[Nile TV] Building Meaningful Connections in the Workplace

[Nile TV] Building Meaningful Connections in the Workplace

and welcome back how’s the view is continuing in the same uh uh almost uh idea which is the development of the teamwork how to work in a teamwork how uh to uh have a proper uh job uh in order to excel and to develop our skills that would be our topic of discussion for today with our dear guest in the studio and mr abdul rahman magdy our business coach good morning good morning good morning first of all if you can tell us about how can working as part of a team be successful yeah definitely i think like one of the biggest challenges facing companies especially in emerging markets where there is not that much of investment in education is how people can get together to work as part of the team and how there could be connections between people based on their competence so the fundamental idea here for the individuals and the teams to be aware of their own competence of the value they bring to the table and then understanding also the competence of every other member and team and seeing how we can fit all these combatants to build a strong team this is one aspect in which that i have to understand what am i good at first and then understand how would i offer this to the team in a way that would maximize the productivity of the overall like a team and company eventually and i think one of the most important ideas as well is how do i set up the leadership for this team because like leadership is usually a source of conflict so like people usually want to move in at different directions and there is usually lots of competition around who takes the leadership so by then there has to be a very strategic and non-emotional approach to who gets in the leadership and also choosing the formats of how the team is formatted around the leadership like one of the the patterns that’s being kind of promoted and getting popularity is having like a v uh curve like if you’re moving forward you need to build a hierarchy which is like a like a like a command but you can actually have like like birds if you see like birds you fly in uh in like uh v curves like that so there is someone in the leadership once the you know they get tired they kind of move to the back and someone else takes the leadership so that would make leadership more democratic and accordingly would allow people to like focus their attention on providing the best work and also establishing connections and uh like meaningful relationships with people around the team and the institution as well yes uh mr macd from your point of view does connections matter beyond competence and hard work yeah definitely i think if we look at any company or any team who wants to get things done eventually connections is central to getting things done why why because i need to get something done that is definitely somewhere someone who’s very competent in getting this thing done at the lowest cost and the piece of information that basically the contact details of this individual at a certain point in time is extremely valuable so if you can look at it you’re into production and presenting so if you think in the studio there is definitely in a critical condition there is someone that you need to call you need to get their attention because that would be extremely valuable for the seconds that you have to get things done so definitely from that angle is finding the right talent who can get things done with a proper cost in a proper speed this is something that’s extremely valuable for any business or even any social setting yeah yes um in your opinion how can uh approaching the challenge of building connections uh help us in achieving our goals in in in a working environment yeah definitely like as we mentioned connections are very important so those who do have access to the connections most likely to be promoted into leadership possessions and also most likely to add more value to the team so from that angle if i understand that connections is something that’s very valuable if i like have part of me focusing on of my time focusing on building connections and getting to know what people are offering relevant to my industry and i can possibly bring in these connections into the work environment whenever we have a need for it that would be an extremely valuable skill set so by then by developing my ability to build connections and meaningful connections and being able to engage and influence these connections to come in and produce value by then i’m becoming extremely valuable to the work environment i’m part of yes yes uh to be successful uh on the professional and on the social level uh mr abdul we have to nurture our network how that could be done on the long term yeah i think by then like this idea of building connections and the skill sets and the way and the approach that that you embody to build these connections you have to make this a lifestyle so it becomes the way you think in terms of when i go meet someone i need to understand what do they need so what do they look for and what are the accomplishment at so understanding when when we deal with any individual is that there are always two parts to look at what do they offer what are their most competence what do what they can get done better than anyone else and what are their needs what they’re itching for so if i understand these two pieces of information about every individual but then i have a this central skill set and i have a decent communication skill by then i can engage with people in a way that help them fulfill their needs and demonstrate their competence in the best way possible if i establish many connections like that and i will able to bring these people together but then i will be building my own personal network which is by then by consistently engaging with them in a productive way offering them opportunities to become better at with their competent ads or to demonstrate that and also to fulfill their needs on becoming extremely valuable to a large number of people and by then there is a personal network that’s growing and i’m in the center of this personal network that can possibly by then be focusing on making me successful as well because this is what i’m doing to them yes uh what could be in your opinion one of the major challenges of facing uh a working environment yeah i think like that’s gonna like differ slightly in the setup for the working environment but what we’re talking about today in terms of becoming more empathetic is looking at people as people other than looking at them as what we call it as resources so we have the the old approach of looking at human resources of looking of individuals as resources and assets for the company but rather the trend and thing that’s working there is becoming more empathetic towards the individual understanding their competence and understanding their needs and their individual case their personality type and engaging with them in a way that actually help them to fulfill like their demonstrate themselves openly and to fulfill their needs and to excel at their competence so looking at individuals as individuals and integrating that across the whole operation of the business is extremely valuable thing to focus on if we’re like looking about long-term sustainability and people loving their work and becoming more committed to it if you treat them as humans you’re going to love that how we could develop that at the employees the mr abraham how that could be reachable because not every employee has these potentials and these skills so how can we develop that yeah i think like the strongest component in any setup is the culture and i think the leadership are what are consistently influencing this culture so there’s a lot of things to be done systemically when we look about the personal or the hr department that we have systems ways of people to discover their competence there are many questionnaires that’s available that people can go through and extract their core competence but what always win is the idea of getting senior leadership walking across the employee employees and talking to them so talking to them face to face and also going to depend on that organization size is that the more time you need to commit it to talk straight to people and understand their their challenges so becoming less focused on looking at screens and having direct conversations with people would be an extremely valuable tool beside of course the knowledge about how do i discover people’s confidence how do i i focus on that positively that’s that’s also a core competence in terms of building the systems to maintain that but in the core if we find leaders who are like walking with employees having discussions with them openly that would make them more open to contribute and to bring their concerns to the leadership and eventually solving that and becoming more committed to the work environment yes uh picking on what you just said you spoke about leadership so what are the one of or some of the traits uh essential traits or must-haves of a successful leader yeah thank you for asking that because also it comes very close to to the idea of building connections you know like connections has to do with being empathetic so if to connect with someone i have to be there as a human being other than someone with demonstrating authority so the old pattern of looking at leadership and power is looking at it as an authority is in a title so by then like leaders who kind of embody this attitude is that i reached that position because of my years of hard work and i deserve that and it’s my position right now and i demonstrate though 30. so here we come into in any exchange with someone i’m talking in a position for 30 and that’s kind of the bad leadership attitude sometimes it works on certain environments but that’s not how you get sustainable development and sustainable um kind of winning for businesses to work they have actually conducted research to see even in very critical environments like um like fund managers and investment bankers etc and they found that they actually though there was an extensive research and it’s very difficult research as well because they got senior leadership on camera and seeing how they interact with their employees and their investment opportunities and they analyze the data in terms of their approach to kind of leading these very critical industries in which that when we think about investors we think about people who are being aggressive and they’re in a very kind of dominant position but they found that those who were more empathetic and dealing with people as humans were actually more successful in terms of the return of their investment because also there is a critical component once you go to the positional power is that you actually start losing lots of intelligence from the community so people going to be feeding you with what you need to what you want to listen to other than what’s going on so being empathetic dealing with people as human to human demonstrating some vulnerability it’s not that i know it all and these are also something to um instill in individuals who eventually is going to become the leadership so the best way also as we said is to build the culture of that in the companies and in a society as whole even when you look at it from the household how people were brought up so people who were brought up in authoritative households are more likely to be more authoritative you want to control but those who had the space to participate with their parents to take decisions and to kind of participate with their colleagues and with their siblings they’re more likely to become more empathetic and open for these experiences so even families here do have some responsibility in bringing in the right leadership attitude and eventually leading in that direction yes the leadership as you have kindly mentioned uh mr abdul is very important and but how a a person could be a successful leader and gain the love and respect of his um of the employees that he’s working with or the people who are under his management and yet he should be firm and he should reach the deadlines which are set for him so how can we reach this very tough equation yeah this is a very tough equation for any leader because if we look at these two extremes we mentioned usually those who are very strict and very sharp they are most likely are very good at getting things done in the short term so they know how to set up very strict rules and to get everyone to stick to it on the other hand when you think about people who are more empathetic we’d understand if i said that i couldn’t match the deadline because of such that they would eventually understand that i think the challenge here is looking at this as a long-term venture as long-term investment and that so i have to be like mostly outsourcing this responsibility of managing the deadline to the rules and the the code of conduct within the society so other than me telling you to do that we said we sit down as a group and we say that these are the responsibilities of every individual within a group we want to meet this deadline like you actually build emotional capacity for people in readiness you understand their needs so by then they if there is any challenge they can talk to you so you opened up all the challenges and any possible challenge they might face to face this objective but then he created an open environment but by then there is responsibility so when it comes to matching deadline there is responsibility and there’s going to be some tough conversation so when you’re empathetic it doesn’t mean that you do not have to be confrontational sometimes you have to even be more confrontational because being creating this empathetic sphere would require people to become more vulnerable and the first one who’s going to become vulnerable is you as a leader so when you say that i need this to get done and we need this as an institution you’re making yourself vulnerable and then they are seeing that they’re contributing to that and most people are going to respond positively to this and those who does not respond positively maybe you just do not need them in their team so but then if people does not fit within their culture maybe the good decision is to just let them go yes indeed uh by this uh we come to the end of this segment uh we are that we really do appreciate your insight mr rahman business coach thank you so much for being with us on the breakfast room thank you for having me thank you very much it was a pleasure to have you with us thank you very much i know that our viewers will come to the end of this edition of the breakfast show you were in the company of myself thank you thank you the dear viewers until we meet again [Music]

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