CLCC directors and founders Antoinette Zuehlke and Triptta Neb

CLCC directors and founders Antoinette Zuehlke and Triptta Neb

Two corporate facilitators have launched a Dubai-based leadership development company to boost motivation and engagement in the workplace and address what they believe is a growing need for UAE business leaders to focus on the science behind performance.

Triptta Neb and Antoinette Zuehlke have launched Conscious Leadership Consulting and Coaching (CLCC), which they claim to be Dubai’s first ‘motivation-focused’ leadership development company, teaching the science behind employee performance improvement.

Having worked across the GCC for over a decade delivering performance-focused leadership training programs to the region’s biggest organizations, CLCC founder and director, Triptta Neb, has spent two years studying upcoming neurosciences techniques and its impact on organizational development to develop a different perspective on training.

“I was becoming increasingly frustrated, as the UAE has developed dramatically over the past decade, but the training courses the country’s business leaders are sent on have not evolved accordingly,” said Neb.

Workforce motivation a problem for UAE

A recent survey by Bayt.com found only 56 per cent of the UAE workforce is motivated. Where salary, perks and benefits (62 per cent) was the top factor motivating UAE respondents at work, other factors also scored high, like the opportunity to express creativity and showcase skills (49 per cent) and a better work-life balance (46 per cent).

The term ‘engaged’ employees is often described as individuals willing to try their best for employers and a recent survey from Aon Hewitt showed, only half of employees across the Gulf are engaged at work, with regional employee commitment levels among the lowest worldwide.

“The global advances made in the understanding of neurosciences-based organizational development have excited me for some time. We are all emotional creatures and these emotions release chemical in our brains. The science behind the chemical reactions we experience all day while carrying out work tasks is key to how we perform at any given point in our careers, our community and our health.

“All of our products and services are based upon social cognitive neurosciences and behavior, using scientific techniques to help people become productive, engaged and happier by looking at how the human brain is wired and what circuit is needed for each preferred behavior.

“This approach is fundamental in establishing what motivates individuals and how to tap into it. Despite surveys demonstrating that employees believe they are motivated by monetary rewards, science proves – for tasks requiring creativity and complex thought processes – they have little effect at all.”

“A fundamental principal of all our techniques is ‘appreciative inquiry’, which is a collaborative, strength-based approach becoming widely used globally,” said fellow founder and director Antoinette Zuehlke. “With this we believe it is crucial to look at the positives and what is working for the organization instead of what is not working in order to trigger the change from within and enable organizations to improve engagement.

“Traditional development methods have been available to fix problems, whereas most companies often don’t look at what they are doing right,” added Zuehlke. “Identifying and focusing on what is being done right helps with the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain and allows us to be more engaged, innovative and creative in our work, allowing us to solve complex problems.”

CLCC brings the motivational master class, based on the best seller ‘Drive’ by Daniel Pink, to the region for the first time for a one-day course in Dubai on March 18, flying in US trainers to deliver the initial workshop to an exclusive audience of business leaders. More information on Drive can be found at clcc.co/events.