Unplugged with iSolution: Building Strong Teams Through Clear Vision and Value Communication

What makes a technology leader truly effective in today's rapidly evolving landscape? In this fascinating conversation, we're joined by Abu Talal, whose journey from technician to visionary leader offers powerful insights for anyone navigating a technology career.

Abu Talal takes us back to a pivotal moment in his professional journey when he stepped away from his programming comfort zone to tackle a comprehensive service management project. This decision transformed not just his career trajectory but his entire approach to technology leadership. Rather than seeing technology through the narrow lens of development, he gained a panoramic view encompassing infrastructure, data centers, networks, and the entire technology stack that supports applications and services.

This holistic perspective forms the foundation of Abu Talal's leadership philosophy: be an expert in your domain but develop a solid understanding of adjacent areas. While technical skills are essential, Abu Talal emphasizes that the most successful leaders possess an openness to change, a focus on value creation, and the ability to communicate a clear vision that inspires their teams. He explains how breaking down hierarchical barriers and helping team members visualize the future impact of their work creates an environment where everyone contributes their best efforts toward shared goals.

The discussion takes an intriguing turn as Abu Talal reflects on the challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI. Rather than viewing AI as a threat, he sees it as raising the bar for expertise while creating opportunities for increased productivity and healthy competition. He shares an impressive case study where his team reduced service delivery time from 15-20 days to just 3 hours through process re-engineering—a system that remains effective more than a decade later.

Listen now to discover why understanding the complete picture in technology leadership is crucial for success, and hear Abu Talal's advice on building strong teams, embracing new technologies, and creating lasting impact in your organization.

Transcript

Introduction and Career Journey

Speaker 1 0:22

Unplugged . Welcome to the podcast . Welcome to the podcast . It's an honor to be here with you today . Thank you for the invitation . We heard that your nickname is Abu Talal . That's right . If you'd like to continue the podcast with Abu Talal , we'll be able to remove the Arabic from the Hadith . It's all right , welcome . I'll start with a small question about you . Can you give us one more moment , a motivational experience that shaped your professional life ? Can you give us a moment a ?

Speaker 1 0:49

I worked in a certain area . In the area where I was working , I started my life as a technician . At the beginning of my life . I worked as a technician for three years . I was given the opportunity to move to another field . I always had doubts about my future . I will continue to work as a programmer and I will continue to work . I didn't have any idea . So I had the opportunity to work on something that was trendy in 2008-2009

Importance of Cross-Domain Knowledge

Speaker 1 1:33

In service management and take care about the customer and the end users and how to improve their experience completely . So I had the opportunity to take on a , a project that was on a whole organization level . How can we improve this experience ? I hesitated a lot , but I said let's explore it . I took a step and started . I entered the world of service management , technology management and delivery management completely . That moment was a turning point for me . I was seeing technology on one side , which is development and programming , to the other side , which is delivery , infrastructure and the entire stack that supports the end of the application or a specific program . There is a huge stack underneath and this must be completed in an excellent way to provide the service in a good way . This was a very comprehensive project that allowed me to enter into the depths of technology in all dimensions , in all domains , whether it was infra , data centers , network in the background for development . This is what formed the complete picture of Sultan today .

Speaker 1 2:41

Now you told us , abu Talal , that you took a risk decision not risky , but a quick decision that changed your career path . If you want to give advice today to someone who is starting in this field , what would be the advice ? I will correct him , and not only the career path , but you want to see yourself as a leader or an inspiration after 10 or 15 years of experience in a certain place , and be solid in the domain . Whether in technology or not , it's good to be an expert in the domain you are in fully focused on it , but you need

Building Strong, Value-Driven Teams

Speaker 1 3:20

to have a better understanding of the surrounding areas , because , in the end , you can't give full value unless you have a good understanding of the surrounding areas . The more you have enough experience in dealing with these external areas , whether in the domain or the further domain , the stronger , the more solid and the more ready you are for the future .

Speaker 1 3:45

Since you're saying that a person needs to be ready for the future , what do you think are the skills that a person should work on to develop ? You can tell me about leadership . You can tell me about technical skills . Give me some personal skills that a person should develop in order to be successful in this field . Communication skills and leadership skills are the basics and most of the trainings are covering them , and the person should have a clear personality in the field he works in . The more a person is able to accept change , to discover new areas , to be more focused on the value more than the way . How can I reach the value I need in my work or in the domain I work in ? More , more than the way you reach me , and this speeds up and makes people always focus on gaining the ultimate value for any work you work in . So of course , there is no doubt that communication skills and leadership are very important and necessary , but it is also important for the person to be active in accepting things and other changes that arise .

Speaker 1 5:03

Since we are talking about the person being active and accepting , how do you build a strong and capable team ? I mean , I say to the strong team , if you are not part of it and you feel that you are part of this team , you can't build it first . So you have to completely break the team spirit . This is number one , and you are part of the team fundamentally . Number two is that Any leader in a team must make the team feel that they are going to a certain place . The vision should be very clear . The strategy should be very clear . The values that you seek are very clear . The more the team believes in this vision from the beginning , the more excited you are and the more they want to reach you in a better way and the more they can see the value early . And these are the skills that must be born in the leader . He must see the value early , advance and pass it on to the team , because the team , the geniuses or the experienced people may not feel the value as much as the experienced person or the leader who sees the vision in the future . So if you are going to pass on the value that you are seeing after a while or after achieving this vision , and bring it in the present time and give it to the team , make sure that you get a team that is very excited and able to take you to the stage that you want to reach .

Speaker 1 6:17

You answered my question about the next question , which is how to make a winning culture a strategy of success in the team . You answered my question that you start with the leader . You start to have a perfect plan , a vision , a mission and be able to communicate with his team on this topic . Right , what are the biggest

Challenges and Opportunities in Technology

Speaker 1 6:36

challenges and opportunities that your field faces today ? Maybe , let's say , a big change in technology . You don't want to start doing a specific adaption of the technology unless the second technology comes along , and that's a big challenge and an opportunity . For example , I will give the example of the Genii .

Speaker 1 6:57

We all said that it is an opportunity to learn and a great opportunity for people to have full awareness and knowledge accessible to everyone . But it is a challenge to the other party that today a simple person has full knowledge and can simply ask an expert about the domain you are in and answer it with all efficiency . This is what we mean as a technology . Today we have a challenge in raising quality . We must change and develop quickly because today the society has become very developed . It has a complete awareness in any domain and this is a very nice challenge and makes it an opportunity for us to make our society today present for the future that we are looking for in development and improvement and in the adoption of future technologies .

Speaker 1 7:39

Now you answered me on the first question I asked you and you told me the most important thing is to work on the quality of service and how we can provide value to our customers . How important is the full scope ? I'm going back to the topic said at the beginning . You told me a little bit about Gen AI and AI . What is its effect today ? It's a small question , but I know the answer is very big . Gen AI , isa , use case of AI concept . It's one of the use cases . There are many use cases depending on the domain or the industry you work in .

Speaker 1 8:16

Genial AI , as I mentioned before , is a challenge for experts because they have to be ready for a changing society , a society that has a very high level of knowledge . So it has to be the highest and most experienced . And it has to be the highest and most experienced and it has to be logical and realistic in its . It is difficult , but if it is cheap , it will filter the experts , the good and excellent experts who really provide the desired performance according to the customer . But without a doubt , doubt it increases productivity .

Speaker 1 8:55

Let's say , today you have two colleagues in a particular job . Each one has a different domain . Each one has a specific knowledge in a particular area . The other person can be an expert in the other domain . In a large way , this raises the challenge to the other party that he must provide the full value that he seeks and that he is aware of . This has a great impact on productivity . This improves performance on both sides . Everyone tries to be better in the domain he is in in order to provide value to a person who knows the value in advance . This is what makes the product more attractive . In the end , it is a healthy competition , which is one of the most important qualities that should be present in the team and in the company because it increases the quality , as you said , abu Talal , personally , what new technology do you use ?

Speaker 1 9:48

What AI do you use ? I don't want to mention a specific thing , but all the

Personal Interests and Career Impact

Speaker 1 9:53

products that are available today are used . Deepseq , for example , tgpt , for O . Many tools are available today that are used in the AI field .

Speaker 1 10:05

I will get out of the technology topic and I will take you to the personal part , abu Talal , what are your hobbies ? Tell us about them Outside of the work area . I mean a personal hobby . It's a bit different from the domain I work in . I mean , I kind of like poetry , poetry , I like poetry , but with the fast and advanced routine in technology , I kind of let's skip this hobby a bit . With the fast and fast routine of technology , I might . I'm going to take a little too much , but I still tried to keep it and try to . Every time I come back . I live from one step to the next . Can you tell us about the text ? Can you tell us Beit Sha'ar ? Beit Sha'ar , he says Do you know why today is more beautiful than yesterday ? Because the busyness is getting bigger . Even I , the poet , the poet and the bus , we , you know why today is more beautiful than yesterday Because the busyness is getting bigger . Even me , poetry , poetry and the busyness we are getting bigger and we love you more and more . Hahaha , I mean it's very nice . May God bless you .

Speaker 1 11:06

Okay , in your career , of course , you have gone through many stages Nice stages , difficult stages but in your personal life , what is an interesting experience that you enjoyed ? In your professional life ? I always enjoy the impact . I moved from different industries , from the industrial sector to the IT sector and so on IT or other things . Something that honestly always affects me is that a person at that time did a project and its impact is still there .

Speaker 1 11:45

I remember one of the parties I worked with had a challenge in the matter of delivery and , let's say , service delivery in general . This is probably the year 2008 or so , the beginnings of the concept of service management . The effect we created is that we reduced the number of hours of service delivery for the final recipient from an average of about 15 to 20 days to being delivered in 3 hours . 3 hours , 3 hours Only . Through the process of continuous improvement and the process re-engineering that we used changed a lot in delivery and this is in 2008 and it became very high satisfaction and until now , one of the most exciting things and funny , of course is that the delivery process that you did in 2008 is still the same . This is a great source of experience and experience and other experiences , but this is very old and the beginnings of the process and the service management concept and the user experience process and service management concept and user experience and see which step I can take to improve the process in a better way . You will find some tasks that are accumulated and inside the process and they have no value . So how can you make it easier and focus on the value that you will reach ?

Speaker 1 13:09

Abu Talal , I don't like to stop the talk . To be honest , the talk is very nice and exciting .

Final Advice and Episode Closing

Speaker 1 13:33

If today , you have to go back in time , what is your advice to yourself from , let's assume , 20 years ? Well , this is a very difficult question , but I think that maybe I answered it at the beginning that don't be trapped in one place . Try to discover all the people around you , how to be trapped with them , how to help them in achieving their around you , how to communicate with them , how to help them achieve their goals if they expect them from you . This will help you see the helicopter view and how it affected everyone and how you can be the leader of this domain , because you were interacting with it from the beginning , abu Talal , the seat was very nice . Thank you , follow on LinkedIn , subscribe on YouTube . And the links of Amazon Music , spotify and Apple Podcast are in the link below . Thank you , thank you , abu Talal . Thank you , god bless you . Thank you , god bless you .