 Welcome to the leaders room. Today we're talking with Professor Bassem Unis, who is the director of strategic alliances at the Dubai School of Government. Welcome, Professor Bassem. We're so delighted to have you here. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed speaking with you just a few moments ago about where the Dubai School of Government came from. It's been around for about 10 years. I think you started around 2005? 2005. So tell us the story. How did the Dubai School of Government come to be? The Dubai School of Government was one of the initiatives that we have been very fortunate to have. And it was part of the vision of designer Sheikh Mohammed Barash, ruler of Dubai, to set up an entity or a unit that would actually train and ensure that the best skills and best abilities of the government employees were being developed in a way to serve the city's ambitions and growth and to always ensure that we were aligned with best practices, wherever that was. What was his inspiration? Very simple. Being number one. This is something Sheikh Mohammed is very famous. Sort of a Dubai thing, isn't it? Absolutely. Sheikh Mohammed's inspiration has always been, as we have learned ourselves from repeated lessons, but we realize very well that it is a passion for excelling. It's an excellence. It's a passion for excellence. The idea is that, and I would quote this, this is one of the most, I think if you see it, it's probably fit to be used, wherever it says, in the race for excellence there is no finish line. And we have to remember that. And clearly, if you want to continue in a race and if you want to achieve excellence, I think this is where it comes from, achieving excellence. How would you achieve excellence in what you do by trying to always follow the best practice and ensuring that you are delivering at the highest possible level of quality and standard. And one of your strategies for doing that has been to create strategic alliances, right, which is the job that you've got. So who did you partner with or who have you been partnering with along the way? Well, initially the school was set up in very close collaboration with the Harvard Kennedy School, clearly. And along the way we have had a number of strategic alliances that were put in place to serve the interests of the school. And I want to say that the interest of the school is served through three different venues, basically, because the Dubai School of Government has three separate and three different aspects of business. The Dubai School of Government has an academic program which leads to a degree in public administration, a master's degree in public administration. And this is just as much of an academic program as any program you'd find in any university. So technically the Dubai School of Government is a university offering one postgraduate degree. And for that we have to conform and, you know, of course meet all the standards of accreditation. And we are accredited by the Ministry of Higher Education, which is the highest accreditation body in the land in the UAE and internationally recognized body too. We have the research arm as well, which really has been very in the forefront of leading applied research in several areas including e-governance and including women and gender issues and knowledge management as well. We've had like three significant programs as well as executive education. And this was very important because you want to take the extract or the best of your research and your academic program and faculty and be able to give this and offer it to those very busy executives who you cannot afford to take away from their responsibilities for any extended commitment or period of time. And they're also in highly leveraged spots. They're at a more senior level and so if they can take your ideas, incorporate them in their own organizations, it'll make a difference very quickly. You have to try and give them that sort of solution pill, you know, which means it's really there, done, prepared, ready, already mailed, what you call it. And we've been very good at this, I think. And along the way we've partnered with partners that have met the, or aligned with the vision or the strategy of the school. So these partnerships are not a fixed thing, as you can tell. So each part of the organization has to align with, exactly, it has a strategic alliance that befits and serves to best deliver and contribute to the objectives and to the expected outcomes as well. So Professor Bassem, your mission at the Dubai School of Government is to bring forward excellence and to bring forward excellence particularly in governance. How would you describe what excellence in governance really is? What does it really mean, whether it's in the Arab world or elsewhere? I think the easiest way to put it and to state it is to serving people in the best and least complicated way and ensuring that your people are happy. Again, the whole objective of governance is to serve. And I think it's very important to keep this in mind and to ensure that your services are delivered with a touch of, I would say, ease and lack of complications or unnecessary bureaucracies. Make it easy for people to benefit from the government, not hard for them to benefit from the government. Absolutely. It's not just the benefit, but yeah, absolutely. People need to be able to access whatever services they need in a pleasant and unrubble manner, which allows them to get their services delivered and feel valued and feel respected at the same time. Well, that all sounds very lovely, but I mean, I've been to many a motor vehicle bureau and passport office and elsewhere in the world that I wouldn't say fits that description. What exactly is happening in the UAE or in Dubai or in any sphere that you're aware of that actually fulfills that mission that makes dealing with the government not just possible, but in fact a pleasure? I will tell you what, I think you're asking about that recipe for success. What is the recipe? We are enjoying, and I would say this, even though it might be seen to be a bit biased coming from me in my position, but let me, when I joined the Dubai School of Government, I think one of the things I enjoyed most is because I am also a customer at the end of the day. I receive government services and I get very involved and I have had the chance to be able to compare services that I receive with those I've received in my years of living abroad or as a student or as whatever. So it's been very useful to look at things. And as you said, you've just cited an example that I want to pick on. And if you've said anything else, I would have probably had another good example for you. But let me go at this immigration issue that you referred to. In Dubai, for example, and this is something that very few people find they can't even understand, but I'll tell you one thing. Our experience is, you know, you need to go to an immigration department for various reasons, whether it is to renew a passport, whether it is to sponsor someone who works in your house or if you have a business, you need to sponsor workers. So an immigration department is a very important and significant. It touches everybody's life in a way. Absolutely. Initially, our services were limited to this one main building where everybody had to go to this one central building and everybody, and it was really, in a way, it wasn't very difficult, but the idea of everybody coming on to this one place, converging into one business corner, yeah. A few years ago, there was a creative element based on the Dubai strategy and concept of governance where today, in almost every major shopping center in Dubai, there is an immigration office. And you can go in there and do your shopping and everything is so organized and they've got targets for the time, a maximum time that they work with as a key performance index in which time they have to turn around the service and that the person cannot wait for over and above a certain period of time. So these centers are everywhere. And by the way, because the main files are centralized, you can access any of these offices. In any of these shopping malls, in any time. So it's 100% automated. No, but you deal with people. Absolutely. But the access to the records and to the files, absolutely. The back, the behind the counter, yeah. Now what's better? I'll tell you one better. I mean, sometimes, you know, we hear about a lot of stories whereby you're coming to travel and by the time you get to the airport, either your passport is expired or you don't have enough time to allow your permit you to go and you're already decided and what do you think, you have to cancel the flight? No, we don't. We have a passport office in the airport which would issue for citizens, of course, and brand new passport on the spot and you continue with your journey. So imagine the time it takes between you coming to check-in, realizing that you cannot, your passport is not valid or whatever. Something's wrong, yeah. And by the time you get it fixed and you're on that same flight and your departure did not delay. I mean, you tell me, what do you think? I mean, this is beyond, I think in some cases, I would be very upfront here if you allow me to say this. And I would say that for a long time, one of the Dubai reasons for success was to always pursue best practice. Look at best practice wherever it is. Well, I was going to say, what about the Dubai ports, right? Now you're exporting port technology and expertise around the world, right? We are managing other ports. Exactly. And is this going to be happening with passport services elsewhere in the world as well? Well, I think we've been mandated that if anybody asks for our help or for our support or for our advice, I think it is available. We're happy to share and we're happy to... But I'll tell you one thing, the Dubai experience, people have to understand that the Dubai experience cannot simply be taken as a cut-and-paste job. If you cut it from Dubai, you have to paste it back in Dubai. There's a lot of things that make that happen, you see. Yeah, it's very complex. It's very specific really. So it's a network. I would tell you one thing. You have to realize that the immigration service I mentioned to you would not have been possible or sustainable, had not everything else in the sphere facilitated and helpless in terms of connectivity, communications, policies, regulations, security. I mean, remember, it's all a network that is aligned. So the success, I think, and one of the other factors for a key success to governance is aligning all government services and organizations very clearly. They have to be aligned. Yes, they would have different strategies. Yes, they would have different approaches. Yes, they would have different deliverables. But if that does not happen on the basis of a single sort of alliance and focus, it would be very difficult to accommodate because... Well, it requires a lot of people to be thinking very holistically around everything that needs to happen. And the usual barriers that you think of as occurring in a government, this department versus that department versus that department, that has to melt away. We have an experience that we are very proud of and it's called the Dubai Executive Council. The Dubai Executive Council is a council that meets once a week, or as needed, by the heads of all the key department services in Dubai. The local departments in Dubai are pretty much sort of like your state government and the different ministries or departments, I think we call them director generals. And these guys meet, so all the main plans in line with the Dubai strategy are discussed and shared. So everybody knows what the others are doing as well. So everybody is working as a team. I mean, this is another thing. So when you are teaching governance in your schools, you're teaching this sort of thing, this sort of holistic thinking, the cross boundary work, the common mission, all the kinds of skills, behaviors, attitudes that you're talking about right now that are taking place in the Dubai government, that's also what you're teaching in your school. To confirm what I don't teach at the school myself. That is taught in the school. Absolutely, this is taught and we have realized very recently, but we have applied this, that the best teachers, especially in our executive education courses, we have started to draw heavily on those experts within the Dubai government. We have some very established people who have been very academically qualified and more so as practitioners. They have led departments in achieving the change and it's fascinating. I attend some of these sessions myself. There are some key names and key people that come to the school and I find it very enjoyable when I can spare the time, of course, to sit there and enjoy because these are people referring. They're not just talking. You know something, I'll tell you this. I'll share this with you from my academic past life, I would say. The worst thing that has happened. You have a PhD in civil engineering, correct? Yes, and I taught a few years as well in the university in the UAE in civil engineering and in engineering economy as well. You know the worst thing that has happened to education because of course the populations and the world, for many years, I think, one of the reasons that people managed to achieve was that people who were knowledgeable in the subject ended up teaching that subject themselves. So you went to a certain university because this person who wrote this book would teach this book. I was very fortunate in my earlier years of studying and the people who wrote actually the same books we were reading. This has since changed. So a lot of people go to university to learn what somebody else, not necessarily through the same, I mean, they were never even mentored by the author, so they were taught the idea or the knowledge of somebody else. The world has gotten pretty big. They had their own perception or understanding of it and they took it their way and they taught it to others as well. Now what we realize is when we bring these practitioners on the scene and they are able to link the theory and the practice. And in fact, I feel very confident to say that I do believe that in the Dubai experience today we should be able to take some of the actual practices we have and try to link or to associate them with a new theory in the field because they do actually come out of the box very clearly out of the box. The minute you are able to free yourself from the reservations or the fear of not being able, why can't it happen? Why can't it happen? If it is fine, if it makes sense, we're going to break through anything and we're going to move on to move with changing times. So how much can you as a school export this way of thinking given that actually the attitudes and the ways of thinking are as important and they're the essential precursor to anybody being able to adopt these new practices? Well, it is not. I will tell you, our job is pretty much cut for us in Dubai because we are living the experience. We are not far from it. We feel it. We see it in our news. We feel it in our practice. We all want to do this. We all want to be involved and we all want to share in what's happening. It's really, you don't want to be left out. It's very exciting. It is very exciting. It is a buzz and you do it and you're enjoying it because it's been, we've managed, I think this is the thing, is removing all the negative sort of, you see when you say immigration? Competition. Yeah, I can see immigration every day with a smile on my face because I know that the services, I can access the services pretty much frequently anytime I want. We've got by the way an emergency office that does all the other things 24 hours a day, seven days a week attached to the airport. There is creativity and people in authority or people who have been responsible in delivering governance have been also mandated or trusted with being creative to see how they can improve things. They did not inherit systems and kept them dead. They have moved on and they have tried to improve and to go on with times as well to be able to utilize the latest of available technologies, mentalities, whatever you call it. Adaptive. Being adaptive, I think governance. Adaptive governance with the same objective of leading to the betterment of people's lives and dealings and services is really... Do you trace this back at all to Sheikh Zayed, Sheikh Rashid, Sheikh Mohamed? I mean, do you sort of trace them back to starting this or is this even sort of a more modern manifestation of the general entrepreneurship and innovation that you see? Absolutely. We have to be absolutely fair and sincere about this, too. We were as fortunate as many other countries that had similar... In fact, we came late to the wealth club, possibly, in the oil sector and things. However, if it hadn't been for our visionary leadership that had existed from the start, we were blessed, to be honest with you. I would tell you there was... You see, it's just like when you have a caretaker and we had these very few but very capable individuals who took care of a nation altogether at difficult times with little resources, but they managed to actually move on and adapt to the changing circumstances and to invest. I mean, what our leadership did was it had the vision and the commitment to the country itself. A lot of our investments were made in-house, as they say, in the country itself, with the belief and the strength. Who would have believed that... Again, when I say visionary, visionary is very important. Who would have believed that Dubai would become a tourist maker? Who would have ever wanted to come to Dubai when temperatures would soar? Today, I tell you one thing. I feel compromised. Sometimes I travel and I go to places, but it's becoming more and more difficult to find a place where you would feel good value for the time or the life you're spending away from Dubai to be honest with you. We've got it all there. It's all there. It's all done to a standard. Including the skis. Including the skis. Whatever you have is right there. We're enjoying the... Of course, clearly it's very important to keep going and to travel and to see, of course, how things are because you cannot just keep looking at yourself. I've never heard such a enthusiasm for governance before and country governance, but I can see what an effect it has. How excited one can be about running a country well. Write down to the departments that everybody interacts with every day that clearly it affects their life. Absolutely. But as I said, I'm going back to your question. Absolutely. We're blessed with the visionary leadership and the continuity of that leadership. To tell you the truth, it's enough. If that leadership, the vision of the earlier time, we were blessed that during each major era or stage of this country's life, we had the right leadership again in charge and in leading this forward. And that's why we continue. And I hope we always continue to. So what lessons... I realize it's hard to take one practice and pull it out, like you said, and just plonk it somewhere. But what lessons would you like, even if they're more general lessons, even if they're more sort of principles, do you wish you could export from Dubai to the rest of the world? Well, the United States, Britain, Europe, in terms of governance, what do you feel that you've really learned from practice in Dubai that the rest of the world really should be paying attention to? I mean, I think what I would like to say I can't be specific because I think what's important is to accept that the specific circumstances and social and other particularities, there will never be... You can look at a Dubai idea that's worked fine in Dubai, but see how to adapt this to your own. But don't take it as it is and say it will work here. Yes, some ideas are probably no brainers. They would work anywhere. Simple, easy, straightforward. But I think you have to be very specific and very careful about linking these ideas with what can actually be achieved on the ground as well. I still have to feel it somehow very fundamentally getting under everybody's skin and having them keep at the front of their minds that it really is about the people, which gets forgotten in so many political plays around the world. That's what I heard you say and that's what... I mean, if there's a lesson to be learned and the particulars will be different and the scale of Dubai is different and the culture is different and all that, but still the fundamental principle of you've got to keep in mind that you exist for the people. And that is something that really gets forgotten a lot of different places in a lot of different ways, which is why we get hung up legislation in the United States and it's why we end up with revolutions elsewhere if there's some way that that could just be better accepted. I wish, you know, as you said clearly, I mean, we have... we have, I think, the key and I will say this again. We have a very strong and well, very committed and very engaged leadership. Engaged at all levels. I'm not saying this... I mean, this is not like a propaganda or anything like that. This is something you can prove. We can show as well. I mean, I remember I'm an engineer. As an engineer, I would be very careful what to say unless I can have this very clearly measured, quantified evidence. I wouldn't say it, so I'm going to talk as a... I've used my engineering for this purpose here now. We have very engaged leadership with clear engagement demonstrated at all levels, at various levels. Very, very engaged, very, very involved. And I think this is what is important you need to create to keep that link. It's no point trying to do your leadership by remote control and by not being there yourself. And I would tell you at all levels of all levels of leadership, because again, the major or the main leadership has set a very clear example and model. And when you see your own sort of leadership practicing certain things, you as a second or a third-level leader cannot afford to be less. You cannot. Because you go exactly what you say. The standards are high. The standards are high. We've been fortunate because the standards are so high we are getting this quality because the various leadership levels, and when we see leadership we have to acknowledge that leadership is not, again, one size fits all. It varies. It requires different traits and different skills depending on the situation and the position. And the type of challenge. Exactly. So we've been very fortunate. But again, as I said to you, the main thing is that the main, the stakes are high and the standards are high and it's actually hands-on. Hands-on. Which makes a lot of difference really in ensuring that this is being done the right way. Well, I have to say, Professor Betham, this has been very inspirational. Your enthusiasm is infectious and I look forward to learning a lot more about the Dubai School of Government. Thank you. I hope we can. Again, we've been very fortunate with being called the Dubai School of Government. I think our credibility and branding can get no better than being the Dubai School of Government. I hope we can share the Dubai experience with as many people as they are. But I think you can probably avail from the Dubai experience by being in Dubai yourself and seeing directly and experiencing directly how it is. It's an amazing place. It's an amazing place and it didn't happen by accident. No, it didn't. And I think the only difficult thing is that we have a very major achievement to preserve and I'm sorry, I can't say to preserve because as I said to you in the race for excellence, it's constantly moving. That's right. It's a moving target, right? We have to move continually but this is where this buzz comes from. Yeah. When you're dynamic, when you're moving and when you're achieving and when you're... This is really where it comes. It's really beautiful. Yeah, it's very exciting. Thank you, Professor Vossam. And thank you for joining us in the Leader's Room. It's a wrap.