Leadership Lessons: Growing and Leading a Family Business

Episode 44_Jaber Abdul Wahab

[00:00:00] Surbhi Dedhia: Hello, Jaber. Welcome to the Making of a Thought Leader podcast. It is absolutely my pleasure to have you here.

[00:00:06] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. It's always pleasure to talk to people who try and understand what we do.

[00:00:15] Surbhi Dedhia: I get very curious when I meet CEOs or senior leaders who are leading multiple businesses like you, and then you add to the mix a family business and you took over the, at the time when internet was just everywhere.

[00:00:30] I think for today's episode, it would be really wonderful if you can give us your backstory, what is this whole secret sauce of managing multiple businesses and take us back to when you started working at Bridgeway holdings.

[00:00:46] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Okay. I like the word the secret ingredients?

[00:00:49] Okay.

[00:00:55] Where I've come from. Okay. I've spent let's say my first 10 years of my life in Abu Dhabi, and then the next 10 years from my seventh grade till my graduation in mechanical engineering back in India. So finished college in 2003 and then joined a company in Dubai, which was called Pacific Control Systems.

[00:01:18] They were into building automations and doing automating homes and ultimately went on completely automate the firefighting system for the whole of Dubai. Wow. Later on, I joined one of the companies, the board of directors took over a company in the ship repairing, ship building, barge building.

[00:01:37] And then was involved in the management for almost one and a half, two years. And we sold the company to an American company. Mm-hmm. And then got into the corporate side of the family businesses. From 2007 onwards, I've been in this field. And from there, yeah, my life took a different turn.

[00:01:57] A lot of confusions, lot of learning a lot of pitfalls, a lot of successes. Yeah. If you ask me the secret sauce, I would say patience. Being patient was, key there. I was not a very patient person then. Mm-hmm. Even I'm not now, but I've learned to control that part of it.

[00:02:21] And there are a lot of other factors which comes along with it. I'm sure when we dwell in detail, you would get some kind of a nuggets from there.

[00:02:31] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. And that's the whole point. Every business leader or any, any position in business will have its challenges especially when you're dealing in the business of working with people, to get work done. So, then that is always one part of it. The other part I feel that that is very interesting in your case, and I remember our chat earlier where you were saying that you took over family business, but it was not like the usual where, your family who's built it and now they're mentoring you. So it was not like a traditional path that you trailed. So, tell us a little bit about that. Like what happened there?

[00:03:13] Jaber Abdul Wahab: What happened was my dad took his own path in his entrepreneurship journey. Mm-hmm. So, he went on from eighties onwards. And by early 2000, he felt because he was heading a huge company. I'm not talking about the group. He was involved in a company which was a joint venture with Mobil.

[00:03:31] And so after that venture, he felt he has done enough and more as an entrepreneur, he wanted to get into social activities. Hmm. So, there is a, there's a kind of mindset in him. I think it was in his early fifties. And his father passed away in while he was early fifties.

[00:03:49] So genetically he thought, because the issues that what we have medically, he thought. He would not live longer, so he wanted to give back to the society. He was in that mode, mode and, and he was undergoing the transformation himself? Yeah. He himself was going through transformation. So, he left the business in early 2000 before I joined the family business.

[00:04:10] So coming back to a scenario where I was in, so he had left his legacy mm-hmm. With all his learnings and, you know his thought processes and his principles and everything.

[00:04:22] And there were a lot of people in the company individual companies and in the corporate structures also. So, my job was to find out, what he left, what he wanted it to do. Even though he was not in one directly on day-to-day basis thinking of what he would want me to do, I know on those lines I wouldn't contact him on a daily basis and ask him what to do, what not to do.

[00:04:46] That is not the type of person he is. It's a completely delegated system that he had developed. So, picking on those lines it was a start where we we didn't have the first-generation training or giving that push for the business when the second generation joined.

[00:05:05] So for me I would call it, let's say, in a very simple term, it was not the second-generation business. It's a one and a half generation business because that half was missing and half was coming in. So, we have got its own challenges and its own benefits.

[00:05:21] The challenges would be, you know, the, the experience, what they had Mm the drive that, the momentum that they have. That was completely shifted to what we wanted to do. The plus is that, as he had, he had designed all the companies that he had invested and he had run delegation part of it. Hmm. So, we had a lot of freedom to do what we wanna do.

[00:05:42] Mm-hmm. He would get involved only at the earlier at, at the most stressful situation. Even if it was the most enjoyable situation, he was not there. Mm. So if there was a most stressful situation, something which is a break or make situation, he would get involved. That would happen only maybe once in a year, twice in a year max.

[00:06:05] Right. So that is a scenario that that I got into. So, there was a lot of freedom, a lot of learning without the first-generation input on a daily basis but of course, they left a lot of breadcrumbs. So, it was for us to, let's say it was like a treasure hunt. Finding those bread crumbs, what was good, what was bad?

[00:06:23] Yeah. Those kinds of things.

[00:06:25] Surbhi Dedhia: So, you shared so much here, and I wanted to like, you know, pick up on few very interesting points that you mentioned. So, I'm just going to set the background, right. So, Bridgeway group of companies is already transnational, conglomerate by 2003, and that's when you joined in the company.

[00:06:43] And what you just said right now is that your father was already not in the company, so it was run by his appointed CEOs of sort for those kinds of companies. And now you are entering in. You entered in not as one of the employees who's going to train on the job, but you actually straight up enter as a C E O of the company who's going to then manage all these group of companies and therefore the CEOs who are managing that already.

[00:07:11] Jaber Abdul Wahab: In management terms asking to swim along with the sharks. And to understand whether you are swimming with the dolphins or sharks. So that was my challenge who is going eat up and who's gonna help me in that journey.

[00:07:24] That is the exact dilemma I had. In the initial years it was basically finding out who is there for the company and who is not there for the company. Since it was very delegated not monitored on a regular basis, even though he wanted to do it there was some kind of a system, but it was not entrenched into all the fields that we wanted to do it.

[00:07:47] So finding out who has got the right intentions for the company or not was very challenging. Naturally, if you look at it and delegated the scenario would make people who are running the companies very powerful. And when power comes into the picture, then a lot of things will change.

[00:08:03] The mindset would change. They would feel, or the company would relay there, the company would feel to take a certain direction, which could be sometimes for their own benefit or for the company's benefit, but it could be in different scenarios, right? So, to understand who's there for the company and who's not there for the company was the initial challenge.

[00:08:22] Surbhi Dedhia: So, did you hire any external help to help you identify? Because I'm just assuming that you are. A new to the business B frankly, when you go undergo education, you did not obviously go through this whole management of human resources side of it.

[00:08:38] Did you employ any external help?

[00:08:42] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Okay. I'll break it down to three parts. Why I took mechanical engineer is not to become an engineer. Mechanical engineer and normally engineering courses gives you an analytical, logical kind of thinking. Trying to break down things.

[00:08:56] Trying to make things from pieces from the pieces that is set around you. So those were the thinking that we needed to run a business. Mm-hmm. And that is why I So, took up mechanical engineering. So, I never had an intention to become an engineer or work for some company or nothing else.

[00:09:13] So that is one part of it. The other part because I work for another company is to get a proper, I was working as an intern. And that company gave me the liberty to start as an intern and then end as a project engineer. And that the agenda was very simple to get me as much exposure I can get in a very short period of time.

[00:09:32] So, it was like an crash course for me. So that is what happened during the first term of mine. The second thing is to trust people who was already in the system to talk to them try and see how things were being done.

[00:09:47] What are the future? Trying to understand whether it matches along with the company's and my philosophies. And if I had a clash, I would get back to the family and ask those kinds of questions. And so, to finding out the right people to be along with me not to, not to do what I say. It is basically a collaborative approach. It's to, to pick their brains and to probably impress up my ideas upon them and to seek, to get the feedbacks, those, those things are happening. Thirdly, what I hired a CEO coach. He was with me for almost two years.

[00:10:22] So there's a saying in our company," You hire a consultant, really, after you finish what you think you can do." You can, you think that you can do these, these, these things. And when you're, when you get stuck, when you can't expand beyond a point of time and mentally, or you know, when you're not able to get things done, whatever you do, then you hire somebody from outside.

[00:10:41] So you actually exhaust all the resources that you have and then you hire somebody from outside to, you know, bring a fresh perspective. So, so we did these two things, and then I had a CEO coach and he gave a different perspective altogether. He brought lot of different structures to bring everybody together.

[00:11:00] Surbhi Dedhia: Yeah, that makes sense. And it's almost like, you spent that initial years building trust and confidence in the team. I mean, putting your A team together, if you will. Because that basic structure was in place, there were different companies, there were different people who were managing those and very well delegated.

[00:11:16] But you had to win their trust. They had to win your trust. So now I'm gonna jump a little forward. You have the structure in place. You have your a team that you trust and. This, this went on for probably a decade or so, that, as a new c e o, as a young person taking on this baton to take the Bridgeway name forward.

[00:11:38] What was that charter that you had? Were you expanding into different businesses still? Were you growing individual businesses? What was that next challenge or next mountain that you were climbing?

[00:11:51] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Okay. There's another saying in the company where we need to grow, but we also need to be agile. While we grow, most of the time what we become is we become too rigid in system. So, we always wanted our companies to become agile.

[00:12:07] Right from 2006-2007 onwards. What we have understood, especially in these markets that we operate in, we can't take things for granted at any point of time.

[00:12:17] If you look at every company that is being run now has to change their strategy every two, three years. Earlier people used to have 10-year plan, five-year plan. Now, I don't think a reliable company or a company who sees the five-year situation now can plan more than three years. So, we had a thinking process right from 15 years back. Our aim for the companies had to be agile. Our progression had to be agile. The company is already diversified, so each of the companies had to find their niche market to grow.

[00:12:50] Ok. And that was a challenge that we give each and everybody. We didn't want them to keep doing the same thing again. Okay. We wanted them to find some kind of a niche in the market so that they could get maximum out of it, at the same time, maintaining what's happening on the side.

[00:13:07] What has happened for the last two decades, three decades is that the access to capital. Access to information was very rapid. And it was easily available. So, to copy things was easy, let's say in simpler terms.

[00:13:21] So if you do person next to you or person the next country or next state or next building could copy it from you. People who are working for you can copy the same thing. Exactly. So, it's not something that you can stop. It is not like in earlier days in India, like licensed Raja, you couldn't hold your intellectual property beyond an So, extent. So, to do that, we had to be very focused on finding new things. We got into different markets. We also started diversifying into similar industry, but somewhat related to what we are trying to do. So, we took these strategies and started implementing these companies, right?

[00:14:04] For example, we have got schools in GCC and in back in India. We found that having schools is important because schools, if you look at on an average Just leaving alone, 2005 to 2010 of what happened in Dubai. That's a different scenario altogether, but schools normally take a long gestation period to have a breakeven period.

[00:14:26] The students who join you early in their years, I mean, when they join you, when they're very young. First grade or second grade, or maybe in, in the lower in the primary section or pre kindergarten section. They are the ones who will be with you for a very long period of time.

[00:14:43] For us the challenge was to make sure we have that base covered on a, on a larger plate. So, it was like a pyramid structure and we wanted to have the bottom of the pyramid much larger. To expand or to think like that and to diversify, like that was a strategy for the schools.

[00:15:02] Okay. So, we had similar or along these lines’ expansions in, for example, we have an engineering company where we felt in 2007 and eight, before the recession hit in the UAE, we felt we shouldn't expand too much in Dubai market. Because we felt if something happens to any of these scenarios, it would be a huge hit for the kind of leverage that we have we have taken.

[00:15:28] We decided we will cap the revenue in Dubai Market. We said we'll keep it at x. And we will not move away from it. We wanted to get into other markets.

[00:15:40] So then we got into Saudi market. We are one of the first companies to have a fully owned license in Saudi Arabia from 2011 outwards. These are the decisions we take by keeping the, the core principle of being agile. And then the whole process.

[00:15:59] Surbhi Dedhia: What happened when Covid hit? I've seen in my surroundings, people owning one or two businesses, they were pivoting. You know, there was like kind of a period of chaos.

[00:16:09] But when, when the scale itself is so huge, like what you grapple with so what, what happened during that time? Let's think of answering this as one is the people aspect, because obviously you've built this trust and you have like this core team in place and all that.

[00:16:25] So the people aspect of it and the other aspect, probably what we can look at is that agility part that you're talking about, right? Like what happened then?

[00:16:34] Jaber Abdul Wahab: During Covid times it was very tough. So, the first month was chaos. Mental chaos and physically it was chaotic. After a month or so we got a grip of what is gonna happen.

[00:16:46] Mm-hmm. And if you remember I think a few of the countries had lockdowns before UAE and India. Yes. And I kind of understood that this is going to be kind of a long-term, a mid long-term kind of a thing. One year, or maybe one and a half years kind of a cycle which is gonna happen with covid.

[00:17:07] And my thought process and my involvement in collaborative discussions were very simple. This is not going to go off easily so whatever we did before Covid, we had to do something different on these lines. The first thing was to survive. If the normal business is not happening, what was the other businesses that we can get into, similar businesses or some of the businesses we had to literally bring it down and have a kind of a semi shutdown. We had to lay off people or keep people on standby both the company and the people had to survi survive. So, we had to keep that, you know, minimal expenses. So, we had to take different approaches. But I remember the first month was mentally very disturbing. I had to think on extremes. I had to think of, if it doesn't work out at any cost, then what has to be the goal? So that mental elasticity, I had to be prepared for anything. So, I was prepared to let go of everything then that point of time.

[00:18:05] Surbhi Dedhia: Yeah. Yeah. It is, it is interesting that, you know, as at, at, at the viewpoint that you have of running a business, how do you show up in certain situations and I think Covid tested all of us differently in that way. You have different businesses in different industries, and when you have such a Wide spectrum that you are dealing with what happens to the company ethos. Like, is there like a Bridgeway ethos which flows across these individual companies in different countries? Does it, does it work that way?

[00:18:40] Jaber Abdul Wahab: The company's ethos has been very simple right from the beginning.

[00:18:43] You must have heard me repeat that word every now and then, delegation is the key. And then for them to have that responsibility thinking that it is their own company and running it, rather than me calling them daily.

[00:18:56] So that, that kind of an approach is what we expect from all of our colleagues. The second thing is from our side and from every side we deal in, we try to become as fair as we can. So, our motto itself is business first, but fairness foremost. So, trying to do that, trying to be in that space of ever evolving to be as fair as possible to people whom we interact in our business world and personal space is something which keeps us on the toes. That is something which is not perfect at any point of time. But our challenge is to get to that maximum possible points that we can get from that.

[00:19:35] At any point of time, this will creep into any discussion that what we have, mm-hmm among us inside the company. So, are you being just at the end of the day? And if it's not being done, if I'm not thinking of that in that discussion, my colleague will ask indirectly, directly. My board members would ask directly and directly. Or maybe in a different circumstances, not in that particular meeting. Maybe the decision is not made, but there's the opportunity to discuss with outside the meeting rooms. So, this invariably comes to the picture.

[00:20:07] Yeah. Are we being just mm-hmm.

[00:20:10] Surbhi Dedhia: So, it has become like the mantra, the motto of the employees, colleagues, and the whole ecosystem that you are leading.

[00:20:18] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Sometimes it is easy to lose this perspective because the world is competitive, it's always competitive.

[00:20:23] It's not that this era or that era or it's always competitive. It's easy to lose, coming back to it, so each and every time there's somebody else to remind you that. This is in the background, that keeps us going.

[00:20:34] Surbhi Dedhia: That's wonderful. Yeah, when you have these situations and that, that, that motto of what you said of being just, and being fair, it keeps pushing you in that one direction with all the decisions that you, but now let's shift to some of the challenges that you face on a day, day basis.

[00:20:53] You are making decisions. You are at the top of the business or top of the pyramid. Now, what's happening at the base and how do you as an individual connect to that? Every employee or every, everybody?

[00:21:07] Is there any system that in this whole delegation mechanics that you have kind of decoded to be in touch with all your employees?

[00:21:17] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Well, very, a very thing very difficult thing to do. But something which what we have managed to do is that we have got board members sitting on each of the companies along with the CEOs of that particular company and they're in that company on a daily basis So we get the information from that channel. There is also a channel, which we have through social media, through websites, and through our other networking channels. We get to know what's happening inside the company through through third parties or second parties, or maybe through, maybe they may come directly to us also.

[00:21:54] So we get to hear news, which is good for us. We take that positively to get that news. How do we utilize this information is the key. We can't just take it as it is or we, we may have to take it as it is. But those interactions with people who gives us feedback is very key for understanding what's happening on the ground.

[00:22:15] Right. So even if we get one feedback directly to us, if somebody calls us, or if somebody SMS says a WhatsApp, that's a very that's a very good thing for us. Mm-hmm. So, for example, yesterday a person who works for the media department in UAE called me and said he has bought a car from one of our showrooms, and is finding some kind of an issue there to communicate with the people and miscommunication happening there.

[00:22:41] He has bought it from India. I am sitting in Dubai. Mm-hmm. And he is escalating the problem to me. There, there is already a manager there. There was already a c there, there's already a board member there, but it has come to me. For me it is a good thing. It is not to take the blame or it's not to blame the company or to blame the person.

[00:23:04] For me, it is an opportunity to get involved. And when I get involved, I get information. I can get live information. I can see what's happening, I can see what's not happening. They also tend to analyse things differently when I get involved, I give a different perspective.

[00:23:21] So this is one area that we have been encouraging by not telling it loudly, but we encourage it. We still keep those distances. The other way of doing it is we have just started off, so we have got close to 10,000 people working in different capacities along those organizations.

[00:23:39] What we're trying to do is trying to show them our faces. New people and the people are leaving us. At least having an interaction with them yearly. So, whenever people join us I'm making sure that I'm there for the induction through online or through physical processes.

[00:23:55] If somebody leaves the company, they get a chance to talk to one of the directors. Mm. So if somebody leaves a company, which I oversee. Then he gets to talk to other board members, not to me. So, we get a feedback of why he's left, why, what was the issue. So, there's, there's kind of a, kind of a dialogue there.

[00:24:14] So all, with all this information, what's happening, flowing around you get nuggets out of it. Got it. You can get patterns or you can get anomalies. You can get different feedback from these kind of systems. So that is how we. We kind of tackle that particular difficult scenario.

[00:24:30] Mm-hmm. It's very difficult for these kinds of systems me to get into each one's daily affairs. I wouldn't be able to do it physically. So, these are the techniques that we use, to get it done.

[00:24:40] Surbhi Dedhia: Sounds very interesting. And it also opens up just as you said, the trends, right?

[00:24:45] You can develop trends and probably it kind of becomes like data points to feed into your teams to then action.

[00:24:52] And I think this is a great segue to go into this next topic, you as a leader of a diverse companies, how do you see building your own thought leadership?

[00:25:02] Jaber Abdul Wahab: That's an ongoing process. My education is only till my engineering rest everything comes through experience, but along the way there are certain skills that you need to have. It's always good to improve yourself. In that context, what I did was I went for one week 10 days courses on specific topics to the Ivy Leagues.

[00:25:24] Or probably who, somebody who's trained in those skillsets to be with their sessions to have a practical session. So that was one, one way of doing it. The other way is talking to any business individual who was involved in any scale of business would have similar experiences like us.

[00:25:44] So being with them on a personal level, to interact with them on number of topics and then learning from them. And a lot of people are ready to share if you give them time, if you give them the respect and if you find similar value system kind of a common factor, then there are a lot of people who are ready to share their experiences.

[00:26:05] So that was another key how I've developed different skill set, different thought processes.

[00:26:11] I was sharing one of the points last time when we spoke, when we keep delegating and delegating and delegating, my challenge is to become a much more skilful much more talented person than the people that I'm delegating it to.

[00:26:28] The person who's delegated would automatically get a lot of information from the company. They will have more and more information on the day-to-day affairs, how to sit with them and convince them again and again on a continuous basis, on a year, on year basis to convince him saying that, okay, I am bringing value to that particular discussion.

[00:26:45] And that's always a challenge. So, my perspective is always to make sure whatever I say is skilful bringing value to them. So, the technique that I've used is I can't beat them always of what they're trying to do on a daily basis. It's very rare. After you go to a certain kind of suit, I always look at the future.

[00:27:08] when you were talking about COVID times. Yeah. It's like, like my thought process had to be on the ice blocks for almost two years. Mm-hmm. There is no point talking about the future. It's about that moment. It's about surviving, it's about doing what is available. So, I have to keep my mind and my activity on a standstill, just freeze that particular part of my brain for almost two, three years.

[00:27:37] And only recently that I've, I have been able to start thinking and I've been able to start probably talking to people on those lines. So, this is a very similar discussion I had last night with one of our associates. Now, now we can think of, okay, what should we do, be trying to do for the next two years, three years?

[00:27:54] But I couldn't say these things. During covid times, of course. Yeah. So, my, so my expertise is trying to, let's say not So, to predict the future, but at least strategize for the future. That is what my expertise is, right? And that is where I find when people are involved too much in the day-to-day phase for them to think and think with clarity for the future is where I come into the picture.

[00:28:21] That is where my expertise lies.

[00:28:23] Surbhi Dedhia: Absolutely. And I think what you're saying is making so much sense in the scheme of things that you've just established. Now you've led the business coming to three decades and you have had mileage in terms of going through the cycles of ups and downs and, you know de delegating and creating that whole system.

[00:28:42] What you are keen on the future and making sure that the person who you are delegating to is able to still have that drive to keep continuing and doing that niche-based innovation or, putting in that extra mileage on that point.

[00:28:58] Jaber Abdul Wahab: When we delegate, when the people are there to do the day-to-day things, I cannot take the credit for what they do. Yeah. Cause they're the ones who are executing it. And it's, it's very crucial for me to have that balance of not being in the front always. Mm-hmm. For example, the schools that would, we manage. The CEO of the company will be on the headlines of the newspapers. But for me to be in that newspaper will not make any sense. Even though I'm chairing it for niche-based them in terms of different other things, to have that balance of not to take the credit but still have a value while having that discussion with them to, to that is, that is kind of a, a, a push and a pull always in my, in my system.

[00:29:43] Mm. That, so I have to be on my toes to make sure that I bring value to each and every discussion.

[00:29:50] Surbhi Dedhia: Yes, true. And then on that note of bringing in value, what would be your thoughts to entrepreneurs, you know, today who are like, and you see what's happening in UAE, like everybody's jumping onto the entrepreneurship bandwagon, the startups, and all of that. So, what would be your message to you know, entrepreneurs who are just starting out?

[00:30:11] Jaber Abdul Wahab: I would say you're gonna manage a baby. A baby of your own. You need to have a complete submission towards it. Whether it takes time, effort, or whatever happens to the result, I So, wouldn't bother about it. But giving that time and effort is very key.

[00:30:30] I'll also share a So, policy that we follow in our group. We talked about delegation. Mm-hmm. A person who's being delegated, a company, a working partner, or a CEO who's got stake in the game, who has got the skin in the game, has to be involved in only one company. He cannot have passive investments, but he cannot spend, he or she cannot spend any minute or any second for any other company.

[00:30:59] What we mean is that you have to live and breathe for this company other than your family. Of course, family comes along with it. Mm. But if you don't have that passion in you, if you don't have that drive or if you don't have the time to do it, then I would say, let's look for something else other than entrepreneurship.

[00:31:22] You need to be there in the system. You will have to be thinking of it 24 by seven.

[00:31:28] That's why I'm not, I will not take credit of any of the actions that is happening, any good things that are happening in my company. Cause there are people who have spent their entire life or their entire time on this company. I am only there to give a different perspective a strategy for the future.

[00:31:43] That's it. So likewise, if you need to have results, if you need to have good positive outcomes, there has to be attention to details, and that will give you small, small changes or small, small ideas which can grow to bigger heights from there onwards. So, knowing that nitty gritty, being present for that company is very important.

[00:32:05] Surbhi Dedhia: That's wonderful. And I think it's a very valuable advice. So, thank you Jabber for adding so much value to this episode and to the podcast, to the audience as well. I really appreciate you coming on board.

[00:32:17] Jaber Abdul Wahab: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you.