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Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

On That Jeddah Podcast

31 Mar

Hello all, if you got sometime on your hands, go ahead and check out this page for “That Jeddah Podcast“

I have been honored to take part of this episode along with @Hning of (Hning’s Asia), @TheReal_Q of (Qusay Today) and @Soumz of (Purple Headphones) and hosted by the awesome @nessreen of (Diana Writes) to talk about blogging in Saudi.

It is a funny, light episode where a group of friends talk about their approach to blogging, the difference between a blogger and a writer, and how it is to write under your own name among many other topics.

Enjoy and add the podcast to your RSS feed, or you can sync it to your library through iTunes, it is always funny and informative :)

Enjoy …

 
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Posted in Personal

 

Double-faced Managers

15 May

Give it a try and make a quick survey for the people around you and ask them about how would they feel about dealing with people with double standards and double faces. I am sure your ears will be filled with a quite good load of negative feedbacks.

For that, I am so sympathetic with those who happen to be working under the direct supervision of those with multiple faces.

I would argue that there is nothing more damaging to the moral and motivation of any employees other than reporting to a manager who keeps preaching highly work standards while practicing none of them. I would argue that there is no culture destroyer other than a management that likes to PR and advertise modern managerial practices while behaving with managerial guidelines that have been dead since the beginning of the last century!

It is always surprising, and actually beyond my humble cognitive abilities to see a manager who cannot sit and drive a decision, a process with his or her own team. It always beyond me how a group of managers, supposed-to-be decision makers, who keep fighting and exchanging heated emails and phone calls over trivial matters that can be solved and finalized within a 30 minutes can-do meeting! And do not forget, all of those above, in their free times, in front of their subordinates, or in front of cameras, they are the best managerial thinkers ever born. They could recite a quote of Drucker or Kottler, but you can bet that they do not have a clue about how to put those quotes into practice.

I have said this on the blog before; being a manager is a not a privilege, it is a responsibility. You will be doing the world a huge favor if you decide to step down and go when you know that you cannot add more.

 
3 Comments

Posted in General Management, Leadership, Personal

 

At the Finishing Line

09 Apr

It was a normal Friday afternoon. Relaxing before hitting the road to have launch with my family. Being on the era of a digital easy reach, I clicked my iPhone to check for new emails. Then, there it was. An email from unfamiliar address, but it was starting with ‘Dear Mr. Al Dosari’ …

It was the long waited email … it was from my University telling me that my dissertation has been accepted and thereby I complete my master’s degree requirements. A Master of Business Administration.

You can go wild and imagine all possible reactions to that email, I hardly remember them myself. Maybe danced, jumped, prayed, and God only knows what else!!

Reaching the finishing line after a tough and daunting journey fills you with satisfaction. The sorrow of challenges and time constraints suddenly turn to the sweetest feelings you could ever have.

Coming from an engineering background where numbers are … you know numbers. Where the world is mount to the precision of design, physics, and mathematical equations. The University of Leicester taught me how to break out and think freely as you should in the business world. It taught me how to engage in debates and weight different points of views and respect them all even I have to take a side; a side that is eventually taken based on an objective judgment rather than a generalized view.

To put it shortly … compared to two years ago when I started the program, I am definitely a new man looking to the world in a new light.

 
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Posted in Personal

 

The New Middle East

14 Feb

So Ben Ali ran away, Mubarak stepped down, and only Allah knows who is next??

This is the situation in the Middle East these days. It is boiling with talks of freedom and democracy, with hopes and dreams that are flying around in the form of tweets and Facebook feeds, and of course, with fears of turmoil and instability!

Amongst these circumstances, people of Egypt, and most of Arabs, started to celebrate the departure of Mubarak. I cannot even count the number of SMSs, tweets, and Facebook feeds that I have come across these past couple of days which were filled with terms like: victory, power of the people, revolution of the century, tears of happiness and freedom, that beside the usual congratulations!

To be honest, I have to say that I have not been able to join those celebrations. I could not drive myself neither mentally nor physically to be in the mood of celebration. You may want to ask ‘why’?! The answer is that I could not yet find any reason to celebrate!! I can certainly relate and understand the frustration of the Egyptian people, and the breeze of fresh hope they might be breathing right now, but still, there is something missing!!

But that won’t stop me from saying that both Tunisia and Egypt might be leading the wave of change in the area; the area that has been waiting for some time now to be changed. The people of both countries are leading the way toward a brighter future. And they are in a front of a historical moment and a miraculous chance to catch up with the rest with of the world, and let’s hope they will drag us all along!!

Now for a business blog, allow me to share some points with you that I would really like to see in the new Middle East, things that if actualized, and moved from being mere dreams into realities, then I promise you, I will be singing my guts out with happiness:

  • I would like to delete the word ‘bureaucracy’ from our public and private sectors, and to see all the dinosaurs of bureaucracy in each and every public or private office go extinct!
  • I would like to hear no more about bribery stories. No under the table negotiation to pass some illegal papers or to award contracts, no leaked exam papers because of X amount of money, and certainly not to pay for your passport/id card/driving license to be issued faster and without even your presence!
  • You know the word ‘Wasta,’ … you know it, right!! I would like you not to know it. No more employment and education opportunities based on your friendship or kinship relations!
  • I would like people to start appreciating the concepts of quality, professionalism, and management science in general. I would like to see the management practices are actually … practiced, and not only taken in oversees courses and forgotten, or only featured in organizations’ magazines and newsletters!!
  • I would like to see customer services, in private and public sectors, to be customer services, literally! I would like to see them dealing with people in respect, honesty, and integrity.

What would you like to see in the new Middle East?

 
4 Comments

Posted in Personal

 

Volunteering Not Dating

15 Nov

Any observer to the internal Saudi scene should’ve noticed the boom in the volunteering work activities that are initiated by the youth, both males and females, in the country and especially in Jeddah. Some big scale activities, like the groups participated in the Jeddah flood relief initiatives, or smaller scale activities, like groups promoting the cleanness of the Jeddah sea coast, are all coming with positive ideas and morally high goals and trying to spread the word and inviting the whole society to engage in achieving these goals.

They are using any tool that is available to them to advertise and promote the core ideas of their work; and what is better than Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to do so in the modern world.

Despite of all the obvious benefits of such work to the whole society, it was really shocking to see a video that is ridiculing and strongly demeaning such initiatives. The video that just been released a couple of days ago accused most of the young males and females participating in these activities of perusing one of two major goals: either looking to get advanced in the society ladder by being labeled as volunteers, or looking for dating! If this is not a superficial and insulting analysis of the situation, I do not know what is!

The video that tried to be present its argument in a funny fashion but failed miserably, apparently forgot all the characteristics that such work usually implant in the youth personalities and only pictured them as hormonally raged teenagers! It forgot about fostering their self esteem, developing their senses of creativity, team work, organization, goal orientation, and their skills to manage and be responsible. And it forgot that maybe by working in such mixed situations, while separation of the sexes is the norm in Saudi, they would learn to look at each other with respect, as normal human beings, and not as a girl trying to seduce a boy or a boy trying to hook up with a girl!!!

Before leaving you here, I just want to say that I purposely did not post the video I am talking about on the site, I just do not want it to be part of my blog. And to not be accused of totally dismissing those I am not agreeing with, you can search the Youtube for this Arabic phrase to see it (فيلم التطوع الأخير).

To get you back in the mood, I refer you to this video published by our fellow blogger Qusay, about the the volunteer work of cleaning the Jeddah Corniche ….

Can you sense the difference?!

 
5 Comments

Posted in Culture, Personal

 

Welcome To the New Home

14 Nov

Hello everyone …

I am glad to welcome you all to my blog new home :) … it is a self hosted blog now!

I was planning to go ahead with this move on the blog birthday, which was about a month ago. But it took me some time to go ahead with the plan.

So … one year of blogging. I cannot describe to you how proud I am because of this blog. The idea that started as an experiment is living to witness its first birthday and hopefully many others to come. And like everything in life; there is always the sweet and the sorrow …

The Sweet:

- I’ve had the chance to speak out my mind on a higher level and in front of bigger audience. Each post on this blog is a result of thinking, reading, researching, writing, rewriting, and sometimes surprising myself of opinions and conclusions I reach and preach!

- I’ve had the chance to engage in mind stimulating discussions wheather on the comments section of this blog or outside. And that was one of the main goals behind the start of this blog; I am writing to to learn, to engage in debates, and to revisit my own beliefs and understandings for the purpose of consolidating or total change!

- I’ve had the chance to know many new and interesting personalities, males and females, in person or via the cyber space. If I have to choose the best outcome of my blogging experience. I would definitely choose this one!

The Sorrow:

- Having a different opinion can alienate you around here. It is really striking how some responses to a mere idea can be so fierce and beyond civilized discussion. I’ve learned from this experience that we all need to understand the difference between having different views, and personal attacks!

Before concluding this post; I really wish to thank you all, especially those who helped me during the first phases of the blog and those who encouraged me to write because of their thoughtful comments on the early posts …

Thank you all and do forget to modify the web address of the blog in your bookmarks or RSS readers …

Saad

 
6 Comments

Posted in Personal

 

Why Don’t You Just Do It?

06 Jul

I was talking with a couple of colleagues today and the topic of reading just popped up. One of them said “you know, we should really read some more, we developed the habit of no reading. It is a common problem.”

So he confidently knows that we have a problem, and admits that it is a common problem (he is saying ‘we,’ right?!), and I am sure he had said this same statement before. But he is just saying it and doing nothing about it!!

I have repeated this so many times, and I might’ve said it on this very blog, nothing in my professional life get on my nerves like when discussing some business matters with someone and he starts saying “I know you are right, all what you are saying is true, but we cannot do it!!!” especially when everything we need to get on the right track, that we both agree upon, is within our reach!!!

Submitting to the usual, doing things in certain ways just because they are in our comfort zone, lacking the willingness to learn new things and try new paths are all devastating whether we are talking individuals or organizations.

The conclusion of this post is simple; when you know there is something right and you want to do it, go ahead and do it!!

  • Want to read; stop at the nearest bookstore and grab a book or two.
  • Want to change a process because you know it will reduce costs and boost productivity, connivence your team and nurture the change challenges.
  • Want to develop your leadership style, go learn by reading, by consulting, by joining trainings and so forth.

*******

An Arabic poet once said (trying my best to translate it):

- I have never seen a shortcoming in a human being, like the shortcoming of those who can be perfect, and never try!

 
6 Comments

Posted in Culture, Personal

 

You Are Not A Superman

23 May

It does not matter how highly you think of yourself or your abilities, you are not a superman (nor a batman, nor a hulk, nor anyone of those super heros for that matter!) And what goes for the men goes for the ladies as well, so ladies, there is no chance for you to be the bionic woman.

Mark my words: YOU CANNOT MULTITASK!

According to this interesting blog post on HBR, doing more than one thing at a time kills your productivity by about 40%. Our brain is not programmed to multitask,  it is programmed to focus on one thing, and one thing only at a time. So you cannot really drive and talk on the phone, you cannot be in a meeting room discussing something and checking your emails, and you cannot be liesetning to your wife and texting someone at the same time.

Now the strange thing is that we are always expected to multitask as if it is the normal thing to do! When your coworker just drop on your office while you’re working on an important report, he is expecting you to answer his questions right away! When your manager calls at any moment, he is expecting you to pick up the phone no matter what! He will call you three consecutive times on your office following that by a series of mobile phone calls! And what really pisses me off is when someone sends you an email and in 10 seconds, he is calling you to tell you that he just sent you an email!!!! Even if you started reading his email, you will be distracted by his call! As mentioned in the same HBR post, peopel living under constant distractions during the day could face a 10 points fall in their IQs, this is equal to losing a one night sleep, and more than twice the effect of smoking marijuana!

The disaster is that some managers who should be the ones maintaining and elevating the productivity levels of their subordinates, they are the ones who usually cause the performance of their teams to drop. Keep surprising the staff with unplanned meetings, always changing and coming up with new processes, and most importantly, disrespecting the staff off times are all playing a major role in pushing the performance to its lowest levels.

Sit back now, relax, and start thinking about your day … How many marijuana did you have today??

 
4 Comments

Posted in Personal

 

Self Branding; Strange Examples

09 Apr

Self branding in simple words is the image you want other people to see you in. It is a mix of your talent, charisma, personality, reputation, etc. Needless to say, theorizing this mix and having it as a concept has been influenced by business marketing; products and services branding techniques. Although it is mostly used by freelancers and public figures like writers, musicians, sports icons and so on, modern researches encourage almost everybody to have a self-brand. For example, business managers or managers to be should have their own self brands. Sometimes a self brand could get you hired or allow you to climb the corporate ladder quickly.

Anyway, during the last few days, we have seen two strange self-branding stories, and when I say strange I mean things that I cannot logically explain.

The first one is from Egypt; a music composer is claiming that his name has been used in the Arabic Booker decorated novel “Tarmi bi Sharar – It throws sparks.” I have the novel but I did not start reading it yet, but it is obvious that Mohamed Raheem, the name of the composer, was one of the bad characters in the novel. Of course he won’t be suing the novelist if he was the hero or something!! Away from the legal dispute and how it will be resolved, it seems to me that it is a classical looking-for-fame attempt. The novel is out there since 2009. Mr. Raheem, the real figure, does not leave you with much to wonder about why he chose to go public with his allegations now after the novel has won the Booker. What makes it really strange is why someone would like to brand himself as a fame seeker. And not only that, but a bad character as well if he truly resembles the character in the novel!!!

The second case comes from Saudi Arabia, from Mohamed Al Areefi. The Saudi religious scholar who announced last week that he will record an upcoming episode of one of his many shows at Jerusalem. It does not need a smart-NASA-space shuttle-designer to figure out that Saudi Arabia does not have any kind of diplomatic relations with Isreal which happens to be controlling the access to the holy lands in Jerusalem. How was he planning to do it? Allah only knows. Mr. Al Areefi seems to be addicted to distort his brand image. Few months have passed since his last incident in which he publicly insulted one of another Islamic groups icons. Was he only trying to attract more viewers to his show? by doing what, lying? Or was he trying to act like the oppressed Muslim who wanted to visit one of the holy lands but could not do so? So beside his image of a scholar who uses insults to argue with those who do not agree with his views, he is now playing the lousy marketers game; the game of promising more than he can really offers. And you know what strange in this particular case, even if he, somehow, succeeded in visiting Jerusalem, he would look like someone who does not respect his country’s laws and go out and break them publicly!!!

 
4 Comments

Posted in Branding, Personal

 

Saudi Earth Hour

21 Mar

Few days to the 27th of March and its Earth hour. The whole country is taking part in this global initiative to spread awareness about the scarse of resources on our planet Earth.

No matter how romantic the idea of saving the planet may sound, saving energy for one hour won’t make the Earth problems go away! But still, it must be feeling good to participate with the whole world at the same time in joint efforts to show your concerns about the planet; it is a reminder to everyone that we are over utilizing Earth’s resources; both on individual and group levels (whether this group is government, companies, etc.) A reminder that we should really re-evaluate our resources consumption approaches.

I am glad to see that the country and many of its government and private sector companies are taking part of this initiative, although the question ‘How?’ remains a mystery! In all cases, I really hope to see those tall business buildings with their many offices and those banks (especially banks!!) which leave their lights on all day and night for decoration purposes turning their lights off (I really hope they can do that every day, not only for an hour!!!)

Moreover, on a personal level, I am planning to participate in this hour. Bringing such topic into family discussions will definitely lead to some insights on how we are consuming resources available to us, in addition to give the children at the family a hint or two on how they should be dealing with those resource in a responsible manner. After all, we are really leaving them with a horrible legacy!

And for those of you living in Jeddah, you may want to have a look at this initiative named ‘Earth Hour Jeddah.’ There is a number of good hints on how you could participate and show you participation thereafter. Just do not forget to hear the lovely podcast of Nesreen and her guest Sharifah, the mastermind behind ‘Earth Hour Jeddah.’

So … Are you in?

 
6 Comments

Posted in Personal, Saudi business

 
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