The Hindu Business Line : Workplace strategies

This week, I want to share with you an e-mail I received from an American manager in a leading global car manufacturing company. I had asked my former expatriate clients who had lived and worked in India to recount their experiences for me so that I could include them in my book Doing Business in India for Dummies, which came out recently ( www.wiley.com).

Paul wrote the lines below and I feel it may be an eye opener for new managers in India as to what an American boss may think of his Indian team.

“My 2-plus years in India were filled with many pleasant surprises and naturally some negatives. I consider myself well travelled and have experienced different cultures in various regions of the world. India was unique, in particular the business related experience I gained and learned from our host employees.

We arrived with the mindset that our engineers in the US have designed and developed this state-of-the-art machinery that is designed for labour-intensive environments where the concepts of lean manufacturing can be best utilised. To my pleasant surprise, when I shared the prints with our freshly hired engineers to review what they were about to receive in the various sea containers heading our way from Italy, the US and other parts of the world, their dedication and enthusiasm immediately bloomed.

They, after continuously checking with me for permission (a big cultural difference), redesigned the whole floor layout and some of the equipment too, to better suit the local environment. At the first run, and without seeing the actual machines, they were able to reduce the floor space it was to occupy by about 50 per cent. The bottom line — the equipment, though designed with a “lean” mentality in the US, was extremely “fat”, full of “waste” in the local eye. The negative consequence of that was safety. Many could or would not see the reason for many of the safety features built into the machines to protect the worker from injury or in some cases death.

It took some time to have the local engineers be self-driven and make their own decisions. They were used to getting their bosses’ permission before every step. Once they got used to being self-directed, they simply flourished. The culture can do so much with a whole lot less. Inefficient in many ways, yet extremely resourceful like I have never seen anywhere,” he wrote.

Here are two main areas to focus on to become self-directed as Paul calls it:

Build your self-confidence

Here are three ways to do this:

Focus on your strengths not on your weaknesses. “Give yourself permission to be imperfect,” as an American client Sherry Murphree once told me. It is good enough if some of the people like you some of the time. And concentrate on the things you know you are good at; write down as many things about yourself that you can think of, which are strengths and pat yourself on the back.

Remember your past successes. If you have succeeded in something before, there is no reason why you won’t in this new task too. Imagine yourself succeeding and then proceed full throttle; it helps you to succeed again.

Court risk. It is always a challenge to do something new, but try it — you can’t lose. You can only take away a life lesson. So when you have to try something for the first time, go for it and imagine yourself succeeding, use self talk and see your potential swell.

Prioritise your time

While time management is seemingly a bottomless pit to explore, there is a simple way to prioritise your tasks — take a task on first if the response to any of the following questions is a ‘yes’:

Are other people depending on you to complete a task, especially if it is a component of an important project, and can a small amount of your effort go a long way?

Is the value or profitability of the job at hand very high?

Is your boss repeatedly requesting, nay pressurising, you to complete a legitimate job?

With self-confidence and prioritisation of tasks, you will already have won half the battle, unlike someone who does not take the initiative and seems inefficient.

You will be able to transform yourself into a self directed person, going to a boss only after really trying your own steps out first. And at that time, perhaps, do set deadlines collaboratively.

Spend some time introspecting each day. Did you do better than yesterday? Did you complete the task on time? Did you go for approvals to your team and lead less than in the previous project? And keep these scores for yourself in your little reference notebook; you can witness your own progress this way.

And the next Peter or Paul who works with you from overseas will have to change his tune to “my India team is efficient AND resourceful.”

(The writer is CEO of Global Adjustments, a company that offers integrated India destination services and cross-cultural education delivered through the portal www.globalindian.com)

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