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Women's Entrepreneurship Development Conference

WED Conference Website

Preparation

Soon after returning from Japan in early 2009, I sat down with my two bosses and discussed a conference that they were planning in cooperation with International Labour Organization. The conference was to focus on entrepreneurship in the Arab world and while I had little to no choice in becoming the conference manager, I quickly decided that my main goals were to make the conference informative and practical for participants, not just an excuse to have a three day networking session, while simultaneously using the conference as a personal management training session in delegation.

While this focus on female entrepreneurship might seem simple enough, there was an obvious difference in the two sides' approach to this subject. For the ILO, the WED was a subject matter that was to be discussed in theoretical terms between business support organizations from around the Arab world. The ILO's objective was to attract representatives from various NGO's, governmental and quasi-governmental organizations in order to discuss their experiences with various forms of development programs aimed specifically at women. The Business Development Center (BDC), on the other hand, had a very different objective. The BDC wanted to create a profitable event that would bring together entrepreneurs, development organizations and financiers to benefit female entrepreneurs. From our first conference calls between the two organizations it was obvious that there were divergent understandings of the conference’s main objectives, but neither side was willing to approach the sticky subject of negotiating a middle ground. As a result, during our numerous conference calls both sides seemed to listen to the concerns and objectives of the other and nod in agreement, while returning to pursue their own agendas the minute the phones clicked. I, thus, became a middleman that translated messages from one side to the other into mutually agreeable language.

Planning for the conference started by creating an organizational structure and a slideshow that explained the basics of the conference. With this complete, I then assembled my staff from around the office to explain the basics of the conference and their roles and relationships to one another. The organizational structure was simple. At the top were the ILO and the BDC management. The ILO was tasked with determining the speaker list and the agenda, while the BDC was tasked with completing everything else. I was directly under both of these upper level managers and tasked with coordinating all the necessary activities to pull off the conference. Below me was the third level which consisted of 5 "supervisors" dedicated to specific areas of responsibility: guest and speakers relations, accounting, material design & promotion, etc. And finally the fourth level consisted of interns that would make up the "supervisors'" staff.

While the structure should have theoretically worked, what I failed to account for was Arab mentality and social structure that generally places all decisions at the top of a very hierarchical structure. The roots of such mentality are numerous and debatable, but simply put the ancestors of modern day Arabs increased their chances of survival in the harsh desert environment of Arabia by developing strong hierarchical organizational structures. Modern Arab managers have a tendency to consider managing from the top not only a sign of strong leadership but also a place of strategic survival, since empowering subordinates with information and decision making authority could potentially enable them to usurp one’s own authoritative position. Not only does this management style restrict an organization’s flexibility, creativity and ability to respond to events in a timely manner, but it creates a huge liability. In the case of a current colleague, her past employer went under a few months after the long term CEO resigned. The company could not survive once the CEO left. Everything had been controlled from the head of the company and in absence of the head the body could no longer function. Similarly, this concept also affects Western companies that commonly feel that they get the runaround from Arabs when they meet innumerable times with mid-level managers who supposedly have decision making authority. To Arabs those mid-level meetings are simply to build good relations and to provide an opportunity for an organization to prove they deserve a meeting with the decision maker at the top, not to formalize deals.

In the case of the WED Conference, this mentality pitted me in a constant struggle to maintain the pre-established lines of communication through my organizational structure. My superiors would often make a change in plans and communicate it to my subordinates without transmitting the message through me and my subordinates would wait to carry out tasks until they could reconfirm them with the BDC CEO.

Another challenge was working with the graphic design company that was also in charge of the development of the WED Conference theme, the design and production of all conference materials (banners, binders, invitation, etc.) Initially, they developed the conference theme efficiently and with particular attention to our input, but once the theme was created they became unresponsive to our deadlines, took a week or more to make basic changes to designs (like removing or adding a sponsor logo), and would not provide us with the original Photoshop files when asked. At the end of the day, I forcefully convinced the design firm to give us the Photoshop files and hired a freelancer at night to sit down side-by-side my staff and complete the designs to our specifications. What had taken the design firm days or weeks to complete, was finished by the freelancer in minutes.

The WED Conference also ran into funding obstacles which I suspect were largely a result of the financial crisis. In past conferences, the CEO of the BDC, who is well respected and connected in Jordan, would simply call or meet with heads of other organizations in Jordan and ask for their support and the money would come in. However, with the financial crisis looming and organizations concerned about their budgets for the coming year, very few organizations were willing to sponsor the conference, and those that did, did so in much smaller amounts than they had to previous conferences. This put in jeopardy our ability to stay in the black and caused us to cut a number of extravagances that were in my view unnecessary but originally deemed fundamental to the conference to maintain the high social profile of the conference organizers. Most notably conference freebies in the goodie bags were scaled back and post conference dinners and excursions in and around Jordan were all canceled.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to the conference was the management style of the BDC. Without being apologetic, I think it is fair to say that the BDC is an organization that is growing quickly and beyond its original organizational capacity. The organization has gone from tasking individuals with specifically defined tasks to constantly putting out fires that no one person or group of people can handle on their own. The difficulty with this is that it pulls people away from their assigned duties and hence creates more fires in the organization, which then require more firefighting. In the case of the WED Conference, during the early stages of planning there was little help to take care of the tasks involved in preparing for the conference. Although I had designated roles to 5 supervisors, they were much too busy with other more immediate fires to properly complete their WED Conference responsibilities. It was only when the WED Conference grew into a raging fire of its own only a couple of weeks before the conference that I started to receive offers for help and responsiveness from the WED staff and others in the organization. Of course, I took advantage of these opportunities, however, I was cognizant that I was only perpetuating the same cycle of firing fighting that had hindered preparations for the WED Conference and was now more than likely hindering someone else’s project.

WED Conference April 27-29

It’s tough to tell how the WED Conference went. While I was informed numerous times that the conference was the best conference of its kind that the BDC had held, it is tough to determine whether these were frank statements of congratulations or simply face saving comments of support to uplift my emotional spirits. That being said, I do believe that the conference was a success in the eyes of the BDC and our partner organization the ILO.

Personally, I believe that it could have been much better aside from the environment (organizational, cultural and economic) in which the conference took place. What I am proud of is the clear progress that the WED Conference staff made during the conference. From day 1 to day 3, I felt that our team went from performing like a completely dysfunctional group to working as a team and handling the challenges of the conference without breaking stride. Our improvement was phenomenal and I believe that from this process not only did I learn as much about Arab mentality as I had the previous 8 months in Jordan, but my team members experienced what it feels like for a leader to empower and delegate instead of motivating through fear and intimidation as they are so often accustomed. The following are a few challenges/reflections on managing young Arab professionals.

o Group Orientation - No matter how hard I tried, the staff always wanted to work in groups. Whether it was taking tickets at a door, putting folders together or just assisting conference participants much of the staff wanted to work with a friends or another person. It was almost as if they felt uncomfortable alone.

o Assume is spelled ASS - Don’t assume anything because that which you assume will not happen. It is not enough to simply say “lunch bouncers” collect tickets at the entrance to the lunch area. You have to explain each step of the process and try to anticipate every possible problem that could occur and its solution.

For example: You are to stand at the entrance of the lunch area. Smile at each person and politely ask for their lunch ticket. Each ticket admits only one person. Personal drivers of participants count as a second person and cannot be admitted to lunch unless they have ticket. To know if someone is a driver, simply ask. Take the ticket and keep the tickets you collect in one place to count at the end of lunch. If a person does not have a ticket kindly direct them to the information table. You are four lunch bouncers in all. Two of you must always be at the lunch room doors allowing you to take shifts to eat lunch yourselves. Please ask if you have any questions. Do you currently have any questions?

o Personal Initiative - There is very little personal initiative. When a problem arises the initial response is to run to the boss and ask what to do. I have been doing some research on this issue and found that this is a very common problem with organizations in the Arab world. Bosses tend to discourage personal initiative and are quick to discipline those who make mistakes. Instead of using a mistake as a chance to teach someone to make a better decision in the future, mistakes are used to reinforce the steep hierarchical culture.
There were cases during the conference in which I needed to know that things were being taken care of in the main hall while I dealt with other issues, but inevitably the person in charge of the main hall acted more like a second pair of eyes than someone who was willing to solve problems. To her credit, I had one female team member step up on day 2 and take charge of the main hall. With that she won my respect and appreciation. Unfortunately, she comes from a conservative family and her parents wouldn’t let her come to the WED Conference thank you hamburger dinner that I held at my house for our team. My entire team of 20+ came to the dinner, males and females alike, but only she didn't show. It started at 7:30P and ended at 10P, but her parents thought it was too late.

o Task Trading - Every morning before the conference we would have a team meeting. During the meeting everyone would confirm their role for the day and review the schedule before heading out on the floor. My general responsibility was to go around and make sure my staff and the guests were ok while making sure everyone was on task. Inevitably during the day some roles would change and I would have to assign people to put out small fires that would arise. To my astonishment, on multiple occasions I would tell people to do a task and discover that they had traded it off to a friend, who would then trade it off to another friend and so on until: (a) no one knew who was doing the task or (b) the task got done but in the completely opposite manner than I had intended - remember the telephone game that you played in elementary school?

o Punctuality - Sure, it’s no secret that polychronic time exists in the Arab world. This is to be expected and generally I have no problem with it, but when you are trying to manage an event that begins at a certain time and which includes non-Arab guests who operate on monochronic time, my staff’s tardiness became a major issue.

Day 1 - Our staff meeting is scheduled to begin at 7A and I personally want it to actually begin at 7:30A. By 7:30A 8 of 20 people have arrived. When check-in began at 8A only 16 of the 20 had arrived. Day 1 ends with a talk about team work and tardiness is a central issue.

Day 2 - The staff meeting is scheduled from 8A. 4 people arrive at 8A. At 8:45A only 12 are around. The last of my staff wonders in around 9:30A, 30 minutes after the conference has officially begun. I ask 2 girls to leave if they are not committed to the team. They stay on board and show up on time day 3. Day 2 ends with another team meeting congratulating the team on improvement but reminding them of the reoccurring issues of tardiness and low personal initiative.

Day 3 - 18 of the 20 staff arrive on time.


Result

In the end, the WED Conference was attended by more than 170 women from more than 17 countries, all of them in the Arab world save Italy, the UK and the US. The most exciting contingent of entrepreneurial women came from Sudan, some of which operate livestock businesses in Darfur. They numbered 18 in all and came dressed as you would expect in beautifully colored flowing dresses with scarves. Unexpected, but equally intriguing, were their black died fingertips which signified a woman's martial status.

Although I learned by fire, the conference taught me a ton about Arabs, management and the energy, ideas and fortitude of entrepreneurial women throughout the Arab world. I will continue to say it until I am blue in the face. If you ever want to feel the promise and potential of the Arab world, get around a group of young entrepreneurially minded Arab women and listen to them discuss their achievements, challenges and dreams.

My team of young BDC employees and volunteers came away from the conference having worked hard but also having felt that they achieved something as a group. They strengthen their relationships and also figured out that there are other ways to manage and motivate besides fear and micromanagement. After the first day, I told them that although they were used to someone screaming and breathing down their neck that I would not bow to this type of motivation. I asked that they take my words, although said in a normal tone, seriously and if they could I would be able to give them the experience of working together as a team motivated by a common purpose, not fear. To this end, I purposely tried to empower each of them and give them a sense of what it is like to make their own decisions and problem solve. From the way they now greet me with excitement in the office or on the street, I know that I succeeded. It is my hope that I gave them an experience and an example that they will remember and can improve on in the future.

Personally, I came away with an increased cultural and management understanding of the Arab world. I often listen with trepidation when I hear Westerners speak of how different Arabs are, as if they are some illogical group of people that cannot be reasoned with. The word humanity is as Arab as it is American or Japanese, but there is a large chasm between how we understand each others' symbols and how we interact with one another. While I believe that some differences could be easily overcome and are simply misunderstandings, I am also increasingly aware that there are significant differences in perspective and to navigate these waters you need time and experience. The city of Amman is a perfect example. It is easy to be lulled into believing that the modern cars, buildings, and brands signify a very Western oriented perspective, however in my opinion Amman is more conservative and tribal than either Damascus and Cairo, but you would never realize this just passing through. It's only when you try to change something or make a difference that the true culture of its people is revealed. (Sorry to belabor the point, but there are a number of similarities between the South (USA) and Arab culture. One of attitude of which is exemplified in the following monologue: "Welcome. See the beauty of our community...but don't you dare try to change a thing.)

In addition to starting friendships with a number of our speakers and guests to the conference, I also made some friendships within my conference team that will last long after the conference has passed. While I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment and relief on the last day of the conference, I now feel that my time in Jordan is coming to an end and my focus has now turned to what is next. I do have thoughts of working in the Arab world again - Cairo is awfully attractive - but next time I plan on staying clear of event management. With only 4 weeks left at the BDC, it’s time to wrap up and move on.

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