Cross cultural observations

I was just reflecting on some of my experiences of working with people of different nationalities. In the past few years during my employment, I got a chance to work with various people from around the world. I must have worked closely with atleast 15 nationalities until now. And this has been a real eye opener to the kind of cross cultural team issues which might face an organization. Even in daily life, its just so exciting to see the reactions of people from different nationalities & cultures on the same issue..... You can be almost sure that in a case team of 6 people with 6 nationalities; you will get radically different reactions on the same issue being handled.

That's when we realise that 'Diversity' is not just a buzzword; you have to experience it to know its power. If you want to be a global organization, you need to have a diverse and global workforce: It's as simple as that!

Just compiling a brief summary of what I observed. Some of these observations are positive & some are negative. May be I am quite wrong in judging those people while saying some negative things about them. It is also true that what I observed may be a peculiar characteristic of that particular person and cant be applied to the whole culture of the nation. So this is not about generalization, it's just an observation....

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  Germans: Very friendly people. They are analytic, extremely organized & structured (in thinking, behavior & working style). Will be eager to start the conversation. They are quite straight-forward without showing unnecessary diplomacy. Overall nice human beings.
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  Italians: Very easy going and nice people. They can crack jokes in situations when you don't expect to even think of one. Italians are famous for their calm & relaxed attitude and I won't disagree with that either. Another peculiar thing I found is that these people feel they belong more to their respective city than to their country. "Italy" is a concept which probably isn't as important for them compared to Rome or Venice or Tuscany and so on. May be just my personal observation.


• British: Mentally tough people and generally they still love India. A typical British (as the French will tell you) "eats his chicken with sugar...". No comment there- I am a vegetarian....haha...


• Chinese: Believe it or not, the Hindi-chini bhai bhai stuff really seems true. We do feel a kind of synergy with chinese people though there is no similarity at all. May be being 'Asian' seems to unite the feelings.
• French: How can I not talk about my hosts... French people(& Europeans in general) are pretty much relaxed about life. They are a lot subtle when it comes to attitudes. I am trying to limit this blog-post only to cultural and behavioural aspects and hence wont divert into other things. A separate blog-post on France in general is due short anyway.
  
• Georgians: They are quite ambitious and practical in their approach. 

• Irish: I had previously heard lots of jokes about good-old Irish people, but I found them really friendly. Careful listeners and good thinkers. Nice to have in any team.

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  Americans: Easy going people. Though an average American doesnt know that there exists a world outside the states but the ones I came across here were a lot better.



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  Azerbaijani: This is a small country in Middle east Asia border and I just came across one person from there. Friendly and analytical.

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  Swiss: As this community consists mostly of Germans & French, so they carry the same European characteristics.




• Mexicans: They not only look like Indians, but also quite similar in characteristics. Long live BRICM ...! And most importantly, their 'tortillas' are a life saver for roti-craving Indian tastebuds :-)

• Brazilian: Lazy is the most apt word I can think of about the brief interaction I had with a Brazilian. Cant tell much.

• Romanians: You can listen in peace when Romanians do all the talking..... Offcourse this couldnt be true for all Romanians but my experience is that they are compulsive talkers. And dont bother to ask any Romanian about which undergraduate school do they come from. Because you are sure to get the same answer :- "Academia de Studii Economice Bucureşti" It sounds very strange, but probably whole of Romania completes their high-school and bachelors studies in this one university....




• Japanese: Peaceful, hardworking, sincere, friendly. But I have come across only one and she too is not a pure Japanese but a French-Japanese. So Cant tell much.

• Dutch : Easy going and so much like Germans. I found them friendly and well organized. Also they are brimming with new and innovative ideas.

• Scandinavians (Swedish & Finnish):- I don't know why, but the scandinavian people ooze entrepreneurship (or may be I came across only those scandinavians who were entrepreneurs). Cool customers overall, but a bit selfish sometimes.

• Indians: I am not saying this just because I am an Indian, but believe me, we are one of the best species around. (and this is others opinion, not mine. And it is a general opinion about Indians and does not apply to anyone in particular). Highly Intelligent, excellent listeners, good team players & numerate, we are like the dream people to have in any team. But I really wonder why this attitude mostly comes through only when we are outside our country ? What happens to our attitudes when we are in our country? Why we try to run a rat race there?

(Later addition:- Although the above opinion about Indians is true in a better setting, but when you come across a local guy on a street in a western country, he/she still has in mind many stereotypes about India.....for ex:- many such people still associate India ONLY with Taj Mahal, Bollywood, spirituality, spicy food, elephants, cows, BPO's or more recently, a 'Slumdog Millionnaire' ... Do these things really do justice to representing one sixth of the world's population?

While the answer to that question is a vehement 'no', unfortunately, Indians have to deal with such stereotypes of India, be it in their professional lives or social settings, while interacting with atleast a section of 'westerners' if not more......You have to be always ready with a voice-tape recorded on your tongue to tell them that one cannot really 'know' an Indian by the above stereotypes or by watching bollywood movies.....!

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From Strategy to Operations:- The curious case of Benjamin Button....

The title sounds strange enough, but when you are subjected to a long movie, you ought to think of strange things. 3 hours gone but an important analogy made: Between Benjamin Button & the process of creating operational plans from strategic plans in order to execute your strategy! The film shows Brad Pitt being born as an old man and living his life growing younger. He relates events which for him had already happened. Now imagine you, as an organization, are standing at the end of a long time line - you have already achieved your strategy. Imagine, how did you do it? What actions did you take? What resources did you secure and how you deployed them? Which products/markets/segments did you serve? How did you secure finance? What was the reaction of the market & shareholders? And many such questions depending on the industry. Ask these questions in a stepwise fashion starting from the end. What was the last significant thing you had to do just before reaching the goal. Put that on your timeline. And just before that, what did you have to do? And just before that? And so on, moving closer and closer in time, right up until the present. Working backwards from the realization of the goal, you have developed a timeline, complete with milestones & contingency planning- working from your collected knowledge and scenario creation, but not necessarily from your conscious mind. The Method can be a way to generate set of tactical actions to realize your business strategy. (Sounds too easy in the writing, but offcourse in real life, there will be lots of other things involved. Especially in case of corporate strategy, if an operational planning exercise is being done, then there will be lots of scenarios & games being played between country/functional BU 's and the corporate office.)

For a reality check, think it through forwards. If you add the necessary resources, skills, and knowledge, take each action in turn, and reach each milestone, is that likely to produce the results you intend to produce? (Biblio and credit-  Mr. Paul Lemberg) Does that mean that Strategists need to be prophets? Offcourse not:- No one can predict the future. But an organization can start from the place where it wants to be and systematically work backwards to the place where it is. Afterall, that's one of the things a strategist does: Bringing structured thinking in the top tier of an organization.

History Repeats... and how..!!

Consider the Following (A random article which I read somewhere) :- 

" Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

Who said the above?

I am sure each one of you must have come across similar lines at one point or other.

Those of you who have grown-up children may have said the same things to them. Our grandparents may have similar opinion about today's generation. But have you ever wondered when this statement was first recorded?

Any guesses on the year?

No, it's not today... and not even 20 years back. You have to go back very far away in history to trace it. It is 2,400 years ago that the great philosopher Socrates (469 BC-399 BC) made this statement. 

Amazed, perplexed, bemused, shocked?

I'm sure you are.

But that's the way it is. Human nature and emotions remain the same irrespective of the era one is in.

History Repeats... and how..!!

Absolutely Amazing!

Watched 'Swades' once more today.... What a movie..... what sensibilities... sheer heart-warmer!

.... 'Yeh taara woh taara' , 'Yeh jo des hai tera....' These songs in particular are masterpieces. It's so touching.....

Love it...!

Voice of Numbers

Ask any doggedly working Business school student about which are his 3 silent killers and if s/he is seasoned enough, the answer will come pat: Balance sheets, cash-flow stmts and income stmts. Well, there are many others as well , but these three innocent looking tables are sure to give you some headache.

I am emphasizing on "Innocent", because thats what you feel like when you take that nice looking annual report in your hand. You see some smiling faces on the cover page which has lots of colors in it and also some artwork. (Reportedly, one Paris based Big technology consulting firm even hires famous French artists each year to contribute glamourized sketches on its annual reports.) The numbers look all rosy at first sight with double digit growth in everything. So you think, wow, here are the numbers, divide everything by everything else to get your ratios, go to your library to access Moody's and compare your numbers with those of the analysts. Done!

Is there only that much to it? Yes, for the starters.....But then you receive an assignment which states " Please write a report on the Strategy of *** Inc. and critically comment on the management's moves". What the heck !

After ruffling a bit and dawning yourself with the realization that those numbers were just the upper layers, you start worrying. Let's think a bit more about these in an analogical manner. Just compare it with Cricket. On any old cricket ground, you will find a big wooden scoreboard and 2-3 scorekeepers. They hang & sit on that scoreboard in order to keep changing the wooden number plates whenever a run is scored. If there's a dull phase going on in the match and not much changing of the wooden plates is required; those boys also fit in their faces through the holes meant for the number plates and look animatedly towards the whole stadium. Basically speaking, the dumb accountants are just those boys i.e. the scorekeepers who mundanely update the numbers on the wooden manual scorecard. The real match is going on in the dressing room i.e. in the corner office. And the special benefit which is enjoyed by the corporate matches is that you can always manipulate those scores sitting right in the corner office! You can always order your dumb accountant to shift numbers, manipulate depreciation rates et cetra and most of the top management in the world does this.

So, you have just been asked to scratch those bald skulls and write a report on their strategies 'to critically comment on the management'....... Best of luck.....

You have already finished reading each and every number on it and have dug your nose into the Notes section as well. I told you, there's more to those innocent statements. You end up eating, drinking, living and cursing those 3 innocent tables.

Best wishes once again..! Tommorrow is the deadline for your assignment! Spend your night scratching those bald skulls a bit more. In between that, write a blog post to curse the situation.....

But during all this time, keep your ears open : Those numbers might just whisper something to you in a bushy voice.....

Happy hunting the numbers!

Strategic Planning

McKinesy on Strategic Planning:

1° Creating prepared minds

2° Enabling creative accidents

- Bottom up strategy experimentation

- Top down strategic initiatives

I recently came across an awesome poem in a UN forum on web. It's written by a 14 year old African kid and has been voted most popular poem.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow,
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray
And you calling me colored?


I went speechless after reading it.....

Amazing....!!!

Life without Indian Food

A sudden craving for Indian food…… 22:30
Realization of nothing being available in the vicinity...22:32
Going to the Indian store....22: 45
Trying in vain to find something fresh...22:55
Sudden discovery of Gram flour on the rack...22:55:02
Obliging to buy it and happily back....23:05
Onion, gram flour, oil, water, tomato sauce arranged...23:10
Quick trip to neighboring dorm of Italian student to borrow hotplate...23:20
Managing somehow to fry some crisp Bhajiya (pakoda) with my limited cooking...23:50
Bhajiya and coke to accompany the completion of tommorow’s strategy-management case study: Yumm @ 24:00 ......

By the way, this is the humble Indian store located 2 minutes from my place.

Read the name of the store..?? As funny as it may sound, but it's called as 'Rajah Bazaar....'

(The king's market:- translation for the unfortunate souls who dont speak Indian languages)...

I wonder since when the kings started visiting neighborhood grocery stores..!

Private Equity LBO's Vs. Venture capitalists : Fundamentals

• Private equity firms will focus on turnarounds by buying distressed debt, file for protection from creditors under insolvency law, and lead a restructuring. Venture capitalists will historically invest in seed stage fundamentally strong businesses.
• PE's will change the existing management and hire either a consulting firm or their own team to act as top management in the interim. On the other hand, VC's obviously believe in the entrepreneurs whom they funded and hence they dont alter with the operating management but they generally sit on the boards of such firms.
• For the PE, an exit will generally mean appointing a permanent top management and either sell it completely or partially to achieve a target of anywhere from 15 to 80 percent returns. For the VC, an exit generally means taking the firm to a successful IPO and venture out with similar returns.

Lean Banking....anyone?

Well, I am always amazed by these 1 room, roadside banks in France…. This is a branch (agency; as they call it) of LCL (Le credit lyonnais: if I got it right) bank just down the road from my place. Accepted that it’s in a residential area, but still how lean can it be? And despite that, you can do almost everything in the branch may it be International wire transfers or opening an IBAN.

To my amazement there are only 2 people working there and one of them is the branch manager. The other guy is a one stop shop for everything starting from exchanging Forex to learn signing a French chequebook (Yes, it’s different). If you drop in to take a look into the branch manager’s area, she will offer you some chocolates and some help if you want....!  Atleast the branches I visited till now   have a bowl on the employees table’s filled with candies & chocolates and you can help yourself while the guy is stamping your tc’s.  I had heard a lot about French bureaucracy, but atleast I haven't experienced any till now.