Dr. Ehssan in the Media

A Back-to-School Reflection - A Warm Welcome to Our Students As a new academic year begins, our notebooks fill with goals, and our minds fill with plans, ambitions, and long lists of things we hope to accomplish. We promise ourselves that this year we will read more, work harder, learn faster, and become better versions of ourselves. Then, a few weeks pass. The excitement fades. Life returns to its ordinary rhythm. Perhaps this is the perfect moment to pause and ask a differe

In a previous article, I argued that organizations do not begin with structures or procedures; they begin with a story. Language is not merely a means of communication—it is the vessel that carries that story and the bridge through which it reaches employees, customers, and society. But a deeper question remains: if the story is the heart of the organization and language is its vessel, what does that story ultimately carry? It carries meaning. An organization is more than a p

The books behind my thinking as a coach, consultant, researcher, and writer. By Dr. Ehssan Aljohani ⸻ People often ask where my ideas about organizations come from. Is it my doctoral studies? Executive coaching? Consulting? Academic research? The answer is all of these—but not entirely. Much of my thinking has been shaped by books. Some challenged the way I understand organizations. Others changed how I think about people, leadership, creativity, and meaning. Together, they c

By Dr. Ehssan Aljohani Originally published in Al Madina Newspaper on 25 July 2026. Available at: https://www.al-madina.com/article/993737/منتدى/اللغة-الأم-في-مكان-العمل ⸻ What is a mother? She is our first existence, our origin, our lineage, and the very first root of who we are. In the workplace, we rarely use the word mother except when asking, “What is your mother tongue?” Yet language is far more than a passing question. Language is a mother in every sense of the word. I

I did not have enough time to finish the idea during my last lecture. I closed the presentation, the students left the classroom, yet something remained unfinished within me. I kept thinking: perhaps the defining skill of the next century will not simply be artificial intelligence, nor speed of achievement, but rather the human ability to protect one’s attention and spirit from exhaustion. In the field of Organizational Behavior, we learn that people do not enter the workplac

Stories is the core unit that shapes the heart of an organization, its meaning, and its final image. But how so? The story appears in an organization’s strategy: Who are we? What do we do? How do we work? Who has worked with us? What do we promise? What value do we offer? It even appears in pricing, services, language, and everyday decisions. Yet, narrative is not a story told in one direction only, nor is it simply what an organization says about itself. A narrative is als