Career Change Part III - Resilience

It has been nearly 5 years since I wrote part II and so I guess my audience will have changed somewhat. For those of you who know me from tourism, I am relatively new to the industry and if you would like further insight please feel free to go back and read parts I and II.

Why has it taken me 5 years to write part III; simply put, I have been extremely busy. It makes me so happy to say that because in our industry extremely busy means we are doing something right. I do not really want to focus too much on the current situation with tourism and COVID 19 etc. etc. There are many experts out there who I am sure have written many blogs and the simple fact is that none of us can see into a crystal ball and I am by no means and epidemiologist. All we can do is apply our knowledge of our industry and our knowledge of our customers and come up with a best guess as to what will happen.

That said COVID has brought something to light in me that I had not really considered and that is, the importance of resilience. Of course, as business managers, strategy managers, MBA students and leaders we are trained and experienced in understanding risk. We use our planning time to take risks into account and we introduce mitigating actions to ensure we are ready should we be faced with the actuation of the risks we had considered. COVID has proven to be a huge learning for me as an individual. My initial reaction was “why wasn’t I prepared for this?” I was extremely tough on myself and began to challenge my own ability. But as we move through this global pandemic I realise 2 key things:

1                    There is no way anyone could have expected the virus to become a global pandemic and wreak so much havoc on the world’s economy, let alone a small business owner in Dubai. Governments around the world have failed to prepare for this so there is no reason to be tough on myself.

2                    In fact, without knowing it, I was prepared, I had spent the last 5 years making sure the business was resilient.

I’m going to dig into point number 2 a little bit further. How did I do this without knowing it? Firstly, I consider the business itself, I have worked extremely hard to try to deliver exceptional service and try to build lasting client relationships which are not based simply on quick wins and short-term profit. So, when the virus became a global pandemic, I already had such strong relationships with my clients that I was able to be empathetic, commercially minded, and most importantly honest. For me, honesty is key to any relationship and honesty isn’t just about the spoken word but it’s about the action and delivery that we as individuals give to clients, employers and employees. Secondly, I have spent the last 5 years building a team around me who would walk through walls for each other. My team is my work family and I treat them as such, this has been my way since I started managing people many years ago. That means that they are supportive, they are understanding and most of all they are cohesive. I have surrounded myself with people who, not only understand my passion but also fill in my weaknesses and rely on my strengths to make this business a success. I am truly blessed in this sense and it is this that has meant we were able to be resilient during this extremely challenging time for our industry.

I must admit, there have been times over the last few months that I wish I was an employee in an industry which was less affected by this pandemic, but those moments are fleeting. As I listen to my team during to our weakly calls and I hear some of the ideas that they come up with, I realise that they still hold the same passion I have worked very hard to instill in them. Their ideas are sometimes amazing and I realise that it is my responsibility to foster this creativity and support them in developing these ideas into strong business activities. Maybe we won’t benefit from them today but for sure they are going to be invaluable in the new normal. 

So, if I was going to go back in time and advise Sammy Musa of 2019 what 2020 had in store, I’m not sure I would do anything differently. If I was to advise small business owners how to prepare for the worst, then I guess my advice is straight forward:

1                    Manage the economics of the business, let’s be clear it’s great to have an amazing team but if you can’t pay their salaries, they will find someone else who can and talent is so hard to replace. Make sure the business is solvent and focus on cash flow, cash flow, cash flow.

2                    “Build a strong team” is such an easy statement to make. It is not always that easy. We need to have teams that are inspired, individuals that are imaginative, teams that are listened to and teams who have a purpose beyond collecting their paycheck. We need to understand our people, what motivates them and how can we facilitate their personal development.

Let me be very clear, I am not the best leader by a long shot, any member of my team will let you know that I have my moments of sheer frustration and my desire to succeed often leads to this frustration. However, I am reflective and self-aware which means I know when I’ve been hard on someone, this comes back to my honesty and my team knows me well enough to know that I am human and whenever I am frustrated it is because I expect the best from them.

Whilst this post hasn’t really been about changing careers, I hope that it is somewhat clear that the industry here is not important and so as I mentioned in part I, the skills you learn as a manager in any industry and all transferable.

Stay safe to all of you and look forward to working with some of you at the other end of this pandemic.