Turning Points

I always maintained that as long as the itch for doing something new, exciting or innovative persists one will endure all difficulties. However, as life goes on and we navigate through it, the challenges grow and one is pushed to the limits.

Recession is a good excuse for incompetent management to hide its inadequacy, just dump on your staff. Remunerations are cut in the name of savings and unrealistic targets are set at a whim and every one is left to his own devices without leadership. The leadership is busy undermining its staff.

Professionals manage, they know what they have to do and they will always find a few who will carry the day and meet the challenge of an impossible target. Sadly, success is met with silence at best or petty complaints and childish outbursts.

As long as the itch persists you don't care, you are still loving the challenge and actually enjoying the work. Until, incompetency and delusions of power and grandeur set in and they, they being very senior management, stop listening, or use selective listening (only what they want to hear) and believe their own version of reality.

What goes round comes round and sometimes faster than we like, what was great a few months back like savings, cutting down and not listening to those who deliver, catches up with them. The impossible target was delivered and the rest of the organisation that was taking it easy failed to deliver. The project is at a standstill and we are in headless chicken mode trying to recover the situation.

The nightmare starts, tantrums and outbursts become the norm and one is faced with a TURNING POINT, is what remains of that itch and the challenge worth the crap?

Turning points are terrible things, they hit and arrive at the wrong time. Nevertheless, they are good, they provide us with the opportunity to reassess things, do we zig or zag. Going through life is like navigating the Mississippi, you never know what is behind each turn.

Yes, a turning point is upon us and will see......

Copenhagen Revisited

As disappointing as the Copenhagen Summit was and in spite of the Hopenhagen and other green movements grass root efforts, it did outline a few facts:

1. The world agrees that we have a problem of global warming.

2. There is a need to take some action, sometime

3. That countries do put their short and medium interests ahead of the well being of the planet.

Efforts to introduce legislation that preserves the environment are always under attack by the Oil and Coal lobbies and other special interests. Any legislation that involves clean air, clean water or clean energy is always under attack.

All these TV advertisements of the oil companies touting their research and work to produce clean and alternative fuel or clean up the environment and how hard they work to provide us with a better future seem so hypocritical when we hear about the efforts of these same companies to derail legislation meant to promote and legalize their hard work.

I sometimes wonder if the oil and coal lobbies breathe the same air we do or even live on the same planet. We should not let short term profits endanger the long term health and well being of our children and grand children and the way of life that we all claim to defend and preserve.

It is not the existing way of life that we should preserve, at least not the one that promotes dirty energy and waste. It is a new way of life that we should be working for, one as equally good as the one we live now, a way of life that is benign to the environment and the planet, that uses clean energy and promotes efficiency and productivity.

Balance

Happy New Year and a Prosperous 2010

It has been almost a week since the start of 2010 and this is the first blog of the year. I am on holiday and hence a little lazy to write but then I was not sure what to write about. So Tuesday I sat down and wrote my first guest column (click here to read) at SimpliFlying the premier blog in Aviation Branding and Technology.

That actually brought a full circle back to July 2009 when I started this blog. Do I want this to be an aviation blog or a life related blog. Well I am not starting a new blog. This one will serve both.

I suppose it will be a matter of Balance.

Most problems we face are caused by the lack of checks and balances. This has been most evident living in the Gulf, where things are done at extremes. This does not mean it is a regional problem, the global banking system drove the world into recession when they elected to take things to the extreme. Individuals also have the tendency to lose their balance, between family and work and end up with shattered careers and families.

Having balance does not mean being indecisive or weak, it actually means getting one's priorities right.

May 2010 be a prosperous and successful life for all of us.

Reflections

End of the year, a time for reflection. A time of remembrance of loved ones, those who are with us or far away and those who have left us but their memory and love remains in our heart.

It is a time to take stock of our actions and/or inactions of the previous 12 months. A time for looking inward and really have a hard and honest look at our inner selves. Are we proud of what we have achieved? Are we proud of the person we have become? Can we look ourselves in the eye every morning and like what we see? No deception, no self delusion but the real us.

Time, to chart our path for the future or try to write down our wish lists. Resolutions are made only to be discarded in a few weeks. However deep down we know what we want or think we know the path to follow. A mixture of hope, apprehension, uncertainty, fear and confusion. And, if we are lucky we have someone special to share with.

Ahh, that special time of the year where hope and happiness coexist side by side with apprehension and sadness.

May the LORD bless you and all your family and friends and keep you healthy, wealthy and above all loving and happy.

The Replacement of Dubai

On a radio business talk show, a question was asked on which city will replace Dubai. Would it be Doha or Abu Dhabi? The answer was very diplomatic, but then I don't have to be diplomatic.

The short answer is not in a million years.

What about all that oil money? Precisely because of the oil wealth Dubai will not be replaced. What every one forgets, Dubai is not towers and malls or amusement parks. Dubai is an idea, a vision and a life style that became a reality not only with money but with the hard work and innovation of Emaraties and expatriates alike, who bought in the vision and dream.

Other cities will copy the parts of Dubai which are money related. They may have higher towers or bigger malls. What they will not have is the dream and the vision that produced the life style and quality of life that is cherished and makes Dubai what it is now, irreplaceable.

The New Norm

I heard this term "THE NEW NORM" on a business talk show and it refers to life after recovery from the current global recession. The New Norm what a scary reality, you mean life is not going to be the same a few months in the future?! duh.... what do you think?

A lot has changed, organisations and even countries were stripped of their civilised exterior, that thin veneer of civility to reveal an ugly and scared entity lurking below. Foreclosures by the thousands, not even willing to negotiate a payment plan, putting people off on the street, out of a job, the number of times I heard how we are a good neighbours, socially responsible and community oriented, all went down the drain, reacting like scared wounded animals.

Yes, after this recession there will be "The New Norm" but what kind of norm is it going to be?

Is it a civilised and benign norm or a more austere, harsh and insensitive norm. Will we have learnt our lessons? Will we forget and forgive? There is a big divide, a huge credibility and trust problem between people and institutions. Those who lost their life savings, retirement funds, their hard earned money after a life time of toiling, will they ever manage, their lives have been transformed permanently.

Life will continue, regardless of "The New Norm" but the scars for some of us will be too deep to heal quickly. Will they live in a bitter world? For some of us, the lucky ones who have weathered the storm with minimal damage, "The New Norm" might not be that much different from the old one, but we better learn from this life lesson.

I hope "The New Norm" will be a kinder and more humane norm but who knows.............

On the Balcony

As Summer inches on and friends and family leave (physically) on vacation.

I find myself lounging on the Balcony (well not literally). Social Media has provided us with a Balcony to sit back and watch life unfolding in front of us, giving us the option to just stay back or jump in and participate.

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others give us this luxury. Sometimes it is enough to just lazily monitor tweets, blogs and other entries watching life unfolding and yet allows us, at a whim or moment's notice, to jump in and participate. Allowing us to help out a friend with a problem, to discuss current affairs and breaking news or simply gossip and have a virtual visit sharing our latest news and activities with friends regardless of time and place.

Social Media will never and should not replace the intimacy and warmth of physical interaction with people. In a way we are lucky to have this opportunity and facility as long as we keep it in perspective.

Lounging on the Balcony watching the river of life lazily unfolding or examining the rapids as life boils over is a real luxury and privilege.

A sign of the times

Anniversaries

Anniversaries are milestones and vista points on the ever changing and bumpy road map of life. They are occasions to celebrate life (life together), to celebrate the joy, the love and yes sometimes the sad moments of life. It is time to celebrate with life partners, with family what makes one and with friends, the bonds that tie us together, the things we take for granted and then forget about to our own detriment. Anniversaries are the time to slow down and catch our breath as life overwhelms and pushes us around. They are times for us to look back and if we are lucky draw life lessons from our mistakes.
But, most importantly the time to affirm our love and commitments to our loved ones and look ahead to the future and resolve on how to continue together on this bumpy road we call life.

And in case anyone thinks I am a stick in the mud, yes have a great party to manifest our joy.

To those who are celebrating, Happy Anniversaries, may GOD bless us all.

Transitions

Life is about Transitions and how we handle and react to them. Looking back (with 20/20 hind sight) I don't think I was ready for any of the many transitions in my life whether personal or professional. Some I eased into like adulthood and others took me by storm like parenthood. Professionally, my transitions have been mixed but all great fun.
It is these transitions that shape, transform and polish/tarnish our characters, turns us into what we are now.
The most important transitions have been professional but they had the greatest impact on my personal life. These are the transitions that came with failures and successes, advancement and set back, that eventually crystallised my beliefs, core values and my passions in life. With them came the realisation that life (personal and professional) is all about People and not the technical aspects of a profession.
My passion for aviation transcends airplanes and the technical aspects of flying, into the people that make it happen, into the quality and safety aspects of the profession and industry, into the global human interaction that makes a 2 hours or a 15 hours flight a safe and great experience both in the air and on the ground and from its beginning until its end.

After all, life is all about people as we transition through it

Oussama's Take

Well finally I created my own blog, wow never thought it will happen, but we are here. It took a while to make up my mind on what will I blog about, and I am still not sure. I think a balance between the soft and personal (family and friends) and my other passion aviation and what is related to it.
Your comments and feedback will help me along the way I am still a novice at this and I will always learn a new thing. Most of all please feel at home and post your own blogs here.

After all life is about people