< Previous30 C EO M I D D L E E A S T JUNE 202 1 Although the people who are direct- ly affected by the crisis may not fully un- derstand it or how to solve it – after all, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees in the middle of a disaster – our expectations of those charged with ad- dressing the problem are clear: provide the answer, fix the problem. Because a crisis is not the time to plan strategy (as in management) or build col- laboration around values and vision (as in leadership), critical problems are judged as warranting an authoritative, com- manding approach to problem solving. Command, however, is not leadership. Tame problems and management Tame problems are often familiar or re- curring and can be resolved using ra- tional, linear decision-making processes. In other words, tame problems are associ- ated with management. F.W. Taylor, the originator of scien- tific management, advocated this ap- proach to problem solving: simply apply science properly and the best solution will emerge. The (scientific) manager’s role is to provide the appropriate processes to solve the problem. Unilateral acts by experts (e.g. doc- tors, accountants) often solve tame problems. The ability of experts to uni- laterally solve tame problems means that tame problem solving requires mini- mal involvement of the actors involved in a problem. For example, all that an accountant needs to successfully perform an audit is a complete record of a company’s fi- nancial statements. For the most part, she does not need to take into account the perspectives, beliefs and interests of the people who belong to the company she is auditing. Management is, of course, crucial. Management is not, however, leadership. Wicked problems and leadership Wicked problems are the antithesis of tame problems. Wicked problems are more than complicated – they are com- plex, difficult to define and ever chang- ing. Whereas experts are often ascribed responsibility for managing tame prob- lems and authorities responsibility for commanding during crises, responsibility for addressing wicked problems falls to the actors involved. This means that coordination among those actors cannot be pat- terned by compliance with experts (as in management) or obedience to authorities (as in command). What is required here is leadership. This, ac- cording to John Kotter, is about vision, about people buying in, about empow- erment and, most of all, producing use- ful change. What is distinctive about leadership, as opposed to command and manage- ment – which, we hasten to add, are per- fectly legitimate sources of authority – is what it asks of us. This is what makes leadership, espe- cially in the context of wicked problem solving, so interesting. Its enactment calls on all those who are part of the problem to engage with it and to partly think, partly feel their way towards an understanding of it. Combined with shared imaginings about possible futures – visions – this un- TH EC ONVE RSA TI ON. CO M LEADERSHIP “I’M NOT EXPECTING YOU TO KNOW HOW TO DO YOUR JOB PERFECTLY. I’M EXPECTING YOU TO MAKE MISTAKES, BECAUSE UNLESS YOU’RE MAKING MISTAKES YOU’RE NOT LEARNING.”JUNE 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 31 derstanding helps all involved to see the forest and the trees. Wicked problems need to be ap- proached iteratively, in a spirit of ex- perimentation, knowing that today’s solution could very well be tomorrow’s new problem. Adaptive, ethically so- phisticated leadership is thus called for – and this requires wide stakeholder en- gagement and participation. To be successful, such collaborative adaptive leadership requires humility, honesty and trust, empathy, suspended judgements, commitment and authentic listening. The “inner game” of leadership can be tough to master. Although leadership will look dif- ferent in the context of different wicked problems – and may not be immediate- ly recognisable as leadership – we can at least all agree that we need more su- perb leadership. Discussing poor leadership Poor leadership is a major problem which continues to afflict the business world, according to Andy Fieldhouse, author of Getting Teamwork Right: The Key to Happy, Successful and Resilient Teams. and Sara Boueri, HR, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority Fieldhouse notes that during the course of delivering webinars and talks, pre- and post-Covid, the most frequent question he receives is how to deal with a poor leader. Poor leadership costs bil- lions, and is recognised as a key contrib- utor to workplace stress. “It’s the first instinctive thing and unfortunately it is happening out there, globally, that there is still a leadership problem I think,” he says. It can cost up to $250,000 to replace a member of staff, which is calculated through a number of measurable indica- tors, including lack of performance before the person resigns, added pressure on the team, time taken to fill the position. Fieldhouse said: “People say, people don’t leave companies they leave lead- ers, and unfortunately sometimes that is necessary. Turnover is extremely costly but if it’s a revolving door and people are leaving because the leadership is not working, it’s fairly obvious and you can manage and study your turnover rate and see how much it’s costing you to do some- thing about leadership.” Boueri says that the process of promo- tion in companies must also be looked at and, wherever possible, leadership train- ing offered and provided. “The first thing is self-awareness, if you’re not aware that you’re not doing your job as leader, it’s going to be very difficult for me or for anyone, even your teammates, to prove you wrong or to prove otherwise. “I think what we tend to see is most people get promoted into leadership po- sitions because they’re technically really good at their jobs. So it’s natural progres- sion, they take a job in sales, they keep exceeding their target they become man- agers, they keep doing that and they be- come directors, but they’ve never actually learned the leadership qualities that you would need in order to develop a team.” RAKTDA was recently named the ‘Government Entity with the Happiest Work Environment’ in the emirate by the Sheikh Saqr Program for Government Excellence (SSPGE), rising up from 12th place the previous year. Boueri says part of that success has come by leaders who are willing to be vulnerable and have the humility to ad- mit that they don’t have all the answers. “As leaders I think we need to let go of this mindset that we need to know more than our teams, we aren’t vulnerable or we can’t be vulnerable, we can’t show a mo- ment of weakness.” “This image of perfection that a per- son is really solid, they know how to get the job done, it’s limiting us because it as- sumes we know everything, but the truth is we know very little. “I’m not expecting you to know how to do your job perfectly. I’m expecting you to make mistakes, because unless you’re making mistakes you’re not learning.” Sara Boueri, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Authority. Andy Fieldhouse, author, Getting Teamwork Right. LEADERSHIP $250,000 It can cost up to $250,000 to replace a member of staff, which is calculated through a number of measurable indicators, including lack of performance before the person resigns, added pressure on the team, time taken to fill the position.32 C EO M I D D L E E A S T JUNE 202 1 o you have a work schedule that leaves you with enough time off the clock to rest up and handle your other responsibilities? If so, you might owe something to Robert Owen, a wealthy industrialist who was born in Wales, Great Britian on May 14, 1771. Owen is widely credited with being the first person to advocate for a uni- versal “eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” approach to work-life balance. He experimented with this concept at his own factories and urged employers everywhere to adopt this management ethos as part of the socialist ideology he embraced decades before Karl Marx. In the early 19th century, many U.S. and European factory workers worked up to 18 hours a day, six days a week. Once a year, I travel with 15 fellows enrolled in a leadership program to New Harmony. It’s the site of Owen’s greatest experiment, a “cooperative community” he founded in southern Indiana on the banks of the Wabash River. Far more radical than limiting labour to eight- hour workdays, the utopia Owen envi- sioned ran up against human nature. Early success and a socialist vision Owen, born into a working-class family, had virtually no formal education. By the age of 21, he was managing a textile mill, and at 28 he married the daughter of a Scottish mill owner, whose business he soon purchased. Owen rejected long hours and took steps to make child la- bour less exploitative. Although he paid higher wages than his competitors, the mill’s profits made him a wealthy man. Owen believed in lifelong educa- tion, establishing an Institute for the Formation of Character and School for Children that focused less on job skills than on becoming a better person. This innovation attracted considerable atten- tion, and many dignitaries – including the future czar of Russia – visited to see it for themselves. But Owen’s ambitions went far be- yond the well-being of his workforce. He conceived of socialist communi- ties of people who would live together, as well as collectively prepare and eat their D OWEN REJECTED LONG WORKING HOURS AND TOOK STEPS TO MAKE CHILD LABOUR LESS EXPLOITATIVE. THE HISTORY OF THE WORK-LIFE BALANCE IT’S ELUSIVE TO MANY EXECUTIVES, BUT THE FACT THE CONCEPT EXISTS AT ALL CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO ONE MAN, ROBERT OWEN, WHO CHAMPIONED IT AS AN IDEA HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO, WRITES RICHARD GUNDERMAN A BRIEF HISTORY OF WORKJUNE 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 33 A BRIEF HISTORY OF WORK meals. Children would remain with their families until age 3, at which point the community would take over raising and educating them. Men and women would have equal rights. At the core of Owen’s philosophy was an earnest question: Why shouldn’t peo- ple who work together enjoy the fruits of their labour communally, promoting “the well-being and happiness of every man, woman, and child, without regard to class, sect, party, country, or colour?” There’s a long-running debate over whether nature or nurture is the biggest factor shaping human character. Owen firmly sided with nurture. He believed in a concept then called “human perfecti- bility.” In his view, all that was necessary to create better human beings was to raise, educate and employ them in better circumstances. Creating New Harmony Owen sought to demonstrate the vi- ability of his ideals by establishing a new community in the United States that would adhere to them. His aspirations belonged to a broader utopian move- ment that included the Fruitlands agrar- ian commune in Massachusetts and the Oneida community in New York state. Other Europeans had attempted their own real-life experiments. In fact, a German religious sect that emphasized a communal way of life was selling its southern Indiana town of Harmony, and its residents were relocating to Pennsyl- vania. Owen purchased it in 1825 for US$150,000 (the equivalent of about $4 million today) and renamed it New Har- mony. He invited “any and all” to come join his “community of equality” located halfway between St. Louis, Missouri, and Louisville, Kentucky. New Harmony attracted about 1,000 newcomers, including scientists, natu- ralists, educators and artists, all eager to build what Owen called a “union and co- operation of all for the benefit of each.” Trouble soon began to brew. For one thing, Owen himself seems to have taken a greater interest in traveling and promoting his ideas than in securing the success of the new venture. A second problem was who moved there. Some residents sincerely believed in Owen’s ideas, while others had been lured by the promise of an easy life and did little to promote the community. Finally, his reforms proved to be at odds with human nature. Few families wanted their children to be shielded from what he called the “negative influence” of their parents, and people who worked hard resented those who contributed little. Ahead of his time Despite considerable investments that depleted Owen’s fortune, the community failed economically after just two years. Perhaps he had overestimated the malle- ability of human nature. Owen person- ally believed that humanity wasn’t yet ready for his radical new ideas. He returned to Europe, where he continued to promote publicly funded education, better working conditions and his vision of an enlightened society. He died in Wales in 1858. His four sons and one of his daughters remained in New Harmony, leading notable lives of their own. Owen’s legacy doesn’t just live on in the nine-to-five schedules that became the norm starting in the early 20th century. It’s also in the broad notion of social welfare behind eve- rything from public schools to paid sick leave – including the expansion of government benefits the Biden admin- istration is proposing. Visitors to New Harmony, where about 750 people reside today, can wander around its many historical sites and learn about its one-time owner and most famous resident, who devoted his fortune and his life to improving the hu- man condition. Richard Gunderman is Chancellor’s Profes- sor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philan- thropy, Indiana University Nine to five? Many workers find that WFH is just one factor that blurs the traditional working day. Balance is life. The working day is loosely based on the concept of 8 hours each for work, leisure and rest. the conver sa tion .com34 C EO M I D D L E E A S T JUNE 202 1 COMMENT EMPLOYMENT he recent announcement that Spain will trial a four-day work week is a sign of our changing work world. The standard nine-to-five, office-bound routine was already under threat, before Covid-19 caused individuals, corporations and governments to question both the viability and desirability of the rigid model. According to global research by Atlassian, longer working hours are encroaching on personal time, yet, as a UK study shows, productivity increases have been close to zero since the 2008 financial crash. In Spain itself, employ- ees work more than the European aver- age but with lower productivity to show for their efforts. Working harder does not necessarily guarantee better results. Various organisations have experi- mented with the four-day approach to overcome this problem. A trial in 2019 by Microsoft Japan resulted in a 40 percent rise in productivity. A year earlier in New Zealand, Perpetual Guardian noted a 20 percent rise in productivity after a similar test run, and subsequently made the policy permanent. Then there is the matter of em- ployee satisfaction. In many countries, extended working hours have not trans- lated into higher wages. For example, in the US between 1987 to 2015, pro- ductivity rose by as much as five percent annually, but wages never grew by more than two percent per year during that time. The pressures on employees – both mentally and financially – have only in- creased during Covid-19, leading some companies to seek solutions. That Perpetual Guardian trial led to a 45 percent increase in employee work-life balance – a huge jump by any standard. Governments around the world are also watching with interest. According to OECD estimates, more than 1 billion jobs, almost one-third of all jobs world- IT’S TIME TO CONSIDER THE FOUR- DAY WORK WEEK IN THE MIDDLE EAST Working harder does not necessarily guarantee better results. Various organisations have experimented with the four-day approach to overcome this problem BY NANCY W. GLEASON T Pandemic effect. Gleason says the work from home measures of 2020 have led to a permanent sea change in corporate practices.JUNE 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 35 EMPLOYMENT wide, will probably be transformed by technology in the next decade. While the World Economic Forum predicts that we need to reskill more than 1 billion people by 2030 because of the fourth industrial revolution. Fewer hours per worker, with the same five-day salary, theoretically means job opportunities for more people to help address this. For many governments, that is a much more preferable solution to universal basic income, which is being trialled in various countries as a response to the threat of a jobless future due to auto- mation trends. The (long) MENA weekend? Could it happen here in the Middle East? Firstly, it should be noted that Spain’s trial is state-sponsored and that any serious attempts to reshape the working week will have to be ac- companied by government support in one form or another. And the four-day work week is just one option of many to help address automation of pattern- based work. In the MENA region, many nations delivered emergency versions of this approach during Covid-19. Measures such as paid leave, loans to companies to pay salaries, exemption from utility bills and suspended rental payments, were taken to protect workers against the health and economic consequences of the pandemic. As a result, the mechanisms are now in place to continue to support those at risk of job losses, retain and create more jobs where necessary and to protect the rights of employees in an increas- ingly automated labour market. Should this be the path chosen, the financial and legal infrastructure is now in place because of Covid-19. *Nancy W. Gleason, PhD, Associate Professor of Practice, NYU Abu Dhabi; Director, Hilary Ballon Center for Teaching and Learning “THE PRESSURES ON EMPLOYEES – BOTH MENTALLY AND FINANCIALLY – HAVE ONLY INCREASED DURING COVID-19, LEADING SOME COMPANIES TO SEEK SOLUTIONS.” Workplace. The pressures on employees – both mentally and financially – have only increased during Covid-19.36 C EO M I D D L E E A S T JUNE 202 1 TIME | ROLEX ike Horn has rightly been referred to as one of the greatest living human beings, thanks to his myriad achievements in solo explora- tion. And yet, he carries his accolades as lightly as the equipment he packs for his exploration adventures. Which means, pared down to the absolute essentials. You don’t want to be carrying excess baggage when you’re on foot, without motorised transport and your destination is the North Pole. What he does, however, bear with much more seriousness, is the responsi- bility of his role as an ambassador and de facto spokesperson for the fragility of planet earth’s environment. Born and raised in Johannesburg, Horn’s early childhood was marked by plenty of outside play, a habit he took with him into his university studies, where he studied human movement sci- ence. After an early career in this field, the call of the wild prompted him to give away his possessions and begin a series of increasingly ambitious personal adven- tures. His bold solo journeys have seen him widely acknowledged as the greatest modern-day explorer, and his passion for drawing attention to the plight of earth’s natural habitats has become a life calling. He has swum the Amazon River solo, circumnavigated the globe without mo- torised transportation and found time to visit both of the earth’s magnetic poles. Along with inspiring the next gen- eration of explorers through his Young Explorers Programme, Mike Horn is a sought-after speaker, a published author, television presenter and Panerai watches brand ambassador. Do you think that a hunger for adven- ture and new challenges is something that’s innate in all humans? Do you think we suppress it by the way we live today? I think it’s suppressed by the way we edu- cate our kids, because it’s about keeping them safe. The environment that we live in has changed a lot even since the 1970s and it is true that society puts a lot of pressure on us to be ‘successful’. But the way that we see success could be different from measuring it with the house that you live in, the car that you’re driving or in the social group that you’re hanging out with. And for me, it was never about any of that. Success to me is about that feeling, to be actually happy and excited about doing what I do. How can we bring a sense of adventure back into our mindsets? A WORLDLY MINDSET The world’s greatest living explorer, Mike Horn, has braved the most extreme conditions on earth in a bid to shine a spotlight on urgent environmental issues. Endurance, discipline and passion drive him, he tells CEO in an exclusive interview. And they are qualities that everyone can harness BY JOLA CHUDY M THE ARBITERJUNE 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 37 THE ARBITER I wanted to make history in the world of exploration, by crossing the South Pole and the North Pole. If I wasn’t going to do it, somebody else was going to do it. And we all have that in us, but we have fear instilled in us as kids that we have to be careful; ‘don’t walk close to the cliff… you’re going to fall.’ You don’t give people the creativ- ity to be able to go and make mistakes. I’ve never met anybody strong that had an easy life. The more difficult your life becomes, the more errors you make, the bolder your character becomes. Extreme physical endurance is a huge part of the challenging expeditions that you undertake. What allows you to endure in this way, and what lessons can we take about the human capacity to thrive and endure despite great challenges? It’s about the parameters that you set yourself, that you want to set yourself in your life. I never wanted to sleep with a pillow because I wanted to be comfort- able sleeping without a pillow. I never wanted to take a hot shower. I felt that that cold shower was something that I could make myself get used to. And the more things you do, the further you run, the more you broaden the parameters of your life, it becomes easier to adapt to different and more extreme conditions and situations. So if you never step out of your comfort zone, you don’t know what you’re capable of doing until you actually get forced to be able to open up those parameters that you think should be your comfort zone, and you go into the unknown. But that comes along with fear and fear is something that, that domi- nates people’s lives. Fear is something that stops many of us achieving, it is a primal response that in so many situations in modern life, is unwarranted. How do we overcome it? I think I get afraid quite easily, but fear has become a home for me. Fear is something that I accept because it’s what keeps me alive. And if you’re afraid of being afraid, you are going to stay in the ‘known’ your whole life. What is more important than fear is that doubt. You know, if fear gets associated with doubt and uncertainty, you become paralysed, you don’t want to make decisions. So the moment that fear gets associated to doubt that’s when you get lost. I love fear, but I never doubt my capabilities. The expedition crossing the North Pole, it’s minus 40 degrees outside during an ex- pedition that’s going to last 430 days. I’m not going to be in a comfort zone at all. It’s an expedition where I can be eaten by a polar bear, the ice can break, and I can fall into the ocean and never come up again. I can freeze to death. So why do I go, if I will sit in that tent need to be motivating myself? And we believe, wrongly, as a society, that motivation is something that we need, but motivation is something invented by the same people who always say you should think positive. Motivation means you are de-motivated! So in life, I’m not motivated to get out of that tent and go into extreme conditions for months on end, I’m disciplined. And discipline is something we can all apply in our lives. The moment you know that you should do something, but you don’t want to do – that’s when you need discipline. “THE MOMENT THAT FEAR GETS ASSOCIATED TO DOUBT THAT’S WHEN YOU GET LOST. I LOVE FEAR, BUT I NEVER DOUBT MY CAPABILITIES” Respecting the environment. The Panerai Submersible eLab-ID has the highest percentage of recycled materials ever achieved in a timepiece, while the Panerai Luminor Marina eSteel is forged from an innovative recycled steel, a concept that Horn proposed to the company after the steel rudder of his boat needed replacing.38 C EO M I D D L E E A S T JUNE 202 1 TIME | ROLEX hen Ferruccio Lamborghini boldly declared in the early 1960s that he was planning to deviate from his hugely successful tractor factory and build a sports car to compete with Ferrari, people thought he was mad, that is was an exuberant and expensive risk not worth taking. But by May 1963 he had already founded Automobili Ferruccio Lam- borghini, buying a large plot of land in Sant’Agata Bolognese, about 25 kilometres from Bologna. And it has come a long way since the launch of the 350 GTV at the Turin Auto Show in the November of that year. Lamborghini has been on quite a journey since then with the stewardship of the iconic brand passed through the hands of various people to the current incumbent Stephan Winklemann, who faces arguably the greatest challenge for the manufacturer in recent years. The German-born automobile expert is walking the tightrope between preserving the tradition and DNA of the super sportscar and driving forward the necessary change demanded by climate- conscious customers. The path to sustainability is not easy, as Winkelmann explains: “We have to reinvent Lamborghini and still stay the same. This is a big challenge, but one that we are tackling with excitement and determination. And I can prom- ise in the future that all of our super sportscars will remain true Lamborghi- nis, with an uncompromising Lam- borghini driving experience.” Whether that includes the unmistak- able roar of the super sportscar starting up or not remains to be seen, but the first plug-in hybrid Lamborghini is scheduled to be announced in 2023, with plans to make it available in the Middle East region the following year. Winkelmann says: “I think that the battery technology has to be linked to the hybridisation in a way that you have an internal combustion engine which is DRIVING CHANGE… WITHOUT PUTTING THE BRAKES ON How Lamborgini CEO Stephan Winklemann is negotiating Lamborghini’s journey from petrol- guzzling supercar to green machine BY GAVIN GIBBON W CEO TALK: LAMBORGHINIJUNE 202 1 CEO MIDDLE E A ST 39 CEO TALK: LAMBORGHINI still performing and the battery has to be both, you have to reduce the cycle in terms of emissions and if you go on the race track then the opportunity to do a record lap time, but also to do ten laps in a row without having the bat- tery discharged. “This is the secret in my opinion and also the balancing of the car, so the entire set-up has to be a winner. We are working very hard on this and I think we will get incredible results when we’re ready to launch in the market.” The Italian giant is spending over €1.5bn ($1.8bn) in the next three-and-a- half years – the greatest investment in the company’s history - in the development and production of electrified vehicles. “We gave ourselves the clear target to reduce CO2 by 50 percent with these plug-in hybrid models from the beginning of 2025,” says Winkelmann. And he added that, in the second half of the decade, the company plans to launch a fourth model, which would be a fully electric car and would be completely different from the Aventador or Huracán. He says: “We are still working on the exact definition of the body style and concept of this car, but I can say this much, it will be a two-plus-two or a four seater thought for daily usability and it will be part of a sub-segment that doesn’t exist yet as such today.” However, he warned that although sustainability and digitisation were among the priorities of the super sportscar manufacturer – and the automotive industry at large – the third pillar of developing autonomous vehicles was some distance away for the renowned Italian giant. He says: “If there will ever be (au- tonomous vehicles), we will be the last ones to do so.” Winkelmann has arguably always been a star player in the automotive industry, since initially working as a sales representative for Mercedes-Benz before moving to occupy various posi- tions with Alfa Romeo Germany and going on to be appointed CEO of Fiat Automobil AG. Modestly, maybe, he says his ca- reer with Lamborghini began simply “by chance”. He explains: “They called me when I was at the airport at Turin. We organised a meeting, I made the right impression for one hour. That was the November or October and I started in January 2005. It was a very quick change.” During what was his first stint in charge in Sant’Agata Bolognese – an 11-year period through to 2016 – Win- kelmann oversaw the launch of the new Gallardo, Murciélago, Aventador, and Huracán models, plus a large number of unique models and one-offs. He also developed the Urus SUV, which was ultimately launched in 2018. Through to 2016, he increased Lam- borghini vehicle sales to 300 percent. And despite a four-year spell as managing director of Audi Sport GmbH, he returned to Lamborghini at the end of last year. The 56-year-old says: “The brand is what you need always to foster and you have to think every day you have to be more than 100 percent not to let the brand down. It’s a lot of pressure but if you don’t feel the pressure you might as well quit.” A challenge maybe, but it’s one that is warmly welcomed by the CEO. He adds: “The territory I am linked to and also the fact that we are able to do something active globally, but being still a small company. This is something that is really interesting for me and this is what is keeping me to rush out of bed in the morning.” “WE GAVE OURSELVES THE CLEAR TARGET TO REDUCE CO2 BY 50 PERCENT WITH THESE PLUG-IN HYBRID MODELS FROM THE BEGINNING OF 2025” Redefining a brand. Lamborghini is going electric, a previously unimaginable evolution for any supercar marque.Next >