Indian Office Hierarchy is Way Too Strong for the Modern World

I first came to India in 1988 with my wife on holiday. One thing I do remember very well is my experience at the airport. I was treated like a schoolboy — and kept in line by immigration officials who made sure we did not cross the line before we came forward for our passport!

The first thing that struck me when I came back to India for my Xerox posting five years ago, was that IGI (Indira Gandhi International) Airport was significantly different from my first trip. Though it is still not brilliant as an experience — there are still long queues for immigration. But they have definitely upgraded the airport and improved the process.

I came to India at a fairly traumatic time for Xerox — in terms of the fact that there was no consistent leadership at the Indian subsidiary for five years. I came with a mindset that I would be here for at least five years. This was our fourth international stopover; I have worked in Hungary, Soviet Union and Egypt before this. 

I came to India alone first. My family joined me a couple of months later. I have realised that social life improves dramatically once your spouse moves in because they have the time to network. You might network with work colleagues but you may not necessarily find friends there.

On the business front, I realised that the cost of compliance in India is very high. You are dealing with one state in most other markets. In India you are dealing with a federal government — central government and 28 different states. And if you invoice in all those states, you have to file tax returns and make sure you are compliant with all the regulations.

One more thing that took me time to understand was crores and lakhs! My mental arithmetic was dollars. I would struggle with my calculator trying to work things out. First I tried to resist it and I tried to talk dollars. I realised very quickly my audience didn’t understand what I was talking about.
 I find there is a lot of emotion in the Indian culture, which is actually a good thing in the majority of cases. Sometimes fairly small issues can get blown out of control and people shout over something that can be resolved relatively easily. It’s not always a good thing, but the passion it brings to the workplace is actually impressive and very visible. 

I saw a lot of our employees interpreted empowerment as being able to have the authority to take a decision. But it didn’t come with accountability. I found that quite difficult to deal with initially. I had to be careful to not suppress people from actually coming up with ideas and ask for empowerment. Yet I had to really teach employees that if they wanted empowerment, with it they had to accept the accountability that comes with it.

A number of sales decisions were made where the pricing wasn’t good for the company but there was a lot of excitement about the successful deal being closed. There was virtually no realisation that it wasn’t good for the company. When that was pointed out to the sales managers it was met with disbelief and demotivation. I used communication to change the way people thought of this.

The hierarchical structures in Indian offices are way too strong for the modern world. I see far too often people treating others with disrespect. When I first arrived here, there was a table in my office and I asked someone in my first line to help me carry it out of the room. He said, “Wait a minute”, and got on to his mobile phone and said something in Hindi. By this time, I had picked up the table myself and was carrying it out. Suddenly four office boys turned up and tried to wrestle this table from my hands.

A lot of foreigners would say there is a very me-me culture in India. There is no respect for a queue, for instance. I am not saying that the queue culture of the British is correct but that’s what we are used to. So you wait in line and someone just queue barges. People will drive into a gap and cause a jam rather than let someone else go first. You see that in the business environment in terms of wage demands.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I will rate India eight for expat friendliness. It’s very easy to get on here. No expat sits on the fence in India — they either love it or they hate it. I believe it’s a state of mind.

(As told to Neelima Mahajan-Bansal)