I recently returned from my first trip back to Qatar since I left in November of 2014. Five years makes an incredible difference in a country such as Qatar. Places that were a pile of dirt five years ago are now transportation hubs, plateaus for skyscrapers, and museums (pictures here include the new subway system, Lusail development, the National Museum of Qatar, and the National Library). Besides seeing how Qatar has physically changed, I renewed several treasured relationships from my years living and working at Education City. The renewal of these relationships has caused me to want to do anything I can to support Qatar’s continuing progress, especially in the higher education sector.
I’ve coached numerous candidates for posts at Education City, served as a “mindfulness” reflector for those who are presently in Doha, and advised colleagues as they’ve repatriated from working in Qatar. I awoke from a dream this morning realizing that the role I’ve played informally is probably the most important thing I can continue to do to support Qatar from afar. Thus, this post and my commitment to offer cultural and organizational coaching to anyone considering, engaged in, or sorting out their experience from Qatar.
Most of those who have worked in Qatar have had terrific experiences. And then there are those for whom it was pretty difficult, one might even say disastrous. When I look at why some people have struggled, it is easy to conclude that there are three elements that contributed to their failure – a lack of curiosity, impatience, and cultural neglect or ignorance. As positive traits, curiosity and patience are somewhat stable characteristics but cultural intelligence is clearly cultivated. The problem is that improving cultural intelligence is most easily built on a foundation of curiosity and patience. Consequently, coaching is required to call attention to the necessity of drawing on whatever curiosity and patience one has while striving to learn about and engage across cultures.
One of the biggest problems I’ve observed is that those who have been successful in higher education in Europe and the U.S.A. often have a sense of superiority that results in arrogance and unresponsiveness to working in Qatar. I was very lucky during my days in Qatar because I reported to a Qatari national who was thoughtful and patient with me and I also had a number of Qatari colleagues from whom I could seek advice. In essence, I was enveloped in the cultural context and this was immensely helpful during the steepest portion of my learning curve. I might add that the learning curve never ceased; it continued until the day I left Qatar. The bottom line is really quite simple – I tried to engage with humility, which allowed for constant learning and set the stage for me to acquire knowledge about the cultural context and how that impacted the organization climate in which I worked.
Qatar is deceiving in a number of very important ways. To begin with, Qatar looks amazingly contemporary and westernized, leading to some expatriates assuming that they can simply drop in and expect to be successful based on past experiences. Assuming easy transference of skills and insights that have made educators successful in western settings is actually a vestige of colonialism. The new era of colonialism now underway is similar to the colonialism of 200 and more years ago – it neglects and actually seeks to extinguish what is unique about the culture where colonizers go. This view demeans the local culture. Especially in the case of Qatar, a country that exhibits both a strong commitment to modernization and a desire to retain its own local culture, the superiority and disrespect of colonizers' views are a recipe for failure. In addition to the external appearance of westernization that occurs along side the preservation of local culture, other complexities exist in relation to; western (i.e. U.S.A. and European) entities undertaking work that interfaces with Arab and Islamic based organizations, the diversity of the work force that proscribes specific functions to different cultural groups, and the dynamics of growing pluralism in the views of Qatari citizens themselves. The confluence of these factors requires a highly nuanced awareness of how to engage with and work across difference, which in turn requires the use of a cultural lens in practically every interaction.
Considering the profound changes that occurred in my life as a result of living/working in Qatar, the least I can do is offer my perspective through whatever means I can to urge those visiting and working in Qatar to acquire and enhance their cultural understanding and dexterity. I have done this through several publications in the last five years and will continue to do so in writing and in informal and formal networks. My goal is to encourage cultural understanding/respect and to cultivate habits in colleagues and acquaintances of curiosity, patience, and cultural intelligence that will help them be more successful.
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