Learning India

Making sense of the subcontinent

Filed Under: Communication, Cultural Adaptation, On the Job, Podcast, Team Management

Episode 1: Andrew Mogendorff

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Don’t do India alone.

I think that’s the best advice anyone could give on how to survive here. Whether you are signing up for a three-year assignment with a multi-national, or just trying to establish a life in India, nothing is more helpful than a circle of friends.

One of the best things about a circle of friends is hearing their stories. Stories from people who have been exactly where you are now, and figured out a thing or two along the way.

To help with this, I’m happy to announce the Working with India Podcast – conversations with people who have worked with India for a long time and have insights to share. We’ll discuss how to transition to an Indian style of working, develop leaders, implement processes, prepare for repatriation, and much more.

 

Andrew Mogendorff

The first episode features Andrew Mogendorff, who recently completed a three-year assignment with Target in Bangalore. Andrew came to India with his wife and two young children.

Here’s what you can expect from the first podcast: [Read more…]

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Filed Under: #IndiasNotIndia, #See1See100, Into India

What you didn’t know about Arranged Marriages in India

Arranged Marriages

Even the term alone feels offensive to you. Oppressive. Undemocratic. Backwards.

Arranged marriages.

If you come from a country that values autonomy above everything else, it is unthinkable. Decades of media and Disney have drilled into us the evils of letting someone else make such an important choice for you.

So why do 65% of young Indians still prefer to have their parents arrange their marriages?

Why are 90% of all marriages in India still arranged?

Why have I already started to think about ‘alliances’ for my kids?

Maybe there is something we are missing… [Read more…]

Filed Under: #PowerPlays, #See1See100, #ThinSkinned, On the Job

10 Steps to Removing Items from your To-do List in India

To Do List

I’m a list guy. I have 18 separate lists where I keep track of things to get done for different areas of my life. I have no faith that my brain will remember more than 3 things at a time, so everything else goes on a list. There is nothing that epitomizes a satisfying workday for me more than crossing off dozens of tasks.

However, my approach to lists has often gotten me in trouble in India.

 

How lists can fail you in India

[Read more…]

Filed Under: #ChaosBeatsLogic, #PowerPlays, Team Management

Building Ownership in Indian Teams

Indian Team

I want my Indian team to take more ownership. Can you do a training session on that?

This is a common request from many cross-cultural managers. How do you get Indian employees to take more ownership over the work of the organization?

You may see associates constantly passing on calls and tickets to their managers instead of dealing with them directly. Your office feels like a revolving door, with people constantly coming to ask questions and seek approval. You wish people would just stand up and take a decision without you.

I was talking with a British manager in India who gave his team the task of preparing a presentation. The team booked numerous meetings with him to make sure everything was done exactly as he wanted. Their insecurity in being able to complete the project on their own led him to a much deeper involvement than he wanted.

“Since then, I’ve tried to teach them to have more autonomy,” he said.

“Is that working?” I asked.

“No.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Movie Reviews

Movies About India: Eat Pray Love Review

If modern Westerners could assign just one phrase to what India excels at, it would be spiritual enlightenment. Need to find answers? Need to find yourself? Need to take a break from the senselessness of the rat race? Come to India.

At some point in recent history, India cornered the market on spirituality. Perhaps starting with Vivekananda in the late 19th century, many Indian gurus have become famous on an international level. Their teachings were strikingly different from either the Protestant work ethic or traditional Catholic theology that had dominated Western concepts of spirituality for so long. Everything about Indian spirituality (and therefore India) seemed different, deeper, more mysterious, and perhaps better.

So, when someone sets off on a world tour and needs a stopover to help discover her ‘true self’, there is really only one option: India. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #ThinSkinned, Movie Reviews

Movies About India: Slumdog Millionaire Review

For the most part, India stayed out of mainstream Hollywood movies between 1985 and 2000.

During the same time period, India’s economy was changing forever. The economic liberalization laws of the early 1990s opened up India’s doors and paved the way for its gigantic economic climb. Anyone who has lived in a major metro will tell you that the India of the 1980s looked nothing like the India of the 2000s.

India was ready for a new identity. The dominant movie images of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom no longer held any relevance (if they ever did). This was a new country, and it needed a new narrative to tell the world. They wanted something that showed how far they had come. They wanted a story to showcase how an entire class of New Indians had emerged.

They got Slumdog Millionaire. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #ThinSkinned, Movie Reviews

Movies About India: Octopussy Review

Continuing with Hollywood movies about India that educated the West, here is another from the early 1980’s.

Octopussy

Roger Moore and Vijay Amritraj

Statistics:

  • Release date: 10 June 1983
  • Box Office Revenue: $187 million
  • Ranking: #3 Worldwide for 1983, #6 in the US in 1983
  • Other top movies of 1983: Return of the Jedi, Scarface, Risky Business, Terms of Endearment

 

While the target audience for James Bond is quite large, the UK has always had a special relationship with India. They have built-in stereotypes that come from generations of eating Indian food and buying medicine from Indian pharmacists. (As opposed to Americans, who first need to be convinced that India actually exists.)

So would a film that features a British hero naturally be a better source of knowledge about India? We’ll see. [Read more…]

Filed Under: #ThinSkinned, Movie Reviews

Movies About India: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Review

“So this is where we learned about India.”

I had just returned to the US for a visit and decided to watch a movie during some downtime. I chose Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom because I vaguely remembered it being set in India. It was the first time I had seen it since I was six and my mother forced me to shut my eyes during the ‘heart removal’ scene. (Thanks, Mom.)

Watching it later in life, with a few years of living in India behind me, all sorts of things started to make sense. Stereotypes, generalizations, cultural attitudes – all nicely packaged in a blockbuster adventure.

One thing I am always amazed at is the lack of knowledge that people in the West have about ‘real’ India. Whether they see it as a land of snake charmers and turbans (1980s) or one big call center (2000s), these perceptions seem to stick. After watching Steven Spielberg’s movie, I figured out how they’ve gotten stuck in most of our minds.

So, I thought it would be fun to go back and analyze a few movies about India from the last forty years that have served as ‘educators of the masses’ for people who have never been to India. I’ve started with the big blockbusters that would have been seen by a majority of movie-watchers. [Read more…]