So you are in the Middle East and you need professional training? Where do you start, it is a question I have asked myself. When I first arrived in the GCC region I was highly employable being a specialist in my field, what I needed was a structured training program that would support me as I progressed professionally in my career. Although I had all of the domain knowledge in software development I was well aware that to move up the ranks in business I was going to need to be much more valuable than my professional accreditations alone. Over a period of a year being based in Dubai and flying through the Middle East I regimented myself to ensure I leant as much as possible about business, people and process as I could. This took many forms, I am not much of a book reader, traveling a lot you can’t take all of the books around with you as it makes that suitcase arm ache just a little bit more. I got into the habit of downloading professional training books onto my IPOD, I listened to four to five books a week to ensure I was trained on the Middle East region. Everything from Arabic history, culture, language and of course business training was on my delectable menu of audio knowledge safely packed into my top pocket for revision on flights, in the car and at night. To add to this I found a business training company in Dubai and undertook a number of training courses, subjects that I had an inkling that I should probably know about, but didn’t quite know why. It is only when you attend these structured training courses in the Middle East region that you start to join the dots. I wanted leadership training, and I had always taken the approach that good leaders (at least in the military sense) understand the job of their soldiers. I attended finance training, NLP training and PR training during these structured training courses, I even managed to bring the training company into the business I was running at the time to deliver structured sales training. The result were very good, by understanding different areas of the business I could converse with people in different roles with at least a basic background in their area of discipline, as a result I was promoted to run my company in the Middle East. I was now responsible for the business, this is what I had wanted for me it was a golden ticket to learn and immerse myself in experience. I leant most from other people, people in my own organization often had amazing gems of wisdom and insight tucked away, if I had not have received the soft skills and communication training I had taken in the classroom I doubt that I would have even talked to some of these people in my normal day to day role. Every new conversation I looked at as an opportunity to learn, it worked the business was flourishing and we were winning major contracts. Why were we winning so many major contracts? It’s a fact of life that intelligent and articulate interesting people will generally be very interested in learning, during my structured classroom sessions I was meeting some very serious business people, putting the soft skills I had learnt into action I was leaning more and more about the Middle East, how companies did business and what motivated people. As a result the training courses that I attended paid me returns many times over as I had managed through training to build a network of senior level business professionals throughout the Middle East region. When I found myself in Kuwait I was now invited to stay with my new friends, I became friends with their friends thus expanding my network and contact base, not to mention has a much better time than I ever would have if I had sat in a hotel room and focused on business calls. In Saudi I stayed in a Bedouin village and went dune basing with an 80 year old man that drove like a demon! in Oman after winning a contract with the local telecommunications company I went diving with the company CTO that had been on a project management training course with me. For these and many other great experiences I have my training leaders in various companies to be thankful to. So in summary if you want to get ahead in business in the Middle East there are a number of options, business networks are good but the downside is that during these meetings people normally have an agenda, win and secure business and that’s it. The social scene was good, although the Middle East had a much smaller community feel to it in those days I managed to make good contacts and friends that endure to this day. In terms of my professional development, what I would consider my most “enlightened moment” was to enroll on a number of professional training courses, the quality of the people I had met, without an agenda apart from wishing to learn and gain knowledge was amazing. We shared so many business experiences, ideas, tips and thoughts that my investment in training in the Middle East certainly paid the highest return on my time and money, not to mention being a completely enjoyable experience. Across the GCC and the wider Middle East region there are a number of training companies that you can get a wide variety of courses from. Asking around for advice is always a good step. If you are interested to understand what types of training courses and companies there are available following the links on this page will also assist you in your endeavor. If this nugget of information was helpful to you please feel free to share it, email it, blog it or link it to whichever social network you may be a member of. If you do undertake training in the Middle East I will be very interested to get feedback from you as well. Published by a Meirc Training & Consulting participant
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So you are in the Middle East and you need professional training? Where do you start, it is a question I have asked myself. When I first arrived in the GCC region I was highly employable being a specialist in my field, what I needed was a structured training program that would support me as I progressed professionally in my career.
Ben Hubert is author of this article on Training Dubai. Find more information about UAE Training here.
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