The People, the Work......................still the same.

Salam-Alekum (Peace be upon you) from Riyadh Saudi Arabia

You answer Wa' Alekum Salam (And upon you peace)

I always imagined that working in another country would be somehow different. I don’t mean the language and cultural differences, but that somehow the people would be different, the space would seem different, the environment would change, but you’d be surprised at how quickly you realize that it’s not all that different.

My work environment is very similar and very much like what you would fine in the States. Sure there are differences with some of the cultural aspects, but people are still people who face the same struggles as we do. I still wear a tie and a dress shirt to the office while most of my Arabian colleagues wear a “thobe” (the traditional long shirt/dress that we see them wearing) and the head dress along with sandals. This is their traditional accepted dress standard for work and they wear it with pride. To be honest it looks very practical and very comfortable. I am the one that sticks out like a sore thumb because I’m the one dressed in western cloths. My cubical is like any other cubical in an office with a internet connection etc… Not all that different.

As a Leadership Coach, I am working to identify HiPo (High Potential) candidates who after being assessed are the top of their groups. There are 30,000 employees and out of those there are around 200 who have been nominated and who are being assessed by me and 7 of my colleagues. We sit and talk to them in a conference room that is very similar to any conference room you would find in any major city in the states. We talk with them and role play with them about work situations and ideas and they are just like you and I. They get nervous, clammy hands, stutter through their words, even forgetting words in their own language due to nerves. We offer them the opportunity to carry out the assessment in the preferred language of English or if needed in Arabic. I give them 100% credit because they usually work hard to accommodate me so that I’ll understand their desire to be part of this program. I admire and respect them for this effort. I’m trying to get Arabic started and I’ll tell you that it’s not an easy language. Today I had a candidate who had a speech impediment in Arabic and it was obvious in his English, but he didn’t skip a beat. It must have been hard to deal with that impediment and try to speak a foreign language, but he did AWESOME. He was/is an inspiration.

So what is different about working here? How is the environment different? Well there’s not much to report on the “different” side. People are people no matter where they are. I have deal with all the same types of personalities that you would think I would deal with in the same type of work in any other place. I have found that when you get past the media spin, the political drama and the typical silly arrogant prejudice that we see on every side, you find that the people are the same and the work is still the same no matter where you go.

Until next time

Ma’ Salam (Goodbye)

Evan

Mom Still Matters Even in Saudi!

I’ve been working the last two days doing interview assessments with the “HiPo” or high potential candidates for Saudi Electricity Company. These are the top 200 or so candidates out of 30,000 employees who have been nominated by their superiors to be accepted into the HiPo program for leadership coaching and developing. I still have a full 6 days of evaluation to perform on a total of 30 more candidates and my team is just one of 6 teams doing this work.

As I sit in assessment of these candidates who are talented, gifted, intelligent people, it strikes me how normal and how real they are. They really aren’t as different from us as many might think. They are regular guys who want the exact same thing that many of us in the U.S. want. They are educated, many with Masters Degrees, they are insecure, nervous, confident, and most of all they are there to grow and succeed. We ask them many questions about a particular case study and dig down deep into their psyche to figure out if they are the “right fit” for the program. This is a bunch of boring OMD or OB stuff.

Today one of the candidates who didn’t have a great interview left me very impressed with one of his answers to a question that my colleague asked him. I was impressed and I was left in awe. It might not seem that different, but in a very male dominated society that rarely talks about or mentions Mom or Wife, this man did just that. We asked him who in his life had had the most positive effect on him and made him the man he was today, he paused and thought for a moment and through very poor spoken English he simply uttered the phrase, "Mom, my Mom."

Mom’s can be difficult some times as can our Mothers-in-law, but in the end our moms are the ones who carried us for 9 months, suckled us, changed our dirty diapers, cleaned our scraps and bruises, got us ready for our first day of school, held us when we hurt, taught us to hold a fork and knife and feed ourselves, supported us when we had our recitals concerts, saw us off to our first date, stayed up all night wondering when we’d come home from that first date, worried for us when we were doing things wrong in our lives, prayed for us to stop doing those things, reached out for us when we were down, fought for us when we were loosing the fight, took us in when we had no where else to go, and the list could on forever.

It was a pleasant surprise to hear that a man’s mom was his inspiration. I’ll add my thoughts that my mom helped make me the man I am today. I knew it before I left for Saudi, but being here and hearing a Saudi man say that made me realize that we’re really not that different.

Talk to you soon

Evan

Waking up to the daily unsolicited alarm, not my alarm clock

For months now I’ve been sleeping in! I’ll own up to the fact, I have been sleeping in! I simply had no major reason to wake up early every day. I’m blessed with a rocking wife who will wake up and get the kids ready for school and let me sleep. I’m a lazy person on vacation. 

Now I find myself having to get up every morning to be to work by 7:00 a.m. and to boot I’m in a foreign country which makes my mind work harder due to language barriers, work load and general new job things. Getting up still isn’t easy, however now I have been given an unsolicited alarm at about 5:00 a.m. or so every morning. I say unsolicited because I don’t have to set it or worry if it’s going to go off or not. It’s the daily Muslim morning call to prayer. Living in Saudi Arabia is a new experience for me not just in the culture and language areas, but also in the uncompromising habits and dedications area.

For Muslims the daily call to prayer is an un-compromising habit. Many do it out of habit but larger portions do it out of devotion and dedication. We westerners could learn a thing or two from this, but I’ll get to this later on. Muslims are for the most part very devout in their daily prayers. They take time every day to pray in the morning, during the day (at least three times) and one last time at sundown. That is a total of 5 times at least and they are not simple “pray in a quiet secluded place” type of prayers, they are prayers that are called out by the clerics and people are expected to go to the mosque or to stop where they are at and pray. I’ve seen people flocking to the mosque and I’ve seen people in the park by the sea role out their prayer rugs (not a requirement) and start to pray.

So what have I learned from this in the first 4 days that I’ve been here in Saudi? Well I have gleaned several lessons from this and they range from personal devotion to larger discipline lessons. If you’re not Muslim, Jewish or Christian, you can still learn from this action and this devotion. I happen to be a devout Christian of the LDS (Mormon) faith and here is what I have learned:

• I need to pray more often. I don’t spend enough time in supplication to my creator. I don’t mean to become a religious zealot but why can’t I spend a few more minutes a day seeking guidance from the almighty? After all I have 24 hrs and I give at least 10-15 to my co-workers, family and friends not to mention down time for myself where I veg. A few minutes for my God won’t hurt me, but it can help me.
• If your not religious or even a person of faith, the same lesson applies. Why not spend a few more minutes a day in meditation or quiet thought processing some of the challenging points of life and pondering ways to overcome the difficult and extenuate the positive. Some of the best and most important people in my life don’t have a faith that they follow or a belief system that they adhere to and I think that they would agree with me that taking a few minutes to put the world to the side and focus on how to make things better would help them and perhaps those around them.  
• The discipline of taking time out of your day to focus on personal improvement has its value. I might not agree with many of the ways people do things here, but I do appreciate that they are disciplined enough to put first things first! Whether that is your beliefs, your health or your family, you need to put First things First. Not to steal Stephen Covey’s words, but you need to put those things in your life that mean the most to you in first place or those things that will give you the greatest return on investment first. Believe me, those things aren’t money, or possessions.

 

I suppose that being woken up every day with a call to prayer isn’t so bad. I might not flock to the mosque or immediately fall to the ground and start supplication or even start meditation/yoga, but I will now start to work on my personal discipline and my personal devotion and focus more on what is important.

Oh hey, I hear the evening call to prayer from the many Mosques in the city, so till next time, I’m going to go focus on first things first

Evan
Dammam, Saudi Arabia

 

Coming to appreciate what I thought I appreciated

Wow what a way to come to appreciate what you have but don’t have. What I mean by that is that I’ve always appreciated what I’ve had due to the fact that I’ve lived outside the country in my life a few times so I’ve come to know that we as Americans are blessed, but I think we can become complacent with what we have if we’re not careful.

 

 

 

When I was a child I lived with my family in various countries in South America and then again when I was 19 I moved to Venezuela for two years. I came to appreciate the simple things in life that we enjoy in the U.S. such as tap water that you can drink, orderly and respectful drivers (excluding as a whole all of New York City), values, and food that won’t give you the heebee geebees. But having lived again in the U.S. for the past 20 years with a maximum of 3 days at any one point being out of the country, I believe that there are things that I again started to take for granted.

 

Why do I say this?

 

Last night I landed in Dammam, Saudi Arabia as a new arrival into the Kingdom. I took a job here as a Leadership Coach for the Saudi Electricity Company. The walk from the plane to the exit of the airport with my companions and colleagues was the longest walk I’ve ever had. When I got to my temporary living arrangements I realized some things can’t be hidden. When I went out today to various meetings and appointments, I wondered how long before I can be very open about me. So without giving more information, I want to share with you some of the things that I’ve come to appreciate in the last 24 hours that I thought I appreciated but realized I either had lost appreciation or had allowed it to become dull and hidden.

I appreciate more than ever:

 

• The US immigration and naturalization services and agents
• Good plumbing and clean sewer systems
• The freedom to be out in the open about life
• People who truly value their spouses, children and extended families
• Courteous and respectful language
• Hug and kisses from my kids when I’m feeling down
• The ability to reach out and feel my best friend and wife next to me
• People who say what they mean and mean what they say
• A good solid, comfortable bed
• Clean air
• People who you can know at a glance

 These are just some of the things that in the past 24 hours I’ve come to re-appreciate more than I thought.

  

I guess what I’m saying is stop and smell the roses a bit more and take a moment and look around to see what you really have and then thank God that you have it. If you don’t believe in God then just give thanks to nature or to Karma or just simply pay it forward.

 

Till next time