess you got to see from the outside as a consultant, which is, which is so much more fun than Being in it. Um, but you got to really be a student of, of large scale change, um, and restructuring and then get this opportunity to go inside, um, in the hot seat, as you say.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yes. And you're really speaking our language with some. I mean, we're both psychologists, so when you talk about kind of the psychology of leadership and what are the. What are the skills and changes and mindsets that are required to be successful in the region, that's. That's our favorite topic too. So I'd love to hear. Did you have kind of that aha moment when you realized that, okay, you can have a great strategy, but that's not always enough to make this massive reform and change really at scale and to drive the region, you know, you really need strong leadership and the psychology that underpins that leadership. So did you have that moment? What did that look like? What was it like to be part of that? Tell us, tell us everything.

Speaker A: Absolutely. As well. I mean, 20 years at the center of Dubai government, you have hundreds of these moments, but one that stands out. Maybe early on in my career, um, one of the first, uh, tasks that I was given was to create a new design for Dubai government, essentially review every single, uh, mandate of every single Dubai government, uh, entity and to propose what I thought, uh, Dubai government should look like. How should these government departments change? How should they work? What should they look like? And, uh, we spent. We were a team of three people at the time, a very small team, and we spent nine months putting this design together, finally presenting it to the Director General of the executive office, which was the office that was tasked by the ruler here to lead this agenda. And he essentially said, great design approved. Can you deliver in six months? And I was thinking, you know, I need five years for each one of those departments. And he wanted us to deliver the whole thing in six months. And this was a shock at two levels. One kind of the scale of change and ambition that existed here, which I hadn't seen anywhere else, but also the social contract that existed that allowed these things to happen. The ability of leadership to be present and to provide support for teams on the ground in order to deliver on these wild ambitions was unprecedented. And it clashed with any kind of preconception I had on how these things were done. So I had to very quickly adapt and realize that things were done differently here.

Speaker B: Wow. I remember, um, you ever read Good to Great by Jim Collins and there's that word bhag, you know, big, hairy, audacious goal. I remember when I, when I first read that book. And I was like, bhag, you know. Well, I could. You know, my bhag is we're gonna grow BY uh, you know, 40%. You know, um, and uh, you know, there's. There's big, hairy, audacious gold and then there's, you know, know, building, you know, um, the world's largest skyscraper in. In. In. In. In an amount of time that um, unprecedented is. Is sort of like, yeah, basically unprecedented. Uh, so, yeah, so, I mean, I'm very curious about that. I mean there's a couple of distinct elements. Um, you know, Joy and I have had the pleasure of being in. In the uae um, multiple times over the last two years as air grows in the region. And um, of numerous elements, um, including the incredible people, um, the ambition in particular is just palpable. And it's an unbelievable thing. It's like, whereas normal humans would set the bar here, it gets set up here.

Speaker C: Well, and it gets achieved, I think. Shocking part.

Speaker B: Right? It's not just a pipe dream.

Speaker A: Right, Right.

Speaker B: So, I mean, tell us about that. Like, where does that come from? How, what are the roots of that ambition? And um. And obviously we understand the benefits of it. Like, you go to Dubai, it's one of the most beautiful cities in the world. You know, is there like, you know, a shadow side to that? I'm just curious about ambition in particular and then. And if the other cultural sort of elements that you think are distinctive, I'd be very curious to get your. Your perspective. Wasam.

Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you're, you're right, there's something very unique here about the level of ambition and the level of achievement that they've been able to deliver. I don't know that you can really. I mean you have to trace the history of the place to understand where some of that is coming from. Certainly one of the stories that, that uh, is part of the history of Dubai is that historically it was a pearl economy. So there were. There was a lot of pearl, uh, production, natural purple pearl production in Dubai. And a, uh, big part of the population was, was dedicated to going out and fishing for oysters and, and uh, finding pearls. And, and that economy was essentially destroyed when Japan invented lab grown pearls, uh, or pearl farming. And that was the first, at least in the recent memory of the city, really the first major crisis that they had to face. And um, when you listen to Emirati's telling the story, you hear a lot of stories about resilience, about needing to innovate, about needing to find, uh, to be able to get through this crisis. Um, uh, and I think that that's certainly one of the things that planted that seed, that we had to

Speaker C: think,

Speaker A: uh, outside the box. We had to aim really high in order to succeed and we had to depend on ourselves. I think what also helped is being, um, you know, a coastal city. It was a natural trading port and it exposed the people of Dubai to stories and innovations and uh, knowledge from all around the world. So they were already predisposed to working with cultures from across the world. Um, and so if you start to kind of put those things together, you start to see where that ambitious vision comes from. But then you asked something else which is equally important. You know, it's one thing to have a vision, but it's another thing to make that vision a reality. And I think this is where uh, the cultural fabric of the region is so important. Um, Dubai, the GCC region in general is very much kind of a tribal culture where you have a sheikh or a ruler who is responsible for looking after his people and making sure that they're well taken care of. And in turn, the people offer their loyalty to the tribal leader. And so, um, when you put all of those elements together, what you end up with is when you have a leader with a big vision, everybody comes together to make that vision reality. And there are elements that kind of make that, um, make that real. Some of those elements that I've, uh, that very much are present in the work that we do when we support leaders. Things like very strong ambition, uh, we aim very big. You mentioned big, hairy, audacious goals. Those uh, are just completely at a different level here in Dubai. Um, but you also have other elements. So for example, very high power distance between leaders and followers. So when a leader says, this is what we're going to do, there's very little resistance. People kind of just get on board. There tends to be a very high compliance culture, again, very high agreeability culture. So people, uh, uh, are always trying to uh, go with leadership direction. There's very little resistance, there's very little pushback in terms of getting things done. Uh, that helps preserve relationships and social cohesion. And there's also, because of this very strong social cohesion, because of the very high degree of loyalty that people have to leaders. There's also a very high social cost to failure. You don't want to be the person to let the team down. You know, um, I guess you experience that a lot on sports teams, maybe on your side of the pond here we experience that uh, across almost everything that people work on. So there's very much this team spirit, and I'm not going to be the weakest link. I'm not going to be the one who lets the team down. So a very high social cost of failure that drives a, uh, lot of performance as well is, you know, when

Speaker B: you think about organizations in the region, do you think of them, do they operate more like a sports team where it's just like, you know, we'll do anything at, you know, we're going to leave it all out on the field as, as they say in know, football, for example. Um, do you sense that. That level of like, loyalty and. And passion?

Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean there are certainly elements that mirror a lot of what we see in sports teams. A very high degree of competitiveness at every level. You know, teams are competing against each other, organizations are competing against each other. Cities, uh, and nations are competing against each other. And it's all healthy competition. It's all, you know, uh, we're working together, but we want to see who comes out ahead. There's, uh, also, um, uh, an element of we're all in this together, so we, you know, we're going to succeed as a team. Um, maybe one thing that's less prevalent perhaps if we stick to kind of the sports team analogy, is you don't really have a sense of that. Uh, there's a star player who's going to carry the team. Uh, there's very. Humility, um, is very much part of the fabric, the cultural fabric of society here. So anybody who kind of, uh, acts a little bit too audacious or uh, a little bit too arrogant is very much, very quickly put back in their place here culturally. So humility, uh, um. Uh, being of service to others, uh, giving credit to others is very much part of the. The cultural fabric here as well.

Speaker B: So it's almost like a we. We. Like I like to say we before I, you know, it's. It's um. It's about the collective success, not about myself and not about I.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And part of what drives that as well is, you know, there's very clearly, uh, someone who's in charge. Uh, there's a person who calls the shot, they're in charge. And so everything gets channeled towards them, the good and the bad. When there's a success, they carry that success for the team. And when there's a failure, they carry that failure for the team as well. In a way that acts as a kind of a protective, uh, dynamic in society here.

Speaker B: That's fascinating. So it's almost like there's, there's no ambiguity about like who's boss and who has the power. Right. Which, you know, whereas if you think about, you know, some of the American, um, you know, organizations that we work with, where power is more distributed, it's a flatter structure. There's benefits to that for sure, but there's, it's, there's definitely more ambiguity.

Speaker C: Yeah. Less clarity.

Speaker B: And there's certain concepts that, you know, that we, we talk about all the time and practice, like productive conflict.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Um, you know, um, in some ways, like friction is to be anticipated and so it's, how do we make use of that? But, um, it's probably less friction, arguably. Although I am, I am curious because I know you talk a lot about concepts like containment and um, so I will be curious to pressure test this assumption. But um, in theory at least maybe on the surface there's less friction and as a function of it just being very clear about the power structure.

Speaker C: Right. And who's owning that social cost of failure the most. And it sounds like that's 80% at the top maybe.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, and so 100%. Right. There's far less friction. I've been involved in many meetings where all I had to say to the room was this was decided, the ruler decided, and that was the end of the conversation. People got on board. Now that's great when the goal is clear, when you know exactly what you're trying to achieve. You mentioned the example of building the world's tallest building. If you want to build the world's tallest building, then largely that's a complicated problem. It's not easy building the world's tallest building, but if you get enough people, uh, around the table, most people will kind of agree on what it should look like or how to build it. And then it's just a matter of getting it done. And so less friction helps a lot in cases like this. And then there are other situations which are a lot more complex where actually you, as a leader, you want to introduce a little bit of friction because you want more voices around the table, you want people to push back, um, you want people to tell you what they're hearing with their ears to the ground, uh, you know, the people on the front lines. So as a leader you can make better decisions. So certainly there are many, many situations, especially in the Dubai example, where this kind of leadership works really, really well. And as problems become more and more complex, then having a broader leadership, uh, range can be helpful as well.

Speaker C: I'd Love to hear more about that. Wassam. I know we've talked about the incredible feats that Dubai GCC region have accomplished. Sending rockets to Mars and building the tallest skyscrapers. But where does that get it done? Energy not necessarily work when it comes to challenges that can't necessarily be solved by that top down approach. Um, where does it work against leaders? What are you seeing as kind of the, I guess boomerang to that?

Speaker B: Yeah. And actually just to tack onto that you, you said the word um, complicated or complex. M. I forgot which one. But, but they're actually two different things. Yeah, um, they're not synonymous.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: Right. Complicated is like, that's hard. But there is an instruction manual, right? Complex is like ooh, that is an instruction manual but you know something can happen and now you need to like pull out another manual and then there's like actually not a manual for this. And so you know there's a lot of uh, it's as much less linear if um, solution to solve a problem to solve. Right. So just curious, you know to what extent when things become complex complexes are, I mean for sure there are always complicated. Right? It's complicated to build the tallest building in the world in record time. Um, but what happens when you get thrown a curveball?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean these two concepts uh, come from uh, what's called the cyan model developed by ah, a gentleman called Dave Snowden. And his model actually has four elements but the two ones we're talking about, the two dimensions are complicated and complex. As you said Jonathan, you know, complicated problems are problems that are very difficult problems but adding more expertise helps. These are largely predictable problems. Uh, so uh, Joy, you mentioned Mars for example. If you're going to build a rocket ship, uh, get enough rocket scientists around the table and they'll largely agree that you want to put the engine at the bottom and kind of the pointy end towards the top. And that's how you build a rocket. A complex problem is one where the ground is shifting as you are trying to solve it. Uh, and so if you tackle complex problems with traditional management tools, more expertise, a better project plan, by the time you execute the problem has already shifted. And so you asked me what are some examples of those in the Dubai context? Um, the Dubai story over the last 20, 30 years has largely been a complicated problem. Uh, we decided, not we but leadership decided what are the sectors we're going to focus on, what are the things we're going to build? Uh, um, uh, what will Dubai look like? And it was everybody's job to just make that happen. And so as you said, more buildings, um, um, build a global airline, build a global logistics company, um, uh, make Dubai an amazing city to live and to raise a family in and to thrive in. And there are already some solutions on how to make that happen. Those solutions had to be tailored for the local context. But we see examples from around the world of other cities, like Singapore for example, that succeeded in going from uh, kind of third world to a global economic center. And so once you have those kinds of solutions, you can tailor them a little bit and you can implement them, but then you have other challenges. So for example, when you start to think about education, how do you build one of the world's best education systems? That's a complex problem. It's complex for many reasons. One, the demographics of Dubai changes all the time. Uh, first of all, uh, Dubai is a largely expat population. And so you don't have one dominant education system, you have many. I think the last count, As I recall, 18 different curricula being taught, uh, in Dubai. Uh, you don't have uh, one challenge in education, you have many challenges. Um, it's not just about better schooling. It's also about better home learning. It's also about um, adapting to Covid when that happened, adapting to other challenges when those happen. So if you try to solve some of those problems with a very hierarchical kind of top down leadership model, where what you might find is you have teams that are highly motivated, that are highly compliant, that are ready yet to act and who are waiting for clear direction from the top. And then you have leadership that feel compelled to provide that direction without really sufficient uh, information or data with which to make those decisions. And that's where some of those models need to adapt to, um, where some friction is actually helpful. Because what you want in situations like this is when leadership says, oh, this is what we need to do, you know, the people who are closer to the front lines, you actually want them in those situations to speak up and say, well actually that's not what we're seeing uh, at the front lines. What we're seeing is working really well is this other model of uh, for example education in this case that I think we should try out. And so here when you, when you're in the complex space, uh, what's much more effective is small, uh, experiments responding uh, to what people are sensing, uh, on the front lines, to responding to uh, a changing environment, uh, which can feel a little bit strange, especially in this part of the world, uh, you

Speaker B: know, I am, I am curious, you know, Osam, you are an executive coach and leadership advisor. You know, what are the implications to all of this when it comes to leadership? You know, the complexity and complicated distinction. Ah, that we made. But also when we think about leadership in the, you know, cultural context that you shared, um, you know, where, where ambition is like sort of next level, um, where there's very clear demarcations of power and hierarchy, where there is sort of a, perhaps a, um, a drive to create harmony and like, that's valued, um, maybe differently than other parts of the world. Like harmony is really important, um, in the region. Um, help us understand how you navigate, like, what does a leadership challenge look like and how do you tend to navigate that, uh, based on some of the cultural nuances that we've discussed.

Speaker A: Sure, that's a great question. Um, well, think about what it must feel like as a leader in this context. Okay. You are, um, you are required to deliver this extremely ambitious vision. Something that's never been done before.

Speaker B: It's got to feel anxiety producing and heavy, no.

Speaker C: Or the pressure, I imagine, is.

Speaker A: I mean, it's very scary, uh, to be given that responsibility. You have this huge ambition, um, you're responsible for delivering it. And failure is socially costly. And leaders carry that fear and anxiety. And then you build organizations and you build systems that have to carry that anxiety and that anxiety gets channeled down. So you have leaders who then ask their teams to deliver on these ambitions. And teams that are extremely motivated, as I mentioned, but then are waiting for direction from the leader. So the leader feels more and more that they're now more responsible because they're giving very specific orders and direction to their followers that they now have to deliver. And so, Joy, you mentioned earlier, kind of the psychology of it and how much we love exploring that the psychology of these organizations is the more the ambition rises and the more the cost of failure rises, the more leaders have to carry that fear and anxiety, uh, on their own kind of emotional shoulders. And um, what I find, uh, very useful for leaders is to a. Help them make sense of all of that. So you mentioned earlier, Jonathan, containment, an area that I'm very passionate about and that I've done a lot of research on this idea of how do leaders provide containment to their organizations, what are the ways that they do that? And then also thinking about who contains the leaders, what's the containment mechanism for the leaders themselves. And here if we just quickly define what containment is, it's in a system that carries this much anxiety around success. And that's true, I think, of any system that is highly ambitious, um, you know, having a very high ambition psychologically can feel like a crisis situation. Uh, so any system that's going through a crisis or that has to carry this high degree of ambition and where that ambition, where that anxiety has nowhere to go, um, then you have to build containers that can hold that anxiety for people so they can go back to focusing on being productive, so they can go back to focusing on getting the job done. Otherwise you get people being very busy dealing with that anxiety rather than actually getting the job done. Um, so just a very quick example in a crisis situation, a couple of things that I'm noticing even now, uh, as you know, we're in the midst of a regional conflict at the moment. Uh, you find I noticed two patterns that are emerging right now. One pattern is kind of this, uh, over reactivity. So there's a panic. Uh, leaders feel like they need to do something, we need to act. And so there's a lot of activity. But not all of that activity is very productive. Sometimes it's just keeping people busier, uh, uh, doing more work, um, busy work, more research, more, uh, delivery, uh, but not necessarily channeled towards productive outcomes. Or you see another kind of defensive, uh, reaction, which is around kind of like a kind of avoidance, uh, behavior, a kind of regression where we say, oh, it's fine, it's going to pass. Nothing's going to happen. We're going to be fine. That may be true, but in the meantime, you know, hopefully it will pass and everything is going to be fine. But in the meantime, are we doing enough to hedge against potential risks? Are we doing enough to come out of this crisis even stronger than we went into it? M. And so both of these types of behaviors, uh, are a form of kind of, uh, anxiety leaking, uh, where leaders, rather than, uh, staying focused on the outcomes and the ambitions that you're trying to deliver, uh, reverting to kind of defensive behavior. And a lot of the work that we do as coaches, as you know, Jonathan, uh, and Joy, you know, a lot of the work that we do with leaders is to say, okay, great, that we're doing all of this, but how can we, uh, stay focused on what our goals are? How can we, as coaches, provide containers for the leaders so that they can manage their own fear and anxiety and, um, provide that confidence and support to their teams?

Speaker C: I love that. And I know you've talked about with, um, you know, anxiety doesn't disappear. It just sort of gets channeled so having these different containers and spaces to hold that in a way that can then be channeled productively or at least contained in a way where it's not destructive is really, really critical. And yeah, all of us, I think as coaches have experienced that. And uh, I'm curious what you're seeing now in the region when things are leaking through. Um, I know you can say that, I know you've said that. That can be through um, complying, protecting or controlling behaviors. Um, do you mind sharing a little bit more about how each of those present and then maybe sharing which version of anxiety leak, uh, you typically see more in the region?

Speaker A: Sure, sure. I mean those three that you mentioned come from the universal model of leadership. It's a model developed by Bob Anderson. He's the chairman of the leadership circle. He's done a lot of research obviously on leadership, uh, models. And those three are what we call reactive tendencies. So when uh, in the universal model of leadership there are two types of behaviors. There are reactive behaviors and there are creative behaviors. Creative behaviors are those that we exhibit when we're focused on our higher purpose. And reactive tendencies are those that are largely fear based behaviors. They are effective, they work, they get the job done, but they are extremely expensive from an energy and an emotional perspective and they are not scalable. So it's very difficult to achieve big things with reactive tendencies. So you mentioned three of them. Controlling, protecting and complying. Controlling behavior are reactive tendencies that are very task focused. So when a uh, leader is experiencing um, uh, fear or anxiety about something that they're trying to achieve, a crisis situation is an example of that, or a high ambition situation is an example of that. Then they revert to controlling behavior. Things like for example micromanagement, things like being extremely directive, not leaving a lot of room for debate or for people to push back or to disagree. Uh, uh, leaders in those situations feel like if the job needs to get done, I'm going to be the one who gets it done. I'm um, in the spotlight. I need to demonstrate that uh, I'm getting things done. So that's an example of emotions leaking. Because leaders are no longer focused on the outcome. Now they're focused on alleviating that fear that they experience of letting the system do the work that uh, it needs to do. Um, protecting behavior is the kind of behavior that paints uh, the world as us versus them. So you're either on my side or you're the enemy. Um, you see that a lot also in organizational work where uh, leaders will um, blame Others for things that are not going well. Uh, it's their fault that we got to where we are. Uh, this is the person that got us in trouble, so we're going to fire them. They become the scapegoat for the organization's kind of misery. Um, ah, you also see a lot of kind of uh, binary thinking. This structure is terrible. If we move to this other structure, we're going to achieve this utopia where everything becomes perfect and we're going to succeed. So every time you see m, um, it's kind of binary thinking where uh, leaders are moving from one perfect solution, but as soon as they implement it, then there's this other perfect solution that's on the horizon that we need to work towards. That's a kind of protective behavior. And then you see complying behavior. Complying behavior is often when the system leaks, is experienced as um, avoidance behavior. So I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to wait for somebody to tell me what to do and then I'm going to uh, follow the direction that's given. At the highest levels, uh, you see a lot of decision, uh, making by committee. So you see leaders that avoid, uh, stepping up and giving direction and uh, having these endless kind of meetings where they're constantly trying to get everybody around the same page, uh, rather than creating space for people to voice their opinions, but then becoming decisive and uh, setting a clear direction forward, which is often what's needed in these kind of situations. So Joy, you asked a great question. What's the kind of behavior we see a lot here? Two types of behavior. At the highest levels, we see a lot of controlling behavior. Again because of the social fabric of leaders being expected to have clarity and direction. And then kind of at the mid levels and lower levels, we see a lot of complying behavior where teams are waiting for direction from the top and they demonstrate that uh, they're going to follow through on a direction by being highly compliant. Both of those can work really well in some situations. And in other situations, again, when there's clarity, those kind of uh, situations work really well. I mean, imagine if we're in a building and it's on fire. You know, you don't want to have a committee meeting and discuss options. You want one person to step up and say, here's the fire exit. You know, everybody run and you want everybody else to comply with that direction. You know, you want them to run in that direction. But then when you're trying to produce something very creative, often it's not very helpful. For one person to give, ah, very directive, um, orders. You want more voices in the room, you want more people to step up and push back, and you want that healthy friction to exist. And so, uh, you want to create containment structures, either individually or systemically, that can hold that fear to get people to more creative behavior.

Speaker B: We saw, um, him. It's like fascinating to hear the uh, containment, um, sort of, um, methodology, this sort of ideology, um, and understanding also like this concept of leaks. Um, we use the term derailment here, uh, often in the US at least, um, where you're sort of, you're on the tracks towards a certain goal, um, and as a function of pressure and stress, um, you know, there's a tendency to sort of go off track, to derail. Right. So it's interesting to think about the similarities, you know, potential parallels between the concept of containment and leaks and um, sort of focus and derailment. I am curious, you know, when. When you go into an organization, um, and have the opportunity to coach a leader, you know, within sort of this paradigm, you know, what, what are the kinds of things you're doing? Like, what does that look like? Ah, and even if you have like an example, uh, success story, um, doesn't have to be a success story. It could be juicy. But, uh, you know, but just to help us understand kind of like what does it look like to help a leader navigate change, um, in this context.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great question, Jonathan. Some of the elements of navigating that change are universal everywhere around the world. So if you think about navigating change, if you think about dealing with crises, you want to do things like, uh, have great ways of listening to what people are going through, have mechanisms to respond to some of the fears and concerns that people have, um, making sure that leaders are visible and present and speaking about the change that's taking place, um, if we're talking about the context of again, these very highly ambitious visions that people are trying to implement, again, it's about, um, creating um, the systems and the behaviors that uh, deliver that success. What's unique about the region here is you want to do all of that within a, uh, culturally sensitive context. So, uh, what I've seen a lot of people fail to do when they try to advise leaders in the region, people who are coming from a different context, they might say things like, for example, embrace failure. Uh, failure is not an acceptable concept in the gcc. You're not allowed to fail. So there are other ways to achieve the same goal, but not necessarily by using that language, I was gonna say

Speaker B: it's become very popular. This, this notion of like, you know, make, you know, fail, celebrate your failures. You know, learning mistake is not a, you know, is, is a learning opportunity, you know, and, and there's something sort of sweet about that. But, um, you know, and maybe at, at the, at the core it's, it's a universal concept. But though, to your point, wasam, like how you frame that up and introduce it could be the difference between it being accepted or completely rejected as, as sort of countercultural.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Um, one of the things I worked on, so I spent, as I mentioned, kind of 20 years at the center of government, and one of the projects I worked on towards the end of that was around innovation. How do you build a system that can innovate, uh, that can disrupt, um, itself, uh, before it gets disrupted externally? And part of any innovation system, as you know, is, uh, as you just mentioned, Jonathan, is having a tolerance for failure. Because you want to run a lot of experiments, you want to try different things. And if you don't have a tolerance for failure, you're not going to take enough risks for you to genuinely innovate. I mean, you want to be doing things that feel scary, otherwise you're not at the edge of what's possible. And, uh, initially, when we were trying to create that culture of innovation, uh, we discovered that in some places there wasn't tolerance for failure. So when we went to certain people, to certain groups, departments, teams, and we said, we want you to experiment, we want you to try things, there wasn't, uh, an appetite to do things that failed.

Speaker C: So they'd rather be safe than innovative.

Speaker A: They'd rather be safe than innovate. Uh, I see that today in my coaching practice when I work with leaders, and I say, this is how you demonstrate, uh, that your organization is going to try new things and stay at the cutting edge. Um, there's a very real fear that's experienced by them. If I fail, I will lose the respect of my people. They will no longer follow me, they will no longer listen to my direction. And so what we try to do is we try to say, okay, how can we achieve the same goals but change the symbolism around that failure, change the story that we tell around what we're trying to do. So this isn't an experiment where we fail. This might be, uh, an experiment where we succeed in learning, for example, or we succeed in identifying, uh, ways in which we can move forward. It's not just a play on words, which is what it Might sound like it's also part of how you frame things, how you design those experiments, how leaders communicate with their teams, um, and how you build, um, projects and experiments that lead towards, uh, better outcomes in the long run. Um, one thing maybe I'll add very quickly and we can go into that in more detail later or not. But this idea of thinking about, and you mentioned why I call it leaking and you called it derailment, both are valid, I call it leaking just because of this concept of having a container. And if a container has a leak, then there's a problem, you know, but both are valid. Uh, but this idea of as you ask the organization to take greater and greater risks, um, and I'll give you an anecdote, maybe not very juicy, but perhaps, ah, illustrative. But as you ask an organization to take on more risk, you need to build bigger containers to hold that risk and to hold that fear. And you can think about containers at multiple levels. So how do you create containers within leaders themselves? And coaches can play a big role in that, helping leaders develop a bigger container internally so they can hold more uh, fear before they start to leak. Then you can think about containment at the level of relationships. As a leader interacts with their teams, with others, how can they contain the fear that others are projecting into the leader? So, um, if a person tells a leader, I'm not sure we can deliver this, is the leader able to recognize in that moment that this is actually fear speaking? This is not a person who's not a team player. This is a person who is a team player, but they're just afraid. And how could you be present for them in that moment? And then you can think of containment at the systemic level. How can I build. A lot of times leaders build structures and systems and processes that don't align with the objectives that they're trying to deliver. Um, so how can you build these in a way that contained anxiety in the system? And then you can think about something at the level of symbolic containment, which was very powerful in the Dubai context, having a vision about a, ah, people whose time had come, uh, to step onto the global stage. Uh, a vision about what was possible, uh, a vision about the history, uh, a rich history that had prepared, uh, Dubai for this moment, um, that made everybody's effort about something that's bigger than themselves. Uh, and you see that across the board. I mean Apple, ah, has a story that resonates a lot. Elon Musk with SpaceX has a story that resonates with, it's not about making profit out of rocket ships. It's about uh, you know, escaping the confinements of Earth and moving to uh, a Martian society. So having that symbolic containment can be very powerful as well. Um, I promised you that anecdote. I uh, worked with a minister, a cabinet minister here in the UAE about how do you create spaces where disagreement was possible. And in the GCC context that's very difficult. It's very difficult as somebody uh, who reports to a minister to say to them, uh, I disagree with you, I think you're wrong. Uh, that can often be, you know, career limiting. And so we started talking about how can you create spaces where people can disagree with you and how can you demonstrate through your leadership without letting go of the authority that's been given to you? Because often leaders can go to the other extreme and they can become kind of subservient and they can become um, um, I don't know if that's the right word, but in a way, pushovers, we don't want that. We want leaders to retain their authority, to retain their assertiveness and, but still create space where people can disagree. And in this case we allowed uh, you know, the leader allowed people to disagree with, with him in one on one conversations where they would very deliberately say things that invited this agreement. Things like, I'm not really sure about this, I need your advice here. What would you do in this situation? How would you channel this? Here's what I'm thinking. I'm not sure it's correct. Uh, uh, I'm depending on you to find the right solution here and that in a way fit into the compliance narrative. Because now the person on that team could demonstrate that they're complying with the leader's request to disagree and they could then provide that pushback and that feedback. So it's about providing uh, those tools and mechanisms for people to create that healthy friction but within the cultural context that exists.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. This notion of creating the space because you're sort of, what you're doing is you're sort of setting um, norms for that space and the right conditions. You're saying, hey, this is how it usually is, but I'm creating this space and in this space, um, you're allowed to disagree with me. In fact I want you to, to disagree with me. And, and so it's interesting, it becomes then um, sort of congruent with the cultural, um, you know, demands, um, and accomplishes at the same time, you know, the ability to uh, to be innovative, to, to, to push back to um, you know, to, to engage in, in alternative thinking. So, um, no, that's, that's a great, that's a great example. I love that. I love that. Um, yeah, speaking of, of, I, I love this notion of symbolic. These four levels, like the individual, the relational, um, the systems level, and then the symbolic level of containment. And where my head went there was almost like the strategic narrative, um, the vision for, for what we're all trying to go towards. And this notion, you see it now, interestingly enough, there's a lot of companies putting out there like their 2030 success. But, um, I think Saudi Arabia probably put their 2030 vision out in 2015 or 20, uh, which speaks to of course, that incredible vision. Um, but There is Vision 2030, which, which I, first time I heard about it was in the context of the gcc. You know, when you think about the, um, the future of the region and where things are trending as, um, we might say, you know, where the puck is going. Um, you know, what, what is the big opportunity for leaders? Um, when we think about the next, you know, four or five years ahead,

Speaker A: I think the opportunity is huge in the region. This is a region that's really just getting started. M. I should mention, you know, speaking of containment, the containment experience that we've all been going through over the last month, as the conflict kind of develops all around us, we see life largely continue business as usual, despite hundreds of rockets, uh, being shot at this part of the region every day. Um, the defense systems are working, there's no panic, there's calm, leadership is present with the public. Uh, the narrative is we will support you, we will, uh, make sure you succeed. And um, we're not going to let this affect us. So we're seeing it in action and it's been happening long enough now. Leadership has provided this containment long enough now that there's enough trust that life, uh, goes on. And I'm speaking to you now from Dubai and very little has changed for us. Uh, I won't say nothing because my kids are doing remote learning, uh, over the last week, which, that makes a difference for life at home. Um, the opportunity is, um, is big. How do you take things to the next level? And let me tell you, one of the things that is an ongoing surprise, uh, for me, even after 24 years here is how the level of ambition just keeps getting higher and higher. Every time I think, okay, now is the time to celebrate, you know, the successes, then the ambition just gets even bigger. Uh, you know, and now we, you know, it's it's even bigger. And so the opportunity for leaders here is how do you continue to innovate? How do you continue to think at a higher level? How do you continue to build systems that continue to sustain that tension of ever higher achievement, uh, and results? And how can you create organizations that continue to innovate and thrive even in uncertainty? And we've seen, I mean, whether you talk about geopolitics, whether you talk about global economy, whether you talk about the impact of AI, which is something Jonathan and Joy, you both are constantly exploring, um, all of those things are disrupting the way that we lead and the way that we succeed. And the leaders who are able to hold all of that uncertainty and who can thrive despite all of that uncertainty, I think are the ones who come out on top. And I think that's a real opportunity.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Um, uh, um, it's inspiring. Also slightly exhausting to think about, you know, like, what's next and how do you actually like outperform out performance?

Speaker C: How do you outdo something, how do

Speaker B: you do something that was already unprecedented?

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: But I guess, you know, it speaks to the, you know, ultimately the um, you know, the value system and mindset of the region, which is, um, I mean ambition is, ambition never stops.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Ambition doesn't say, okay, we did it, job done, let's relax. Ambition is by definition, okay, what next?

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: You know, and I mean there's you know, wonderful celebration of success, which is, which is great. And the pride. I feel that pride whenever I'm in Dubai or um, Abu Dhabi. You know, the people, they really do celebrate their success and take pride. Um, but, but there's this healthy, you know, level of like, okay, what's next?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And um, it's really impressive to uh, to hear that and um, and to, to see that and to be part of that, you know, as, as we, you know, go more and more into the region. Um, but, but I think I leave this conversation with it with a really, um, that um, I made it think about how to incorporate into my leadership and also for our clients, which is that to the extent that you keep pushing the limit, you need to somehow sort of counteract that or balance that with this notion of containment. Um, and if you don't get that balance right, then you're going to get as, you know, derailment or, or leaks. Um, and it's just really interesting to uh, to play with those concepts with you with some, um, um. I know we're getting close to the end of our, of our Podcast here. You know, I just want to open it up to anybody who has some final reflections.

Speaker A: Maybe I'll just add kind of a last uh, point, uh, which is whenever you work in our work as coaches, whenever you work with ambitious leaders, uh, there's this idea that's always present which is if the leader is the container for the organization, who contains the container, who provides that support for the leader. And that's our role as coaches. That's what we do. And that's why coaching is so important. Because if leaders don't have that containment they will inevitably start to leak. And what I love about that is it really highlights the important role of coaching not as a remedial, uh, support but actually essential for leaders with high ambitions.

Speaker B: Essential, uh, structurally appropriate to the extent that, that we have to design a system that um, protects the level of ambition and thrust towards growth, um, through these various levels of containment, the coach actually becomes an essential component. I love that we saw that especially

Speaker C: in a region where the social cost of failure is so high and there's not necessarily any other space to maybe process that or navigate that. You're not going to necessarily share that with your directs if you're carrying that load. And so I think a coach is able to provide that, that safe space to really explore and contain together almost and transfer and share that load in a way that's maybe not, not present at other levels within the organization. So I think that's, that's my big takeaway as well. And just the importance of self awareness like knowing what your tendencies are around leaking or derailment and uh, and how do you manage that and you know, explore that through coaching but just through your own kind of evolution and self reflection. So really, really powerful.

Speaker B: It was funny. I was actually um, uh, doing a, a ah, keynote yesterday for, for one of the largest hospital um systems here in the US and it shares some um, you know, some common threads as far as like ambition and just never stop like oh, we're already the biggest and now we just acquired another hospital system, um, and just uh, an incredibly impressive organization. And you know, one of the comments that I made is like you would never see a professional tennis player or professional golfer or anybody in, in, in sort of advanced or elite sports, um, not have a coach.

Speaker C: Right, right.

Speaker B: In fact like I, you know, we had a podcast episode earlier um, with uh, one of our, our um, uh guests was, was Simon from the 76ers, who manages performance among a million other things for the 76ers. And like some of These players actually have like multiple coaches, you know, um, and you, you would just never see that not happen. Right. Um, and because they're doing something highly consequential and um, they're pushing the limit to the edge. Mhm. And so they have a coach. M. And yet somehow in corporate world, um, a manager or a leader feels like, oh, I got this, I need a coach. It's just like, of course you need a coach. Like, so, um, you know, I think that, you know, this um, language of containment actually is a really, really valuable metaphor.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: For um, thinking about not only the, you know, the kinds of, um, things we need to do as a leader to be successful in actualizing a clear and compelling vision through others, um, but what we might need as a leader to maximize our success, um, to the extent that we're doing something consequential and

Speaker C: ambitious, I think, you know, my head goes to, you know, we're all coaches and we, we support at air a broader coach community. So even the notion of who's the container for the coach is now coming to China. And so, so coach supervision. So I, I think it all, um, it goes back to this idea of, you know, the energy transfer and what are we all doing to kind of support one another through the right conditions and through the right mechanisms. And so, um, you know, the coach supports the leader who supports the coach, who supports that coach and just making sure that everyone is aware and transferring that energy in a way that's productive.

Speaker A: And coaches can, I mean, we need containment as well, as you said, through supervision. And I notice when I start to leak as a coach, when my container starts to leak, which is, you know, when I start having thoughts of am I a good enough coach, um, am I still serving the client now or am I worried about how I look in front of the client? And so that's what it's, you know, that's when I know it's time for supervision because we all need containment.

Speaker B: Wow. Well, we'll end on that note. I really appreciate so much you joining us from across the world, um, from where we sit here in the center of Philadelphia. Um, and um, of course Wisam, we wish you safety in these current times. And it actually is incredible to hear and to experience from you a living example of containment, um, during these challenging periods. Um, uh, and thank you for inspiring us here and for being such a huge part of our growth in the region, um, which is just so exciting to us and I can't wait for our next trip back to Dubai. Uh, so thank you so much. Uh, and thank you to all of our. Our listeners and viewers. Um, and we'll look forward to our next episode on a podcast about leadership.