Listening and learning
Building trust and getting to the reality behind the answers.
Director, Organisational Excellence
My first 90 days at the
Museum of the Future
First 90-day mandate: build context, align priorities and create the foundations for what comes next.
Identifying opportunities
Finding where clearer choices or simpler ways of working could make the biggest difference.
Co-building the foundations
Working with leadership and teams so that change is useful, understood and owned.
Starting point
A clear view of the museum today—and what it needs next.
People
01
Listening and sensing the temperature
Structured sessions with the leadership team, combined with informal conversations across functions, levels and tenures, surface team priorities, pain points and how work really gets done. They also show how connection and belonging are experienced across the museum’s first generation, newer colleagues and future joiners.
02
Assessing the current People Engine
Review the HR team structure, frameworks, tools, data and capabilities already in place. The goal is to see what works well today, where the gaps are and where strengthening the engine will create the most value.
Business
01
Mapping how the museum works
Map the museum’s operating flow, structure and commercial model: how experiences are created and delivered, where value is generated, and which cross-team dependencies affect visitor experience, speed and revenue.
02
Analysing Executive Director & Leadership priorities
Connect Majed’s priorities, the leadership team’s ambitions and the commitments already in motion to the people, capabilities and ways of working the museum will need next.
The current People Engine
What gets assessed
A structured assessment of the HR foundations currently in place, their effectiveness and scalability, and the capabilities required to support the museum’s next phase.
HR team structure, roles and capability
Organisation structure, accountability and critical roles
Performance management and feedback
Pay philosophy, compensation and progression
Key talent, succession and retention risks
Future capabilities and workforce needs
Talent attraction and employer positioning
People systems and data
Main outcome
A clear view of the current People Engine, its key gaps and risks, and the priorities for what to strengthen, build or source.
How I work
Partnership and open communication start from the beginning: sharing what I am hearing, inviting challenge, documenting decisions and following through. Peers and colleagues should feel the work is being done with them, not to them.
Working assumptions
- The museum already has strong creative ambition, a committed team and important history worth protecting.
- The next chapter will need more clarity and scalability without losing speed, imagination or entrepreneurial energy.
- Majed values action, accountability and continuous iteration.
- Emirati talent is a strategic priority, not a compliance exercise.
Questions to test
- Which capabilities will matter most for the museum’s next chapter?
- Do decisions, handoffs or unclear ownership slow momentum? Where?
- Which behaviours best represent the museum at its best?
- Where should roles stay fluid, and where is sharper accountability essential?
- What helps people do their best work here, and what gets in the way?
Open Assumptions
MOTF 2.0 may be fully designed, actively being shaped, or somewhere between the two. The starting point is to establish its current stage and where this role can add value.
- What has already been agreed and should be treated as a clear direction?
- What is being built or tested now, and what have the teams learned so far?
- Which choices are still open, and where would the Executive Director and leadership team welcome challenge or support?
The plan
Each phase becomes a building block
for the next.
Action starts early, but it stays grounded in what the first weeks reveal. Listening continues while choices are made, and learning continues once the first changes are in motion.
30
Listen - Observe - Learn
Ask the right questions and listen beyond the answers.What happens in this phase
- Align with Majed to map his priorities, how he wants us to work together, which decisions are open and what success should look like.
- Set up an Active Listening approach, combining structured sessions with leaders and managers and informal conversations with frontline teams, Emirati talent, new joiners and long-tenured employees.
- Experience the current employee journey by walking through attraction, selection, onboarding, performance, development, recognition, wellbeing and exit as they are designed and as they are lived.
- Run a MOTF x-ray across structure, capabilities, critical roles, handoffs, decision bottlenecks and the Emirati talent baseline.
- Address one or two points of friction that cannot wait, where appropriate, to show that listening is followed by action.
By day 30
- A clear summary of what I heard and learned
- Current employee-journey view
- Initial map of the museum’s structure and capabilities
- Draft priority risk and dependency log
- Early view of key people data and team experience
- Agreed priorities for the next 60 days
Success signal
Majed and the leadership team recognise the findings and agree on the priorities. Employees feel heard and begin to see follow-through.
60
Make choices · build partnership · design together
Align - Map wins - Start co-operating
What happens in this phase
- Align with Majed and the leadership team on the few areas where intervention matters most.
- Clarify MOTF 2.0: what is decided, what is being tested and what remains open.
- Turn the findings into lean design choices across structure, accountability, capability and ways of working.
- Co-design the future employee journey and two Emirati talent pathways with the people who will make them work.
- Agree the first wins, their owners and measures, and what we are deliberately not doing yet.
By day 60
- Agreed areas for intervention
- Lean museum design principles
- MOTF 2.0 gaps, choices or stress-test findings
- First draft of the future employee journey
- Two Emirati talent pathways
- Agreed early wins, owners and next steps
Success signal
By day 60, Majed and the leadership team know what we are changing first, why it matters, who owns it and what we are deliberately not doing yet.
90
Activate · learn · improve · build from there
Make it real
What happens in this phase
- Activate the few leadership forums and routines needed to stay aligned, make decisions and unblock work.
- Translate priority design choices into practice by clarifying roles, interfaces and ways of working, while giving managers the tools and support to lead well.
- Launch the agreed pilot or pilots, including connection and belonging actions where relevant, with a clear feedback loop.
- Create a simple museum health dashboard that makes the most important signals visible so leadership can act, not simply report.
- Agree a 12-month roadmap that sequences the remaining work, owners, dependencies and investment choices.
By day 90
- First agreed pilot or pilots live
- Priority roles and ways of working clarified
- Manager essentials in use
- Connection and belonging actions started
- Simple museum health dashboard
- Owned 12-month roadmap
Success signal
People can feel the first improvements, leaders are using the new ways of working, and there is a realistic plan for what comes next.
What I would not do in 90 days
Make strong statements before understanding the context · announce a large restructure · add premature red-tape or limiting work · create policies for every edge case · make promises the data cannot support
A strategic priority | My deal with Majed
Building the conditions for
Emirati talent to succeed.
Being the strongest advocate means building access, readiness and progression—not lowering the bar or checking boxes. The ambition is Emirati talent succeeding in roles that matter and building MOTF’s future.
Pathway 01Build the pipeline
Academic partnerships and accelerated development
Partner with strong local and international universities, then give selected Emirati talent an intensive route into meaningful contribution.
- 01Partner
Build relationships with UAE and international universities in disciplines connected to the museum’s future capabilities.
- 02Select
Look for potential, curiosity, learning agility, judgement, communication and ownership, alongside a strong academic record.
- 03Develop
Use real projects, rotations, mentoring, learning sprints and leadership exposure to accelerate readiness.
- 04Transition
Set clear readiness standards and create routes into substantive roles rather than indefinite trainee status.
Pathway 02Bring in experience
Experienced Emirati talent
Build an active local network of experienced Emiratis who can add capability now and grow into wider leadership.
- 01Prioritise
Identify the critical capabilities and roles where experience and local context will add the most value.
- 02Engage
Build relationships before vacancies appear and involve leaders as credible talent ambassadors.
- 03Integrate
Create purposeful onboarding, visible sponsorship and early ownership of meaningful work.
- 04Progress
Back development and succession with real opportunity, evidence and accountability.
What is realistic by day 90
Baseline
Representation, progression, retention and readiness understood.
Priorities
Critical roles and capabilities identified.
Partners
Partnership criteria and an initial shortlist agreed.
Next step
The first pathway shaped, owned and ready for its next decision.
The employee journey
Connect the visitor and
team member experience.
Design both with the same care, so how people join, belong, contribute and grow supports the experience they create for visitors.
Moment that matters
“This is a place I want to be part of.”
Question to test
Does the employer promise feel true to the museum and attract the capabilities it needs?
Evidence
Source quality · candidate conversion · expectation alignment
How progress will be measured
Make the important things
visible and actionable.
The first dashboard will create visibility and action, not a map of every possible KPI. Baselines come first; targets follow once the data and ambition are clear.
Clarity
Employee pulse: clarity on priorities, role and decision authority
Leadership
Action closure rate · decision turnaround time · leadership alignment pulse
Experience
Engagement and belonging scores · friction at key employee moments
Talent
Critical-role coverage · Emirati progression · internal fill rate · regretted attrition
Capability
Priority capability gaps closed · manager effectiveness · development applied
Delivery
Roadmap milestones delivered · time to resolve bottlenecks · pilot adoption
By day 90
What leadership and employees should notice
01Leadership agrees on the museum’s most important people and design choices, with the next 12 months sequenced, owned and realistic.
02People can see that their input has influenced priorities and early action.
03The museum’s first generation and newer colleagues have more opportunities to connect and learn from one another.
04Managers have clearer expectations and more practical support.
05Emirati talent has an intentional and credible route into contribution and leadership.
What you can expect from me
I listen carefully, make choices in partnership, and follow through.
By day 90, we will have scratched the surface—but with intention. The realistic goal is a shared view of the priorities, a few improvements already in motion, and a practical roadmap for the next phase.
Nathalia Klein · Director, Organisational Excellence · 90-day plan