Excellence Foresight with Nancy Nouaimeh

Navigating Cultural Sensitivity: The Key to Transformative Leadership with Aziz Musa

• Nancy Nouaimeh • Season 2 • Episode 7

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Discover the transformative power of cultural sensitivity in leadership as we sit down with Aziz Musa, a trailblazer in digital marketing. Aziz opens up about his unique journey from being the youngest CEO of a public company in the UK to setting up a social enterprise in Sudan. He shares invaluable lessons on aligning business practices with personal values to drive impactful change. Listen as Aziz reveals how understanding and adapting to cultural expectations have shaped his leadership style across diverse regions like the UK, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, emphasizing the significance of cultural sensitivity, active listening, and asking questions to effectively lead multicultural teams.

Our conversation also delves into the essence of brutal honesty as a catalyst for fostering a trustworthy workplace culture. At Cush Digital, we champion the belief that being completely truthful, rather than unkind, is crucial for productive leadership. We reflect on the challenges of unlearning old habits where mistakes were hidden, highlighting the courage needed to engage in difficult conversations. Aziz shares real-life examples that encourage young professionals to embrace honesty for career growth, along with insights on managing cross-cultural environments with respect and understanding, using Sudan as a case study.

Finally, we explore the nuances of leadership in diverse environments, with a focus on curiosity and inclusion. Discover strategies for promoting from within to maintain a consistent organizational culture and the importance of intellectual diversity. Through personal anecdotes, we underscore the complexity of communication and cultural synergy in global leadership, spotlighting the UAE's unique demographic makeup. From decoding the subtext in language to fostering harmony in multicultural settings, our discussion offers a comprehensive look at how cultural awareness can enhance leadership effectiveness, even in crisis situations.

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Nancy Nouaimeh:

Hello and welcome to the Excellence Foresight the podcast where we dive deep into the world of culture, excellence and leadership and how to prepare for a brighter future.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I'm your host, Nancy Nouaimeh, and I've hosted in the past few months truly remarkable guests who have redefined what it means to excel in their field. Whether you're looking to improve your own practices or gain insights into top-tier strategies, you're in the right place, and today's episode is about cross-cultural leadership and what does this mean in the business world. So let me start by giving a warm welcome to Aziz Musa, our special guest for today. Aziz Musa is a visionary in digital marketing, with a strong alignment to Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. Having been the youngest public company CEO in the UK and a successful founder, he brings an unmatched wealth of experience in digital transformation, resilience and business innovation and, as we all know, they are all crucial to build sustainable, future-ready teams and organizations which align perfectly with the themes of our show. Also, on a personal note, Aziz is a football fan and he has a great adventure of establishing a social enterprise in one of the most tormented, I think, areas in the world Sudan. So I'm gonna leave it to Aziz to introduce himself.

Aziz Musa:

Hello Nancy, thank you so much for that lovely introduction. So yeah, I'm Aziz and you're like you pronounce my name better than I pronounce my name, so I love that when people pronounce my name properly, that that makes me happy. So thank you for that. So my background is business. I grew up in business. I started my first business when I was 11 years old and much to my father and my whole family's demise you know they they're all doctors and professors and I said, no, I think I. No, I think I prefer to make money. So that's basically.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

So you were the rebel.

Aziz Musa:

I was absolutely the rebel. And, yes, I studied business. I did an MBA at Warwick Business School and I worked in the UK at well-known companies like LastMinutecom and Travelocity and Moonpig and Photobox and things like that. And, like you said, I was the CEO of a public company in the UK, which was great fun. You know, I 10X'd the company's market capitalization over a short period, which was great.

Aziz Musa:

And then, you know, I came to a realization, probably my mid-36, 37 years old, that there's got to be more to life than this than being on a flight and being in an airport and just growing businesses. There's got to be more than this. And that's when me and my wife you know how many level like financially comfortable. So we, we took the plunge and we said let's go to sudan, which is where both of our families originally from. Let's start a social enterprise. We don't need to worry about money, let's just go and do the right thing and see where it takes us. And so we went to Sudan and we started Cush Digital, which was basically just a training platform. It was a way for us to train people for free. And so we, you know, over the seven years that I was there, I trained over 5,000 people in digital marketing.

Aziz Musa:

Hundreds of startups started people in digital marketing. Hundreds of startups started and you know, nancy, like in Sudan, if you help someone start a business, that's not like helping them buy a condo in Mallorca, like it is in Europe, right. That's helping someone feed their family, right. And the feeling that you get from that is fundamentally different. And it evolved into a digital marketing agency. It wasn't supposed to be a digital marketing agency. It just became one because it was easier to train people with real clients. And then suddenly it became the biggest digital marketing agency and we had like 70 odd employees and, you know, an office in Sudan and in the UAE and in Egypt. But we've never moved away from that core, fundamental value, which is training the youth on digital marketing and not really caring about money, not really caring about profitability and all of those things. It's you know, it's about giving youth the opportunity and, like the fast changing world of digital marketing and, frankly, it's about feeling good about what I do on a day-to-day basis. So that's me.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Excellent. So I think this is a really great story and in that role, I'm sure you've been exposed to a lot of cultural differences. Understanding more about people, cultures and what motivates them, and having navigated leadership roles in different areas of the world I mean UK, saudi Arabia how did you adapt your leadership style to meet the unique expectations of each of these cultures? And I think Sudan is also a great example maybe to focus on.

Aziz Musa:

Yeah, so despite being Sudanese, I didn't really know a great deal about Sudanese culture, so that was probably the hardest culture for me to adapt to.

Aziz Musa:

But you're right, you know, I've had teams in the UK, in the US, in Australia, france, germany, the UAE, saudi Arabia and others besides. It's interesting I was having this conversation with a client yesterday. So the client is a school based in the UK they're called Heaven Learning Academy, and they were complaining to me that one of the parents was complaining that her child's math teacher was not native English and the parents themselves are based in the UAE, I think, and so I was explaining that I, in my entire career, have never worked at an office that is all one culture. So it just makes absolutely no sense to have that as a bias, because every work environment I've ever worked in is multicultural and cross-cultural and it is very challenging to navigate certain cultures and certain cultural norms. So the first thing is to be sensitive and to be aware. That's what I do whenever I've taken over a company or started in a new team Just understand, understand by asking questions rather than making statements, and just be.

Aziz Musa:

You know you had a great guest on uh last week who talked about the art of questioning question absolutely yeah and um, you know, take, maybe jump, if you're listening to this, jump back to back to one podcast and then come back to this. Because, because asking great questions is the, the starting point, right, and just be and just be aware of what cultural sensitivities exist. I remember, for example, at Photobox I had a team and there were two Hindu ladies on the design team. So I was running product and there were two Hindu ladies on the design team and one of the first things that I did was ask them okay, so when are your national holidays and when are your public holidays and when are your religious holidays? And they sort of talked me through gleefully their dates and I made a note of them in my calendar.

Aziz Musa:

And then I would chase them and say why haven't you booked this day off? You shouldn't have this day off. And that look, those small things about caring about what it, what is important to the individual make a huge difference. Later on, when you're trying to build culture at a fundamental organizational level, when you're trying to build trust at an organizational level, showing and proving that you care about the individual has such a profound impact, I've found. But you do this a lot as well, right, so like you must have seen something similar yeah, in fact, we see this all the time.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

We see the impact of focusing on the individuals, the well-being, and creating safe spaces during in the workplace to make sure that employees feel that they can voice their issues, they can discuss, they can share ideas and suggestions and, working with the shingle model, we focus a lot on respecting every individual and providing that space for them to really, um, do their best and, uh, be empowered. And and that's last week in in manchester, I was talking to you about the conference in manchester and one person said do we need the most of our people or the best out of our people? And what you're talking about is really about getting the best out of them. So, exactly, and that's all is is this is all about the culture I'm going to jump on that, I'm just.

Aziz Musa:

I know you're going to want to jump to the next question, but I think that safe spaces is such an interesting point, right? So, um, that's something that I've believed in for a long time. We've, you know, we coached digital in our office here in egypt. You know I remember it was only a month ago one of the one of the team was struggling a little bit with the pressures at home and certain personal issues, and I sat down with her and I was saying to her you know, you shouldn't worry so much about work. I mean, we aren't building bridges. If you make a mistake when you're building a bridge, people die. We aren't doctors. If you make a mistake when you're a doctor, people die.

Aziz Musa:

With digital marketers, the worst thing that can happen is you have to delete a post Like there's nothing bad can happen, and I said exactly the words that you just said. I said, when you walk out of your house and you get to the office door, what I want you to do is I want you to leave all of the issues that you've got at the door right and come into the room knowing that this is a safe space. You're never going to be shouted at. You are expected to make mistakes because that's a sign that you're trying new things and no one's going to punish you. There isn't a punishment here. And she started crying and it dawned on me that that actual that modality of creating a culture that allows people to bring their best version of themselves to the office is actually quite rare in the Middle East, compared to, you know, europe, where you know there's a greater focus on that. I interrupted you.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Sorry, nancy, no, no, I mean, this is great. I think what you're saying here is really. I can totally relate to it. Now I see more and more companies in the Middle East focusing on culture and trying to change that aspect of where people doesn't feel that they can really do their best. Try, fail I think failure was really not one of the things that we encourage, but I see more and more companies focusing on that. We still have a long way to go, but I think that's a start. Now you're talking about the culture in the organization, and what is it? I mean, how do you think leaders can really, uh, focus on improving performance, getting higher performance in multicultural environment, especially in the middle east, where we have sometimes companies with employees like more than 30, 40 different nationalities working in the same company?

Aziz Musa:

100. I always think that performance is a byproduct of culture and that to focus on performance is is it? It's? It's like looking at a chicken and you know, waiting for it to to lay its next egg and then shouting at it for not laying its next egg, whereas what you should be doing is looking at the feed and looking at the coop, looking at the environment within which it's placed. It's going to get a little bit boring. This because I'm going to come back to the same thing. It's about taking individuals as individuals, their cultures as their own sacred sort of red lines, and allowing people to engage in that.

Aziz Musa:

So another story is from um photobox, where, you know, we had so many different cultures because it was a. There were many um, we had multiple offices around the world and we had people coming to the London office because it was the HQ. So one of the things that we ended up doing is that every week, one of the teams would choose a nation from where someone on the team was from, and then they would, you know, on a Wednesday evening, they would bring food from that nation and play music from the nation, and everyone being coached to dress up, and it was look, it was fun and it was a way to eat food from Greece and Italy right, that's great.

Aziz Musa:

But also it allowed people to celebrate who they are as individuals, and I think that that's actually super powerful. Allowing people to celebrate themselves, their background, their heritage, and not be ashamed of that, not like feel like that's something they need to hide away from, I think is kind of really critical. Okay, but when we do that, what do we really do? We just create a safe space. We create a place where people can perform at their best and deliver their own best version of themselves and, if you're lucky, a great consequence of that is that you get great performance at the other end. But to try and chase the performance element, I think is it's kind of yeah, it's like trying to scream at a chicken for not laying enough eggs.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I totally agree, and once you do the right things, I think you, you empower people, you are, you really show them the way towards that um, achieving better, uh and being better performance. So that's really, I think, important for leaders to focus on, rather than just focusing on the outcome, just focusing on the journey, I think itself and you've mentioned, I think, people I mean you gave a great example about celebration and I think celebration brings that element of pride and let people share their culture and let people the other people accept them better, have that understanding of where they come from and how that is impacting the way I think they behave within the organization. Now, building trust across cultures what is the most effective tip for you when it comes to really building trust within multicultural environment?

Aziz Musa:

I think if you asked me this question before I'd moved to Sudan, I would have given you a different answer to the answer that I'm going to give now. And the reason I say that is because you know what I found about the work environment in Sudan is that it isn't particularly very cross-cultural, actually, because there aren't, you know, there's not a great deal of expats in Sudan and there is definitely an issue of trust that exists, not just hierarchical trust, you know, in terms of the trust of management and upwards, but also tribal trust. You know, in terms of the trust of management and upwards, but also tribal trust, you know, trust of different tribes in Sudan. Something I'd never really come across is this concept of there being tribes. I mean, everyone seems to look the same, so why are there tribes? But apparently there are tribes and I actually had to learn to evolve my answer to your and the way that I do it is to be the exemplar of honesty, and that can be.

Aziz Musa:

It's kind of like dangerous and you can't just jump straight into it, right, there's like a. You've got to test the waters first. So at Kush Digital, because I've had it for eight, nine years now, you know we have it as an ingrained part of our value. Brutal honesty is like an ingrained part of our value. Brutal honesty is like an ingrained part of our value, and what I mean by brutal honesty isn't being nasty or anything like that. It is about being honest honest to the point of like there isn't anything else that you can you can do except for being honest, and it means, and it starts with, being honest with yourself. So we train our guys in their six-month training. You've got to be honest with yourself first. People make mistakes. You're not going to get punished for making a mistake. You're going to get punished for not telling people that you made a mistake. That's the problem. Right. Then being honest with each other, and then, ultimately, being honest with clients, and that all sounds really easy to do, but it really does take six months of indoctrination to undo the habits of previous organizations, or university or school, or even childhood, where people are rewarded for hiding their failures by not being punished. So there's kind of like a lot of psychological. I call it undoing the code that you need to kind of go through.

Aziz Musa:

In the end, though, what it creates is an environment where everybody knows that every word that comes out of each other's mouth is in the interest of a greater good, not in self-interest. And having that, having everyone have that realization that, oh, sarah isn't saying that my video is really bad because she wants to upset me. She's saying it because this video is important to the client and she wants to keep the standards of the organization up. It's not about me, it's about the client.

Aziz Musa:

And that when you get to that point and, like I said at the start, you can't just jump into it you can't say, hey, everyone, let's have an honesty session. Everyone say what you want to say, can't do that doesn't work. I've tried it, um, but what you have to do is you have to build that trust over time through honesty. And and I think that if you can do that, uh and and I have found that to be a universal thing, by the way, I found it to be universal across all cultures If you build trust through honesty, people tend to recognize that that safe space is there to help nurture them, not to help demote them.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I totally agree. I mean, you mentioned brutal honesty. For me, in any leadership position, you need to have the courage to lead and part of that is the courage to be honest, to be transparent. You need to manage that. Your messaging has to really be clear, concise and really focusing on maybe the why and explaining to people why things are the way they are. But that takes courage and not everybody chews that out right.

Aziz Musa:

It's easier to lie. I had this conversation with one of my team yesterday and she's still in her sort of six-month training program and, um, she was explaining how she was frustrated that a certain uh department hadn't delivered what she'd requested, and every time she went to ask for it it still wasn't done. And I asked her how did you deliver the message that you wanted it? And and she said it was in Arabic. But she said it. It was kind of an aggressive way that she asked and I said okay, so what did they respond? She gave me the response. I said did you ask them? Is this as much a priority for you as it is for me? Because I feel like it is for the client.

Aziz Musa:

If you learn to ask questions in that way, then you can. And the thing is that she really didn't want to do it. She didn't want to have the conversation that way because it was too difficult. It was easier for her to just say oh, forget it, I can't be bothered. And my final point to her was I said islam, you are 24 years old. When you are 44 years old, you will be able to measure the success of your career based on how many difficult conversations you were willing to have. If you're willing to have a difficult conversation every single time the opportunity arises, I guarantee you your career will fly. But if you want to keep hiding behind the veil of not wanting to upset people, then that's okay, but you won't have the same career that you have in your own mind. I'm not saying go and be aggressive. I'm saying learn how to be honest in a way that delivers the result that you want to get at the end.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I like the way you're putting things and this reminds me you said self-awareness earlier, right, no-transcript. Moving forward a little bit on the discussion around the culture and cross-cultural environments Now, they come with their own challenges, definitely, and we already spoke about a few. What is the most important challenge you think leaders need to really be aware of and mind when it comes to cross-cultural environments?

Aziz Musa:

That people's culture is core to who they are and that if you don't tread carefully you really risk alienating people. And that's a really big thing and it's very easy to kind of skirt over that. But, um, I remember when I, when I first uh sort of set up coach digital in in sudan, and you know we had teams and employees, and there were certain things in sudan that I couldn't I never even considered to be a thing it. It had never crossed my mind, for example, that in Sudanese culture for an unmarried woman to arrive home after dark, which could be 6 or 7pm, is a huge taboo. It had never crossed my mind that that might be a thing.

Aziz Musa:

And I think I met a lot of enemies just by not knowing, just by not being curious, and I think that made a lot of enemies just by not knowing, just by not being curious. And I think that that's probably the the biggest thing. If you find yourself in well, firstly, if you're not in a cross-cultural environment, you're probably not at the right organization because, like, there is so much value that comes with multiple cultures right, there's sort of so many different perspectives, and if you can create that blending part, it advances your organization forward. But if you, if you are not curious about your team and your, your, your, your employees, backgrounds and their culture, it will come back to bite you, because that's central to who they are. It's what they're brought up at, that's what they're brought up in in their home environment, and certain things are red lines for certain cultures. They're brought up in in their home environment and certain things are red lines for certain cultures.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

They're very, they very rarely affect work, but it's worth knowing what they are, isn't it at least be curious I, I totally agree, and we talk a lot about inclusion, but I I think inclusion is really about making sure that we find the right things to do to include people in the discussion, to include people in decision, to include them and make them feel also good in the environment we're creating for them. So all of this goes hand by hand, I think. And one more thing which I wanted to touch here with you today is that, as leaders, we spoke about courage. We spoke about inclusion. As leaders, we spoke about courage, we spoke about inclusion. But when it comes to the people, right, so people at different levels will behave differently, right. So what do you think? Now you're talking more here about leadership, but how do you do to create, to empower, I think, the middle managers, to really work on a culture which is inclusive for everyone and helps everyone?

Aziz Musa:

So I've struggled with this in previous organizations that I didn't own. So because I own my own company, it's really easy and I'll give you the easy answer. But in the past that's been a real challenge because you're bringing in middle management or even sometimes senior director level people. You're bringing them in from outside, they're outside hires and you kind of need to work with them on a one-to-one level to make sure that they're doing the things that continue the inclusivity that you've created around them. Okay, so that is a real challenge.

Aziz Musa:

I empathize with a lot of leaders who struggle for that one-to-one time with their direct reports, oftentimes because they have two. Even when I was the CEO of a public company, I refused to have more than five direct reports. Like whatever the organization structure had to be, I would never have more than five direct reports, and that's purely because I needed to make sure that I had one-to-one time with all five of them. Anything more than five and I know myself I just can't focus. And so you know, making sure that people have that understanding when they come into the organization of how to continue the work you've done to promote and enhance inclusivity and the value it brings to the organization is probably the key point for most people.

Aziz Musa:

However, if you're in the fortunate enough position that I find myself in, where it's my company, we only promote from within. We never hire externally, ever. Every single person who joins the organization, whether they are a graphic designer, a video editor, a social media manager, an email marketerer, it doesn't matter what they are they all start as a trainee and they all start, by the way, on the same salary. They join as a trainee and they go through six months of training until they moved into a department, and we never, we never promote above. You come in and you are. We always promote internally. That way, I'm able to like. I know that the culture is as we set it. It just doesn't change.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I totally agree. And you say we design the culture of the organization right, so we don't leave it to develop on its own. And I think here you're mentioning great things and I like how you're putting things, and the middle managers are key for the organization. But this is very interesting, that you only promote from within, and I think this is a great practice. Now, um, when you promote from within, right, so you need to develop those skills that are required for your organization. Diversity when it comes to diversity, how do you manage that?

Aziz Musa:

I had a mentor many, many years ago when I was in my sort of mid-20s. I had a mentor called he's passed away now Alan Layton, but if you're in the UK you'll know Alan Layton. He used to be the CEO of the post office and he said something really profound. He said a lot of profound stuff, actually, but one thing that really sticks with me. He said, aziz, your job as a leader. You only actually have one job. People will give you a thousand tasks, but there's only one thing you need to focus on.

Aziz Musa:

I said go on, alan, what's that? He said your job is to get the best, brightest, most intelligent brains you can around the table, around the table that you lead, get the best, brightest, most intelligent brains that you can afford as an organization. And he said, aziz, there, brains that you can afford as an organization. And he said, aziz, there's something you need to know about brains. Brains don't have a gender or a religion, or a color, or an ability or a disability. They're just brains and therefore see the brain and nothing else. And I was young and very persuadable because he was like this mega business and, honestly, I've only ever lived by that creed of sins. So for me, diversity is diversity of intellect, um, and I only hire the best brains that I can afford, and and it really comes as a result of that, you know it comes as a result of that. You know it comes as a result of that ethos.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Right. I like this ethos and when you put good brains together, you get great results. Like this is a multiplier effect and I like that. Diversity is really about the intellect and making sure that you have the diversity of thoughts and minds that are required to achieve and what you need to achieve for your organization and to make sure that you are successful. So that's a really great point I think um audience will be really very happy to hear. And, as these are just um, when you were talking, it reminded me of a story and when you said you, you, you usually work with four or five people um as your direct reports and and to support them.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I think one of the advices we give usually to people is get close to your management, because those who are really close to I did the mistake of not doing that earlier. If you are close to management, if you have a good relation, then you will have better chances to be promoted, not because of biases or because of preferences, but because you will know what what your leader is looking for and you will understand that mindset and be able to really align better. So that's also a great example, I think, to share here today. If we move a little bit to the global trends in leadership now, with your experience being really a global leader, I could say, as businesses become increasingly globalized, what emerging trends in cross-cultural leadership do you see, and how can leaders prepare to embrace these changes for achieving excellence? And I know we're not going to narrow down to this small definition of excellence, but if we take the broad definition of it, yeah, sure.

Aziz Musa:

so look, I think that the evolution of cross-cultural leadership globally started with globalization. Now you can argue when globalization happened, be it the mid 80s or, you know, late 90s or whatever, but if I was to make it simpler for people in Europe, it's when you call the bank and it started to be someone in India, right? So whenever that happened, that's when the concept, conceptually, globalization started to happen, right? So global, you know, we started to. We, as leaders in Europe, started to think could we resolve some of our biggest issues in a more cost effective way in other countries? Yeah, and so what? The first 10 years of that looked like was a total disaster, and it really was. And I was part of it. Right, I was very much part of. Oh, we can build this app, let's build it, but let's do it in India.

Aziz Musa:

And then what you get to realize is that we speak a language. That language is English, but behind that language is subtext, and you think, if you write something in English, the person who reads the English will understand the English and deliver the thing that you require. But language doesn't work like that. There is subtext to language, and so we would write requirements, and then something almost entirely different would come back, like if I give you an example, I remember we said on one of the briefs, we said make the red button say start, and we put the word start in inverted commas and what we got was the red button with inverted commas start. We're like no, I mean no, that's not, of course, what we meant, right. So that was kind of early on.

Aziz Musa:

As time has kind of evolved, particularly in the Middle East, right, and I think that this is why the UAE in particular, but also Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been, is why, uh, the uae in particular, but also saudi arabia and qatar have been, are able to see themselves in this, um, I'm going to say leadership trajectory in terms of global, uh, global leadership. Right, the uae is on a trajectory of leadership globally, and one of the things that no one ever talks about is because the uae embraced globalization on its own land. The amount of actual Emiratis that live in the Emirates.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

they are the minority 20%.

Aziz Musa:

Yeah, like one in five, right, that means four in every five people are not Emirati. You are absolutely obliged, if you live in the UAE, to gain knowledge of other cultures. It is not a choice. And therefore, if you can think, if we say that every culture brings with it its own positives and its own negatives, if we imagine, like culturalist people, right, and every person brings with them their positives and they bring with them their negatives, but they're all different, different positives, different negatives yeah, so if you can imagine an environment where or let's say, a small team, where you have five different cultures each and you get the best of all five cultures all together in one team, you've literally you've created like a super team, a super band of teams, right, okay, so that's what the UAE has done.

Aziz Musa:

I mean, it's quite literally created with its own, not just its infrastructure, not just physical infrastructure, but legislative infrastructure. It has created an environment whereby people can bring the best of their culture to the table and people are obliged to work with the best of their culture and therefore, the trajectory of growth that it's seen is in a large part, I believe, catalyzed by that.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Having lived in the UAE for 16 years, I totally agree, and I think the thing is harmony, synergy, where everybody can really have that safe space to do their best to be able to live in harmony with others, respecting the law, respecting the boundaries that are set for them, but at the same time, having tolerance for others. We used to have tolerance here in UAE, so that was really a great thing to live, and knowing the culture of others was really something that triggered a lot of richness, I think, a lot of openness in the mindset of people, and we experience it, I mean, on a daily basis. So that's a great example, I think. I think, as is, and with this we come to the end of the podcast episode today. So do you have anything, maybe specific, you would like to share with our audience, any, any anecdotes from your work in culture and leadership?

Aziz Musa:

I have so many anecdotes, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you one which um is as we talked about. I'm not actually. I'm going to tell you one which is as we talked about. I'm not sure if we talked about it on the podcast or just before, but anyway, last April there was a war in Sudan. You know, there are wars all over the world at the moment and you know, I just hope that people can find a way to resolve their conflicts without resorting to guns. But there was a war that started in Sudan in April of last year and I was living there, and so the obviously my family and the whole team and um, the war happened right in front of our office, right, and so I can't even begin to describe what that feels like. You know, anti-aircraft fire happening there in front of you, um, but we had a plan, not because we knew there was a war, a country like Sudan, you have to have contingency plans. So the contingency plan was really clear. We called it Plan B and it was set up and finalized the January before, and in that plan we had specific names of people that we wanted to take with us to Egypt. They were the people who could keep the business going.

Aziz Musa:

The war started three days in. It was clear it wasn't going to go to end, and so me and my wife, who's also my business partner, we went to the plan B document and said, great, let's call these people and get them going. And that's when I realized that it doesn't matter how much you prepare, if you aren't fully aware of the local culture, that preparation means nothing. And I called the first person and I said to her we're going to Egypt, pack your bags, the bus is coming tomorrow. And she said yeah, I can't, my dad won't let me go. She said, yeah, I can't, my dad won't let me go. And I was like what do you mean? Your dad won't let you go, it's a war, there are people dying in front of your house. Just let's, let's go, I'll take them with me. Like, let's go, all of us. And she was like, yeah, no. So I called the second person and, um, he said, yeah, we can't go, my dad won't leave.

Aziz Musa:

And what I realized really quickly is that there is such an extreme level of patriotism which is like I kind of wish I felt like that level of patriotism with people in sudan that the war was happening on their doorstep. They just wouldn't leave, their parents wouldn't leave and they wouldn't leave their parents, and it's something that, yeah, I could have planned for in terms of contingency planning and I just didn't because I didn't see it, and that's kind of the consequence. You know, we wanted to leave Sudan with 20 of our team and we ended up leaving with only eight of them All 20 and others came eventually when it was clear the war wasn't going to end and we were able to evacuate them and their families. But I could have planned better by knowing more about the culture that I was um involved in, and so you know, cross-cultural isn't. Cross-cultural management isn't just about getting the best in your existing team. It's also about crisis management, continuity planning and the value that comes with knowing about people's backgrounds.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

Yeah, and you remind me like I've worked a lot with different diverse teams I mean multicultural teams and I was exposed a lot to change management. But I had the opportunity, I think a couple of years back, to go through formal training and structure to adopt the change management standard of ACMP and one of the things that surprised me most is that they have a culture assessment as part of the preparation they do for that and also continuity and sustainability plans at the end. Sustainability plans at the end. So this goes back to what you said exactly is we need to include culture when we prepare for something and then make sure that we have those elements that help us to continue and move forward. So with this, aziz, I really enjoyed our discussion Great insights into culture, multicultural environments and leadership. And to our listeners here, we hope you'll find today's conversation as inspiring and thought-provoking as I did.

Nancy Nouaimeh:

I would like to thank Aziz again and remember the pursuit of excellence is a continuous journey and by seeking perfection we can get closer to excellence. It depends on what we define excellence and I think each one of us has his own definition of excellence. And please don't forget to subscribe to Excellence Foresight and stay tuned for more exciting episodes with remarkable guests who are setting new standards in their fields. Until next time, keep striving for excellence and pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Aziz Musa, thank you again. I'm Nancy Nouaimeh and this has been Excellence, foresight Podcast, podcast.

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Nancy Nouaimeh

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