The Hindu Business Line : The changing face of Indian work culture

For ages, Indians were considered quite different from their western counterparts in terms of the meaning they attached to time, relationships, work and so on. A lot of this is clearly beginning to change. India and Indians are seen to be moving from a “high context culture” towards a “low context culture”.

Ganesh Chella

Last week, my ten-year-old niece arrived from Canada. What was amazing was that when my daughters met her and started talking they found so many common interests — music, television serials, gizmos, fashion and so on. Despite the physical distance, there seemed to be such great common ground.

Put any of our young kids from the metros in any part of the world and they will engage with great élan about F1, Football and Federer.

Metro-centric behaviour

Ask any young executive of today for a meeting and he will put out a request through MS Outlook and not pick up the phone and keep calling dozens of people. Attend any meeting and you are likely to hear people say that “we need to put a process in place” quite soon.

Don’t be surprised if someone with whom you started a meeting at 3.30 pm tells you that he will need to do a “hard close” at 4.30 pm. It is quite common for people today to exercise the choice not to attend a company get-together because it is outside work hours and interferes with his or her private time.

The sweeping Changes

A lot of what I have narrated is very metro-centric behaviour and more prevalent among the young and more modern businesses but is nevertheless microcosmic evidence of a larger cultural shift that is likely to sweep Corporate India of tomorrow.

For ages, Indians were considered quite different from their western counterparts in terms of the meaning they attached to time, relationships, work and so on.

For years, managers who sent their employees overseas were concerned that their team members would not know what to say after they said hello.

I see a lot of this changing in the coming years. I see India and Indians moving from a “high context culture” towards a “low context culture”.

Meaning of context

The concept of “context” was coined by Edward T Hall, an anthropologist and author of The Silent Language and The Hidden Dimension in his pioneering work on intercultural communication.

Hall looks at context as being either “high” or “low”. He looked at “high context” cultures as those where meanings are derived and communication made, not just by the “utterances” but also by the “deeper meaning” which cannot be derived from the “utterances” alone.

In a high context culture, it is important to have a contextual knowledge of that culture to understand the true meaning. On the other hand, in a low context culture, no contextual knowledge is needed.

Hall also saw differences arising in the way time and space are managed as a result of contexting. A few key and relevant differences as articulated by him are given in the table.

Traditionally, the westerns cultures would be considered a lot more low context and India more high context.

Our ability as Indians to handle abstractions, do things simultaneously and focus on relationships and not regard time and structure was seen as characteristic of our cultural context. Similarly, our inability to follow structure and manage time, follow processes, do repetitive tasks well, pay attention to details were all attributed to our high contextual orientation. A lot of this is clearly beginning to change. We are quite adept with structure, capable of slicing and managing time, following process, focussing on the task and not really get caught up with relationships (how else do you explain the 30 per cent to 40 per cent attrition).

The four T’s

I see four Ts influencing this change process and even bridging the cultural differences most significantly — Technology, Trade, Travel and Television.

Technology is today providing a common platform for us to interact with the rest of the world. Global trade is necessitating that we make it easy for the rest of the world to do business with us and a big way of doing this is to make our culture a lot more low context. Indians are travelling like never before and this is a great source of learning and change. So is television.

While these changes are stronger in the metros, it is a matter of time before they pervade smaller towns, given that the future talent pools lie there.

What is important is that all of us are mindful and even proud of these changes.

What is also significant is that those responsible for helping the world outside understand India, present a current and contemporary picture of India, one that takes on board the rapidly-changing cultural milieu and do not choose to talk about the bullock carts and snake charmers, even if they make for interesting conversation.

(The author is the founder and CEO of totus consulting, a strategic HR Consulting firm. He is also the co-founder of the Executive and Business Coaching Foundation India Ltd. He can be reached at ganesh@totusconsulting.com)

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