Lessons in Leadership

By Diana Milne, Editor

Executives from across the Middle East are going back to the classroom to be put through their paces at INSEAD business school’s Abu Dhabi campus. INSEAD Dean Frank Brown talks about the lessons they are learning.

“You've got to do your homework and rely on facts to make decisions as opposed to relying on somebody's sales pitch”
-Frank Brown, INSEAD

A year has passed since the international business school INSEAD opened its first Middle East branch in Abu Dhabi and already it has smashed its own targets signing up over 500 students so far. INSEAD Dean J. Frank Brown, who worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 26 years before taking on the role, is understandably excited about training the business leaders of the future in one of the world’s fastest growing economies. And he says, one of the main aims the school hopes to achieve through the campus in Abu Dhabi – its third globally – is to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among the local population. “I think that right now, a lot of the business environment in the Middle East is driven by expatriates,” he says. “I think that’s fine but I also think that locals need to play more of a role going forward. So education for all levels of the indigenous citizenry is really what’s important. I think entrepreneurship is one area that we need to teach. But I also think marketing and finance and the interpersonal side of business, are critical needs as well.”

He goes on to say that given how fast the economy in the region is growing, there is also a need for a greater focus on planning and strategy. “When you travel in the Middle East and you look at the enormous property development that is taking place, you realise how the planning of organisations and infrastructure and that kind of thing is crucially important.” He acknowledges that achieving these aims and encouraging the local business community to change won’t be easy, particularly in a region with as rich a history as the Middle East, where many businesses have been run by the same families for generations. “In societies that have developed over generations and generations, resistance to change is a big piece (issue),” says Brown. “Entrepreneurship is about innovation but it’s also about being open to change.”

The credit crunch and ensuing turmoil in Western financial markets means it is more important now than ever before to coach business people in how to avoid making bad decisions or investments. Brown says that one of the most important lessons that INSEAD teaches its students is the importance of remaining sceptical and not adopting a herd instinct. “I have a very simple view on this and maybe it’s because I used to be an auditor. But my view is that what people need to do in business is to make fact based decisions. Don’t go with the crowd. You’ve got to do your homework and rely on facts to make decisions as opposed to relying on somebody’s sales pitch.”

It was lack of adequate levels of scepticism that led to the credit crunch, according to Brown. “If you look at the meltdown in 2002 in the dot.com area and you look at the meltdown of today, there really is very much a crowd instinct of not thinking on one’s own or having the healthy scepticism to make business decisions. “There is naivety across the board. We’ve seen it in London. We’ve seen it on Wall Street and I think that’s something we’ve got to make sure doesn’t get repeated in the next generation of business.”

But while he is keen for students to learn the art of good decision making, Brown says the school also encourages them to accept and learn from mistakes along the way. “You’re never going to make 100% right decisions, 100% of the time,” he says. “I always tell people that if three out of four decisions they make turn out to be winners and they recognise their mistakes the other 25% of the time then they have the potential to be great leaders.”

As well as teaching future and existing business leaders about the art of successful entrepreneurship, INSEADS academics are undertaking a number of research projects in the region, looking into the key issues affecting the economies of the Middle East. Among the topics it will be researching will be alternative energy, sustainable supply chains, health management and women in business. “I’m delighted to say the research so far has been very well supported in Abu Dhabi,” says Brown, adding that the school is also involved in ongoing research projects aimed at strengthening the African economy. “We have an initiative focussed on Africa and helping to not make Africa still the forgotten continent. And I think there’s an interest in that from the Middle East in terms of impacting on healthcare and other similar issues in Africa as well.”

With regards to the research on women in business in the Middle East, Brown says this is a particularly hot topic in the Middle East given the significant gender gap within many regional organisations and the noticeable absence of women from many of the GCC’s boardrooms.

“First of all women in business is an important area of research for us at INSEAD and for the business world in general,” he says. “I talk to so many business executives that say, they initially bring in a balanced team that is split equally between men and women. But within five years that balance starts to slip away. And by the time you get to management level the balance goes from 50/50 to 80/20 or even 90/10. One of the things we’re focussed on is why this happens and what you can do to change it. There’s something very wrong with that and it goes back to resistance to change and using different ways of rewarding and managing careers.”

He goes on to say that the research the company has conducted so far into women in business in the Middle East has been well received in the region. “It has been very much been welcomed in the Middle East. The Middle East in general does not have a very great history in terms of women in business and we find it very refreshing that Abu Dhabi in particular is very focused on this.”

Brown says students from a wide range of backgrounds have been taking part in coaching at the school including executives from major Middle Eastern organisations. “We’re getting very junior people from companies like Mubadala and others. We’re working with businesses that are indigenous to the region and global companies that have operations there. If you look at some of the regional businesses we’re working with, we’ve had the likes of Qatar Telecom, Aramco and Mubadala.”

The school likes to use a novel approach to teaching, including running boot camps for executives to help them brush up on their core skills. Describing one such camp, Brown says: “We do a boot camp for Mubadala’s analysts which has been a lot of fun. We do a bit of finance, a bit of marketing. You run into people on that programme that are as young as 21 who are very sharp, eager and fun to be around.”

It’s no surprise that so many aspiring and current UAE business leaders are keen to sign up to one of the world’s most prestigious business schools. There is a huge demand for skilled business professionals in the country and for those with the right qualifications, the reward.

It is against the backdrop of these market conditions that INSEAD has seen demand for its services higher than it ever expected. Describing how the school has signed up over twice the number of students it had targeted for since opening last year, Brown says: “It’s way over our targets,” he says. “I’m almost embarrassed to say it’s almost two and a half times over what our targets were. And we’re not shy about the way we estimate,” he adds.

J Frank Brown is the second American dean since the founding of INSEAD for the first time in the school’s history, was appointed on the basis of his professional experience rather than his academic credentials. Before joining INSEAD he spent 26 years working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in various roles including as leader of the firm’s US$3.5billion Advisory Services practice.His role also involved developing leadership programmes within the company and he spoke on the subject at various universities and business schools.

Brown is the author of The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut State Societies of Certified Public Accountants. Brown is also a member of the Bridgepoint Capital Ltd Board, the European Academy of Businesses and the European Executive Council (EEC). Before become dean of INSEAD he served as a member of the school’s board and as chairman of the school’s US Council.

INSEAD fact box:

1. INSEAD was founded in 1957
2. There are INSEAD campuses globally: Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Fontainebleau in France
3. It formed a strategic alliance with the US based Wharton School in 2001
4. Standing and affiliate INSEAD faculties total 138 spread across 32 countries
5. There are 512 staff working across INSEAD’s three campuses
6. INSEAD MBA students currently total 887 – made up of 76 different nationalities
7. Over 9500 people from 100 countries and 2000 different companies are taking part in INSEAD’s executive programmes
8. The school has 54 PHD students from over 21nationalities
9. There are over 36,000 INSEAD alumni from 160 countries