Stop being the Boss and return to being human

Effective organizations have comprehensive, coherent and sustained inductions programs that train, support and and retain employees. Top performers make it priority to build relationships with their teammates and their customers, its never waste of time connecting with the people. Working as meeting and events executive brings me to daily contact with practitioners of all walks, and being Dubai, companies are under perpetual obligation to provide training to its staff which intentionally leaves out its managers. Each day I interact with trainers and trainees of some sort not because I have nothing to do but to increase my human connection and culture awareness.

Last week I got stuck in a training room for over two hours when all I needed was the trainer to sign a consent form for me before they begin their training. I was almost moved to tears when the young lady hardly in her mid twenties was training a room-full of beer-bellied Managing directors, general managers and even C.E.Os on a culture building session. This leadership development specialist had to suspend her planned training on whatever their topic was, she had to start from personal etiquette and behavioral grooming.

In my 2-hours of productivity interlude I came up with some deceptively simple ideas for building human connections both personally and professionally.


1. Be on time - I have friends and colleagues who run their way into all meetings saying "sorry am late" well, its either their choose to take their daily cardio dose just before meetings or they are just rude.

2. Always start with please and end with Thank you -  Some managers are really deep into their despotism,, Oops! management phase that this basic courtesy that even armed robbers have begun to use on their victims hardly find their way out of  their mouths.

3. Be the best listener you know - Forget about this art, its already lost especially by same managers that I witnessed, they have chronic desire to be heard. however for you who is reading this I bet you can be quiet, make eye contact and pay attention to what is being said.

4. Smile more - I never imagined that the whole room containing two-dozen people could all achieve that look at the same time! Doctors have hundreds of reasons why smile is good for you, I however have just one reason, "I don't want to see people looking like they just bitten a big piece of lemon"

5. Be friendly and caring - That could have been world's largest assembly of angry-ready people, callous and lacking in self-control. I wish I had the chance to encourage them to start pretending that they are friendly and caring!!!!

The Spirit of Ramadan - 8 things that made Dubai Ramadan better than other cities

1) Holy month of Ramadhan

I call it inbuilt coincidence that about 2 billion people are fiercely convinced that July is actually a ninth month. From waking up in the wee hours of the morning  for a quick bite to the waiting for seconds to tick by until the call to prayer at sunset, Muslims do not eat nor drink during daylight hours as an obligatory act of worship. Fasting which is one of the five pillars of Islam is customarily associated with reading Quran 5 times a day, patience, generosity and closeness to God. Where these virtues related to fasting are not evidence in an individual, then they might as well be just starving themselves, and you cannot tell fasting from starving, they are terrible look-alikes.

2) Dua'a for breaking the fast

In Dubai we love fireworks no matter the season! Unapologetically fireworks declare thats its officially time to eat. I repent for mis-perceiving that we have to be all present at the Mosque having washed our face, hands and feet, the Imam must first say "Allahu Akbar" before we can think of touching food, Lo! the tyranny of fireworks leaves no chance!

3) Dates First

Dates is possibly an instruction from Prophet Mohamed that it must be the opener/starter, or what else is the explanation that since 800AD and beyond dates has been a universal mandatory diet during Ramadhan? Surprisingly dates business is the most ethical of our time, the demand does not influence the price!

4) The Lantern 

Therefore holy believers who share fasting call, let not the sight of any form of energy dim the glow of your soul. The spirit of Ramadhan should illuminate from within you unto the world. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, YES! and the Muslim bodies are certainly obsessed with taking census and publishing their official tally every other month, YES! How delightful and freeing is it to think right, noble, pure and admirable thoughts whether naturally and unnaturally symbolic of your faith and belief, atleast during this holy month.

5) Prayer Times

From overabundant experiential evidence that prayer does indeed work well and specially target those that aren't actually praying, the reverse of this goes without saying. I will not venture to speak anything except for the half an hour that some need to wait to cross at the Zebra crossing!

6)Who should fast

Apparently you can abscond fasting and not die! Let alone my friend who is way past menopause but suddenly has a month long flow. This mean Satan is trying to poke his nose on everything despite Allah desperately working on aborting his plans purpose and pleasure,

7) Burgundy everything

Some colours represent or provide ideas, visions missions, programs and sometimes rewards. How could anybody think of a different theme colour? How could anybody do otherwise? Their superior partners exclusively and tightly hold the reins of ideas and governance, therefore Dubai too, as a partner cannot live out religious unity in diversity. Understanding the colour concept has not been as important and interesting as taking photos in those burgundy houses

8) Iftar Parties

'Starve your ego and feed your soul' it would never be complete without a slogan!
In effect to a long day without food, Dubai modeled its own break-fasting stereotype through families, colleagues, friends all over the city.

My Slideshow

Linkedin users exploiting Job-seekers - Never be part of Viral Marketing scheme

Why are there so few entrepreneurs who start successful companies? I mean the likes of Steve Jobs' and Richard Branson's? it's because of the "fear of failing to succeed" which is the termite that eats up both skill and luck. Luck plays a bigger role in business than skill does, the lucky represents a simple minority commonly known as the "one percenters" whereas the vast majority, rather the ninety-nine percenters are trapped in seeking employment that assures them of certain earning per month. I took some time to analyze the world's most recent mass job production media, the level of coercion and exploitation of job-seekers moved me to tears. This is what you shouldn't do as a job seeker:-

 1) Like this status update for consideration

Your newsfeed traffic  has been amazing for the past two or so years however you have not landed a job despite the fact that hundreds of suitable positions runs through your screen each time you login. You may not be informed but all social media relies heavily on users LIKES while selecting advertisements to be included in each user’s newsfeed. The advertising technique tallies your own LIKES and those of your connections / friends / followers /subscribers which explains why your newsfeed contains pages of products you have never liked nor used. Well, should you be considered for a job you’re qualified for or not depends on whether you agree to like a status update. 

2) Comment with your email address

Your security belongs to the dogs literally.  In my expedition to find out how exactly I can get a job through dropping my email address anytime some phony employer asks for it, I created an email address complete with a Linked in profile, never mind everything about that profile was fabricated, the work experience, educational back ground, attitude and of course attractive profile display picture. I faithfully dropped the mail address on every status update that promised me a job; in about three months, despite the Harvard University Master’s Degree and appealing designations, the activity on that mail box contained nothing else other than more bait-y email/phone number share requests, lotteries, green card offers to the U.S. and so on. Job-seekers should be conscientious about protecting themselves from any form of exploits, unfortunately the level of need renders majority on unconditional disclosure. Stop wasting time disseminating your contact!

3) Share this update and we shall review your profile

Think about your name! Whatever you share on any of the social media platform will always begin with your name. Your reputation online could be a reason for you to miss a grand opportunity. Take a situation whereby an entity is potentially interested in you, they choose to do a charismatic-tour on your profile and quickly reach a decision of not proceeding further with your application. You hardly make it to the interview stage. The pile of nonsense web-based email postings that you share renders you untrustworthy for any position

4) Follow our page /Click the link to apply

Ever thought you are being used as viral marketing tool? Well, my question is too complex even for myself. Perhaps nothing is effective and efficient in viral awareness campaigns. Why then is it procedural that to be able to apply you must follow / subscribe to the individual or company updates? The answer is simple to launch an enrollment and employment initiative; some target audience is required, which of late insists on a threshold.

5) Comment with your country of residence

There is no way am sharing this anywhere unless you are a relocation agent. Scammers are always a step ahead. There is no harm in juxtaposing beside a  multinational is busy seeking “talent” to join their team. If a job specification has insisted that you need to be based in a certain country, then this is what you need to do, abandon the damn misfortune!

You still need another Credit card? -Find Out why you don't need even one

Lets say you work for a small private bank, and you take charge of two small branches within the town with a total of six salesmen: salesman 1, 2 and  3 in branch A and salesman 4, 5 and 6 in in Branch B.

On average salesman 1 sells one credit card weekly, salesman 2 sells two credit cards weekly and so on up to the top salesman who shifts 6 credit cards weekly. With a little calculation you know that Branch A sells averagely two credit cards per person weekly, and Branch B is far ahead with each salesman doing averagely five credit card weekly. You decide to move salesman 4 to Branch A and salesman 1 to Branch B, you find that the average sales of Branch A has increased to 2.5 whereas Branch B now has only two salesmen.

The above experiment tends to improve the overall outlook for Branch A without really bringing in any new clientèle for Branch A. Its safe to think that both the banks and and their customers have either maintained their population over the past three or four years, or there has been minimal change in numbers, however the banks need to realize their profits through interests rates from the increased debt. Having a credit card is like a silver bullet for a distant payment and hassle free shopping. There is something the bank never told us however apart from encouraging us to spend the money we haven't earned yet:-

1) High Interest Rates:

Your savings account may pay you around 2% interest monthly. If you have a loan from the bank then you may pay them up to 10 % interest which is five times as much as you earn off your savings. If you owe money to credit card you may pay them an interest of up to 20%, this is ten times as much as you earn off your savings. I used to think that nothing that grow exponentially grows forever, it has to reach some limit eventually. This statement has been true until I began to expand my mathematical problem above.

2) Blown Budget:

Am a best friend to my good friend. We faithfully buy at-least three pieces of something we don't need each month after which we then go to buy the things that we need in credit. I came up with an expenditure confessions and testimonials corner in my house which was initially created for personal use. I was surprised when I had visitors that at one time someone's entire salary had literally been reduced to three pairs of stilettos. That confession is the realest explanation of a blown budget.

3) Credit Card Fraud:

This story is top secret. 
Someone authorized a huge transaction from his credit card somewhere in Europe while he was in one of the Middle East airports just about to fly to some African country. While airborne he emailed his bank reporting theft of his credit card. This is it, the bank may or may not charge him for purchases made by someone else. This story is worth knowing its end.

4) Protection of Purchases:

Is there something like insurance on purchases? Imagine the kings son has bought a lion pet, three months down the line the lion pet breaks and eats its keeper. What happens in such incidences, Is there chance to eliminate the animal and get refund?

Nice Customers ruin businesses

Most business owners have a puzzled look on their faces whenever i throw this question at them. They wonder how a Nice Customer can possibly ruin their business, but then i break it down and they understand (eventually).

But first things first, who is a Nice Customer?

According to one Business Author the Nice Customer, is a Customer who never complains no matter what type of Service he/she gets.
Who wouldn't love such Customers? (I would have loved them a year ago).

But when you realize that the Nice Customers are usually the ones who never pointed out to you where you failed to leave up to their expectations, or where you could have improved on your services, and the ones who simply stopped showing up after they received a better Service Quality elsewhere, you will begin to see Customers in a new light.

Customers morph to ‘Nice’ Customers usually because the firm doesn’t encourage Customer complaints, by either failing to effectively resolve previous complaints or by treating the complaining Customer shabbily, after a while Customers won’t see the essence of complaining ( they think “Why bother complaining? It’s not like it’s going to help”), such trend is quite common in monopolist markets or SME businesses which are yet to become Customer focused and government parastatals.

But the truth is, when you have mostly Nice Customers patronizing your business-

•There will be little or no improvement in your Services - You'll never know what it is you're doing wrong or areas where you could improve on (feedback), simply because nobody is pointing it out to you or you’re simply not listening, this eventually degenerates to complacency.
•Competition would eventually render you irrelevant - A great percentage of the time nice Customers will simply stop doing business with you once they getter a better service quality elsewhere. (One day you realize, the Customers have stopped coming!)
•You'll never understand your Customers and their needs - When Customers don't complain (or stop complaining), you risk missing out on the general expectations of the Customers from your business, this way you'd have an uphill task of maintaining Customer loyalty (especially when competition shows up, down the street).
•You'll miss out on Competitive Intelligence - It’s usually complaining Customers who point out what competition is doing or how they're doing it. (Something like; "In XYZ, it takes only 2 days...")
•You'll miss out on valuable business insights - From a Customer complaint, you can have a great idea that could lead to a new service or a new business, a complaint like "Why does this take too long to get to me?" Could give you the idea of starting an express delivery service, and which could be profitable or lead to improved Customer perception.

So, there you have it, these are some of the points i discuss with  business owners, and most of the time they end up having a new perspective on they view their Customers and complaints.

If you are a business owner and you haven't gotten a single Customer complaint in a long time, ask yourself – is this is because my services are the best? Or because i have a lot of ‘Nice’ Customers.

7 Kinds of blogs that will make you stop reading articles

Blogging is officially modern nuisance embraced by all who have access to keyboard and ability to transfer their thoughts and real life situations to printable. You can visualize the bloggers from their looks, dressing, education and intention from the tone of their blog, the most conspicuous factor being their negative writing skills.
I have come across attention seeking blogs, fame hungry blogs, husband/wife fetching blogs, gay blogs, advertising blogs, scum blogs, phonography(juvenile included) blogs , gossip blogs, some I cannot even classify as they teach you how to get fat, be better bitches/pimps, the latest was so gross, that blogger deserves several oscars for that piece, am not wrong in thinking the TV series prison break was his Idea. 

1) Attention Seeker blogs
This is dominated by women at the introductory level, mostly party animals with filthy dirty linen to wash In public, like sour relationships, men they can't date for their calculative reasons (read money, age, physique, of course your family background also determines whether you are datable or not), snatched boy friends, cat fights and all.
Believe me it's dangerous when woman with ugly personality, purchased body and merry-go-round accessories is allowed to use the keyboard. It becomes the platform for her to whine about unromantic men, deadbeat baby daddies, raise cat fights since they are to weak to slap each other maybe the makeup is too expansive to spoil bla bla bla

2) Fame hungry blogs 
No recipe required, find yourself in a quorum of famous people. Friends of friends play a real deal on this, let all your girlfriends or boyfriends get involved with the same person, preferably famous, leak some photos to the social media and there you go.
Before long you will be having interviews with CNN, BBC an so on, before we become conscious of what took you to TV in the first place, you have already turned into a news item. We be looking out for your next controversy, you better check you dressing since your now source of inspiration to the teenagers. Keeping the diary is essential to prove you level of involvement with the tycoons politicians, wealthy business men. Oooops I have seen a statement like " on the 24th October 2012 I confirm having anal sex with honorable member of parliament"
Get some life people!

3) Spouse fetching blogs
Here you reach the peak of maturity. There is no nonsense in this people. Am happy to follow Their pages for my grammar classes, overall punctuation would give that boring English lecturer a run for his money. They are experienced with relationship that there is nothing left for me to teach them, naturally modest. This kind of blogs have the shortest life circle, the metamorphosis is completed between zero to firemen articles. They tend to portray as informative, educative blogs. This is intended for mature men or women who have lost their spouses before whether to people, sickness or death. They are adequately researched before they are posted for your read. If you fail to cry or get emotional over such articles then I will get you some pepper spray to check if your tear cells are working. 
Not after long one of the cry babies (who cry over emotional articles) would have contacted him or her and now the blogging time will be substituted with going out, as the continued silence becomes loud he/she bounces back with a blog
"My wedding invitation, organised by something something bridal"
ADIOS the desires of your heart have been granted!

4) Gossip blogs
Male dominated. What a shame. Here they would be discussing women they cannot have!!!! 
Did I hear an Amen??
Reserve your Amen for when they will photoshop a naked woman with your head on it and share it on your Facebook wall that Amen would come in handy.
Introduction of socialites is big business as I see. Who ever thought you would pay a lump sum to enter an old bar just because some big ass lady will be twerking there that night? Or did we ever think if some two twenty-five year olds are fighting it would be news worthy? Ooh now news papers costs more to advertise than TV ask me why, the newspapers sell more if the entire front page reads "Socialites run over each other AGAIN!"
You wonder what happened to ethical and professional journalism when you are the main sponsor to quarks? You don't need a degree in journalism to practice journalism nowadays. Your better off as a freelancer as long as you are consistent with the gossip, never mind you can lie, it's all about entertainment right? An artist commits suicide because of what was written. Why do they even take our blogs so seriously?

5) Business blogs
Thou shall not mess with this blog, for the arm of law shall catch you.
Tell the national revenue authorities that we hate paying taxes just like they do. Multi million blogs have been born in our midst by ordinary looking men and women. Am yet to learn their tactic as this would be my specialty from now on. I know how to write business proposals one of you should just adopt me. Here you come when you have enough money in the bank, least known to commoners who concentrate on the gossip as above. You need an academic miracle to be conversant with what goes on here, very serious atmosphere, once grey is the base colour in a blog I widen my eyes with the hope that my brain cells would widen as well. If you are not Lamborghini , Apple, Mercedes, Rolex, Virgin Atlantic then stop placing you advertising bid here and go and play with your mates outside!

6) comical blogs
If you wanna feature in a comedy show then start here. Sadly, it's the reality behind entering the comedy industry. Who else finds written comedy boring as compared to watched comedy. I hardly find an inborn comedian with writing ability, but again you must be reduced to a writer first before you really put your skills out for the audience. This is where real talent is wasted as you try to rise up. As you write you cannot conceal your good work from the eagle-eyed useless comedians gracing our TV screens, am with our upcoming comedians on this war no matter my least way of fighting on your behalf.

7) Zero Bloggers
Zero grazing cows! Equipped with an audience but without substance or material to feed to the people.They often behave like prince or princesses who inherit empires they have no clue what it's worth! This are the brats who with one article would scatter an audience of 100K followers! Recyclers of blogs carry from Point A to point B. By the time thy are on their page with stolen material we have to prepare the funeral of the stolen article. It would succumb to lots of accidents on its way, inflated with lies, blown outta proportion like nobody cares! This are the kind of opportunists who are sponsored to black mail. Animosity is developed through them, they form an ideal wrestle ground that would send WWE wrestlomania parking