The summery of my Experience!

What am going to write here is the accumulative personal experience of about 25 years in the field of Telecommunications, Technology, Quality and Project Management

My journey has been long since graduation. I started with one of the best and most prominent telecoms operators in the whole world, and now after all these years I am still working for the same company which took me in as a graduate trainee and made me who I am today

I learned a lot, Etisalat is a great place to work and learn, you are exposed to the latest advancements in technology and you always work with the finest partners, suppliers & vendors!

My personal endeavor with Etisalat started as a field Engineer/Technician, and the reason I mentioned Technician is due to the fact that during my first 2 years most of my job was in the field, and to be frack this was probably the most exiting time of my career! It was the period I learned tremendously about the amazing technology of mobile networks. It gave me a sense of the time needed to perform different technical task, I also learned about quality installations and troubleshooting!

My career also included two years work in Etisalat Egypt, those also were amazing times, where I learned a lot from establishing a giant operator like Etisalat in Egypt. From Admin, HR and legal tasks to fully launching 3G mobile operations in the whole country with more than 1000 base stations and core network elements

And since then, I was exposed to lots of activities from site sharing agreements with other operators, to quality assurance and international certifications.

My journey with Etisalat also included taking more than 200 specialized and general trainings which added tremendously to my capabilities and skills.

After this brief introduction I want to share with you the top 10 things I learned, these – I believe – are valid for any kind of business or project

A Happy Employee is a Productive Employee

“Happiness here symbolizes a good and satisfactory salary, if your staff are not getting paid enough, they won’t be happy and will always look for ways to increase their income, this could be by looking for other opportunities, doing malicious acts, or not caring about the output they are supposed to do”

Job Titles are free but they can make a large difference

“This is somewhat a controversial point. I have noticed that some staff consider this a key to their happiness even more than the pay they get, it gives them the social status satisfaction which they look for. It is very important for them to feel important!”

Competition between staff increases the work output in a big way (GAMEFICATION)

“This point is key in my opinion; specially in the field where you need physical output from the staff. I remember in the old days, we did competitions between the field teams, to see which team can do more installations per day, and at the end of the day we all bragged about the amount of work each team did. We were pushing our limits to achieve more that others just to have the satisfaction of winning”

Boarders between top management and staff are healthy

“Contrary to the belief that open dialogue across the company will create more output. A company is like an army, you should respect positions. If someone is not afraid, he will take his mistakes lightly. I remember that on one occasion my team was working in a remote location in one of the islands, after they completed the commissioning of the mobile site, they encountered an error in one small component, the site was functional and operational apart from one of its many radio elements, it was not a big deal, I had to pull all the strings to have the malfunctional component delivered to the team in the middle of the night, the same day, I was banned from attending a company celebration as our Managing Director said, if the issue is not resolved the responsible team in not allowed to attend the celebration”

A good manager puts the interest of his staff before his own

“Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time. However, if this was implemented, everyone will benefit. I remember one of the good managers who used to push for the promotion of his subordinates too hard, even more than he was asking for himself. Ended up at a very high level in a very short time. The principle here is simple, the stronger your team is, the harder they will carry you and push you up! It is a bottom to top approach rather than the common top to bottom which is happening in most of the cases”

To grow you need a loud voice!

“Actually, you need to shout! If you keep quiet you will reach nowhere!” not always your work speaks on behalf of you, sometimes you need to highlight the things you do and to spice things up a bit

Everyone will always take the easiest route 

“Work less, you will make less mistakes, and thus you won’t be blamed too much” this is one of the statements I heard from some staff. Everyone likes to relax and take it easy; your role is to motivate and incentive. If not, you will end with a lazy team

Quality, Processes and Procedures have no meaning if you don’t believe in them

“They will be something on paper, a useless fancy stuff”. People should believe in the importance of processes and their documentation. Numerous times I met with old employees who prefer to do work in their own way, they have the secrets of the trade, and even when going on leave they fail to properly handover their tasks. They think if what they do is publicly available, they will lose their job. So, some things are kept as closed secrets.

Personal relationships do matter

“Your relationships within your workspace and the professional community have great impact on your career”. They say till the age of 35 always have a great resume at hand, after the age of 35 always have great relations with people. 

And finally, “YOUR WORK IS NOT YOUR WHOLE LIFE”

Your Health, your Family, your Friends, your enjoyment, your happiness are your life, work is just a mean to enjoy your life, so never make it your one and only focus!