Exclusive Trusted Magazine Q&A with Ali Bindawood, Performance Management Analyst @ Saudi Electricity Company
How could you describe your career path in few words?
A few words might be difficult because I do enjoy – and feel pride – in the accomplishments I’ve done this far in my life, but I’ll do my best! I started off by graduating from the University of Arizona, earning myself a Bachelor’s Degree in Systems Engineering. That was quite the fun time in University, but shortly afterwards I ended up taking everything I learned at that point and went on to work as Project Manager for Daelim Company in Seoul, South Korea for a year after that.
Later on, I was offered to work with Saudi Electricity Company as an Organization Analyst, and I took that offer happily. So I packed up from South Korea, made my way to Saudi Arabia, and ended up working from there.
Later on after that I furthered my education by getting a Graduate Certificate in Project Management from Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane Australia, and then went back to Saudi Arabia to work there once more as a Performance Analyst in Saudi Electricity Company. It was there that I was in charge of managing the KPI, and the objectives of the employee.
If I had to succinctly describe my career path though, I’d certainly say that it’s “Getting Better, and Better”
What was your most challenging experience and has it changed your mindset?
I love challenges of all kinds because I believe that they help me improve not only as a person, but also improve my skillset and challenges my way of thinking. I’ve always been someone who has done what I can to seek out these challenges to further test my capabilities.
Though with that said, I would have to say that my most challenging experience had been in preparation for the PMP Exams. I admit, I had let my ego get in the way a little bit before, since I had always felt confident in myself and my ability to succeed when I put my mind to it. However, the PMP Exam was a lot harder than I anticipated and preparing for it forced me to think of answers in new, different ways and I admit it humbled me and did make me realize what it was that was important in this field of work.
Though my second challenging experience has to also be when I volunteered as a PMO Officer with the PMI KSA Chapter. With that, I had to quickly ‘sink or swim’, and I remember being challenged in a good way to improve and brush up on my skillsets. I honestly feel that with both of those experiences I learned a lot and I would never want to take those away because I feel it’s made me better in the long run.
What’s the most important key success factor for you based on your experience?
For me, I’ve always believed that the most important factor for success has to be both Integrity, and having a strong sense of values; which I’ll explain how they both work together, but are still separate.
When it comes to Integrity, you need to be someone who has a strong enough sense of morals to not want to take the quick way to doing a job, or to take any short cuts to success. If you’re going to be working on a team with other people, you need to have them know that you’ll not only have their back, but also be true to your word too and won’t lie or make excuses for your own failures. Nothing will lead to failure more than people who cannot trust you at your word, or who already will not believe you if you tell them one thing but do/say another.
This is where Values come in. It’s not enough to just have integrity, but you have to be someone as well who will be strong of character as well, and not be someone who treats their workspace as a locker room filled with gossip, bullying, insults, or the like. To be successful, you need to be someone who people can rely on not to be judgmental for their faults, and who in turn is willing to learn and listen in kind to another. Both of these together I believe creates a member of the team who values the job and the people in it and who can be relied on.
What would be the major pitfall that may undermine the success of a leader?
Personally I believe that the biggest pitfall a leader can fall into is that of the double demons ‘Self Ego” and “Selfishness”. When it comes to Self-Ego, I believe that a leader needs to realize that they’re not perfect and that sometimes they’ll make mistakes. Too many times have I witnessed leaders be unable to take criticism, critique, or be corrected on something and refuse to adapt or learn or overcome challenges because they think they’re always correct.
The same thing can be said of selfishness where I’ve seen leaders try to position themselves in a way to make it seem that the team’s success was entirely on their effort alone instead of that of each individual member of the team. Not only does this create animosity from member to member to the leader, but often times it creates a more hostile atmosphere where workers don’t feel as valued when all they want is to feel like their contributions matter.
Both of these together are bad enough on their own, but combine the two and you have a recipe for a leader who not only wants to take all of the glory for themselves, but also one who believes that they’re important enough to be infallible. This means that these sorts of leaders value their own self narrative over the success of whatever project they’re supposed to be overseeing.
Comments