Source: Two books, (1) ‘My Story’ by Sheikh Mohammed and (2) ‘The Sheikh CEO: Lessons in Leadership’ by Dr. Yasar Jarrar. Grateful to my dear friend Anand Thorat for getting me these precious gifts all the way from Dubai!
Abstract
Several countries in the world have made giant strides during the last 50-odd years thereby transitioning from developing to more advanced economies and greatly improving their overall quality of life. The most notable one's are Singapore, United Arab Emirates (Dubai & Abu Dhabi more particularly), Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, China, and of course India.
Behind most of these giant strides, there are visionary policymakers and reformers like Lee Kuan Yew (1959–1990) of Singapore, Park Chung-hee (1961–1979) of South Korea, Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992) of China, Narendra Modiji, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1971–2004) of Abu Dhabi, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (2006 to date) of Dubai to name a few.
In this blog, let’s delve deeper and learn from ten super-interesting anecdotes from Sheikh Mohammed’s life and work, the visionary leader of Dubai who is credited for transforming Dubai into a global wonder.
We all recently got a glimpse of this charismatic & decisive leader in the Netflix series ‘IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack’. As the UAE Minister of Defense then, he had not only allowed IC 814 to stop for refueling and provided medical assistance to injured passengers, his intervention ensured the release of 27 hostages, mostly women, children, and the injured.
Anecdote 1: MARHABA DUBAI
“What’s good for business is good for Dubai.”…Sheikh Mohammed
In 2019, Jack Dorsey, the erstwhile CEO of Twitter, was doing a global tour and stopped at Dubai. Twitter was one of the latest entrants to the Dubai Internet City (DIC). He was given a unique stamp in his passport by the immigration officers. The stamp was a sticker with the Twitter logo and the Dubai Skyline. He enjoyed it so much that he tweeted a photo of his passport and UAE entry stamp, and wrote a greeting in the local language: “marhaba Dubai.” Customer centricity and attention to detail has been the hallmark of Sheikh Mohammed and of Dubai.
Doing business and breaking & creating new rules in the support of business has always been a part of Dubai’s DNA. For over a century, it has been considered a ‘City of Merchants’. While most other country’s first law/s would typically be related to governance or social issues, the very first law ever created in Dubai, in 1962, after it established its formal government was related to business. As a merchant city connecting the East and the West, the first law was for a commercial hub and it sought to reduce customs tariff on transit goods. This 1962 law allowed ships to submit all the paperwork a week before arriving via the designated private sector party called Gray Macenzie. The law was on a single page and straight to the point. Speeding up and facilitating business eventually became a hallmark of the Dubai Model.
Sheikh Mohammed was always clear that development and prosperity needed a strong economic base. He knew that the world favoured economic success over political dealings and, unlike many leaders in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in the world too, he decided to let the economy take the front seat, with politics coming second (or third).
For the past few decades, Dubai has been building the three T’s of its success story: transport, trade, and tourism. This model of three T’s required a sharp focus from Dubai leaders; a focus on building infrastructure of the three T’s even at a time when everyone else was focusing on politics and geopolitical investing. This strategic, long-term vision and contrarian approach to national investing became the foundation of the Dubai model.
Anecdote 2: BURJ KHALIFA
“What is the point of having average goals in life? Every goal should be a moonshot.”…Sheikh Mohammed
Are you aware that had Burj Khalifa, the tallest tower in the world, been built to its original design, it would have been just 90 floors?
When Mohammed Alabbar, Chairman of Emaar Properties, the company that built the skyscraper, visited Sheikh Mohammed and presented the original architecture renderings, he was excited to build the tallest skyscraper in Dubai. He needed a plot of land for the tower and had identified a prime building plot in the center of the city. He was proposing a land-for-shares swap to the Dubai Government.
Upon reviewing the drawings, Sheikh Mohammed asked about the height of the proposed tower and was told that it was 90 stories. Sheikh highlighted that while tall, 90 floors was not the tallest! Sheikh Mohammed pointed out that there are buildings around the world that have more than 100 floors, such as Taipei 101 (Taiwan), Petronas Towers (Malaysia), Sears/Willis Tower (Chicago). He challenged, “What is the point of Dubai doing something average?” He immediately disapproved the design and told Alabbar that he needed to do much better. The Sheikh’s direction to him was clear, “Review the tallest buildings in the world and then come back and see me.”
Alabbar returned a few weeks later with a new set of drawings. He produced a rendering of a silvery spire that looked something right out of a science-fiction movie. He told the Sheikh that the proposed building was 20% taller than anything else on the planet. Sheikh Mohammed smiled and said, “I think we can do the land swap. But go back and see if there is any way to make it even taller.”
Burj Khalifa was opened on 04-Jan-2010. The final version had 163 floors, 73 floors more than originally planned. At 828 meters (2,717 feet), it became the tallest structure in the world, surpassing all the previous records. Initially known as ‘Burj Dubai’, the tower was renamed ‘Burj Khalifa’ in honour of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the erstwhile President of the UAE and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, whose support was vital during Dubai's economic challenges around the time of the tower's completion.
The tower was designed by Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), a Chicago-based architectural firm with expertise in designing super-tall buildings. The tower's ‘Y-shaped’ design and its buttressed core system enabled it to rise to new heights while maintaining structural stability and minimizing wind forces.
Burj Khalifa is another manifestation of the Sheikh’s strongly-held principle, “Dubai will never settle for anything less than first place."
Anecdote 3: DUBAI AIRPORT
“I do not want an airport for Dubai. I want to transform Dubai into an airport for the world.”…Sheikh Mohammed
In 1959, when Sheikh Mohammed was about ten years old, he had visited the Heathrow Airport with his father, Sheikh Rashid, and was bewildered by the magnificence, the size, and the scale of what he saw. Sheikh Mohammed recollects his feelings as a young boy, “As the door of the plane opened, London airport looked like an ant colony. People were rushing to catch flights and queuing up to enter and leave. The airport itself was both amazing and frightening, a symbol of the powerful economy that drove it. It was enough to make you respect the country behind it. An airport is the first place of a country that any visitor encounters. It reflects the power, economy, and status of a country. It also reflects the wish of millions of people to visit the city. Would there ever be a day when our airport could be like London’s?”
Sheikh Rashid was visiting the British capital with a specific objective. He wanted to try persuading the Prime Minister of Britain at the time, Harrold Macmillan, to allow Dubai to build an airport. This was necessary because Dubai’s relationship with the British was governed by treaties and conventions, under which Dubai controlled their internal affairs, while the British assumed responsibility for their foreign affairs and defense. The trip ended in success. Dubai International Airport was officially inaugurated on September 30, 1960.
Later, Sheikh Rashid struggled to convince British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) to recognize the inauguration of Dubai Airport with regular flights to Mumbai (then Bombay). BOAC refused giving the excuse that their studies found scarce demand for seats on that route. Sheikh Rashid offered, “Make the link between Dubai and Bombay and I shall cover the cost of any vacant seats on the flights.” BOAC agreed. There was no looking back ever since.
With airline after other adding flights to and from Dubai, 15 operators were now linking Dubai to 42 destinations across the Middle East and Europe. By the late 1970s, the success of these early initiatives had shaped a clear overall vision in Sheikh Mohammed’s mind. One evening, he was talking to his father and told him that they needed to develop their aviation sector and make it bigger, invest differently in their airport, and begin marketing Dubai in a new way. Two days later, Sheikh Mohammed presented his father a strategy named ‘Destination Dubai’. It did not involve merely developing the airport, but the whole city as a destination. He spoke about expanding the airport, about open skies policy to encourage airlines to service Dubai, building new hotels, arranging major events, as well as marketing campaigns to promote the city. From that day, Sheikh Mohammed was appointed to take charge of all the issues related to trade, tourism, marketing, and the development of aviation in Dubai.
In the 1990s, Sheikh Mohammed took a prominent London-based Arab journalist for a drive to show him around Dubai. The first stop was Palm Jumeirah. The Sheikh told him that main focus of this mega-project was human development, and not infrastructure. He then stopped at the airport to show the major expansion project which was to build the capacity of 130 million passengers per year. The journalist was amazed by the enormity of the plan and asked the Sheikh what he was trying to achieve. He questioned as to how was Dubai going to get double the number of passengers as Heathrow, which had a capacity of 60 million passengers. The Sheikh replied, “You are asking about today and I am talking about 2020 and beyond.”
Dubai International Airport (DXB) surpassed London Heathrow Airport in terms of international passenger traffic in 2014. DXB handled 70.5 million international passengers, overtaking London Heathrow, which saw 68.1 million international passengers that year. In Jan-2015, DXB was officially announced the world’s busiest airport for international passengers in 2014, overtaking Heathrow, which had held the top spot for several years. Since then, DXB has maintained its position as one of the busiest airports for international traffic.
Could the 10-year old have imagined this outcome? Or did he actually J? After all, as Robin Sharma quotes, "Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.”
Anecdote 4: EMIRATES AIRLINES
“Opportunities are made. They do not just lie around waiting for someone to grab them.”…Sheikh Mohammed
During the late 1970s, Dubai launched their open skies policy for Dubai Airport in order to attract more airline companies. They were clear that any company in the world has the right to book any number of slots at Dubai Airport. Their objective for adopting an open skies policy was to enhance their competitiveness and open up new sectors for their economy. However this didn’t bode well with some airlines that enjoyed protection from their host countries.
Gulf Air, supported by some of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, was operating several regional flights to Dubai. They began to worry that they were merely feeding passengers to international competitors for more lucrative long-haul flights. In 1983, there was a conflict between Gulf Air and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) regarding landing rights. This caused Gulf Air to put pressure on a number of operators in the Gulf to stop supporting PIA.
The problems involving Gulf Air in Dubai Airport increased, until the airline blatantly demanded that Dubai should suspend their open skies policy in order to protect their share of the market. They warned that Dubai government had a few weeks to submit to their teams, or they would withdraw from Dubai, which apparently meant that they would lose 70% of the airport’s traffic. The company thought it had the upper hand in this situation, and that it had the strength to force Dubai to cave in to its ultimatum.
During a series of extremely tense meetings, Sheikh Mohammed repeated that their open skies policy was not negotiable, and explained to them over and over that competition is necessary and at the core of their approach. They reached a standoff and Gulf Air responded by reducing its flights to Dubai.
Sheikh Mohammed had always dreamt of an airline for Dubai. The airline would not be run by the government, but privately, unlike the airlines of all other Arab countries. The airline would operate in line with private sector systems and would have total financial independence and sustainability. The Sheikh decided to name it Emirates Airline and decided that that it would have the flag of UAE on the tail of the aircraft. Emirates Airlines started by leasing two aircrafts from PIA and started re-equipping them in line with the new airline’s brand service offering. On 25-Oct-1985, Emirates Airline’s flew its first flight from Dubai to Karachi.
Today, Emirates Airlines has won many international awards as the best carrier and it has a long and profitable history spanning over 30 years. As of FY 2023-24, Emirates Airlines reported record revenue of USD 33 billion, with record profits of USD 4.7 billion. Barring the year of the pandemic (FY 2020-21), it has posted profit every single year since being founded in 1987. It operates a fleet of approximately 260 aircraft and employs over 112,000 employees.
As Sheikh Mohammed reminisces, “Sometimes companies destroy themselves through fear of competition, leading to the creation of a competitor that will go on to eliminate them.”
Anecdote 5: THE PALM JUMEIRAH
“It still astounds me when I dwell on the achievement. We created a USD 25 billion asset for our city essentially by piling a billion tonnes of sand and rock on the sea floor.”…Sheikh Mohammed
In the early 2000s, Dubai had unleashed a real sector boom that was second to none in the region. At one point, the city became known as the ‘Crane Capital of the World’, with 24% of the world’s 125,000 construction cranes operating in Dubai in 2006.
In the late 1990s, Dubai’s growth had been happening at such a rapid pace that the emirate was running out of prime coastline. Instead of accepting a natural limitation, Sheikh Mohammed decided to expand Dubai’s coastline, and he set up a team to investigate the possibility of doing so. Dubai decided to build an archipelago by dredging sand up from the sea floor. Not only was it to increase Dubai’s coastline, it would also go on to create the world’s largest man-made island. This project was named The Palm Jumeirah.
Construction commenced in 2001, overseen by state-owned developer Nakheel, and basic infrastructure was completed in 2004. More than 100 million cubic meters of sand and rock were used to create the island. Unlike traditional methods, it employed a technique called ‘rainbowing’ to spray sand for land reclamation. The Palm Jumeirah covers an area of about 5.72 square kilometers and extends 5 kilometers into the Arabian Gulf.
The Palm Jumeirah was a huge success giving Dubai 78 kilometers of new shoreline, of which 62 kilometers is beachfront. The island is designed in the shape of a palm tree, with a trunk, 17 fronds, and a crescent-shaped breakwater. Buyers from 75 countries now own properties on The Palm. Palm Jumeirah is home to over 30 hotels and resorts, Atlantis-The Palm being the flagship resort.
Palm Jumeirah is a marvel of modern engineering and architecture, representing the innovative spirit of Dubai. It's a blend of luxury, lifestyle, and architectural grandeur, making it one of the most famous artificial islands in the world. It is one of the three planned Palm Islands and the first to be completed, along with Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira (which are still under development).
Encouraged by this success, Dubai embarked on one of Dubai’s boldest real estate ventures called The World Islands. Launched in 2003, it is an ambitious artificial archipelago project located off the coast of Dubai. It consists of a collection of man-made islands that, when viewed from above, resemble a world map, with each island representing a country or region.
As of 2023, only a few islands have been developed or are under construction. Notable developments include the Lebanon Island, which is a leisure destination with a beach club, and The Heart of Europe, a high-end luxury resort project that includes replicas of European landmarks and cities. The original vision remains only partially realized owing to numerous challenges, including economic setbacks and environmental criticism.
Anecdote 6: FREE ZONES
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”…Buckminster Fuller (a well known inventor)
In the 1980s, the UAE had some serious challenges which hampered the ease of doing business. Most companies in the UAE needed to have a local partner owning a share of at least 51%, recruitment of foreign employees was restricted by various labour laws, and the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) infrastructure was limited. The Sheikh knew that the only way to succeed was to put the customer at the center and overcome these barriers.
Sheikh Mohammed was aware that you cannot solve a problem with the same minds and resources that created it. He understood that it is much easier to change a whole system when one demonstrated success comes from outside the system and creates pressure for change, instead of debating and negotiating change from within where resistance to change from incumbents would always remain high. A better and more effective alternative was to build a new system, outside the box, and create pressure from the outside-in.
The concept of free zones isn’t Dubai’s invention. Free Zones rely on the realization that instead of spending decades trying to improve the overall business environment and change economy and labour & market regulations, it is easier to setup a zone that had the best regulations for doing business right from day one.
Dubai fully leveraged the concept of free zones. Their very first experiment with this concept was the Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza) in 1985. Jafza had made a modest beginning by opening doors to 19 companies in 1985. As of 2024, it is home to over 10,000 companies supporting over 130,000 jobs. This makes it one of the largest free trade zones in the world, contributing significantly to Dubai’s economy. Sheikh Mohammed clearly saw that this model can be successfully replicated in other sectors too.
By the year 1999, the global internet boom was at its peak. While the bubble did burst in the early 2000s, there was no doubt in the mind of a visionary leader like Sheikh Mohammed that the future was going to be technology driven. He decided to create a technology cluster in Dubai.
Instead of relying on studies, reports, and/or consultants, the Sheikh sent members of his team to hold private conversations with top executives from the world’s leading technology companies and ask them what they wished to see offered in Dubai that would encourage them to relocate to the emirate. He believed in attracting business, capital, and talent by directly asking them what they want and design the offering around that. Dubai Internet City (DIC) was set up in the year 2000. Today, it houses over 7000 companies.
A year after the DIC, Dubai Media City (DMC) was inaugurated. Soon after, Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC) and Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) were created in 2002 and 2004 respectively. This was followed by the establishment of the Dubai International Academic City (DIAC) in 2007.
Dubai has over 30 free zones today, each specializing in different sectors to foster business growth and attract foreign investment. Each free zone offers benefits like tax exemptions, 100% foreign ownership, and simplified business regulations, making them highly attractive for companies worldwide.
Anecdote 7: DESTINATION DUBAI
“Do not dream of small starts; dream of big finishes.” …Sheikh Mohammed
In the early 1980s, on the sidelines of one of the GCC meetings, GCC ministers were discussing the headline crises and challenges. Sheikh Mohammed, who was in his mid-thirties and the youngest person in the meeting, was bored of the seamlessly endless political talk. He made a suggestion, “Why don’t we try to develop the region, especially Dubai, as a tourist destination to attract people from all over the world?”
All of them turned to look in Sheikh Mohammed’s direction. Silence prevailed for a few seconds, before one of the older foreign affairs ministers burst out laughing. He said, “What will tourists find in Dubai? Who is going to come and visit a desert?” Then the rest joined in his laughter.
He put on an ‘expert’ voice and continued, “Sheikh Mohammed, what is the cultural heritage that the tourists will see? What are the sites that they will visit? Sands behind them, the sea in front of them, and the sun above their heads?” Sheikh Mohammed decided against arguing as he even refused to hear the details of his suggestion.
Shortly after this discussion, Sheikh Mohammed was driving his car on a hot August day in Dubai. He saw a foreign family walking on the beach around noon. He offered them water and then asked as to what they were doing in Dubai? They replied, “We are tourists. We have come from Germany looking for the sun.”
Their answer confirmed what the Sheikh had long believed. He was now convinced that they were sitting on tourist gold: sun, sea, and white sands. They could offer a safe and secure environment with glorious attractions, luxurious hotels, and superb services.
Dubai launched tourism campaigns which attracted millions of visitors. Sheikh Mohammed knew that the key to strengthening their tourism sector was their airport and that more airlines had to be encouraged to use it. Their open skies policy helped them attract more airlines. They invested heavily in order to attract tourists by building visitor and entertainment facilities, huge malls, state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure.
Many of their friends asked who they were building it for, as they didn’t have many tourists. Sheikh Mohammed gave a common response, “Build it and they will come.”
Dubai welcomed 14.36 million overnight international visitors in 2022 and aimed for over 16 million in 2023, reflecting a strong post-pandemic recovery. India is the largest source market contributing about 2.1 million visitors. Dubai aims to attract 25 million tourists by 2025.
Tourism contributes 11.6% to Dubai’s GDP (approximately USD 30 billion) and supports around 600,000 jobs, accounting for about 8-10% of total employment in Dubai.
Dubai has over 800 hotels with 148,000+ rooms. It has over 100 skyscrapers that exceed 180 meters (590 feet), including the Burj Khalifa and Marina towers. Serving over 240 destinations in more than 90 countries, Dubai International Airport retained its title in 2023 too as the busiest international airport handling 66.1 million passengers.
Anecdote 8: SELECTIVE DISADVANTAGE
“Understanding your selective disadvantage has a critical role to play in building a nation’s competitiveness.”
During the 19th and the early 20th centuries, the pearling industry thrived in the Arabian Gulf’s relatively calm seas, providing both income and employment. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were more than 1200 pearling boats operating out of the Trucial States (now called ‘United Arab Emirates’).
The industry peaked shortly before the market was undermined by the cultivation of pearls in the 1920s. The First World War had a severe impact on the pearling industry, but it was the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s, coupled with the Japanese invention of the cultured pearl, that all but destroyed it. The industry eventually faded away shortly after the Second World War, when the newly independent Government of India imposed heavy taxation on pearls imported from the Gulf. The decline of the pearl industry ushered in a period of economic hardship and poverty.
This boom and bust, good fortune and subsequent times of hardship, became ingrained in the leadership’s mindset, and they recognized that to depend on any one sector was a selective disadvantage. But understanding this dynamic turned it into a competitive edge.
In 1966, oil was discovered in Dubai. However, although the UAE ranks very high in the world on oil reserves and natural gas deposits, Dubai’s share comprises of only a small fraction of the UAE’s total. The leadership in Dubai was clear that Dubai had little oil and it is running out. Identifying during the good times that they had a selective disadvantage, they were clear that they needed a diversified economy and not a single source of income. Since early 1990s, Sheikh Mohammed repeatedly warned that Dubai would run out of oil and that the only way forward is economic diversification.
The ability to recognize a selective disadvantage has proved a credit to various successful models like Singapore and Japan. Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore, has always acknowledged that Singapore is a price taker not a price maker. Therefore, he was clear that Singapore needed to be agile, move fast, react to global trends, and never be complacent. Likewise, Japan’s clarion call following the Second World War was, “We are an island nation with no natural resources.” This prompted one of the most spectacular industrial revolutions in the world.
Having diversified their economy over the decades to focus on sectors such as tourism, finance, real estate, and trade, Dubai has successfully reduced their dependence on oil revenues from 50% of their GDP in 1985 to just 1% of GDP in the current year.
Anecdote 9: THREE HORSES IN THE RACE
“Competition always makes you stronger and better. Competition is feared only by the weak.”…Sheikh Mohammed
The Sheikh would always have multiple people competing to deliver the same project or studying the same policy, and even various state-owned companies working on similar mandates. A glaring manifestation of this philosophy in practice was Dubai’s real estate sector.
In its formative years, Emaar quickly grew into a giant becoming the fourth-largest ‘Arab Titan’ on the Dow Jones Arabia Titans Index and ranked 462nd in the global rankings by the London-based Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) with an estimated value of over USD 20 billion. Emaar was so successful so quickly that Sheikh Mohammed decided it needed some competition to hedge against the possibility of Emaar growing into a monopoly, or even worse grow complacent. Two more state-owned firms, Dubai Holdings and Nakheel, were launched. Dubai’s adoption of ‘Open Skies’ policy and their adherence to this policy despite umpteen challenges is clear evidence of Sheikh’s unwavering belief that competition is the key to success.
Convinced of the merit of this approach, Sheikh Mohammed often appoints multiple firms to conduct the same work or multiple internal teams to work on the same project. Such an approach helps mitigate the risks of putting all eggs in one basket. It also divides the knowledge of sensitive issues such that no one could exert disproportionate influence on any outcome. No one would know which horse is winning, which project has been approved, or which policy has been adopted. In most cases, there would not be one winner. The outcome would usually be a combination of the best ideas and Sheikh Mohammed would never make people feel like winners or losers. He would just remind the teams they should always do their best because there are others who are running equally as fast.
This approach is similar to multiple firms supplying electricity to Mumbai. The city's power distribution network is divided among different utility providers, ensuring competition and reliability. The major electricity suppliers in Mumbai are Tata Power, Adani Electricity Mumbai Limited (AEML), Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), and MSEB. Consumers in certain areas can choose their electricity provider due to competition between these companies, especially between Adani Electricity and Tata Power.
Such an 'open access' system is not available for Pune, Nagpur, Nasik etc where the electricity is supplied by MSEB alone. No wonder we suffer from a lot more power outages than Mumbai given the multiple electricity distribution companies.
Anecdote 10: THE CUSTOMER IS KING
"Life had taught me that there is only one measure for true achievement and authentic leadership: the results that people see in their daily lives, not speeches and plans."…Sheikh Mohammed
The Sheikh strongly believes that their role as a government is to make a real, positive impact on people’s lives. His real driver and motivation is all about serving the people and improve their wellbeing. That is what he gets the most excited about.
In the early days of government modernization in Dubai, this concept became central to the Sheikh. He wanted to make it clear to all government leaders and staff that there is only one measure of success: customer satisfaction.
Between 1997 and 2000, the term itself was not even accepted in the government sector. The culture was that of any bureaucratic government, which worked with a focus on their policies and procedures. They considered citizens merely as ‘beneficiaries’ of the services they provided. Beneficiaries are not the same as customers; they are recipients of services that governments can deliver on their own terms. Beneficiaries should be grateful, not satisfied. Beneficiaries need to follow the rules & procedures and not demand better services nor give feedback.
The Sheikh took it upon himself to change this culture, and he launched the Dubai Government Customer Satisfaction Survey based on the four points of access, quality, time, and general satisfaction. Something out of a private sector handbook, it should have been fairly easy to administer. He wanted to ask the people living and working in Dubai what they thought about the services the government offers, and he wanted them to give feedback on service accessibility, quality, timeliness, and the overall feel and attitude of service delivery.
However, as was expected, many government departments resisted the idea, claiming that they do not have ‘customers’. They were doing government work which couldn’t simply be measured by how good their services were. Some departments, like the police, even spoke out publicly to question how a police station could be measured by the satisfaction of criminals and speeding drivers. Surely their services would never get a good rating.
Fast forward to 2013, over a decade later, this resistance got transformed into pride, buy-in, and a constant search for improvement. The then Chief of Dubai Police proudly publicized on Twitter that Dubai Police had achieved 90.2% customer satisfaction. This transformation was not only in the police, but across departments.
The Sheikh has always believed that competition and recognition are the two major motivators and key management levers to change behaviours. He therefore launched an annual awards ceremony to recognize the best performers, with a big celebration on stage and a cash prize to the teams involved. During the event, while those who achieved top ranks were honoured, the Sheikh decided to be fully transparent and announced every department’s ranking, starting from the bottom of the list!
Reading the list from the bottom up was an unbelievably interesting too. While the list is read aloud from bottom to top in an auditorium of more than 500 people, with the full line-up of government department heads sitting in the front row, live on television, the leaders feel the heat as the Sheikh reads the list one by one. With each department name, the television cameras would zoom in on the leader’s face. If there was ever a message about how important the customer is to the Sheikh that was it.
The main thrust of these actions was to motivate these leaders to move ahead and improve their department’s performance or move out of way. In 2016, this thinking was institutionalized by leveraging technology. The UAE launched the Happiness Meter across all the government departments and services. This meter measures the public’s happiness and satisfaction in government services on a daily basis.
The Sheikh has often said that while GDP is a good indicator of a society’s economic development, it only gives a rough indication. It doesn’t really reflect the standard of living. It is necessary, but insufficient, to measure GDP. He says, “I want my country to be number one, not in the region, but in the world. Number one in everything: higher education, health, housing. I want to give my people the highest standard of living.”
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