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Notes from Bangalore:
A New Expatriate in India
India plays an increasingly critical role on the world economic stage. Western companies have been hiring Indian professionals in large numbers for work in their own country or abroad; many people from other parts of the world now work regularly with Indian counterparts. At the same time, a growing cadre of expatriate managers and project leaders is being assigned to India in order to assist in building up operations there. What follows is a first-hand account from an expatriate newly assigned to Bangalore. It illustrates common challenges of such an assignment as well as the unique working and living circumstances presented by India today.
Arrival
Bangalore, the high technology center in the south of India, is literally on the other side of the world from my home. I arrived in India on the first day of the Ganesh festival, which I took to be a good sign since Ganesh is the Hindu god known for removing obstacles. Removing or at least navigating through obstacles was something I knew I would need in order to accomplish my business objectives in India. My list of deliverables looked long even by our company's demanding standards, and I was hoping that any obstacles would swiftly disappear. I have traveled internationally quite a bit and have an appreciation for cultural differences. Even though this was my first official overseas assignment, I felt I would learn quickly how to get along in India.
Getting Started
It took me nearly a week to be fully up and running effectively on the local calendar system, understanding my phone, and knowing how to get an internet connection. Something as seemingly straightforward as making a local call suddenly became more complicated, as at first I had to guess what numbers to dial. The prefix for calling from my cell phone, for example, is different from the prefix for dialing from or to a land line. It was disconcerting to have trouble with such a basic task, and the ways of solving problems that I had always relied upon didn't seem to work here — I didn't know where to even begin looking. Instead I needed to build a network of people whom I could ask what felt like were stupid questions such as "How do I make a phone call?"
"Simple" Communication
I have also been challenged by simple communication tasks, and often think how little I appreciated the ease of communicating in my own language and culture. It is not easy to understand accents on both sides of a phone call here when you have no other cues to rely upon. You may really need to ask to have words spelled out so that you can understand, this requires mutual patience and persistence because the pronunciation of each letter is slightly different. It is worth taking the time to get the correct spelling of someone's name, as saying it incorrectly can be taken as an affront and indication that you don't respect them enough to learn their name. People are generally patient with you if you show the effort in trying to learn and pronounce correctly. I had a particularly tough conversation when I was trying to write down an address — it took nearly ten minutes of each of us repeating back and forth and confirming what we were saying.
Working "From" India
I have gained a new appreciation for people based permanently in India whose days revolve around early morning and late night calls to locations abroad. I made my share of late night and early morning calls when I was working in my own country, but that was nothing compared to the number of evening calls you need to make from here on a consistent basis. Each day you work a full day and then go home to spend an additional 2-3 hours on the phone to Europe or the U.S. This does not leave much time to get other things done, let alone to have any personal time. One colleague made the distinction between working "from" India and working "in" India. Working "in" India you act together with local colleagues and also perhaps have some contacts across time zones, but your schedule is more your own. Working "from" India your daily routine is set according to the schedule of the larger headquarters-based team.
Workplace Lessons Learned
There have been a number of other key learnings for me during this initial period in Bangalore. Here are a few:
- Work on Issues Together
I have found that until people get to know you they are more likely to want
to get together and review something than to go off on their own and come back
with comments. Initially I made the false assumption that the emails I was
sending were being read and acted upon. When it became clear that this wasn't
the case with one of my colleagues, I sat down to have a conversation to understand
why this was happening. It turned out she had an overly full plate and wasn't
able to keep up with all my requests, yet she didn't want to come out and tell
me that she couldn't do all that I was expecting. Her comment was, "You are
everywhere and I am nowhere!" I
was frustrated with what I perceived as inadequate responsiveness, and she
thought I was not being collaborative or curious about what else she had on
her plate — a good thing to get straightened out! She wanted to talk about and
go over the documents together, another cultural norm I came to understand.
- Set the context
I have found that I save time in the long run by providing the background, reasoning, and larger context of a request. This may take more time, but when I have failed to do this it often became necessary to follow up individually to find out why there was no response, answer a series of questions (if they ask!), or have a task done over again because my request wasn't fully understood. At home I would email a document to a colleague and ask for their response in a short, one line message. Here I have found that this review and feedback is less likely to happen unless I provide more context as to why I want the document reviewed, what I want them to be looking for, and when I need it back and why. Stopping by someone's desk is often an even better way of ensuring that you are both on the same page. Believe me, it really does save time in the long run!
- Plan to Take More Time
Since I am still building relationships and setting context during this initial phase of my work here, it takes me quite a bit longer to get things done than I would normally anticipate. I have found that I need to shift my expectations regarding how long a task will require and what will actually be accomplished even when it sounds like there is agreement. Being caught between the reality of the local pace of business and the expectations of the home office is quite a challenge. As a result, I have felt that I need to spend longer days working to make up for the different pace of things here, taking more on personally than usual. This means that I have less time during the day to take care of my own action items. For now the long hours are difficult but bearable; longer term I'm going to have to do a better job of engaging others in getting things done.
Social Contrasts
Being an expatriate brings its own rewards in the form of a new window on life. I am constantly in awe of the tremendous spectacle that is India: ornate palaces and temples, the bright flowing colors of sari clad women, markets teeming with even more colors and aromas, oranges and yellows of marigolds and bananas, the scent of jasmine flowers, spices and incense in the air.
The streets are crowded and a short journey seems a miraculous feat on a roadway shared with three-wheeled rickshaws, cows, mopeds transporting whole families, trucks, buses, the occasional oxen drawn cart, and bicycles draped with loads of coconuts. The throng of commuters does in fact all move forward eventually although several times recently my driver simply turned off the car to wait out the traffic jam.
I have found that one can witness an incredibly broad range of lifestyles in the space of a minute, from trendy young people on their cell phones to disabled people begging for money on the same block. Signs of poverty are almost everywhere, but so are modern facilities and symbols of wealth. Walking down the street means fending off the persistent people peddling their wares who approach me with a hundred friendly "Hello madam!" greetings. I have never been called madam before, and now I am referred to as madam a hundred times a day. I am reminded of my own privileged lifestyle by the difference between the price of a restaurant meal and the needs of the small child who persistently pulls at my skirt and makes the universal hand-to-mouth gesture of wanting food.
The sights and sounds of India have also given me clues about how to see things through fresh eyes and adjust my behavior in the workplace to become more effective:
- Personal Space: One day I was approached by a twelve year-old girl, her mother, aunts, sisters and friends who asked to have their picture taken with me. I experienced first-hand a different concept of personal space as they draped themselves all around me for the picture. No wonder people at work respond so positively to management with a personal touch!
- Assumptions & Headquarters: The regular morning news about tragedies related to women's dowries, political arguments turned violent, or a truck driving on the wrong side of the road illustrates graphically that Indian culture operates on a different set of assumptions than the ones to which I'm accustomed. This helps me to realize that I do need to push back to headquarters when their requests seem off base.
- Social Contribution: I'm still struggling with the personal question of how to get through each day or even down the street and yet make a meaningful contribution to a broader set of social issues. Our company here has a similar challenge on a larger scale, and we need to be able to act in a socially responsible manner while retaining our business focus.
I'm not yet sure what to make of Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, but I would like to learn more.
For additional information on Ganesh, see http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Religions/Avatars/Ganesh.html
The image here is used with permission from
Dr. Vinay Lal, Associate Professor of History, UCLA.
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