just quick question please how many
parents do we have in the audience may I
please see a show of hands even though I
can see great like let’s say 20% lovely
just like many of the parents I do
juggle many roles I’m a mom and
management consultant I’m an educator
and researcher but by far my greatest
achievement is being the mother of
Farook see the backbone of today’s talk
is about how he learned to succeed so
for those who aren’t parents cannot
identify with him or with me but that’s
okay please bear with me for a few
minutes it will all make sense to you
eventually let me tell you first about
my childhood I was born in Beirut and I
was raised by exceptional role models
one my mom graduated with a PhD from
Sorbonne in Paris
my father has graduated from a chalet in
Switzerland I even looked up to my
grandfather who was a scholar in Islam
and Arabic culture
he was very recognized and my uncle who
has been investing in education for the
past 25 years has established over ten
schools across the MENA region so I
myself graduated from one of those
schools and then joined Michigan State
University in the u.s. to graduate with
a master’s degree and a PhD C with this
background I had very high expectations
academically and professionally for my
son I wanted to raise him with the same
standards and the same values Arabic and
Islamic values that I had to live up to
on one side I wanted him to grow up and
has the perseverance to face all the
challenges to become a self-directed
learner to be open to all possibilities
but at the same time I wanted him to
graduate from a university get ahead of
the crowd and become successful CEO a
great CEO as well as I wanted him to
become a human being a human being who
understands and appreciate
his cultural roots his religion and our
Arabic cultural values so back then I
felt like I was asking for a lot I felt
like I needed to make a choice and I
really was confused why because I was
struggling with two burning questions
one is how does it look like to be a
great CEO in the modern world
do we look at the West for best practice
do we import them and then customize
them to the Arab world
what does customization mean there was
no research that would unpack what
customization mean the second question I
struggled with is what type of education
should I offer Farooq so he can grow
into this creative entrepreneurial and
globally competent leader without losing
on those cultural values that I had to
live up to so to answer those two
questions it was fundamental that I go
ahead and study our Arabic culture and
how it intersects with leadership and
education so I gathered a group of
researchers education scholars and
management consultants to meet up and
conduct face-to-face interviews with
over 2,500 CEOs across 17 Arab countries
across the MENA we focused on three
regions the GCC the Levant and North
Africa over a hundred thousand data
points were collected however I’m here
today to share with you three key
findings and those three key findings
have to do with three variables the
impact of culture homogeneity and
education for those who know already
what culture is it’s a set of beliefs
ideas and behaviors practices that a
group of people share you may ask why do
we need to add to study culture I’ll
just give you two simple reasons one it
is extremely important as a future
leader to understand who you are
self-awareness is key
especially your national identity who am
i as an Arab who am i as a Saudi what
common mental programming do I share
with other Saudis the second reason you
need to study culture is for you to
understand how different you are from
other people that are coming from other
nationalities because by understanding
differences you will be able to avoid
misunderstandings avoid misconceptions
and avoid conflicts let me give you an
example if you were to meet up with a
lady from Switzerland at 8 o clock in
the morning
you better be there at 8 a.m. otherwise
it will be disrespectful for her but if
you were to meet up with a lady from
Spain she might show up somewhere
between 18 and a 20 and you should not
take that personal again culture will
give you some foresight on what to
predict or what to anticipate and what
to avoid that much misunderstanding
because by doing that you’ll be able to
build more meaningful relationships and
build those business relationship and
advance your business specifically as a
leader let’s zoom into the cultural
impact on leadership our study has shown
that national culture affect leadership
in seven different dimensions today I am
only going to share with you how it
affects leadership in one dimension
specifically how leaders how Arab CEOs
respond to power let me ask you a
question who from the audience expect
that power is distributed unequally can
I see can you give me a show of hands
excellent that’s the majority of the
audience actually this is very similar
to a country called India where you have
a caste system and it is a norm and
people not only expect that power is
distributed unequally but also that
power is understood are distributed
unequally and it’s accepted by everyone
else so it’s expected and it’s accepted
culture is psychologists say that India
has a high power distance index APD I
just to put it in perspective if you
look at Germany or the Netherlands they
both have low PDI I will research when
we studied Arab CEOs it turned out that
the majority of GCC countries have a
higher PDI index compared to the LaVon
country so not only we are different
from the West but also it turned out
that there are statistically significant
differences across our Arab countries
what does it mean to have a high power
distance index I’ll give you an example
managers or CEOs in a country where the
high PDI are a source of knowledge are
the source of wisdom and they’re
expected to be respected because of
their positional power they have the
answers they make critical decisions on
behalf of the team and they expect their
subordinates to show loyalty and they
expect their subordinates not to
contradict them this is great
with high power comes a lot of
responsibility and accountability if
you’re lucky your CEO for example will
not only be morally responsible for your
success but will also be released
morally responsible for your well-being
that is great he will grow you he will
develop you and he will also be your
mentor but if you’re not lucky you will
end up with the CEO who most probably
doesn’t know what he’s doing he will
abuse that power he will be insecure and
probably put you under the bus when
things go wrong the point we’re trying
to make here is that by understanding
how culture affects different
nationalities you may be able to
anticipate and other people’s thinking
and behavior and you will may be able to
learn how to navigate the political
landscape of organizations and you will
be able to better build relationships
and build rapport with others and your
emotional intelligence will be in
proved this way you can build trust with
others and reduce misunderstandings and
this way you will be able to advance
your business specifically in the Arab
world where Trust is a key ingredient
let’s move on to the second finding the
second finding has to do with
homogeneity many of you have heard the
homogeneity or homogeneous societies
it’s a society like Finland where the
majority of people share the same
ethnicity same same religion they speak
the same language and they share the
same background in contrast the USA for
example is a heterogeneous society where
people are expected to have different
values people are expected to have to
speak different languages and to come
from different backgrounds and religious
religious backgrounds it turned out
based on our study that the majority of
Arab CEOs are very homogenous and they
showed specifically a high inclination
to work with people with the same
nationality to work with people
sometimes with the same gender they
showed a high preference for working
with content case studies contract that
are written in Arabic and they have
related to the local and the regional
context they also shown a preference to
appoint people in key positions that
they have a personal connection to this
is great and this is totally normal in
terms of us being part of a collectivist
society and it’s also very humane to
think that you would like to be
surrounded with things and people that
you can identify with it feels like home
to be surrounded with things that you
can you have a you share a common
background or a common history with
however the danger comes that in a
homogenized thinking has a tendency to
avoid challenging the status quo avoid
appreciating differences and avoid
thinking outside the box
which has implications on our ability to
innovate and if we would like to promote
innovation for a knowledge-based economy
that homogeneity effect needs to be
carefully addressed in schools and in
the workplace so let’s look at our data
our data shows that the Yui has called
highest on the homogeneity index as you
can see from the gray line and the Yui
has scored highest on the modernization
indexed as you can see from the blue
line so on one side the Yui has shown
high desire to preserve and depreciate
and not to dilute the local culture and
I give you a very simple example Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid when he has asked
one million students to read so that he
can ensure that we learn our Arabic
language and we preserved Arabic
language Nui has scored highest on the
modernization index which shows our
desire to open to open up to
globalization to change to innovation
and again Muhammad Russia is an example
just two days ago he has asked one
million students to learn coding so that
they can learn the computer the language
of computers see sometimes our mindsets
and the values of homogeneity and
modernization they are at odds with each
other and that creates some tension and
this is the same tension I have faced
and when I had to make a choice between
both words let’s move on to the third
most important aha I had with my
research it turned out that education is
the highest predictor for effective
leadership which means specifically
executives that have attended Western or
mixed education background high school
let’s say
were more inclined to choose best
practices in leadership in contrast to
those who have attended a pure Arabic
traditional education system for me this
is heartbreaking as an Arab educator so
I really wanted to know what’s going on
and what can we do to fix it as a
management consultant there are three
key art yardsticks that we use to
measure or to assess the current state
of our education system first one has to
do with performance how our students are
doing in schools the second has to do
with motivation how engaged our students
how much they love learning because by
the end of the day the purpose of an
education system is to promote lifelong
learning and the third one is what are
the tangible outputs my graduates are
creating or are delivering on to promote
that knowledge-based economy in terms of
the high school grades of 15 years old
the PISA international assessment which
measures proficiency levels of students
around the world in math reading and
science now here I’m going to take again
the case study of the UE we have called
much lower than the OECD average an OECD
is mainly the group of countries that
include the Americas and European
countries but this is half of the story
the other half of the story is we have
scored much lower than 2012 so in spite
of the the fact that the government
students expenditure is one of the
highest around the world we have
declined in terms of our results in
those assessments the second yardstick
has to do with motivation if you look at
the USA when they measure the interest
level of students and they ask them what
is your attitude to our school are you
excited to going to school too
unlike what you see in movies the USA
interest level was positive but if you
look at the top of the graph you look at
China the interest level is quite
negative students hate going to school
and this is usually normal when you see
how the government and how families
pressure the students due to
standardized testing however when you
look at the Yui we find that our kids
our youth are neither district
disinterested neither negative nor
positive it’s close to zero which means
the sample was a youth of generation
we’re facing are indifferent and this is
quite alarming when you have a
generation that doesn’t care much about
going to school the third your stick has
to do with innovation let’s look at the
Yui and you can see that it has one of
the highest GDP per capita in terms of
creating the ecosystem for innovation
but it scores low on innovation
performance and this is reflected in the
innovation efficiency index which ranks
the Yui a hundred and thirty third in
the world out of a hundred and forty
five what does that mean it means that
even though the government is creating
one of the most amazing and advanced
innovation ecosystem in the world the
output of innovation that is coming out
of a citizen or an individual is quite
low and in fact if you look around you
will see smart cities being built you
will see blockchain city is being
launched just two days ago you had an
amazing appointment of a Minister for
artificial intelligence the ually itself
is a amazing example for change
innovation and transformation
I wish all Arab countries can can
imitate that however our challenge today
is to convert that investment and those
efforts into real outputs and to real
results indefinitely and I’m sure you
agree with me
education is the vehicle that will help
convert that investment into real
outputs indeed there are lots of
education initiatives reform initiatives
on the way and my research shows that
those education reform initiatives need
to integrate need to adopt a model
called the 80/20 model 80% of specific
dimensions that we extract from the West
to promote innovation and performance
and 20% that mirror specific nuances
that will engage the Arabic learner and
ensure that we promote our Arabic
cultural values that 80/20 model is what
we currently use with our clients and
this is what I have chosen for my son
today my son is 19 going to 20 and
graduated two years ago from a school in
the IB school from in Dubai he was
selected as a president twice two years
in a row to represent over 75
nationalities and he lives today in New
York City he’s a student going to
attending Stern School of Business
he’s has a dual dual major in finance
and the history he has set up a start-up
with his partners FinTech using
blockchain technologies and he received
a fellowship from NYU to study and work
in this summer in Silicon Valley he has
attended thus far two internships one in
Deloitte and one in Orson young but most
importantly Farooq is proud to be an
Arab he appreciates he loves and he
understands his background his cultural
values his religion and he is very much
eager to come back one day to give back
to the Arab world to his communities and
to be part of the positive change that
is on the way see I may have been
lucky with Farooq to have made the right
choices however I feel much more
relieved that my research has offered
some guidelines and some evidence best
practice around education and leadership
so I ask you to please engage with
others don’t go to two extremes don’t
over protect your national identity no
one can take that away from you engage
with others build bridges so you can
build a better working world don’t be
afraid to be different to think
differently think outside the box
challenge the status quo and the
homogenized you’re thinking so you can
promote innovation integrate rather than
disintegrate don’t hesitate to open up
to both words and take the best of both
words and if you were an Arab go for the
8020 model and create your own unique
development path in this region if you
master those three skills you will learn
to succeed and I thank you very much
parents do we have in the audience may I
please see a show of hands even though I
can see great like let’s say 20% lovely
just like many of the parents I do
juggle many roles I’m a mom and
management consultant I’m an educator
and researcher but by far my greatest
achievement is being the mother of
Farook see the backbone of today’s talk
is about how he learned to succeed so
for those who aren’t parents cannot
identify with him or with me but that’s
okay please bear with me for a few
minutes it will all make sense to you
eventually let me tell you first about
my childhood I was born in Beirut and I
was raised by exceptional role models
one my mom graduated with a PhD from
Sorbonne in Paris
my father has graduated from a chalet in
Switzerland I even looked up to my
grandfather who was a scholar in Islam
and Arabic culture
he was very recognized and my uncle who
has been investing in education for the
past 25 years has established over ten
schools across the MENA region so I
myself graduated from one of those
schools and then joined Michigan State
University in the u.s. to graduate with
a master’s degree and a PhD C with this
background I had very high expectations
academically and professionally for my
son I wanted to raise him with the same
standards and the same values Arabic and
Islamic values that I had to live up to
on one side I wanted him to grow up and
has the perseverance to face all the
challenges to become a self-directed
learner to be open to all possibilities
but at the same time I wanted him to
graduate from a university get ahead of
the crowd and become successful CEO a
great CEO as well as I wanted him to
become a human being a human being who
understands and appreciate
his cultural roots his religion and our
Arabic cultural values so back then I
felt like I was asking for a lot I felt
like I needed to make a choice and I
really was confused why because I was
struggling with two burning questions
one is how does it look like to be a
great CEO in the modern world
do we look at the West for best practice
do we import them and then customize
them to the Arab world
what does customization mean there was
no research that would unpack what
customization mean the second question I
struggled with is what type of education
should I offer Farooq so he can grow
into this creative entrepreneurial and
globally competent leader without losing
on those cultural values that I had to
live up to so to answer those two
questions it was fundamental that I go
ahead and study our Arabic culture and
how it intersects with leadership and
education so I gathered a group of
researchers education scholars and
management consultants to meet up and
conduct face-to-face interviews with
over 2,500 CEOs across 17 Arab countries
across the MENA we focused on three
regions the GCC the Levant and North
Africa over a hundred thousand data
points were collected however I’m here
today to share with you three key
findings and those three key findings
have to do with three variables the
impact of culture homogeneity and
education for those who know already
what culture is it’s a set of beliefs
ideas and behaviors practices that a
group of people share you may ask why do
we need to add to study culture I’ll
just give you two simple reasons one it
is extremely important as a future
leader to understand who you are
self-awareness is key
especially your national identity who am
i as an Arab who am i as a Saudi what
common mental programming do I share
with other Saudis the second reason you
need to study culture is for you to
understand how different you are from
other people that are coming from other
nationalities because by understanding
differences you will be able to avoid
misunderstandings avoid misconceptions
and avoid conflicts let me give you an
example if you were to meet up with a
lady from Switzerland at 8 o clock in
the morning
you better be there at 8 a.m. otherwise
it will be disrespectful for her but if
you were to meet up with a lady from
Spain she might show up somewhere
between 18 and a 20 and you should not
take that personal again culture will
give you some foresight on what to
predict or what to anticipate and what
to avoid that much misunderstanding
because by doing that you’ll be able to
build more meaningful relationships and
build those business relationship and
advance your business specifically as a
leader let’s zoom into the cultural
impact on leadership our study has shown
that national culture affect leadership
in seven different dimensions today I am
only going to share with you how it
affects leadership in one dimension
specifically how leaders how Arab CEOs
respond to power let me ask you a
question who from the audience expect
that power is distributed unequally can
I see can you give me a show of hands
excellent that’s the majority of the
audience actually this is very similar
to a country called India where you have
a caste system and it is a norm and
people not only expect that power is
distributed unequally but also that
power is understood are distributed
unequally and it’s accepted by everyone
else so it’s expected and it’s accepted
culture is psychologists say that India
has a high power distance index APD I
just to put it in perspective if you
look at Germany or the Netherlands they
both have low PDI I will research when
we studied Arab CEOs it turned out that
the majority of GCC countries have a
higher PDI index compared to the LaVon
country so not only we are different
from the West but also it turned out
that there are statistically significant
differences across our Arab countries
what does it mean to have a high power
distance index I’ll give you an example
managers or CEOs in a country where the
high PDI are a source of knowledge are
the source of wisdom and they’re
expected to be respected because of
their positional power they have the
answers they make critical decisions on
behalf of the team and they expect their
subordinates to show loyalty and they
expect their subordinates not to
contradict them this is great
with high power comes a lot of
responsibility and accountability if
you’re lucky your CEO for example will
not only be morally responsible for your
success but will also be released
morally responsible for your well-being
that is great he will grow you he will
develop you and he will also be your
mentor but if you’re not lucky you will
end up with the CEO who most probably
doesn’t know what he’s doing he will
abuse that power he will be insecure and
probably put you under the bus when
things go wrong the point we’re trying
to make here is that by understanding
how culture affects different
nationalities you may be able to
anticipate and other people’s thinking
and behavior and you will may be able to
learn how to navigate the political
landscape of organizations and you will
be able to better build relationships
and build rapport with others and your
emotional intelligence will be in
proved this way you can build trust with
others and reduce misunderstandings and
this way you will be able to advance
your business specifically in the Arab
world where Trust is a key ingredient
let’s move on to the second finding the
second finding has to do with
homogeneity many of you have heard the
homogeneity or homogeneous societies
it’s a society like Finland where the
majority of people share the same
ethnicity same same religion they speak
the same language and they share the
same background in contrast the USA for
example is a heterogeneous society where
people are expected to have different
values people are expected to have to
speak different languages and to come
from different backgrounds and religious
religious backgrounds it turned out
based on our study that the majority of
Arab CEOs are very homogenous and they
showed specifically a high inclination
to work with people with the same
nationality to work with people
sometimes with the same gender they
showed a high preference for working
with content case studies contract that
are written in Arabic and they have
related to the local and the regional
context they also shown a preference to
appoint people in key positions that
they have a personal connection to this
is great and this is totally normal in
terms of us being part of a collectivist
society and it’s also very humane to
think that you would like to be
surrounded with things and people that
you can identify with it feels like home
to be surrounded with things that you
can you have a you share a common
background or a common history with
however the danger comes that in a
homogenized thinking has a tendency to
avoid challenging the status quo avoid
appreciating differences and avoid
thinking outside the box
which has implications on our ability to
innovate and if we would like to promote
innovation for a knowledge-based economy
that homogeneity effect needs to be
carefully addressed in schools and in
the workplace so let’s look at our data
our data shows that the Yui has called
highest on the homogeneity index as you
can see from the gray line and the Yui
has scored highest on the modernization
indexed as you can see from the blue
line so on one side the Yui has shown
high desire to preserve and depreciate
and not to dilute the local culture and
I give you a very simple example Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid when he has asked
one million students to read so that he
can ensure that we learn our Arabic
language and we preserved Arabic
language Nui has scored highest on the
modernization index which shows our
desire to open to open up to
globalization to change to innovation
and again Muhammad Russia is an example
just two days ago he has asked one
million students to learn coding so that
they can learn the computer the language
of computers see sometimes our mindsets
and the values of homogeneity and
modernization they are at odds with each
other and that creates some tension and
this is the same tension I have faced
and when I had to make a choice between
both words let’s move on to the third
most important aha I had with my
research it turned out that education is
the highest predictor for effective
leadership which means specifically
executives that have attended Western or
mixed education background high school
let’s say
were more inclined to choose best
practices in leadership in contrast to
those who have attended a pure Arabic
traditional education system for me this
is heartbreaking as an Arab educator so
I really wanted to know what’s going on
and what can we do to fix it as a
management consultant there are three
key art yardsticks that we use to
measure or to assess the current state
of our education system first one has to
do with performance how our students are
doing in schools the second has to do
with motivation how engaged our students
how much they love learning because by
the end of the day the purpose of an
education system is to promote lifelong
learning and the third one is what are
the tangible outputs my graduates are
creating or are delivering on to promote
that knowledge-based economy in terms of
the high school grades of 15 years old
the PISA international assessment which
measures proficiency levels of students
around the world in math reading and
science now here I’m going to take again
the case study of the UE we have called
much lower than the OECD average an OECD
is mainly the group of countries that
include the Americas and European
countries but this is half of the story
the other half of the story is we have
scored much lower than 2012 so in spite
of the the fact that the government
students expenditure is one of the
highest around the world we have
declined in terms of our results in
those assessments the second yardstick
has to do with motivation if you look at
the USA when they measure the interest
level of students and they ask them what
is your attitude to our school are you
excited to going to school too
unlike what you see in movies the USA
interest level was positive but if you
look at the top of the graph you look at
China the interest level is quite
negative students hate going to school
and this is usually normal when you see
how the government and how families
pressure the students due to
standardized testing however when you
look at the Yui we find that our kids
our youth are neither district
disinterested neither negative nor
positive it’s close to zero which means
the sample was a youth of generation
we’re facing are indifferent and this is
quite alarming when you have a
generation that doesn’t care much about
going to school the third your stick has
to do with innovation let’s look at the
Yui and you can see that it has one of
the highest GDP per capita in terms of
creating the ecosystem for innovation
but it scores low on innovation
performance and this is reflected in the
innovation efficiency index which ranks
the Yui a hundred and thirty third in
the world out of a hundred and forty
five what does that mean it means that
even though the government is creating
one of the most amazing and advanced
innovation ecosystem in the world the
output of innovation that is coming out
of a citizen or an individual is quite
low and in fact if you look around you
will see smart cities being built you
will see blockchain city is being
launched just two days ago you had an
amazing appointment of a Minister for
artificial intelligence the ually itself
is a amazing example for change
innovation and transformation
I wish all Arab countries can can
imitate that however our challenge today
is to convert that investment and those
efforts into real outputs and to real
results indefinitely and I’m sure you
agree with me
education is the vehicle that will help
convert that investment into real
outputs indeed there are lots of
education initiatives reform initiatives
on the way and my research shows that
those education reform initiatives need
to integrate need to adopt a model
called the 80/20 model 80% of specific
dimensions that we extract from the West
to promote innovation and performance
and 20% that mirror specific nuances
that will engage the Arabic learner and
ensure that we promote our Arabic
cultural values that 80/20 model is what
we currently use with our clients and
this is what I have chosen for my son
today my son is 19 going to 20 and
graduated two years ago from a school in
the IB school from in Dubai he was
selected as a president twice two years
in a row to represent over 75
nationalities and he lives today in New
York City he’s a student going to
attending Stern School of Business
he’s has a dual dual major in finance
and the history he has set up a start-up
with his partners FinTech using
blockchain technologies and he received
a fellowship from NYU to study and work
in this summer in Silicon Valley he has
attended thus far two internships one in
Deloitte and one in Orson young but most
importantly Farooq is proud to be an
Arab he appreciates he loves and he
understands his background his cultural
values his religion and he is very much
eager to come back one day to give back
to the Arab world to his communities and
to be part of the positive change that
is on the way see I may have been
lucky with Farooq to have made the right
choices however I feel much more
relieved that my research has offered
some guidelines and some evidence best
practice around education and leadership
so I ask you to please engage with
others don’t go to two extremes don’t
over protect your national identity no
one can take that away from you engage
with others build bridges so you can
build a better working world don’t be
afraid to be different to think
differently think outside the box
challenge the status quo and the
homogenized you’re thinking so you can
promote innovation integrate rather than
disintegrate don’t hesitate to open up
to both words and take the best of both
words and if you were an Arab go for the
8020 model and create your own unique
development path in this region if you
master those three skills you will learn
to succeed and I thank you very much
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