Insights from Culture of India

Insights from Culture of India

While the caste system is now banned, illegal, the caste system only survived in India because it was a part of their culture. It still survives in a distancing between different groups, an inherent separation between people not of the family's group. Of course in all cultures there are two competing views, one is egalitarianism, that we are all equal and much the same, and the other is different classes, working classes, lower class, middle class, etc., that we are fundamentally different from those outside our family's group. In the U.S., the egalitarian view is particularly deeply ingrained while in India the view of different classes is most apparent.

Until I worked for etransmedia and the management team which was mostly from India, I never really appreciated the problems that this strong separation of classes presented. In the U.S., superior leadership is often associated with leading by example. Strong teams have leaders who are ready and willing to roll up their sleeves and work right along with all the other members of the team. This concept seems to be alien to people raised in India, in general it is foreign to them to closely associate with the people who work for them. Their culture teaches them to distance themselves from those outside their group and they do this without thinking about it.

It seems to me that manager's raised in India's culture can easily manage people in service oriented companies where the focus is on reducing and managing costs. In many ways this emotional distancing can be an advantage as it helps them make the tough calls, cutting expensive benefits and letting people go as needed. However, in technology companies, this is a disaster.

For any development team (especially software), motivation is a key component for success. It is not possible for management to mandate the sort of quality that makes a successful technology company. The essence of development is that there are countless choices to be made and the overall quality of the product is dependent on every one of those decisions. Management can not micro-manage the decisions as the basic job of each team member is to make good choices. Unless the team works together closely and actively pursues superior quality, the result will be mundane. The problem is that if the team members are treated as hired hands (and feel like hired hands) they have no reason to make the extra effort to make those choices which lead to a superior product. The choices are the essence of what they do and there is no way to objectively evaluate the quality of those choices and mandate.

It seems that the management at etransmedia recognized that they had a problem with motivating the developers and tried to address the problem through standard 'best practices' for corporate management, but they lacked understanding of the underlying purpose of the practices so that their efforts were half hearted and ineffective. Communication between all team members (especially management) is essential for superior development (so that everyone will have the required knowledge for great solutions), but the management of etransmedia was close-mouthed, almost secretive about their plans and commitments. They would promise regular meetings and make some effort, but would soon forget and stop communicating. They also showed little interest in getting input from the team which is an essential part of team building (so that everyone would feel involved with the commitments, making them personal commitments, not something enforced my others, management in this case).

Another example of this was monthly pot luck lunches. While this could be a good way to build team connections, the lunches were suggested by management and when there wasn't an enthusiastic response (an indication of low morale and little company loyalty), management assigned individuals to organize the pot lucks and insure there were appropriate contributions. This could have been a great opportunity for management to lead by example and give of themselves. Instead it had the effect of distancing management from the rest of the team who were treated like 'hired hands' being 'bossed' into making additional contributinos (beyond their job descriptions).

My guess is that people raised in India culture have no idea what it is like to have a close knit diverse team. It is an alien concept to them to consider diverse team members as family (the essence of a really close U.S. team). They can go through the motions of developing close teams, but their natural way of interacting with diverse teams is to maintain a distance and separation.

The other example I am familiar with where close teams is essential is U.S. combat teams. There motivation and close team work is absolutely essential, indeed a matter of life and death. While I have never worked with officers in the Indian army, I doubt that they are comfortable with leading by example. Amongst West Point graduates it is well understood that to get strong loyalty from their soldiers, leaders need to roll up their sleeves and work right along with the men, digging foxholes and whatever they ask of their men. There is a story about one particular battalion commander who would get up at 5AM so that he could serve chow to his troops, seeing his soldiers face to face while serving them. I doubt that battalion commanders in the Indian army would ever even consider demeaning themselves by serving their troops chow or anything else.

My expectation is that managers raised in Indian culture will never be very successful managing development teams. Certainly not in the U.S., but probably not anywhere. The development teams I have worked with in India had little loyalty to their company, feeling as hired hands and often moving to another company with a better offer with turn over rates unheard of in the U.S.. That suggests that India can be a leader in service industries but is unlikely to be a strong contender in developing new technology.

It is also unlikely that the India military, which is long held to be poorly motivated, will ever be very effective. They rely heavily on threats to motivate their soldiers (a common problem in the U.S. as well, though less so in recent times it seems) and this results in soldiers who are minimally effective, just doing as they are told until they have other options. The fort close to Aurungabad was never conquered, but often fell when the garrison surrendered. This endemic lack of commitment by soldiers in India is more understandable when the caste system is considered and its effect on leadership.

Of course, effectiveness in developing new technology and having a strong military are largely irrelevant to to having happy and fulfilling lives. However, I am concerned that this innate sense of separation prevents people from Indian culture from being able to really develop and appreciate their connections to everyone (and everything) around them. A sense of separation is how we create our own personal hells and it is through developing our connections that we can create our own heaven on Earth. It is wonderful that the caste system has been ended in India, at least legally, and we can hope that over the coming generations their legal system will strengthen a stronger sense of egalitarianism, creating an environment more conducive to the bliss of celebrating our inter-connections.

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This page was last updated on May 7, 2012