Making sense of the subcontinent
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…]
Speaking of India, by Craig Storti, 2007.
Speaking of India remains one of the better guides out there for people in the business world interacting with India. Craig Storti has given us some great paradigms and concepts to help cultures work together better. This book is quick to read and should be on your shelf if you regularly interact with India.
Personally, Storti’s writings provided my foundation for understanding concepts like indirect and direct speech and how communication styles can differ across cultures. I owe a lot of my understanding to his ability to clearly talk about the issues at place and some strategies for solving them.
In 2009, Oprah Winfrey interviewed Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Oprah eased into asking them a question about their living situation since she heard they lived with Abhishek’s parents, Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan. Watch their response.
Despite reports that Abhishek and Aishwerya are actually moving out on their own soon, the joint family system still has a way of jarring those brought up in individualistic countries where if you aren’t living on your own by 25, something is wrong with you.
Whether you are trying to understand why so many 30-year-olds at your office still live with their parents or if you are shocked at finding people behind every door when visiting your Indian friend’s home, it is important to get a grip on how the joint families in India work and how they affects modern families.
[Read more…]
Now that we’ve identified what a Parent Leader is and looked at some tips on acting like a Parent Leader, what if you are working for a Parent Leader?
In the past, multinational companies (MNCs) based in the US or Europe would open up offices in India and send their own management to begin all the operations. When they came, they needed to learn about how to lead Indians.
But today’s world is different. Huge Indian conglomerates like Tata, Reliance, and Aditya Birla are hiring high-level leaders from around the world to work for them. They are buying up foreign companies that will help them expand their reach. Homegrown Indian technical companies like TCS, Infosys, HCL, and Cognizant are quickly becoming the world leaders in their industries.
In today’s world you are nearly just as likely to have an Indian for a boss as you are to have one working for you. Therefore, it is helpful to know how to behave as a team member if your boss is a Parent Leader.
[Read more…]
In the West, small talk serves the same purpose as the kiddie side of a cold swimming pool. You wade in slowly, throwing around meaningless comments about the weather and sports until you reach an equilibrium and then dive in to the deep stuff.
Not so in India.
In India, small talk is an investigation. Your conversation partner is trying to piece together something about you. Who are your parents? What do they do? Where do you work? Where did you go to college? How many children do you have? What is your wife’s name? Do you have brothers and sisters?
These are not just polite conversation starters; these are interrogation questions.
Your Indian partner has two goals in this interrogation. [Read more…]
On your way to an Indian wedding and not sure if you brought the right gift?
Don’t know how to make it up to your colleague that you missed his son’s first birthday party because you booked a last-minute pleasure holiday to Goa?
There is really only one great way to get the best advice on India.
Ask an Indian.
Then ask a different Indian.
Reading articles (like this one) online, purchasing books on India, taking cross-cultural training courses, joining online expat forums, and many other options can be helpful, mostly in that they make you aware of everything you don’t know and offer some nice principles and guidelines.
However, India is nearly always different in practice than in theory. [Read more…]
Based on the title you may think this article will be a discussion about the varying spiritual beliefs in India.
Nope.
Dividing India up by religion has very little to do with anyone’s beliefs. In fact, more than beliefs, religion in India is first about community and second about behaviors.
First, religion is about community. [Read more…]
Earlier, I introduced the idea of Parent Leadership as a model for a majority of the Indian business world.
But what if you are stepping into a situation where you are the leader and you feel like everyone is looking to you to be the parent?
Instead of running away, here are a few things you can painlessly put into practice to help both you and your new team get off on the right foot.
But first, how do you know if your team is thinking like a family? [Read more…]