When I was in India I worked with people doing exactly the same job as I did in the US. I got a great opportunity to compare US and Indian work cultures….and I will say that they are very different, and without knowledge of those difference you will never get anything done…with the knowledge you still might get nothing done…but at least you will be able to explain the reasons why.
So my company sent me to India to support our work there, and now, as more Indians are gaining experience to work on more complicated projects, we have begun to bring Indians to the US to learn. Ankur, a really bright guy I worked with while I was there, is the first Indian to come to Atlanta. Needless to say, he is amazed.
It was a great opportunity for me to go to India to live and work for 6 months…but lets face it: For an American, India is always within reach. We can all pack up and see the Taj Mahal if we really want. Sure, the flight is a little expensive, but we can do it. For an Indian…this is the motherlode to be chosen to live and work in the US for 2 months.
Ankur has been here for about 2 weeks, and I was curious to see how his visit is going….to compare my experience in India to his in the US.
Obviously they didn’t put him up in a 5 star hotel like I lived in while in Delhi. He lives in an apartment near the office. They did rent a car for him, which is nice, but did not give him a cell phone like they did for us. I got a business stipend in India (as all business travelers do)….he gets one too….its just half as much as mine was. I find that odd since it is far more expensive to live in the US on a Indian’s salary than it was for us to live in Delhi earning US dollars. Overall though, he is not getting shafted…it is a great opportunity any way you cut it and he is super happy to be here.
I also asked about the office….how it differs from the office in Delhi (where they did exactly the same work). What’d he say? Well…we are very busy he said…very busy. He couldn’t get over how hard we work…how focused we are during the day on producing results. The Indian office environment is much more collegial…more relaxed and more relationship oriented. In the US we do work. In India the office is a mix of things….not all of which revolve around getting stuff done.
He also said we disagree with each other more than in India….as in when we are “discussing” a course of action in a meeting, we are likely to throw out a bunch of ideas, not all of which will be of the same vein….and then we hammer out what we think is best, often having to compromise since not all opinions can be accomodated. Business research suggests that good decisions are generally made this way….the heartier the “discussion” (which often appears as disagreement), the more robust the decision. In India the manager decides and everyone else agrees….period. There is nearly as much dissent…in fact, there really isn’t any. It is not culturally appropriate for an employee to disagree publicly with a manager. Any discussion like that would need to take place through the informal channel.
He said we go to meetings all the time, where you are asked about your work and have to give updates and feel embarrassed if you don’t have the right answer. Meetings generate follow-ups too and people do them. In India a meeting is where you talk a little bit about what you should be doing and are going to do, but nothing specific is finalized, no one takes ownership of anything discussed, and all the real decisions are made informally outside the meeting. If you don’t do something or it isn’t done in the way originally expected, it is glossed over or spun until the outcome is diffused in a smoke of Indian sideways head nodding. For the record though, I love India…especially the people.
He said the US is big, and clean and very efficient. He marvelled at how we all obey the traffic laws and signals. All the cars are big and shiny and don’t have dents. He actually said the word efficient…which is something I try to explain to foreigners about the US, and they do not understand. Things largely just work in the US….although we certainly pay a high price for all that efficiency.
So Ankur expressed largely what I figured an Indian would about first impressions of the US and the office environment. I did find it interesting though, and I am very happy for him since he is such a bright guy, and a hard worker.
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