The Middle East taught me the same lesson I try to teach everyone else.
The Middle East taught me a lesson: ironically it's the same lesson I try to teach everyone else.
I came to the Middle East to deliver keynotes, standing on four different stages over the course of a week, speaking about the newly-global Valuegraphics Database that measures what everyone in the world cares about most.
Here's the set-up to the lesson I was taught this week:
My rallying cry has always been that if we want to change the world we must start by changing the way we look at the world. After all, how can we change something when we can't even understand what it is?
And how can we understand what it is when we use broken and busted tools like demographic stereotypes?
It's a post-demographic world we live in, and we need to find a better way to understand each other so we can move forward in a good way.
Enter Valuegraphics. We have this database that is accurate for the world now, and simply put it measures what everyone really cares about. So now we can understand each other by knowing what is most important to everyone around us.
And here's the humbling lesson:
I'm a little embarrassed to write this and share it but if I don't, I'm being a hypocrite.
So here we go.
I came to the Middle East with preconceived notions of who these people are. I grew up in western culture, and my only exposure to the Middle East was through western media and western movies and western - well - everything. I was a little frightened of what everyone was going to be like over here, because frankly, western media likes to paint a pretty dark picture of what this part of the world is all about.
I was speaking about the Valuegraphics Data we've collected from this part of the world, and I was reporting these things about what we'd found, from stages in front of rooms full of the very people I was talking about.
So, of course, I was bringing sandwiches to a picnic: they already knew the things I was saying. They may have found it affirming to know that data backs up what they feel on a daily basis, but the one person in the room who was learning new things was definitely me.
And very quickly I felt slightly ashamed. It shouldn't have taken me this long and this hyper-real circuitous-circumstance for me to realize I had cultural blinders on. But it did. On stage, in front of all these people, I was really teaching myself my own lesson: that we need to understand what people value and not rely on demographic stereotypes to see the world.
Here's what I - very publicly and in front of thousands of people - learned this week
These are the top 10 values shared by the people of the Middle East, with an accuracy level of 3.5% and a confidence level of 95%. I added an 11th, because it seemed to help me make the point. Look at the ones I have made bold. This description of the values and driving beliefs of these people couldn't be farther from what the western media would have us believe.
Family
Morality
Loyalty
Personal Responsibility
Financial Security
Basic Needs
Harmony
Love
Inner Harmony
Security
Trustworthiness
It's certainly not the list I expected. I'm equally certain it was no surprise to anyone listening to me speak. And the validity of the data was verified in a very real way with every interaction I had with every person I met.
This week, I changed the way I looked at the world.
And I'm better off for it.