With more and more Indian executives being posted abroad - especially in booming sectors such as IT, Pharma and FMCG, Indian companies have felt an increasing need for the chosen people to be trained in the culture and the ways of the country of posting. This has meant the rise of a new breed of trainers in culture and special classes for country specific culture training to help such executives fit smoothly into their new roles.
But have we ever stopped to think about the Indian manager who is about to take up a position outside his native state? Have we ever thought of the need for training such individuals to quickly settle down into their new roles they are about to take up? Why do I say this? Hear what some expat CEOs have to say. Kwon of Samsung believes serving in India is like serving in many countries. Michael Bonham, who is the Ford India CEO supports this view. When he shifted to Delhi after spending nearly three years in Chennai, he actually thought he had shifted to a "different country." So how does one go about learning about these countries within a country and our cultural traits and attitudes? How does one go about decoding what the Economic Times calls the desi dynamic? Learn from the experiences of expat CEOs posted on Indian shores. Why? Because they notice things which we as Indians don't and they put a light on attitudes which we take for granted.
For many of us our attitudes and beliefs about different communities are the cultural stereotypes handed down to us from our parents and friends, (the Bong is sentimental, the North Indian is aggressive etc). And these become the drivers influencing our behavior and responses to people from these communities which can come in the growth path of executives who aspire for leadership roles. For, as Jacques Challes the Managing Director of L'Oreal puts it, "India is about the future of business." Moreover Challes believes that in India "you are constantly building" unlike his own country France, where everything is static. Since the business of business is primarily about managing people, and the Indian environment is one of constant change, where do we begin? With one of Challes observations.
Challes has observed that the power distance between the field staff and the highly educated managers at headquarters, is so big, that they are not able to communicate effectively. The loss in translation is the reason why strategies created at the top are often not executed efficiently in the field.
But have we ever stopped to think about the Indian manager who is about to take up a position outside his native state? Have we ever thought of the need for training such individuals to quickly settle down into their new roles they are about to take up? Why do I say this? Hear what some expat CEOs have to say. Kwon of Samsung believes serving in India is like serving in many countries. Michael Bonham, who is the Ford India CEO supports this view. When he shifted to Delhi after spending nearly three years in Chennai, he actually thought he had shifted to a "different country." So how does one go about learning about these countries within a country and our cultural traits and attitudes? How does one go about decoding what the Economic Times calls the desi dynamic? Learn from the experiences of expat CEOs posted on Indian shores. Why? Because they notice things which we as Indians don't and they put a light on attitudes which we take for granted.
For many of us our attitudes and beliefs about different communities are the cultural stereotypes handed down to us from our parents and friends, (the Bong is sentimental, the North Indian is aggressive etc). And these become the drivers influencing our behavior and responses to people from these communities which can come in the growth path of executives who aspire for leadership roles. For, as Jacques Challes the Managing Director of L'Oreal puts it, "India is about the future of business." Moreover Challes believes that in India "you are constantly building" unlike his own country France, where everything is static. Since the business of business is primarily about managing people, and the Indian environment is one of constant change, where do we begin? With one of Challes observations.
Challes has observed that the power distance between the field staff and the highly educated managers at headquarters, is so big, that they are not able to communicate effectively. The loss in translation is the reason why strategies created at the top are often not executed efficiently in the field.
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| The Indian manager has a unique set of attitudes, knowing which, can help us grow quickly in our leadership roles |
So how can managers cut this loss in translation? How can s/he improve execution of his or her painstakingly planned strategies? The learning about the desi dynamic of the expat CEO trying to settle down into his leadership role in India, holds important lessons for us.
Yves Martinez of Legrand has discovered that its not enough to set targets and issue instructions to his managers you have to take time to convince the internal teams. "...people want to understand what they are doing, they want to take time over it."
Benoit Lecuyer, the MD of Hager Electro believes that management in India is more personal and therefore managers have to make people the centrepiece of business and life. Instead of calling large meetings with 50 people, they should call the managers for one-to-one discussions. This helps the manager and his senior to get to know one another better.
Kiminobu Tokuyama CEO of Nissan Motors seconds this view when he observes that Indian managers are rich with ideas and views but in business meetings, they do not express any disagreement with their bosses. "My constant effort," he says. " is to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust, confidence and fearlessness and thereby enable free flow of honest opinion from all."
A very important insight comes from Neil Mills, CEO of Spicejet. He calls for dealing with people as individuals and not as members of a community. He believes that there is no such thing as a common Indian culture, for instance, a person with a south Indian name could be more north Indian, because he has lived in Delhi all his life. This means one has to tailor the way instructions are given to people based on their divergent backgrounds and not as a Marwari, Tamilian, Bengali etc.
So there you have it - the desi dynamic decoded. Now to set about internalizing and validating the observations in our corporate lives and leadership roles.
