Problem solver at the cross roads of middle age life! Husband, Father, Technologist , Reader and who knows what else.

— Alaa El Nawawy

How do we kill the fear ?

December 12, 2022

What if we keep missing on all those dreams because of fear? Is it actually fear of failure, or fear of change, or is it actually a fear of not finding what you thought to be there? What about the fear of missing the opportunity or the fear of realizing that an opportunity was not even there and only existed in your imagination? Is it a leap of faith that a person takes, or is it a deliberate process of evaluating the pros and cons follow by a leap of faith.

The grass is not always greener on the other side, but if you ask me the emphasis here is on “always”. I think we need to realize the possibilities exist in all scenarios, but no matter what it is a tradeoff. The have it all scenario does not exist in real life.

Mediocrity

May 31, 2022

Alaa

Leadership

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If you look up the word mediocre you will probably end up with something like average quality. I prefer a broader explanation, for me mediocrity is someone with average skills and zero talent. You will get bby in life meeting mediocre people almost in every organization, family, school everywhere you look. In the most successful companies and the absolute failing ones to.

The surprise will come when you find those people in leadership positions, with decision making power and the ability to alter the course of life for people and organizations, with such limited capabilities and no talent at all, the writing is on the wall on what will happen next.

You will stop to question your evaluation of such individuals maybe they are not, which is to be fair a possible scenario none of us are immune to mistakes but let’s for the sake of argument assume that there has been a consensus on a certain individual’s mediocrity. Why are they in the place they are in? From my standpoint answer is pretty simple. Let’s go back to the definition I laid out up front. The first part said “Average Skills” exactly as the word implies there will be spikes above the average every now and then, there will be spikes below the average and it really depends on where you catch that person.

If is very reasonable to assume that a mediocre individual managed to display a spike of above average skills at the right time or possibly in front of the right people resulting in a fake realization that they are capable of performing in that manner all the time, and that’s all it takes really, if you are the at the right place in the right time, good things are bound to happen even to mediocre people.

Thinking deeply into this you can easily fall into a trap of thinking that this a discriminatory way of looking at people, but if you dig deeper into your thinking, you will realize that mediocre people by themselves are not the issue, the issue is leaders who pick mediocre individuals to leadership positions, most probably because they remind them of themselves!

Leadership My Style…

December 4, 2021

Alaa el Nawawy

Leadership

In recent weeks I got the opportunity to discuss my leadership style it’s been a controversial topic discussed many times and I think over the years I have built a style that is built on three main pillars. Let me take the opportunity to put down those principles in writing it helps me usually grasp my ideas in a better format and also as a reminder to look back at this blog post to discuss and analyze am I really applying them in a life or not.

The 3 pillars for me are as follows :

1. Agree on the objective : A lot of leaders spend time setting objectives for their team members that align to the objectives and mission of the team, but in hindsight forget to make sure that the team is actually aligned to the mission and objective of the team as a whole. Where is point A and which point B are we heading to is in many cases overlooked. While setting individual objectives is definitely very important but that’s a completely different topic than setting team objective and aligning to it. One must not fall prey to confusing setting the objective with setting the path by which we will reach that objective , that is what you leave to each individual team member to figure on their own.

2. Feedback : You get astonished at the amount of people who lose their jobs or fail at it just because their leaders fall short in giving them feedback. There is no merit in watching your team member hit the wall multiple times without stepping in to discuss approach and coach them on their own approach. 6 months or even annual performance review cycles is a very flawed approach. Continuous check-ins both deepen the relationship with team members and insures you are actually setting up a person for success rather than waiting to tell them I have told you so.

3. Moonshots : Its often overlooked by leaders to understand why their team members are doing this job. Apart from the obvious reasons of earning a living , every individual in my mind chose their job initially because they found something they are passionate about in it. The daily ramblings of the job often push people away from their passion to the point that they forget. As a leader you must instill in your team a single project, task or objective that consumes around 10% of their time that is in direct connection with their passion, even if it is not in direct relationship with their day to day tasks. Without a reason to show up everyday with the same enthusiasm , one day they will just lose the reason to show up and things go downward from there

Get used to rethinking your style and adapting , who knows maybe in a few years from now my 3 pillars will change , till then we continue to pursuit what’s best given what we know at the time.

Cyber Security ….We are All Responsible !

September 6, 2020

Alaa el Nawawy

Cyber Security

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In a recent article published by the World Economic Forum, it categorized the great disruptions that the world would face as and I quote “Pandemics, Cyber-attacks and environment tipping points”. (link to article at the bottom)

The reality put forward by Covid-19 when it comes to tacking a global health crisis is that the collective effort of a society is as important as the individual efforts of people or organizations and maybe in some cases even more important. Putting Cyber-attacks into the same bracket as pandemics and environmental tipping point does not make it difficult to realize the analogy and the reality that we need to start tackling cyber security in similar fashion.

It is adamant to realize that a cyber security breach of an organization that is offering products or services be that a financial institution, e-commerce platform , healthcare provider or others has the potential to spread to other organizations through the fact that many organizations rely on each other’s services to offer a complete user journey or experience through API’s etc , but the scenario that worries me more , is what a follow on cyber-attack could do to the individuals who consume those products and services.

Exposing customer credentials from any service provider, can trigger attempts to leverage those credentials to access regular individual’s social media accounts, other financial institutions they may be using, private emails or even devices. While the cost of cyber breach to organizations is always tied to a monetary value in terms of either direct financial loss, loss of potential revenue or brand reputation, yet the impact on human life in the aftermath of regular individuals being victims of a mass scale cyber-attack is in my opinion unquantifiable.

Similar to the global response to Covid-19, its time the world realizes the need for coordinated cyber security measures to be taken across all organizations offering services to consumers online. Organizations need to realize the extent of impact to human wellbeing from negligence on applying proper cyber security practices on their side, repercussions are no longer limited to their own organization. Regulators, governments and the cyber security community needs to drive every organization offering services online to a minimum state of cyber security controls, those controls need to take the same priority or even higher as imposing taxes, renewing business licenses and should be subject to an audit.

The broader community specially organizations which have an aim of getting as much people connected to the internet specifically social media companies have an obligation to support the spread of proper cyber security practices exactly like they made easy access to Covid-19 information. Internet usage continues to grow, and companies continue to find new avenues to leverage the internet to offer services to consumers, they also have an obligation to inform and educate the average user on proper ways to protect themselves online….

…..In short it’s time for a collective response to cyber security issues, organizations do not just have a responsibility towards their own shareholders and customers, but to the wider societies they operate in.

But will the world really change ? ..

March 30, 2020

Alaa el Nawawy

Life

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With everybody settling into extended weeks of quarantine , thoughts about a world post Covid-19 continue to evolve , with thoughts ranging from new learning experiences , a re-structured payment hierarchy that rewards jobs we realized we need most to people even juggling thoughts about the end of capitalism as we know it today.

I tried to gather my thoughts about this unprecedented time, after all it’s a time unlike any we have lived before nor will we god willing ever live this again.

To start with there is no other that the topic dearest to my heart Tech.

Technology: Time and again technology has come to our rescue enabling millions of people around the globe to continue learning, communicating and working. Jobs, meetings and tasks in industries that were for long deemed undoable down the wire turned out to work just fine. Looking at the cost that could have been avoided over the last 10 years at least if the same means which have been available for that period of time had been leveraged in the same manner and the impact this would have had on profitability, environment and well-being of people.

So, what’s next in that space, more of predictions because everybody does that don’t, they:

E-learning will definitely come out as a big winner, and I mean it here in the context of e-learning only and first not just for post graduate studies but all the way down to schools, e-learning only schools are a must ,I can almost see this happen in the next few months .
Remote first work ethic, organizations specially in industries outside the tech space will embark on journeys to explore how tech can help them improve their bottom line, after all it worked during a time of crisis, so why not during normal times. Additionally, I do not feel we have realized the full potential of technology in that space beyond the ability to communicate, the need to extend to the ability to execute will drive a lot of change in that space.
E-commerce, not that it needed any further boost than it did, but brick and mortar trading I think has taken the final knockout blow with Covid-19. Entire investment plans will be re-visited.
Health Care tech, for the lack of a better word, for years Fintech has been the hot topic, no more, I think. VC’s, investors and corporates will embark on a journey of cash splashing on everything health care related that enables faster access to health care, better and speedier testing, old school vaccine development will get an overhaul, at the same time.

Capitalism ..think again. A lot of the thoughts I am reading around the demise of capitalism for me do not even qualify for wishful thinking. I am convinced that if it wasn’t for the overtake of capitalism in the past 40 years or so, none of what we have today could have been possible. All the tools at hand that we are using to fight Covid-19, or enable our lives to continue during this time would not have been possible if it wasn’t for capitalism.

Yet the argument about how the system has suppressed the most needing, crippled people and nations with debt is strong and valid. However not strong enough to compel a full system breakdown. I think changes in that space can be summarized in the following:

Regulation: Governments will become a bit more heavy handed in regulation of industries they have continuously overlooked, specifically in light of Covod-19 and the realization that free market does not always step up to expectations at times of crisis, healthcare, insurance, consumables are targets
Earnings: Triggered mainly by the realization that people who we most need to live deserve a lot more pay than people who entertain us, although astonishing that it took a global pandemic to reach that realization. Yet I fear the euphoria of this will be short lived if not capitalized on quickly
Immigration: The shortage of skills or rather the imbalance of it will trigger a new wave of immigration, although I believe it will be a much focused and organized one.

Society …or people in general, their emotions, habits and thoughts about their lifestyle and its sustainability will jump high into people’s minds. I do not think within my generation at least that a threat to life its continuity and our abilities to sustain it have ever been tested, a few thoughts there would be:

Savings: As soon as the dust settles, the need for new safe nets would emerge, safe nets that do not involve stocks or bond, but more innovative accessible to the masses investment forms to enable people to sustain life at times like this.
Healthcare: It would no longer be a need, the big winners out of this will be insurance companies who will be able to develop new more economical models that enables a wide spectrum of people to access healthcare in a more affordable manner
Education: Newer generations on the doorsteps of undergraduate studies would rethink their prospects, all lists that currently exist of the jobs needed for the future would be revisited.

Ironically the society and human aspects of the post Covid-19 world will be the most challenging, for the simple reason that we tend to forget. Getting the masses to adhere to new principles and way of life has been a challenge at the time of the crisis itself through all the resistance seen worldwide to the simple directive of staying at home, so embarking on a full lifestyle change post the Covid-19 era will be even more challenging.