Mind the Gap!

An Executive Interview with Innovative HR Solutions

The staggering growth that continues in this region is both a wonderful opportunity for business leaders and a challenge of mammoth proportions. Our leaders are required to manage this growth, navigate through continuous change and think strategically, all at once! Organisations must ensure their leaders have the skills and leadership behaviours that will bring success in the business environment of the Middle East, and specifically the GCC.

BM: What skills do leaders in organisations of this region need to succeed? Are these different from others parts of the world?
NF. Here in the GCC we manage global businesses, an extremely fast paced business environment and a constantly changing workplace. What we need, perhaps in greater doses here, is skills around managing change, dealing with heavy workloads, multicultural awareness, managing ambiguity and entrepreneurship. Of course we also need skills that managers use right across the globe. These include competencies such as influence and persuasion; visionary leadership; problem solving & decision making and strategic thinking, just to name a few.

BMME: How effective are our managers currently?
NF. Many are fantastic and I have the privilege of working with some of the regions outstanding leaders in my job. However, I would venture that there are those who have significant development needs and others who are simply inconsistent in their application of some of these skills.

Because of the growth here, many leaders find themselves responsible for complexity and sheer size in projects and teams, that they have no experience with. This, of course, throws up development needs that may not be addressed or are addressed in the wrong way.

We also need to remember the region recruits technical skills internationally and does that very well. Just look at the amazing buildings and projects going on all over the GCC to see my point. But along with technical competence there must be behavioural competence to succeed at a leadership level. At a senior level your knowledge of construction techniques is not as important as your ability to pull a multicultural project team together and focus their efforts to deliver at a high standard.

BMME: It is often said that people don’t leave organisations they leave managers. What does this mean for the GCC labour market in their ‘war for talent’?
NF. For professionally skilled individuals we do have a challenging labour market currently. In some sectors, e.g. banking, the ability of banks to attract talented staff through offering significantly increased salary packages is currently a fact of life. However, I genuinely believe that an individual will think twice before taking the higher salary if they feel supported and motivated by their organisation and specifically, their manager. It is a raging debate here – is it salary that motivates? I come down squarely on the side of salary being a hygiene factor. Salary is something we find on the 1st Floor. If we feel a part of the vision coming from the 30th Floor and supported and positively challenged by our direct management, then moving to the 2nd Floor of another building may not be an option, or at least will be a really difficult decision.

The knock on of this, of course, is that our leaders need skills in motivating and positively challenging their teams – these skills need to be constantly developed. A colleague of mine uses the analogy of a garden that needs nurturing to highlight the importance of continuous skill development. It is a useful analogy when we think about weeds that can spring up in our skill set as leaders. Continuous nurturing of our leadership skills will ensure we have a beautiful garden (and thus a well developed toolkit of leadership skills and behaviours), that will contribute to greater success for the individual leader and, of course, the organisation.

BMME: You said development needs may not be addressed or are addressed in the wrong way. Can you elaborate on this comment?
NF. Something I still hear a lot is the old chestnut, “I don’t have time to attend that training course.” Whether a course is the right solution or not I will talk about later, but what I hear is senior individuals not taking time to nurture their skills, or tend their garden! I often ask managers and leaders, what percentage of their time do they spend on their own development. The answers usually range from 0-5%. Rarely is it higher. Think about what that means for an organisation? Even your star performer will not be a star after five years of no development.

I also see a huge over dependence on classroom based training in this region. Research into adult learning and behaviour change would support me in saying this is perhaps not the best way to develop a skill or behaviour. Think about key skills that leaders need e.g. influence and persuasion or being able to read and manage team dynamics. Can we honestly say that going into a classroom one day and coming out three days later will magically give us these skills? I would challenge the effectiveness of a classroom only approach, but it still seems to more often than not be the method of choice in this region.

BMME: So if I had to develop a leadership skill what would you suggest?
NF. Everyone learns differently, so initially it would be important to understand how you like to learn and then build a personalised strategy for you in that specific area. It is important to not only understand how adults learn, but also, how behaviour can change.

Depending on the skill under development there are many options but some form of action learning – using real-time interventions on current challenges – is very effective for developing leadership behaviours. Built into this type of leadership development are the following components:

• using fledging skills on actual work challenges
• seeking feedback to increase awareness and measure progress
• guided reflection that enables the individual to take learning from a work situation
• coaching in the workplace can also be a powerful development tool

One of the things you will notice about the strategies I am suggesting is that they involve learning while you are earning i.e. developing skill in the workplace on current projects. This fits the requirements of the business environment I spoke about earlier – one that demands learning that can be applied quickly in this fast paced business environment we operate in here. It also makes it more compelling for the learners (as it is clearly a part of their job) and more memorable.

Another thing I would mention is that we are not always so skilled in reflecting. Yet it is a powerful development tool. It takes discipline and practice to become comfortable and may initially need to be facilitated by a skilled individual. Through asking reflective questions, a coach or facilitator can help a team or an individual focus on their learning rather than just getting the job done. Again you are building the learning process into actual business and organisational challenges that your business is currently facing.

BMME: You mentioned coaching as a development tool. Does coaching really work?
NF. In the right conditions, with a skilled coach (internal or external), absolutely. Coaching can be extremely successful in changing behaviour or supporting an individual to develop new skills. There are many researchers in this area but we probably draw on the work of Professor Anthony Grant and Michael Cavanagh out of Sydney University more often than most. They talk about coaches working in a collaborative way that creates buy-in and sustainable change. I like the concept of sustainable change when we talk about leadership development – and it is not so easily achieved in the classroom.

Effective coaches raise awareness, they invite the individual to take responsibility and commit to action. The individual must also define what success looks like and measure their results. A coaching relationship is NOT about the coach telling someone what to do. And that can be a huge step for both new coaches and new coachees. Especially in this region where we have many individuals from high power distance cultures. These individuals look for the more experienced person to tell them what to do. This can be a challenge when initially engaging in a coaching relationship, as a good coach will not tell their coachee what they should do. A good coach knows that for a coaching intervention to be successful the individual needs to find the solution within themselves.

BMME: Finally, how can regional HR and T&D professionals support the development of leadership behaviours in their organisation?
NF. In my view there is no one big thing. It is a combination of many of the ideas I have spoken about here. Any T&D professional should be developing the foundation for effective learning – developing a coaching culture, enhancing feedback skills across the board so these can become key development strategies. They also need to challenge the development ‘traditions’ of this region e.g. the over reliance on training and the perception that development is something you do in your spare time. We have some way to go, but that in itself is a motivating challenge!

Nanette Fairley is Managing Director of Innovative HR Solutions (www.ihsdubai.com) the Middle East region’s largest team of occupational psychologists and leadership development specialists. They specialize in assessing and developing skills, particularly key leadership skills, through non traditional means such as development centres, executive coaching and action learning. Ms Fairley is also a well known speaker at conferences locally and internationally.