Re: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

I am a American and worked there for more than 2 decades. Accountability is the key difference. Your performance and pay are not only interrelated but you are expected to act professionally and be a good role model. Time is money. Work and productivity is also measured and lack of performance will have immediate consequences.

In India professional spend few just on praying or chasing the bosses.

Kuldeep

Sent from my iPad

On Feb 1, 2015, at 1:04 PM, Virendra Goel <goel.virendra@gmail.com> wrote:

Crisis of survival brings best out of a person. When one is in foreign land, this principle applies. In Indian context our whole system is so laid back that one never feels this kind of crisis that leads to mediocre performance.
Regards
Virendra Goel

From: join_mtc@googlegroups.com [mailto:join_mtc@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ganesh Chattopadhyay
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 8:43 PM
To: join_mtc@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

Wish you all a warm Good evening!
In the present context I do support my friend Girish Kumar's view that there is difference in Indians working abroad and working in India. May be when they are abroad they become very cautious and emotional as they represent our motherland and feel within greatness. Opposite thing happens when they are in India thinking very casually like many others.
However, there are exceptions as there are some balanced peoples whom we take like example and try to imitate.
Regards to all

Dr. Ganesh Chandra Chattopadhyay,
PhD, FCMA, NET, B.Ed (Com), M.Com (Fin), M.Com (Accounts),
HOD & Asstt Professor, Department of Business Administration,
Bengal Institute of Technology & Management,
Santiniketan, Birbhum, West Bengal - 701236.
Mobile No: +91-9475222302
E-mail : chattopadhyay.ganesh@gmail.com.

On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Girish Kumar <girishkumar.bw@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Sir,
There is difference in Indians working abroad and working in India. In the mail, what is mentioned is the experiences of expatriates in India and what is mentioned is true mostly. Regarding punctuality Can you site any example in India when a program started at exactly at the time mentioned and all the persons arrived in the program at that time. Even other things are true to a great extent. Whenever we are in other country we behave differently, work hard very punctual and well behaved.
Regards
Girish Kumar

On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 5:43 PM, 'Usha Rani cherukupallis' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global <join_mtc@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Dear Dr Jayasri Indiran well said. It's really a good question. I heard from many NRI's, that every where in world, particularly in US, Indians have lot of respect because of our good and soft nature, and eco friendly habits and culture. My own brother from US says(Associate Vice President, Infosys) People are very punctual and honest as far as their work and time is concerned.

Thanks and regards

Usha Rani
From: "'JAYASRI INDIRAN' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com>
To: "join_mtc@googlegroups.com" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

With due respect to all MTCians...,

I would like to hear from us (MTCians), if anybody had asked about other nationals to any of these people / experts. If yes, I would like to get shared with those messages too.

I dont know why always messages like this get spread only against Indians? Does it mean that the other nationals dont have any such qualities which are of this kind, i.e., negative human / relationship qualities..? I doubt. Sorry to say this.

With regards,

DR. I. JAYASRI

IF WE THINK WE CAN OR THINK WE CANT, WE ARE RIGHT - HENRY FORD

On Saturday, 31 January 2015 3:13 PM, "'Satish Oberoi' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com> wrote:

One caution: Don't get worked-up or emotional. There can be some positive takeaways from it.

The Economic Times

Argumentative & too emotional - are Indians tough to work with?

By Lijee Philip & DIBYENDU GANGULY, ET Bureau | 26 Dec, 2014,

Corporate Dossier asked expatriate CEOs to describe the most incorrigible traits of Indian work culture.
The list we've compiled might upset you, but feel free to argue — which you will anyway.:

We're always late

Seasoned expats have given up complaining about this quirk, except for a few German and Japanese CEOs, who still feel the pain every time they see an Indian colleague sauntering into a meeting 15 minutes late.

Makoto Kitai, MD, Mitsubishi Electric India, remembers fondly his days in Japan, when everyone would actually arrive five minutes early. "In India, being late by 15 minutes for a meeting is not considered to be late," he sighs. "Schedules go haywire in India but people don't complain."

If only our lack of punctuality was confined only to meetings! "Whether it a dinner or a larger function, I now assume that guests will arrive at least one hour late," says Philipp von Sahr, President of BMW Group India.

We're very argumentative

Indians, as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen tells us, are argumentative by nature and given the opportunity, we will debate and discuss till the cows at home. Jean-Christophe Lettelier got a taste of this as soon as he took charge at L'Oreal India last year. The meetings he conducted would go on interminably with everyone going in circles.

"Maybe it's because of an inductive approach to understanding things, but Indians make things more complex than they really are," he says. "I value the depth of thinking, but sometimes I have to just close the topic. Else there is complete chaos."

Mitsubishi's Makoto Kitai is another expat CEO who has had a hard time conducting meetings. "Japanese are very good listeners. We as a culture never speak out of turn which ensures that our suggestion would be asked every time. My Indian colleagues, on the other hand, are very ardent speakers and are always impatient when it comes to an opportunity to articulate their views," he says. We also have a propensity to get into time consuming discussions just about anywhere.

As Tetsuya Takano, MD of Ricoh India points out: "In India it's easy to form a discussion group. You only have to ask someone something and suddenly five people are around you and you can discuss anything. The preferable subject is politics."

We're confusingly diverse

After a year at the Hyatt Goa, Glen Peat thought he had Indian work culture figured out — then he was transferred to Mumbai. Now the chief of the Hyatt Ludhiana, the New Zealander says, "Punjabis are so very different from South Indians and the people of Delhi are so different from the people in Mumbai.

At first, I thought everyone in India speaks Hindi. It takes a lot of adjusting for an expat used to a uniform national culture." Expat CEOs invariably see India's diversity as one of its strengths, but truth be told, it takes getting used to. "The diversity poses quite a challenge in terms of unanimity of operations, tweaking the offerings to different needs," says Volvo Auto India MD Tomas Ernberg.

Besides managing your own work force, the diversity factor also plays an important role in market success. "It's both a challenge and an opportunity, as there is no one way of doing business or dealing with people. Something that works in Mumbai may not work in Chennai or Kochi. So, India allows the expatriate to use his creative side," says Ricoh India's Takano.

It takes 3 of us to fix a light bulb

the first time are usually struck by how establishments there manage with so few people. It's the other way round for expats in India. Dmitry Shukov, CEO of MTS India was amazed to see eight people pushing the boarding ladder at the airport the first time he arrived in Delhi.

"In Russia there is just one person doing that job. In sectors like retail, there is always excess staff in India," he says. It's also very common in the hospitality industry, where guests are pampered with a level of service unheard of in the West. But splitting one person's job among three not only reduces wages, but also the challenge. Or, as Rex Nijhof, the Dutch chief of the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel puts it: "If you have something heavy and only two people available to move it, you have to find a way to build wheels on it. In India, you just get six more people."

We're too emotional

Indians are highly engaged with their work, which makes us more emotional about it. This can be disconcerting for expats used to a less engaged workforce, going about with stoic expressions.

"People here wear their heart on their sleeve, which is something I love," says Ben Salmon, a former diplomat with the Australian High commission, who is now CE0 and Co-founder of Bangalore's Assetz Property Group. "The flip side of it is that you can't criticise someone's work without visibly upsetting them. If there's bad news, it has to be carefully packaged."

This makes simple performance appraisals a herculean task in Indian workplaces. Bosses are wary about giving negative feedback, however constructive it may be, since the receiver is quite likely to fly into a rage or burst into tears. "During performance reviews, Indian managers tend to give only positive feedback and leave the criticism unsaid," says L'Oreal's Jean-Christophe Lettelier.

We don't trust easily

''There seems to be a trust deficit in Indian business and society in general which makes business par ties wary of each other until a relationship develops," says John Kilmartin, Director of IDA Ireland, the Irish government 's foreign investment agency.

The lack of trust extends to international brands and often translates into behaviour that expat CEOs find surprising. "For some reason, customers in India tend to escalate issues very quickly. May be this is due to lack of trust? Regardless of why this happens, we need to convince customers that we will always be fair and do the right thing for them," says Nigel Harris, president and managing director, Ford India.

But once the trust is earned, it tends to be strong. "The culture in India is such that if you earn a person's trust, you'll be treated like family. People in India are extremely cautious....but once on-board, their loyalty's commendable," says Michael Mayer, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars.

We escalate decisions to the boss

When it comes to big issues, where the stakes are high, we would rather let the boss decide. At L'Oreal India, Jean-Christophe Lettelier has been trying to push decision making down to the front line and make the organisation entrepreneurial, but his observation is: "People avoid taking full responsibility for anything because they don't want to take any blame if things go wrong. Then if things do go wrong, they blame something else instead of taking responsibility."

Ben Salmon, CEO and Co- founder of Assetz Property Group was a diplomat at the Australian High Commission before he became an entrepreneur. He says: "There's a tendency to push decisions up to promoter level. For someone who believes that midmanagement should be taking decisions everyday within a strong corporate framework, this part of the Indian business environment is challenging."

We're very hierarchical

It's hard to get Indians to call the boss by his first name. Expats squirm when emails begin with the phrase "My respected sir." Tom Albanese, CEO of Vedanta says "Indians can be too eager to please sometimes. The only time I get flowers is when I am in India. I find awkward garlanding moments all the time. " The bowing low and garlanding is occasional and symbolic, but a practical day-to-day problem is addressing the CEO by his first name.

"Despite my best attempts, many of my colleagues still do not use my first name in discussions. The focus on hierarchy makes people take titles very seriously," says Ford's Nigel Harris. If you can't beat them, join 'em.

At Volvo Auto India, MD Tomas Ernberg has started adding the suffix jee after the names of his colleagues to show them an equal measure of respect. "People in India give too much importance to hierarchy. Even unconsciously it does reflect in their style of working and interaction," he says.

Michael Thiemann, CEO, ThyssenKrupp India tried to demolish hierarchies in his company and distribute responsibilities according to capabilities, like they do in Germany. The result, he says, was chaos. Thiemann then called in his senior colleagues to rework things. "We developed the concept of team work with an Indian flavour, taking care of the hidden rules of the Indian working culture," he says.

We're lousy at work-life balance

Indian CEOs pooh-pooh the issue saying we have to work 18 hours and build the nation, but expats find the lack of work-life balance in India quite appalling. "When I started working at BMW India, I was amazed to see e-mails coming from colleagues well after mid-night. I personally went to them and told them they need to maintain a good work-life balance," says Philipp von Sahr, President, BMW Group.

Expat CEOs believe spending long hours in the office equates with inefficiency. "It's actually hard work done smartly that takes you the long way. Time management is important," says Volvo's Ernberg.

Others, like Irishman Mike Holland, CEO of Embassy Office Parks in Bangalore, take a more philosophical view of the problem. "It relates to being in a different level in the economic hierarchy," he says. "Unlike the West, there's no distinction between work and life in India — they are fused. For an expat, it takes getting used to."

We're don't follow due process

''India's the global capital of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) but in day-to-day life, Indians don't seem to believe in business processes at all," says Mike Holland, CEO of Embassy Office Parks, a joint venture of Blackstone Prive Equity and Bangalore's Embassy Group.

Some expat CEOs attribute this impatience with due process and the desire for shortcuts to age. "India has a much younger workforce and I like to give enough space to employees. I don't want to take away the freedom from employees," says Guillaume Sicard, President, Nissan India.

Still, systems and processes are the life blood of an MNC and many expat CEOs fret over this issue. As Volkswagen's Michael Mayer says: "It may take people take some time to get used to it, but it's important to understand the rationale behind these systems since each one of us has to adapt to the entity we represent."

We're all stuntmen

Where the West has adventure sports, Indian have daily life. As managing director of Chyso India, a French manufact urer of chemicals used in the construction industry, Giles Everitt has seen labourers atop skyscrapers, painting the walls without a proper harness or life-line. "If there is one thing I would like to change in Indian work culture, it is the attitude towards health and safety," he says.

Why do we take so much risk? It is mostly lack of awareness says Ben S almon of Assetz Property, who believes real estate developers are now creating that. "Earlier, the cost of safety wasn't built in and construction labour didn't see their job as a trade. That's changing, though we're still nowhere near global standards."

We say what you want to hear

If someone says "I'm 99% sure I will be there," most of us know he doesn't plan to be there at all. But for an expat CEO, such lines create big misunderstandings. New Zealander Glen Peat of Hyatt Hotels used to take a statement like "I'll be with you in five minutes" at face value -- and find himself waiting a long time. "It's ingrained in Indian culture. It's not very honest, but I've realised it's a way of being courteous," adds Peat.

We do everything at the last minute

The Indian attitude towards deadlines has been known to send many expat CEO blood pressures through the roof. "It took time for me to adjust with the time management of people in India," says Ricoh's Takano. "But if a deadline is not being met, they would stretch and make sure things fall in place."

Guillaume Sicard of Nissan Motor India, used to be incredulous at the confidence his Indian colleagues displayed as deadlines approached. "Time management is quite fluid in India. They will work late hours into the night, even on weekends, to meet the deadline. Americans or Europeans would never do that. There they believe in a strict 8 to 5 pm working day."

Be that as it may, doing things at the last minute can lead to shoddy quality. ThyssenKrupp's Michael Thiemann never takes that chance. "In India, up to 95% progress, everything is done very well. However, the boring 5% remains and that is where I get involved to make sure that the work is really done," he says.

.

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[MTC Global] Difficulties in Bilingual Education in India--ASER-2014 Report

ASER-2014, Report also emphasises on bilingual education at the primary level.

"Learning in mother tongue increases the learning outcome. This issue is being debated in India since decades with education activists and psychologists voicing their support for mother tongue education; but no proper policy has been chalked out yet though law makers and political leaders have been casually referring to it. On mother tongue issue, opinion is divided. Tawde supports primary education in mother tongue. In fact, he insists that history, geography and social sciences must be taught in the mother tongue only," says a principal of a government school in Mumbai. "However, there is a difficulty in teaching in mother tongue in a cosmopolis like Mumbai, where 70 percent are non-Marathi speakers."

Admitting that early education in mother tongue helps, Lambe too doubts the effectiveness of the mother tongue formula in a country like India where dialects change every 100 km. "Children of Nandurbar are not able to comprehend the kind of Marathi our textbooks have. Same is true for other languages," she says.

Best Regards,

Educate, Empower, Elevate

Prof. Bholanath Dutta

Founder, Convener & President- MTC Global

An Apex Global Advisory Body in Management Education

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www.theglobepost.in I www.mtcgli.net

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RE: Why I won’t remarry — Bianca Ojukwu

Why I won't remarry — Bianca Ojukwu

Bianca Ojukwu, is the widow of the late former Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Nigeria Ambassador to Spain. In this interview, she reveals why she would not remarry.

Given that you are still very young, beautiful and as the famed American poet-Robert Frost said, you still have a long road to travel. Do you plan to remarry?

People marry I think not just because they need to come together, live together, raise family together, it is a rite of passage and I think I have fulfilled my part. Why I said that, is, I have gone through marriage, lived with what I consider a wonderful man who gave me 23 years of happiness, of fulfillment, I literally felt I was the luckiest woman to have had a man who gave me utter dedication and, above all, wonderful children. So my pledge to him is that I will devote my life to taking care of our children, raising them properly, teaching them those ideals that he cherished and held very dear and trying to carry on his legacy. So I don't have any compelling need to remarry and, in any case, my time is very limited; so I am trying to channel it properly towards raising my children.

How do you contain advances from men, who may nurse some romantic thoughts about you?

Amb. Bianca Ojukwu

Nigerian men are not aggressive; they may be aggressive in business, in their career pursuits, but in that particular area of aggressively pursuing a romantic interest, I have been very impressed by the level of decency and decorum they project. I mean, it might be just my own experience. They have treated me with a lot of respect, deference-they have been protective in a way as if to say this is a treasure that we must protect. I get on flights, and I see people stand up, take my luggage to my car, they have been amazing. I haven't encountered that sort of pursuit and I have been very touched and humbled by the way they have treated me.

My husband's friends call me regularly to see how I am doing- I mean a lot of widows complain that that they have issues with people proposing to them. But in my own case, I must say that I have been lucky to have wonderful support system based on respect and a sense of protection. If that is a function of the respect they had for my husband, I don't know.

When I travel abroad, I also meet Nigerian men who are respectful. I also believe that it also depends on the woman's attitude-sometimes we lay blame at the doorstep of the men— but the fact is that if you are engaged in your work, if you are a woman who have a sense of purpose, regardless of the fact that you operate in a terrain that is dominated by men, once you can hold your own, it will be difficult to fall into that quagmire where you feel you are being propositioned or your gender is playing a derogatory role.

Once you are not making excuses for bad performance, or once you are not looking for a man to cover for you, for your inadequacies, once you are able to let you work speak for you, it's a lot easier to survive and live a life of dignity, and once you don't present yourself as a weak and defenseless woman- one to be pitied and really cuddled by a man just by a virtue of being of a weaker sex – then it's much easier to live a life that is not being truncated by those pressures.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW ON SUNDAY VANGUARD

- See more at: Why I won't remarry — Bianca Ojukwu - Vanguard News



				Why I won't remarry — Bianca Ojukwu - Vanguard News Bianca Ojukwu, is the widow of the late former Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Nigeria Ambassador to Spain. In this interview, s...

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[MTC Global] Where is West Bengal's education system headed?

Frequent campus violence, mass copying, irregularities in admission procedures, frequent student protests over trivial matters are plaguing West Bengal's once-reputed educational institutions that have at one time produced some of India's best known faces, both leaders and scholars.
One of the the state's prestigious institutions, Jadavpur University, remained the epicentre of a massive student agitation that led to the unprecedented step of its vice chancellor being asked to step down by none other than Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee when she made an unannounced visit to the university.
The students' movement, that had widespread resonance with many of the Jadavpur University alumnui across the globe expressing solidarity, had its roots in a demand by students for an independent probe into the alleged molestation of a female pupil. A subsequent "violent" police crackdown on the agitating students gradually snowballed, resulting in vice chancellor Abhijit Chakrabrti stepping down in the face of what he called an "undemocratic" and "unconstitutional" stir initiated by "politically-affiliated" students.
Ironically, Chakrabarti's predecessor Souvik Bhattacharya had put in his papers citing personal reasons barely a month after he was confined for more than 50 hours by students demanding the reinstatement of two students suspended on charges of ragging. However, academic circles in the university claim the eminent educationist resigned because of the non-cooperation of a section of teachers close to the ruling Trinamool Congress that is being blamed - like its previous Marxist predecessors - for politicising the educational system in the state.
As educationists and former vice chancellors blamed political interference, especially by the ruling Trinamool, for the "anarchy", they also claimed the students were acquiring a tendency to agitate for "anything and everything".
"Notwithstanding the political interference, I believe a section of teachers and students must bear the responsibility for the crisis that has engulfed the education system, former vice chancellor Pradip Narayan Ghosh told IANS.
"Students in Bengal have always been politically active, but the restiveness now seems to be going beyond limits. The fact that two VCs had to depart in the face of student agitations does reflect this," Ghosh added.
"The problem is not only with Jadavpur, the phenomenon is fairly widespread. Reports of students sitting on fasts or confining teachers and authorities have become too frequent," he noted.
Even as the Jadavpur imbroglio continued, another iconic institution, Presidency University, witnessed similar scenes with students resorting to a fast-unto-death demanding revocation of the clause that barred students with less than 60 percent attendance from contesting or voting in the student's body polls.
The stir was withdrawn after the university authorities made a concession for this year, allowing students with less than 60 percent attendance to cast their votes.
"It is alarming, the way we are conceding the illegitimate demands of the students. Is there any guarantee the students will not sit on fast again next year? We are only emboldening the students who are now becoming habitual agitators," a former vice chancellor, who did not wish to be named, told IANS.
"The Jadavpur students are celebrating Chakrabarti's removal but are they concerned about their original demand of an independent probe into the molestation? They may soon find out yet another issue to launch an agitation," said the professor, who also taught at the university.
It is not the JU or the Presidency alone, a section of students, faculty and officials of the Rabindranath Tagore-founded Visva-Bharati University too have launched an agitation demanding the removal of Sushanta Dutta Gupta as the VC.
Gupta has been accused of jeopardising the academic atmosphere because of his "autocratic style" of functioning. He is also accused of appointing a controller of examinations despite having no powers to do so and sanctioning key posts in violation of the varsity's act.
Educationists Sunanda Sanyal and Pabitra Sarkar too admitted students were increasingly becoming "habitual agitators" and squarely blamed the Trinamool for this.
"The entire blame lies with the Trinamool, which wants to pervade into everything. While the Left had established partycracy, the Trinamool, for the sake of extending its influence, has almost destroyed the education institutions in the state," Sanyal told IANS.
"The biggest fallout of this is the rise of right wing politics in the campus. It surely is alarming to see the ABVP gaining ground in Bengal," Sanyal added.
Sarkar said the Trinamool was using the growing restiveness of the students for its "political ambitions, engulfing the entire education system in anarchy".
"As if the killing of a cop during campus elections was not enough, our education now boasts of regular mass copying, goons becoming part of the college administration and teachers and principals working at the mercy of students. In its three years, Trinamool has ensured there is anarchy everywhere," Sarkar told IANS.
Sarkar was referring to killing of police officer Tapas Chowdhury, who was shot dead in 2013 during a violent clash between the students' wings of the Congress and the Trinamool at a Kolkata college.
When and where all this "educational anarchy" will end no one knows, but increasingly talented young people with some means are leaving the state to find better and more conducive educational and job opportunities outside the state, to the south, west and north of the country, as West Bengal rapidly assumes the reputation of a "failed state" amongst its own people.

​[Source: IANS Dated 31 Jan 2015]​

EDUCATE, EMPOWER, ELEVATE

Prof. Bholanath Dutta

Visionary Edupreneur, Founder & President

MTC Global: An Apex Global Advisory

Body in Management Education

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RE: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

Crisis of survival brings best out of a person. When one is in foreign land, this principle applies. In Indian context our whole system is so laid back that one never feels this kind of crisis that leads to mediocre performance.

Regards

Virendra Goel

From: join_mtc@googlegroups.com [mailto:join_mtc@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ganesh Chattopadhyay
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 8:43 PM
To: join_mtc@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

Wish you all a warm Good evening!

In the present context I do support my friend Girish Kumar's view that there is difference in Indians working abroad and working in India. May be when they are abroad they become very cautious and emotional as they represent our motherland and feel within greatness. Opposite thing happens when they are in India thinking very casually like many others.

However, there are exceptions as there are some balanced peoples whom we take like example and try to imitate.

Regards to all

Dr. Ganesh Chandra Chattopadhyay,

PhD, FCMA, NET, B.Ed (Com), M.Com (Fin), M.Com (Accounts),

HOD & Asstt Professor, Department of Business Administration,
Bengal Institute of Technology & Management,
Santiniketan, Birbhum, West Bengal - 701236.

Mobile No: +91-9475222302

E-mail : chattopadhyay.ganesh@gmail.com.

On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Girish Kumar <girishkumar.bw@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Sir,

There is difference in Indians working abroad and working in India. In the mail, what is mentioned is the experiences of expatriates in India and what is mentioned is true mostly. Regarding punctuality Can you site any example in India when a program started at exactly at the time mentioned and all the persons arrived in the program at that time. Even other things are true to a great extent. Whenever we are in other country we behave differently, work hard very punctual and well behaved.

Regards

Girish Kumar

On Sat, Jan 31, 2015 at 5:43 PM, 'Usha Rani cherukupallis' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global <join_mtc@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Dear Dr Jayasri Indiran well said. It's really a good question. I heard from many NRI's, that every where in world, particularly in US, Indians have lot of respect because of our good and soft nature, and eco friendly habits and culture. My own brother from US says(Associate Vice President, Infosys) People are very punctual and honest as far as their work and time is concerned.

Thanks and regards

Usha Rani

From: "'JAYASRI INDIRAN' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com>
To: "join_mtc@googlegroups.com" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [MTC Global] INDIAN WORK HABITS THROUGH EYES OF FOREIGNERS

With due respect to all MTCians...,

I would like to hear from us (MTCians), if anybody had asked about other nationals to any of these people / experts. If yes, I would like to get shared with those messages too.

I dont know why always messages like this get spread only against Indians? Does it mean that the other nationals dont have any such qualities which are of this kind, i.e., negative human / relationship qualities..? I doubt. Sorry to say this.

With regards,

DR. I. JAYASRI

IF WE THINK WE CAN OR THINK WE CANT, WE ARE RIGHT - HENRY FORD

On Saturday, 31 January 2015 3:13 PM, "'Satish Oberoi' via Management Teachers Consortium, Global" <join_mtc@googlegroups.com> wrote:

One caution: Don't get worked-up or emotional. There can be some positive takeaways from it.

The Economic Times

Argumentative & too emotional - are Indians tough to work with?

By Lijee Philip & DIBYENDU GANGULY, ET Bureau | 26 Dec, 2014,

Corporate Dossier asked expatriate CEOs to describe the most incorrigible traits of Indian work culture.
The list we've compiled might upset you, but feel free to argue — which you will anyway.:

We're always late

Seasoned expats have given up complaining about this quirk, except for a few German and Japanese CEOs, who still feel the pain every time they see an Indian colleague sauntering into a meeting 15 minutes late.

Makoto Kitai, MD, Mitsubishi Electric India, remembers fondly his days in Japan, when everyone would actually arrive five minutes early. "In India, being late by 15 minutes for a meeting is not considered to be late," he sighs. "Schedules go haywire in India but people don't complain."

If only our lack of punctuality was confined only to meetings! "Whether it a dinner or a larger function, I now assume that guests will arrive at least one hour late," says Philipp von Sahr, President of BMW Group India.

We're very argumentative

Indians, as Nobel laureate Amartya Sen tells us, are argumentative by nature and given the opportunity, we will debate and discuss till the cows at home. Jean-Christophe Lettelier got a taste of this as soon as he took charge at L'Oreal India last year. The meetings he conducted would go on interminably with everyone going in circles.

"Maybe it's because of an inductive approach to understanding things, but Indians make things more complex than they really are," he says. "I value the depth of thinking, but sometimes I have to just close the topic. Else there is complete chaos."

Mitsubishi's Makoto Kitai is another expat CEO who has had a hard time conducting meetings. "Japanese are very good listeners. We as a culture never speak out of turn which ensures that our suggestion would be asked every time. My Indian colleagues, on the other hand, are very ardent speakers and are always impatient when it comes to an opportunity to articulate their views," he says. We also have a propensity to get into time consuming discussions just about anywhere.

As Tetsuya Takano, MD of Ricoh India points out: "In India it's easy to form a discussion group. You only have to ask someone something and suddenly five people are around you and you can discuss anything. The preferable subject is politics."

We're confusingly diverse

After a year at the Hyatt Goa, Glen Peat thought he had Indian work culture figured out — then he was transferred to Mumbai. Now the chief of the Hyatt Ludhiana, the New Zealander says, "Punjabis are so very different from South Indians and the people of Delhi are so different from the people in Mumbai.

At first, I thought everyone in India speaks Hindi. It takes a lot of adjusting for an expat used to a uniform national culture." Expat CEOs invariably see India's diversity as one of its strengths, but truth be told, it takes getting used to. "The diversity poses quite a challenge in terms of unanimity of operations, tweaking the offerings to different needs," says Volvo Auto India MD Tomas Ernberg.

Besides managing your own work force, the diversity factor also plays an important role in market success. "It's both a challenge and an opportunity, as there is no one way of doing business or dealing with people. Something that works in Mumbai may not work in Chennai or Kochi. So, India allows the expatriate to use his creative side," says Ricoh India's Takano.

It takes 3 of us to fix a light bulb

the first time are usually struck by how establishments there manage with so few people. It's the other way round for expats in India. Dmitry Shukov, CEO of MTS India was amazed to see eight people pushing the boarding ladder at the airport the first time he arrived in Delhi.

"In Russia there is just one person doing that job. In sectors like retail, there is always excess staff in India," he says. It's also very common in the hospitality industry, where guests are pampered with a level of service unheard of in the West. But splitting one person's job among three not only reduces wages, but also the challenge. Or, as Rex Nijhof, the Dutch chief of the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel puts it: "If you have something heavy and only two people available to move it, you have to find a way to build wheels on it. In India, you just get six more people."

We're too emotional

Indians are highly engaged with their work, which makes us more emotional about it. This can be disconcerting for expats used to a less engaged workforce, going about with stoic expressions.

"People here wear their heart on their sleeve, which is something I love," says Ben Salmon, a former diplomat with the Australian High commission, who is now CE0 and Co-founder of Bangalore's Assetz Property Group. "The flip side of it is that you can't criticise someone's work without visibly upsetting them. If there's bad news, it has to be carefully packaged."

This makes simple performance appraisals a herculean task in Indian workplaces. Bosses are wary about giving negative feedback, however constructive it may be, since the receiver is quite likely to fly into a rage or burst into tears. "During performance reviews, Indian managers tend to give only positive feedback and leave the criticism unsaid," says L'Oreal's Jean-Christophe Lettelier.

We don't trust easily

''There seems to be a trust deficit in Indian business and society in general which makes business par ties wary of each other until a relationship develops," says John Kilmartin, Director of IDA Ireland, the Irish government 's foreign investment agency.

The lack of trust extends to international brands and often translates into behaviour that expat CEOs find surprising. "For some reason, customers in India tend to escalate issues very quickly. May be this is due to lack of trust? Regardless of why this happens, we need to convince customers that we will always be fair and do the right thing for them," says Nigel Harris, president and managing director, Ford India.

But once the trust is earned, it tends to be strong. "The culture in India is such that if you earn a person's trust, you'll be treated like family. People in India are extremely cautious....but once on-board, their loyalty's commendable," says Michael Mayer, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars.

We escalate decisions to the boss

When it comes to big issues, where the stakes are high, we would rather let the boss decide. At L'Oreal India, Jean-Christophe Lettelier has been trying to push decision making down to the front line and make the organisation entrepreneurial, but his observation is: "People avoid taking full responsibility for anything because they don't want to take any blame if things go wrong. Then if things do go wrong, they blame something else instead of taking responsibility."

Ben Salmon, CEO and Co- founder of Assetz Property Group was a diplomat at the Australian High Commission before he became an entrepreneur. He says: "There's a tendency to push decisions up to promoter level. For someone who believes that midmanagement should be taking decisions everyday within a strong corporate framework, this part of the Indian business environment is challenging."

We're very hierarchical

It's hard to get Indians to call the boss by his first name. Expats squirm when emails begin with the phrase "My respected sir." Tom Albanese, CEO of Vedanta says "Indians can be too eager to please sometimes. The only time I get flowers is when I am in India. I find awkward garlanding moments all the time. " The bowing low and garlanding is occasional and symbolic, but a practical day-to-day problem is addressing the CEO by his first name.

"Despite my best attempts, many of my colleagues still do not use my first name in discussions. The focus on hierarchy makes people take titles very seriously," says Ford's Nigel Harris. If you can't beat them, join 'em.

At Volvo Auto India, MD Tomas Ernberg has started adding the suffix jee after the names of his colleagues to show them an equal measure of respect. "People in India give too much importance to hierarchy. Even unconsciously it does reflect in their style of working and interaction," he says.

Michael Thiemann, CEO, ThyssenKrupp India tried to demolish hierarchies in his company and distribute responsibilities according to capabilities, like they do in Germany. The result, he says, was chaos. Thiemann then called in his senior colleagues to rework things. "We developed the concept of team work with an Indian flavour, taking care of the hidden rules of the Indian working culture," he says.

We're lousy at work-life balance

Indian CEOs pooh-pooh the issue saying we have to work 18 hours and build the nation, but expats find the lack of work-life balance in India quite appalling. "When I started working at BMW India, I was amazed to see e-mails coming from colleagues well after mid-night. I personally went to them and told them they need to maintain a good work-life balance," says Philipp von Sahr, President, BMW Group.

Expat CEOs believe spending long hours in the office equates with inefficiency. "It's actually hard work done smartly that takes you the long way. Time management is important," says Volvo's Ernberg.

Others, like Irishman Mike Holland, CEO of Embassy Office Parks in Bangalore, take a more philosophical view of the problem. "It relates to being in a different level in the economic hierarchy," he says. "Unlike the West, there's no distinction between work and life in India — they are fused. For an expat, it takes getting used to."

We're don't follow due process

''India's the global capital of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) but in day-to-day life, Indians don't seem to believe in business processes at all," says Mike Holland, CEO of Embassy Office Parks, a joint venture of Blackstone Prive Equity and Bangalore's Embassy Group.

Some expat CEOs attribute this impatience with due process and the desire for shortcuts to age. "India has a much younger workforce and I like to give enough space to employees. I don't want to take away the freedom from employees," says Guillaume Sicard, President, Nissan India.

Still, systems and processes are the life blood of an MNC and many expat CEOs fret over this issue. As Volkswagen's Michael Mayer says: "It may take people take some time to get used to it, but it's important to understand the rationale behind these systems since each one of us has to adapt to the entity we represent."

We're all stuntmen

Where the West has adventure sports, Indian have daily life. As managing director of Chyso India, a French manufact urer of chemicals used in the construction industry, Giles Everitt has seen labourers atop skyscrapers, painting the walls without a proper harness or life-line. "If there is one thing I would like to change in Indian work culture, it is the attitude towards health and safety," he says.

Why do we take so much risk? It is mostly lack of awareness says Ben S almon of Assetz Property, who believes real estate developers are now creating that. "Earlier, the cost of safety wasn't built in and construction labour didn't see their job as a trade. That's changing, though we're still nowhere near global standards."

We say what you want to hear

If someone says "I'm 99% sure I will be there," most of us know he doesn't plan to be there at all. But for an expat CEO, such lines create big misunderstandings. New Zealander Glen Peat of Hyatt Hotels used to take a statement like "I'll be with you in five minutes" at face value -- and find himself waiting a long time. "It's ingrained in Indian culture. It's not very honest, but I've realised it's a way of being courteous," adds Peat.

We do everything at the last minute

The Indian attitude towards deadlines has been known to send many expat CEO blood pressures through the roof. "It took time for me to adjust with the time management of people in India," says Ricoh's Takano. "But if a deadline is not being met, they would stretch and make sure things fall in place."

Guillaume Sicard of Nissan Motor India, used to be incredulous at the confidence his Indian colleagues displayed as deadlines approached. "Time management is quite fluid in India. They will work late hours into the night, even on weekends, to meet the deadline. Americans or Europeans would never do that. There they believe in a strict 8 to 5 pm working day."

Be that as it may, doing things at the last minute can lead to shoddy quality. ThyssenKrupp's Michael Thiemann never takes that chance. "In India, up to 95% progress, everything is done very well. However, the boring 5% remains and that is where I get involved to make sure that the work is really done," he says.

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