Leadership and Differentiation: enterprise leaders in Dubai hear from Prof, Coulson-Thomas |
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Written by David Brunnen | |||
Sunday, 19 April 2015 13:02 | |||
There is a particular requirement for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in the Middle East according to Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas.
According to Coulson-Thomas “Goods, services, buildings and practices could be differentiated and developed to stress what is unique, special or different about the local situation, circumstances and context. The vision for Dubai is an exciting one, but simply importing overseas goods and services can lead to buildings that could be found in any number of cities. Replicating international icons rather than developing distinct and home-grown cultural themes, is reflected in the sight of obese children waddling through Malls in many locations. The professor's advice was, of course, yet another import - but one that argued for greater capacity in local solutions. Essentially he was asking if more could be done to produce local/domestic alternatives to imported goods and services and whether the result might be an infrastructure, lifestyle, diet etc that is more in keeping with local history and culture and more energy efficient and sustainable. He argued this in the context of a fresh approach to venture management - one that is more focused on employee support in contrast to an imported (or default) management culture that is robotically centred around process and control. If more of the enterprise budget were spent locally, would this encourage local entrepreneurs and domestic alternatives to foreign/international brands? __________________ Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas was speaking in Dubai at the Etisalat Academy Centre of Excellence on the subject of New Leadership and HR: A quicker, affordable and more sustainable route to high performance organisations. The findings of his recent investigations into less expensive, disruptive and time consuming ways of transforming performance and simultaneously delivering multiple benefits for both people and organisations are set out in three reports: Talent Management 2, Transforming Public Services and Transforming Knowledge Management. They set out the change of emphasis and new leadership required and can be obtained from www.policypublications.com
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