#ChaosBeatsLogic Archives - Page 3 of 4

Neil Miller May 8, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, #See1See100, #ThinSkinned, #TimeIsEternal, On the Job

Don’t waste your short-term trip to India!

About the time you start packing your bags for your trip to India, the question dawns on you.

What am I doing?

Maybe it’s clear for you. You are training some colleagues. You are finding some suppliers. You are volunteering. You are choosing a vendor. You are attending a conference. (Do make sure you have the right visa for each of these!)

However, when you return and start unpacking your bags, you might suddenly realize the trip wasn’t as obviously successful as you thought it was. No one seems to be doing the things you trained them on. No one is replying to your repeated emails. All the processes you put in place seem to be falling apart.

You are left with a few pictures and a sinking feeling in your stomach that the trip was wasted. [Read more…]

Neil Miller April 4, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, #See1See100, Team Management

Implementing Processes in India

Implementing systems and processes in India is hard. Stories like this one from expats are very common:

I had just started a new assignment with the customer support team. The numbers from the latest survey showed we were losing a lot of customers due to poor service. The CEO wanted to see those numbers change quickly. [Read more…]

Neil Miller March 5, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, Transportation

How to Never Get Lost in India

Getting places in the digital age should be easy no matter what country you are in, right?

Let’s say you want to go visit a new western pizza place that just opened in your city. You check out the website and find the address:

32 Krishna Street, 100 Foot Road, Koramangala, Bangalore

You look it up on Google Maps, just to get a rough idea of where it is. Then, to be smart, you write out the name of the pizza place, along with “32 Krishna Street, 100 Foot Road”. You head out to your nearest auto driver, give him the address, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

Not likely. You have set yourself up for a stressful trip that is not likely to end with pizza.

[Read more…]

Neil Miller March 3, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #GreyIsWhite, Transportation

The Unwritten Rules of Driving in India

I recently spoke with the Inspector of Traffic Police for Chennai and asked him what advice he would give foreigners who want to drive in India.

He said, “Don’t do it.”

Still, there will be some of us sick souls who insist on our freedom and are willing to put our lives and sanity at risk.

But before you get into the wrong side of the car, realize you are in the passenger’s seat, get out, and get behind the driving wheel, you must acknowledge these three things:

Driving in India will definitely increase the frequency of culture attacks you will experience
Driving in India will increase the likelihood that you will kill someone or something (intentionally or unintentionally)
You must completely forget everything you know about driving.

Driving in India is a lesson in anarchy. But if anarchy is like Indian roads, then it is not so bad once you get used to it.

Lucky for you, I found a great *old Indian driving manual at the RTO. I’ve posted some excerpts you might find helpful.

General Driving Guidelines:

When driving, you should assume at all times that everyone around you is suffering from a severe mental disease that makes them either suicidal or homicidal. 

For example, when you are driving down a road in very fast traffic and notice a car waiting to merge, it is best to assume this deranged driver will plan on pulling out in front of you, slowing to a stop, and then making an illegal U-turn. Once this assumption becomes common for you, you will find driving much more pleasurable.

As a driver, your only obligation is to concern yourself with what is ahead of you. Do not refer to the side nor rearview mirrors. Keep moving forward at all costs, and do not stop for any reason whatsoever.

Regarding Right of Way:

In every conceivable traffic situation, you always have the right of way. If you decide to ever relinquish this God-given right, these are the acceptable parties you can give it to:

-Vehicles larger than you
-City buses and water tankers whose drivers enjoy immunity in all situations
-Cows

If there is a conflict on who has the right of way, the party with the least to lose will be granted the right of way (i.e. those with no concern for human life, those who are only hired drivers, those who already have scratches on their car, those who are very late for something very important).

[Read more…]

Neil Miller February 10, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, Be Prepared, Cultural Adaptation

Two Kinds of Culture Shock

There are two kinds of culture shock.

The first is the kind you get when you are riding in your first taxi ride from the airport around India and force yourself to close your eyes as the driver dodges cars, cows, bicycles, and pedestrians in traffic.

The second kind is what happens six weeks later when you find yourself physically pushing someone out of the way who has cut the queue in front of you and yelling “What’s wrong with you?!”

To distinguish between the two, I’ll call the second a culture attack.

Culture shocks are actually a little bit fun. These are the experiences you tell your friends and family about when you go back home. It was like culture shock when everyone jammed into the train all at once! That was crazy! These are simple isolated experiences of cultural differences that leave an impression on us.

Culture attacks are hellish. They overtake your body and leave you feeling like the Incredible Hulk. You don’t tell people back home about these times. How do you tell your mother about the time when you got out your car and threatened to kill the motorcyclist who pulled out in front of you? [Read more…]

Neil Miller January 21, 2014 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #IndiasNotIndia, Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Lagaan

One of the most underdeveloped themes in Indian movies is sports.

Granted, as an American I have a bias towards sports obsession. But given the inherent drama, heroism, and opportunities for large groups of men to get together and dance, it seems this genre could be an unending well for Indian filmmakers.

Of the relatively few Indian movies about sports, one stands out above the rest. It is Hoosiers. It is Miracle. It is The Sandlot. It is Lagaan.

How well does it fit the sports genre? [Read more…]

Neil Miller November 6, 2013 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #GreyIsWhite, #TimeIsEternal, Transportation

How To Take 10 Hours to Drive to Bangalore from Chennai

There are no really bad ways and no really great ways to get from Chennai to Bangalore. Bus, car, train, even plane – all have their benefits and drawbacks. Faced with one client meeting at noon and another at 3pm and an open weekend ahead of me, I opted to leave in the morning and drive.

Any Indian will tell you with full certainty that it takes exactly 5 hours to drive to Bangalore. However, I have never actually experienced this in my life and am still not sure it is physically possible. (Though I now hear myself saying it to others as well.)

Here is my story. I marked my mistakes with a * and good ideas with a ^.

My original plan was to leave at 6 am, giving myself a good extra hour to reach. As I told my friends, they continually told me to prepone my departure time to avoid traffic, so I left at 5 am^. [Read more…]

Neil Miller October 20, 2013 Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #GreyIsWhite, #TimeIsEternal, Cultural Adaptation, Daily Living

Survival Skills

I’m going to try to change things around here.

That’s just the way things are, what can I do?

If you are like most people, these two thoughts tug at you constantly while in India. One minute you are inspired to make a difference and change something for the better. The next, you give up because you realize nothing will ever change. Then you start to see things move in a positive direction. Then you are struck at how nothing has moved at all.

Two steps forward, two steps back.

At the office, you try to implement strict processes and timelines and yet they seem to inevitably break down and fizzle out over time.

You feel compelled to give some money to the child who comes up to your car, hoping to make a difference in her life, and then later find out she is a part of a gang which keeps her in poverty her entire life.

History is filled with people who have come to India with big dreams and huge change initiatives. It is also filled with clumps of hair and screams of those who are tasked with implementing them.

Here’s a very brief and over-simplified view of a few key moments in Indian history that might help.

Alexander the Great – At the age of 30, Alexander had already conquered all of Greece, Persia, Babylon, and most of the known world at the time. His last great dream was to extend his kingdom to what the Greeks considered “the end of the known world” which was northwest India. After having defeated incredibly powerful armies, Alexander’s own army mutinied somewhere near Punjab and refused to go any further. Alexander left an officer as a satrap there and soon died without having fully realized his dream of conquering the whole world.

Mughal Empire in India – The Mughals came into India in 1526 through Babur and held large influence in India until the mid 1700s. They were the complete rulers of the day. Along with establishing the first empire that spanned most of modern-day Indian and Pakistan, they brought in a new renaissance of architecture and mathematics that the native Indians accepted and used to their own advantage. However, one of the early aims of the Mughals and other Muslim rulers was to see large conversions to Islam. Try as they might, this was one thing that never happened on a mass scale. Indians held onto their own beliefs while still participating in the kingdom.

British Raj – In 1858, the rule of the British East India Company was transferred to the Crown of England and so began about 90 years of British rule in the subcontinent. But the British had been there much earlier, seeking trade and spices and finding a fortune to be made. Within a very short time, the British had conquered the largest parts of India and had subdued an entire subcontinent. The British tried their best to convert India into a true bureaucracy, making “modern men” out of Indians, and converting them to Christianity, but that never happened to a large extent. They remained who they were.

How does this relate to the fact that you are visiting the customs officer for the eighth time and trying to figure out if you have to/should give a bribe to the officer to get your stuff from the shipping container? How does it help you choose between the two thoughts we started with? What does India want from you?

To take a page from history, she wants your talent, your brilliance, your insight. She will take your money, your investments, your ideas, your questions and your doubts and will let them live and breathe and have space here. You can add to the richness of life in India and augment people’s lives in ways you never knew possible.

The only thing she doesn’t want is for you to try to change her. That’s where you will bust your head. In 3,000 years, there have been extremely few cases where an outsider “changed” India as a country, and it is unlikely you are going to be one of those stories. You can make her better and teach her new skills and help grow her understanding, but if a “culture change” is on your agenda, you are likely to live a short life here.

There is a time to give and a time to give in.

When you should give:

When you are dealing with an Indian (individual), not in a crowd
When you have a skill to teach like planning and pacing
When you see a specific need you can address (like taking care of your maid’s cataract surgery)
When you are working under an Indian’s authority and direction
When you are participating in an existing movement stated by Indians like asking for a receipt for your “ticket” instead of paying a bribe

When you should give in:

When you are dealing with India as a country
When a stranger cuts the queue in front of you
When someone cuts you off in traffic
When you are with the masses
When you feel the need to “start something new”, or “teach someone a lesson”.

This balance will be the key to your survival in India. Give and give in. Which one should you do today?