RUWAIS: IS WHERE OPPORTUNITY LIVES

FIGURE 1- RUWAIS CITY’S NEW TAG LINE

Last year I helped change a City. Yes, an actual town where real people live. With over 25,000 residents, hotels, a transport network, shopping mall, recreation and entertainment venues. A bona fide city. It probably ranks as one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling experiences of my professional career. Last week, the city’s new brand was unveiled and many of the ideas we helped develop were announced. This blog is dedicated to the City, the extraordinary people who work there, the great people who live there, and especially to Adam, David, and Rami who helped me lead this project. 

IF YOU CAN IMAGINE IT – IT CAN BE ACHIEVED

The most extraordinary thing about Ruwais, is that it exists at all. This city emerged in the 1970s to provide housing for workers at the local refining and petrochemical plant. The location is some 250 kilometres away from Abu Dhabi, even further from other major Emirates cities. However, since many of the region’s hydrocarbons reserves come onshore to the UAE here, it has become a strategically important manufacturing hub.

In 1982, Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the modern UAE, put in place plans to transform this remote desert location into a fully-fledged modern city. Of course, Ruwais has taken some time to mature to where it is today, but the foundations were laid by Abu Dhabi’s founders who foresaw the future and began the process of creating a town in the middle of the desert (it’s difficult to imagine creating an oasis in the desert…watch this YouTube video for an idea of what it looks like today).

IT’S NOT ABU DHABI

When I started work with the owners of Ruwais in the summer of 2017, I summed up the challenge as follows: You have an extraordinary City, with quite amazing amenities, including five world class schools, a hospital, a beach club, and a new shopping mall, but it is suffering from ill-informed and dated perceptions.  The residents of the city where actually quite happy with life. I spoke with many who had lived there for 20 years or more, and wouldn’t dream of moving away. However, for those who lived in Abu Dhabi or Dubai - or those who had never visited the city - well, their impressions were largely unfavourable. Ruwais suffered, in their eyes, from a poor comparison to the big metropolises.

THE FORMULA FOR SUCCESS

What intrigued me most about this challenge was the setting and the context. Helping a city reposition itself felt distinctive. And yet, I would make the observation that the concepts where similar to those I had applied in a more corporate setting. We adjusted them slightly to make them more dynamic, less fixed, and more iterative. Here’s how we looked at the challenge (see figure 2):

FIGURE 2- OUR HIGH LEVEL APPROACH

I think all big change attempts are best tackled when you can progress three things. In Figure 2, I’ve illustrated what I think some change practitioners might call the ‘secret sauce’. However, I’ve adjusted this slightly for my experience in Ruwais. This looks different to Kotter’s model for example but I would assert that Kotter is talking about change adoption. In Figure 2, I’m talking about how a small team of change practitioners might think about helping a company (or in this case a city) design AND simultaneously execute a transformation programme. There is no time for the luxury of sequencing. Arguably, it isn’t very helpful to be dogmatic about sequencing. You do have to know where you want to go…. but also get on and demonstrate tests and immediate proofs of what you mean. 

In my view you could divide our activity on this project into three main buckets. I think of this as an evenly balanced, 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 model. We spent about a third of our time trying to be clear what the purpose of the project was in service of. In Ruwais’s case, the differential in perspective from residents to outsiders was a symptom, but not necessarily the cause, of the problem we were attempting to solve. Consequently, some explanation is ALWAYS required which articulates the purpose or destination you are chasing. In my experience, there are many different choices that could be made. It is important to select from this spectrum and try to be specific.

The emerging clarity of strategic direction or purpose helped us prioritize what we needed to do…where we needed to start. Interestingly, I have seen some projects where little time has been spent discussing strategy. A company has engaged a consulting firm to intervene on a specific task and it has been accepted as a given that the context and purpose are clear. The outcome for me ends up being incomplete…a narrow slither of what is almost always a bigger contextual picture. Sometimes this results in some funky pieces of work which are stuck in an alternative reality but doggedly continue to press for some half-hearted implementation. 

I do, however, believe that you can define some aspects of a roadmap for change in parallel with strategy. For example, in the case of Ruwais, there were opportunities to develop a smart city digital roadmap and a community engagement capability which were under-developed. These seemed good for all seasons. However, other things like new CapEx investments or the use of existing assets really needed some explanation of how key stakeholders wanted to position the City.

Finally, I think you have to do something every day to test concepts and try new ideas. I am a great fan of rapid prototyping in this regard (see this YouTube video). I should explain that my bias in change is to try to be actively disruptive. I mean this in a constructive sense. I do not subscribe to the belief that change management is about simply managing other people’s activity. I believe change is more effective when the change team brings outside thinking into the everyday lives of the people it is trying to help. I have seen first-hand how difficult it is for people to break free of artificial constraints and boundaries. What rapid prototyping allows is small, risk adjusted, experiments that allow concepts to be proven. In the process, they also act as lightning rods. I will also say…doing this last 1/3 is by FAR the MOST rewarding in any project I have worked on.

HOW THIS UNFOLDED IN RUWAIS

I was amazed by my experience in Ruwais. The company I was working with took the tools and insights we shared with them and ran way ahead of us! There is no doubt that, on balance, I probably ended up learning more from them than they did from me and my team. Let me tell you what they did:

1 – Strategy: In three months they undertook an intensive visualisation and benchmarking exercise to decide how they wanted to position Ruwais over the next 10 years. They worked with us to complete a 50-page description of what this Vision was (and, importantly, was not) and what the implications would be for investment, use of the existing assets, and how the city would be run.

2 – Operating Model: They embraced the need for radical new approach to running the City which included adoption of an innovative hybrid hospitality/service approach. This was combined with some very exciting new urban planning techniques.

3 – Re-Positioning: They undertook a major exercise to establish the key demographic for city. Based on genuine and very authentic dialogue with existing and prospective residents, they fundamentally reimagined the Ruwais ‘brand’ – both internally and externally.

4 – Rapid Prototyping: One of my favourite outcomes was the city’s embracing of the rapid prototyping construct. They have conducted over 100 experiments in the last 12 months. These have resulted in some amazing discoveries and a growing engagement from the local community into realising the new mantra #Ruwaisiswhereopportunitylives.

At the time of writing, Ruwais’s image has changed almost unrecognisably in the last 12 months. Where people either hadn’t heard or it or where negative toward it…this has shifted to a growing curiosity and acceptance that it is now a different place. Perception is catching up with reality. The belief in the local community is also growing. Resident sentiment is now consistently in the upper 80s. That’s higher than the suburbs of most major cities around the world. Among Ruwais growing reputation is the food….I probably had one of my best café latte’s ever when visiting in January! (thank you Harish and team).

FIGURE 3- PROBABLY THE BEST LATTE IN UAE

A WORD ABOUT THE PEOPLE

So how was this possible? Frankly, I don’t think it had much to do with me or the team I took down to Ruwais for a short while. I met some people in my time working on this project who were truly extraordinary. There were three people in our partner company’s headquarters who set new bars in driving change, fighting for new ideas, and reimagining the city’s brand. I do think, particularly in terms of vision and branding, these were people at the top of their respective games.

In Ruwais itself there were four people who already had all the answers and knew before I did what needed to be done. I shall not embarrass them by naming them. But I do want to acknowledge what they taught me:

1 – Unleash and enable: Sometimes I think it’s easy to fall into the trap that you have to drive  much of the change yourself.  What my friends in Ruwais reminded me was that actually, sometimes the job is to give talented people who have the answers and have the drive, the space and support to unleash themselves. 

2 – It’s all about the community: When given the opportunity to contribute, to play a part in building a new identity, the community is the most powerful force. When you take the time to listen and demonstrate you are committed to help, they are the most forgiving, understanding, and supportive group of human beings you could ever wish to meet. This makes perfect sense…it is after all foremost their home.

3 – Selflessness is next to godliness: I witnessed members of the local city team work 24/7 to make things better for their community. It was one of the most humbling experiences of my professional life.

4 – Perfection is the enemy of progress: Ok I’ve said this before…but what people in this city proved was that you don’t need gold-plated solutions for everyone to feel better.

5 – Appealing to a higher purpose: This is linked to (3) but a bit different. What I learned from my time in Ruwais was that everyone….and I mean everyone from the executive office to the local administrator….when you mentioned you had an idea to improve residents experience….everyone had time, enthusiasm and energy to get involved. It truly was an exercise in something being greater than yourself, than quarterly earnings, than whatever else you had planned to do that day. It was inspiring. 

For this blog post …. The best way I can think of to sign off is to simply say thank you. Thank you to my friends in Ruwais and across their sponsors in Abu Dhabi who allowed me to play a small role in this journey. A personal thanks again to @AdamJSmith @DavidCampbell and @RamiKasis. 

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