Learning India

Making sense of the subcontinent

Filed Under: #PowerPlays, Team Management

10 Ways to Create an Ego-Friendly Workplace

 

Dealing with Ego at the Workplace

My friend is the CEO of a major division of a huge Indian conglomerate. He oversees operations in multiple countries and manages a workforce in India and the US. He has a brilliant business mind and brought this division up from substantial losses to profit in a difficult industry.

Yet when I chat with him, the thing that’s always on his mind is dealing with his Chairman and all the other conglomerate leaders. From the outside it looks like a giant mess. One CEO doesn’t like the other one because of something that happened ten years ago. The Chairman’s son is being groomed for a top position, but no one wants to be pushed out. So on and so on.

Ego works around the world, but he seems to pop up in India a lot. He’s a tough person to work with because it seems like he takes all of your emotional energy, and with one bad move, he’ll run you out of town.

Ego doesn’t work just in the C-suite. She’s there among middle managers and freshers and everywhere in between. You can never escape from working with her.

There are two ends of the spectrum when it comes to working with Ego. One is to ignore him, pretend that he doesn’t exist, and beat the hell out of anyone you might think is working with him. The other is to worship him and spend all of your time appeasing him. If you’ve been in India long enough, you’ve likely seen the failure of both of these approaches. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #PowerPlays, Team Management

How to Develop Leaders in India

kkalyan -team

 

In the previous article, we discussed a different way to think about leadership development in India – specifically that a good leader can be very connected without being dependent. Here are some specific strategies you can use to practice this kind of leadership development.

 

1. Publicly Anoint Leaders

Make a public show of putting a developing leader in a new position. This lets him know you have confidence in him and makes sure everyone else knows it too. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #PowerPlays, On the Job, Podcast

Episode 12: Carissa Hickling

Podcast

 

“Bureaucracy is a lot of little people trying to follow the rules as they interpret it.”

 

Meet Carissa Hickling, Mumbai’s own Whisky Lady, and the 12th guest on the Working With India podcast. Carissa runs her own consulting firm, and has been in India for over 20 years.

In this episode you will hear:

  • The benefits and limits to being a foreigner in India
  • How to take 5 years to remove money from a Provident Fund
  • Why ‘suggesting’ something be done doesn’t usually cut it in India
  • When it’s ok to blur the professional and personal lines

 

You can reach Carissa on

 

You can listen to the show in this player, or through iTunes.

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Filed Under: #GreyIsWhite, #PowerPlays, Daily Living, On the Job

How to Squeeze a No into a Yes

Turning a No to a Yes

 

No, sir. You can’t come in here.

I left some papers at my office inside one of those huge IT buildings and wanted to pick them up on a Saturday. I didn’t have a parking permit, since I usually came on a two-wheeler, but I knew the parking lot would be nearly empty and I only needed about 10 minutes to go in and out.

As I pulled in, I came to the place where you wave an electronic card to lift the gate. I pulled up, showed my ID card and asked the security guard if he would let me go through.

No, sir. You can’t come in here.

“Please, sir” I said, closing one eye and cocking my head to the side. “Just 10 minutes.”

No, sir. He seemed like he had been through this before.

“Ok, then please let me park here by the entrance; I’ll go in quickly and come back.”

No, sir. Visitor parking is outside.

By “outside” he was referring to the 6 meter wide service lane that was supposed to accommodate two lanes of traffic. I pulled around, found a place to park and started to walk inside.

Sir! Sir! Hello! Sir! Hello! I tried to ignore the calls as I was walking to the office, but I knew they were after me. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #PowerPlays, #TimeIsEternal, On the Job, Podcast, Team Management

Episode 11: Patrick De Ridder

 

“Calling me on a Sunday is a sign of…”

Your first answer might be rudeness, unprepared thinking, or an invasion of privacy.

But add 17 years onto your India journey and you end this sentence with “respect”.

 

Podcast

Meet Patrick De Ridder, a student of Indian business and philosophy, and the next guest on Working with India. He came to India in 1997 and has stayed on, starting a business consulting company in 2006 for French, Belgian, and Dutch companies entering India.

Patrick was destined to be a “librarian writing books on philosophy” before India captured his imagination. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, #TimeIsEternal, On the Job, Podcast

Episode 9: Amar Vyas

Podcast

 

Sometimes it’s nice to know you aren’t the only one…

When you come to India for the first time, you may wonder if you are the only one who notices the massive differences: the cows on the road, the work culture, the late night dinners. Is it ok to point them out? Can you laugh about them or is that taboo?

It’s always nice when someone else confirms that things are different, hard, and great.

Today’s Working With India podcast is with Amar Vyas. His name has been on a few of the latest posts (NRI: Now Returned to India and the Oterap Principle) and this is a chance to hear more from him.

I really enjoyed this conversation because it comes from someone who understands the inside and the outside.

Amar will share about:

  • The huge social risk of going to a town and not visiting family there
  • His initial irritants at moving back to India such as not getting any voicemails
  • A livable response to working with India’s working class
  • Why you might want to think twice before ignoring that call from a colleague on a Sunday
  • Why patience in India is the best skill you can have

Here are some of the links mentioned in the podcast:

 

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Filed Under: #CustomerIsAlwaysThere, #PowerPlays, Cultural Adaptation, Daily Living

How To Negotiate With Someone Who Earns Less In A Year Than You Do In A Month

 

Negotiating with Working Class

 

Some of the most inspiring people you’ll ever meet come from the working class of India. They often work long hours with no days off. They house their family, educate their children, and put rice on the table, all with a budget that you probably couldn’t last a few weeks on.

The working class of India is inspiring, but is also daunting for many outsiders to deal with, especially when you are face-to-face, trying to negotiate the price of an auto rickshaw ride, or a monthly salary for washing your car.

Overall, I’ve had a tremendous experience with this group of people. At least in Chennai, we’ve found them to be hardworking, friendly, and welcoming to us as foreigners. We can almost always trust the person to do a good job and quote a reasonable rate.

But what is reasonable? How do you know if you are paying the right amount? And what if the right amount seems absurdly low to you? When should you negotiate a better price, and when should you accept your privilege in life as a means to help others?

These aren’t easy questions to deal with, but everyone here has to do it at some point. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, #See1See100, Book Reviews

Book Review: Now, Returned to India

NRI Cover

There is one group of people with whom I always hit it off. In the airport, at a business meeting, or at my favorite South Indian restaurant – you get that feeling that you are living the same life with a different cast of characters.

Who are they? Returned NRIs. Indians who have spent some years living and working abroad and have resettled in India. Whether it is their global outlook, their similar stories, or their traditional values, I get so connected to them that I have to remind myself that I am not one of them.

Amar Vyas’ book NRI: Now, Returned to India is a nice read that will quickly immerse you in the pressing topics facing returning NRIs. It is a narrative book, loosely (if not strongly) based on real events from the author’s life. It grabs your attention without being too pedantic (like this blog), and is comically believable. [Read more…]

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© Neil A. Miller, LearningIndia.in, and Madras Media Marketing LLC 2013-2015. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given.