Interviewer: Mahmoud Mansi
“Without hard work, ambitions are just wishes for the future.”
Hanane Benhkallouk
Executive Director of Sustain Leadership
Hanane Benkhallouk is a multi-industry business consultant with well over eighteen years of professional experience across a broad range of fields. Her work has carried her across the world, touching down in Europe, the United States, and the MENA region. In the past, Hanane has held a multitude of senior managerial roles with governments, Fortune 500 companies, and non-governmental organizations in fields ranging from finance to retail to real estate. Currently, however, Hanane’s professional endeavors primarily take place in the MENA region and she is based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, where she works as the executive director of Sustain Leadership. Sustain Leadership is a boutique innovation and leadership consulting firm that helps individual entrepreneurs, SMEs, and NGOs achieve their potential. Outside of her work with the firm, Hanane further serves as a mentor a number of UAE-based incubators, such as the Impact Hub Dubai, the Cribb, Intelak and others. She is an accomplished speaker and writer, and has previously had work published in influential publications such as the Harvard Business Review and SME Advisor Arabia.
THE INTERVIEW
1- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Hanane, through your profile, it shows the various interesting careers you have been through. We are curious what was the first job you ever had, how old were you at that time, and what did you learn most from this job?
Hanane Benkhallouk: I began my very first job when I was still a student in my native Casablanca. Since I was 17, it was limited position for the summer. A relative of mine worked as an international health exhibition organizer, and she invited me to work as an assistant and hostess for the main exhibitor’s team. They were European, and didn’t speak any Arabic or French. Not many teenagers knew how to speak English, but I had the benefit of understanding the language. At the time, I felt privileged to have an extra skill that created such a wonderful opportunity for me. Looking back, I realize that it was that experience that prompted me to develop and value a “growth mindset,” and to continually strive to learn and develop my skills. That experience also taught me that I was a people person, and ultimately showed me the importance of tailoring a message for audiences from all walks of life.
2- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: One of the things that is highly appreciated in you is that you work on developing organizations, corporate leaders and entrepreneurs. This means you are exposed to different opinions in the market. Most people ask about the differences between entrepreneurship and corporate, but can you tell us about what you find “common” between them?
Hanane Benkhallouk: People. I believe that the commonality always comes back to people. Sure, we love to put businesses into categories and isolate entrepreneurs from, say, corporate ventures or public sector work. We focus on their products, their founders, and the ways they disrupt the status quo – and every single difference is important and worth looking into. But at the end of the day, all businesses are human-centered. An entrepreneur’s high-flying product can’t guarantee business success any more than a corporate memo can guarantee employee engagement. We need people – leaders – to implement policies, inspire employees, and move their companies towards a vision. Every business requires emotionally intelligent leadership to thrive; developing that quality is an important aspect of the work I do with all of my clients.
3- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As an “innovation” coach, how does innovation start? And how do you define it?
Hanane Benkhallouk: It is interesting, because I’ve found that asking five separate people for their definition of innovation will get you five different answers. There are some commonalities: technology and science are common descriptors. But to me, innovation isn’t a single shot of tech inspiration or a motivational slogan to sling around the office, but a culture to foster and grow. Innovation is a philosophy that starts at a company’s most foundational level. It seeps into how we communicate with our employees and supervisors, and defines how we look to the future. A company with an innovative culture is never contented with resting on its laurels and doing projects the “tried and true” way.
In our fast-paced world, technology is constantly changing and the business world evolving. Embracing innovation as a culture isn’t an extra step to get ahead, it’s a necessity for keeping up. We need to be productively restless; to keep our eyes constantly turned towards the future. Who knows – we may be working with AI colleagues in a decade! If we aren’t innovative, if we aren’t flexible, if we aren’t communicative, we won’t be able to change enough to incorporate advanced technology into our daily processes. And outdated businesses, as we all know, only stagnate and fall out of favor.
4- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As you mentioned, words like “innovation” can be interpreted differently. Did you ever face a conflict in that in one of your consulting projects?
Hanane Benkhallouk: Once, a large corporation called my consulting firm – Sustain Leadership – to express their interest in developing innovation across the company. I immediately proposed a long-term approach to foster a forward-thinking mindset and spread innovation as a culture. However, a far-sighted approach didn’t appeal to them; they wanted a quick fix that they could schedule into a two-hour workshop. But innovation simply doesn’t work that way. It isn’t a buzzword to be repeated into meaninglessness; it’s a mindset, a philosophy, a way of navigating the world. Welcoming innovation into company takes time, perseverance, and encouragement. Try as we might, we can’t foster a new corporate culture in a day-long workshop.
5- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Further speaking about innovation, you have published many articles in major magazines like (SME Advisor Magazine, HBR Arabia, The Executive Women magazine, etc). How do you apply innovation in writing?
Hanane Benkhallouk: Writing, like innovation, is an inherently creative process. For me, it’s a chance to reflect on my past experiences and apply my ideas to questions I might wonder about in the future; to keep my eyes turned towards future possibilities. I think of writing as a way to plant the seed of an idea, and of sharing my work as a way to grow it to inspiration. Sharing ideas is, after all, at the very core of innovation. Think, if we didn’t collaborate or consider other viewpoints, where would we be? What would we get done? Silence is the quickest way to muffle creativity, I think.
6- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As a coach sometimes you work with individuals and at other times you work with groups. Are these two different approaches in coaching?
Hanane Benkhallouk: One-on-one coaching centers around individuals: (executives, leaders or entrepreneurs, etc.) who have some personal goals to achieve or challenges to tackle. With these independent operators, the focus is on helping the individual to unlock their own potential and create a change within themselves. This change might be recognizing or developing a new skill, or unlocking a previously unexplored capability needed for a new role.
Group or Team coaching focuses more on the team dynamic. When I work with groups, every member of the group is involved in the growth process, and my end goal is to help individuals come together and agree to work towards a common goal and use their collective skills to achieve a set goal. The tools used differ from individual coaching to group coaching or team coaching; however, both are connected by mentee mentality. Success or failure hinges on the individual or group’s willingness to follow through, be accountable, take action, and actually do what they have agreed to do.
7- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As an entrepreneurship coach, how do you advise organizations to apply entrepreneurship inside the corporate world?
Hanane Benkhallouk: When most people think of entrepreneurship, they think of a scrappy young person who somehow managed to build a thriving business out of little more than a few dreams and years of hard work. But entrepreneurship doesn’t begin and end within the bounds of that stereotype. The truth is, an entry-level corporate employee could be (maybe even should be!) entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurship is a mindset, not an occupation, the very word entrepreneur comes from the French verb “Entreprendre”, which simply means: taking initiative, so entrepreneurship in my opinion is: a state of being innovative, curious, motivated, and constantly willing to generate productively disruptive ideas. Now, a corporate employee will of course go about being entrepreneurial differently than an independent entrepreneur might. Corporate businesses have structures to follow and channels to go through, after all. However, if a company fosters a communicative and innovative culture and encourages its employees to be entrepreneurial, they can make use of their employees’ creativity and engagement.
8- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Speaking about corporate, can you share with us some of the “HR transformation” projects that you worked on as a case study?
Hanane Benkhallouk: One of my client companies operates in the construction industry – and as we all know, that field is still distinctly male-dominated. As the company underwent a management change, I was called to help develop a new corporate vision and expansion plan. One of significant changes suggested during this time was fostering a more inclusive and balanced environment that supported more female employees as active agents for change. Breaking through to this more diverse gender base produced a multitude of innovative ideas, considerable business growth, and a more engaged workforce. However, the shift itself required a detailed strategy that could both “pull” everyone involved into a new mindset and align all levels of the organization with the new vision. Ultimately, this resulted in the implementation of a new corporate culture and remodel of the company’s HR department.
9- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: “Change management” is one of the demanded solutions nowadays. Can you tell us more about it, and what issues does it resolve?
Hanane Benkhallouk: As humans, we tend to resist change. We like our habits and routines; we feel comfortable living in the familiar. But in order to embrace innovation, we need to accept change. We can’t be comfortable with old processes when they could easily become an outdated hindrance to company progress. That said, implementing change isn’t as simple as sending out a company-wide memo because, again, people don’t like change. If employees don’t understand why a change is happening or think that it’s unnecessary, they will inevitably drag their feet and resist it. Whenever a company needs to implement a shift, they must first make sure that every change needs towards renewal, transformation, or on-going natural innovation. Then, they kickstart change management by activating individual employees as change agents. If they employees understand and believe in the value of the change, they will be engaged in bringing it about.
10- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You have developed your own methodology “SEAD”. Can you tell us more about it?
Hanane Benkhallouk: I developed the SEAD methodology for the Sustain Leadership team to use during consulting projects. Broken down, the acronym stands for: Sensing, Engaging, Aligning, and Developing.
Sensing is the initial step. This entails engaging with client organizations in a way that generates insights into potential challenges and strength. By drawing focus groups we prompt reflection, brainstorming, and collective creativity. Once the sensing stage draws to a close, my team collates and analyzes the data.
Next, we put that collated data to use. In the Engaging & Aligning stage, we share our findings and conclusions with the team and engage members in open discussion. In my experience, by encouraging the team to co-create ideas, plans, and solutions, we generate better solutions and allow the team to take personal responsibility for creating and upholding a positive working environment. Lastly, we enter Development. In this stage, we connect all team members via tailor-made experiential positive psychology and development programmes and bring the ideas circulated in the previous stage to life. Ultimately, our goal is to encourage team members to make and continue making positive contributions to the corporate culture.
11- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As a keynote speaker and a public speaking coach, you have sure attended lots of conferences as an attendee; an observer. What kind of positive criticism you can provide to many speakers out there, wither representing an idea or their companies?
Hanane Benkhallouk: Preparation is always key. When I’m called to present at a conference, I always make sure to research not only the topic I’ll be speaking on, but the audience I’ll be speaking to. I need to gather every detail I can about the mix, their level of knowledge about the topics under discussion, their roles in relation to the subject, and their understanding of the conference objective. For me, a good speech is about aligning my topic with all of the above-mentioned factors and making sure that I bring a fresh perspective to the room. In the light, what I suggest to new speakers is as follows:
Don’t try to sell yourself at the expense of your topic and audience!
While it is good to mention what you or the company you represent have accomplished as a means of building credibility, the stage or panel you speak from is not a platform to market, sell, or showcase your professional “muscles.” When you outline your speech or speak on a panel, always take a moment to imagine your audience asking: “What’s in it for me?” or “How are you adding value to me?”
12- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: As you also do life coaching and support people emotionally and mentally, do you believe human capital can be applied in relationships?
Hanane Benkhallouk: At the end of the day, a business is a sum of its people. As I mentioned earlier, my approach is always a human-centric one. Having effective human capital management skills means being able to focus on helping employees at work, lead with empathy, provide and receive constructive feedback effectively, build trust, manage conflicts, and share common goals. In short, human capital management demands proficiency in the same basic elements of all interpersonal relationships regardless if those bonds are between a company and customer, employee and employers, or personal friends.
13- HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What is your piece of advice to employers and employees who wish to sustain a work/life balance?
Hanane Benkhallouk: I’ve always been a tremendous believer in the value of a life balance. No, not a work/life balance – a life balance. The difference in terminology is one that always sparks debate among my colleagues and friends. To me, if we separate work from life, it means that we are not living when we work. But the workplace is where we spend at least a third of our days – if not more! Every moment is a part of our lives, and work isn’t exempt. So, I would say that a career should be something that adds meaning and joy to your life – but it should never be the sum total of that meaning or joy.
Having time to spend with family members and friends is valuable, rewarding, and I would even say healthy. If all we do is work, we risk burning out and losing both productivity and passion for our projects. In my experience, this struggle can be particularly pointed for women, who often need to balance caring for their families with time spent at work. I would advise employers to stay attuned to employee happiness and engagement. If something doesn’t seem to be working, try to fix it! Speak with your employees to determine if there’s a way to make balancing responsibilities easier. Engaged and happy employees are always more productive than those battling overwork and burnout.