The Indecisive Indian

As an IT leader, I have shared this on many platforms. What has blocked the “Indian” IT brand from reaching the heights enjoyed by Germany in automobiles or the Swiss in watches is the lack of finishing. We just don’t create enough wow for our customers. And this lack of finishing or quality can be attributed to a very large extent to the soft skills of our people. Their lack of ability to many times understand the context or appreciate the culture of the customers they are serving. The most often faced dilemma by a US or European customer when it comes to dealing with an Indian is to figure out whether when and Indian says “Yes”, does it really mean a “Yes” or a “Maybe”. That indecisiveness of whether to say "Yes" or a "No" stems from our "never say die" spirit. We Indians have a very powerful tool called “Jugaad”, which the rest of the World has a very hard time with. Always juggling between different variables in our mind to find the most optimum answer. And given this behaviour the world has not only characterised us as the “Argumentative Indian” but also as the “Indecisive Indian”. 

During all my visits abroad, the one place where this indecisiveness is so evident - and I am sure you will have a wry smile on your face when you read it - is in a restaurant. I have seen that look of horror so many times on so many faces whenever I have walked into a restaurant abroad. I am sure invariably the waiter must think, here comes an Indian and first he will order x and then he will say...sorry can you please change it to y. When they get a clean order, they are so pleasantly surprised that no one has made any changes. 

The reason for this is that we are not used to thinking about all the aspects before we give our decision. Very often, long after we blurted out our choice, the options are still running in our mind. If we have to wipe out this image of “indecisiveness”, we will have to not only appear firm in our professional dealings but also in our social ways. We will need to preplan everything. In our professional commitments, we will have to layout a plan of exactly what we are going to deliver to when we are going to deliver to how we are going to deliver and communicate that in a transparent and unambiguous manner. And when it comes to social behaviour, we will have to plan out our logistics as much as we can. So that when we use a service, we don’t say this and than …..er….sorry that.

Some of us may say…."But why?" What is wrong with that? Well for one, it has created this impression that we must be like this in all our dealing, which is definitely not true, at least to a large extent. 

Cheers!

H

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The experiment of Kanku!

It’s been quite some time that I have written. Though there are many subjects or rather thoughts that I wanted to pen down here. While I have been consoling my self that I will do it before my next travel, that is a lame excuse for having been just sheer lazy to share some new finds. Well, if Amitabh Bachchan can find the time to write, I should have no excuse, so I have taken a new year oath that I will make sure there is one everyday….So I start one from today.

This is a great idea - at least I presume it to be so as I know so little about it - on Education. I was talking to a very good friend and my ex-colleague Murali Aiyer the other day. Murali and I have worked together in CRISIL very closely and he is one HR professional I have great respect for. While checking on how things were with each other’s family, he happened to tell me that his son is doing a stint at this place called Shikshantar in Udaipur. He said it was like an experimental education thing and his son wanted to spend a year there. I wasn’t surprised since Murali himself is a Social Entrepreneur now and someone who does not blindly follow tradition. I decided to check out what Shikshantar is all about. And as yet I know very little, but here are some links to more information on the Organization…

http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/udaipur.html

http://www.swarajuniversity.org/co-founders.html

But what attracted me to the concept is this talk that I found on the internet of one of the co-founders of this unique experiment, Vidhi Jain. Here is the link to the video —>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsBaL2TWMNU

It was amazing to hear that someone had thought so early to keep their child away from the formal schooling system and had been so successful at channeling the energy and curiosity of the child and helped the child find her right talent. I don’t know Kanku, daughter of Vidhi Jain, neither do I know the Jains. But listening to her in the Video has definitely raised my curiosity to visit Udaipur one day and meet Kanku. 

I strongly recommend you check out the video and hear the story of Vidhi Jain and Kanku! 

I am sharing this because we have gone so far from our roots that we have forgotten so many of our basic tenets of life. And when one hears such stories, it reminds us that life is about experiments and questioning our beliefs. I thought you will find this interesting.

Meanwhile, take care until the next time.

Cheers!

H

Out of the Box

I fail to see why retired people want to stay in Mumbai. 

No doubt it is a city with a very different culture than the rest of the country. An open and businesslike culture provides great opportunities to those who want to give their best shot. Over the years it has become a melting pot of the best talent from around the country descending on Mumbai and building institutions in all spheres of life which are recognized as leaders not only in India, but even in the rest of the world. But that is where all the good things end.

Somehow it is this characteristic and the fact that the planners could not envision the implication of this open culture has created a wave of negative effects on life in this city. Yesterday we met an expat friend who has been to Mumbai only one month ago, excitedly told us about taking his teen boys out for a safari today. The look on our face gave away what we felt of his idea and his next question was "There are animals there, aren't there?". This is probably the biggest negative for life in this city. No wonder there are Malls in Mumbai that have survived while they have a hard time in places like Ahmedabad, the so-called land of rising economy. Apart from no leisure activities, the roads, the public transportation system, the pollution, the weather, the rising cost of essential services make life extremely costly, if not difficult to live in Mumbai. And it is only getting worse. The new BMC taxes means that the maintenance bill for most of the dwellings (legal that is) will go up by almost twice. In some cases, they will go up by 3 times or four times or even more. It is probably the right place only for the ones who want to make a lot of money.

Given that a retired person is not making any income from any professional or business activity, one fails to understand why would you want to pay the unreasonably high municipal taxes from the income from your savings when you can live peacefully, in a nice clean environment in a B-town (like Pune or even village where one originated from) where the municipal taxes would be a fraction of that in Mumbai. 

Ideally, every retired person should try and ensure that they choose a location to live which maximizes the value they get for every penny that they spend. And paying the unreasonably high municipal taxes in mumbai or the costly services does not make any sense. Ideally a retired person should either rent or sell off the property in mumbai, take the capital and use part of it to buy a nice row house in a b-town or a village somewhere near their native place and enjoy the pollution free atmosphere during their sunset years. Invest the left over capital so that it beats inflation (I have provided some inputs in my earlier post Life @ 70 to do that) and use the income for purposes of going around the world or doing things that one always wanted to do but never had the time. Personally, I would move off to the hills when I am close to that stage in life when I don't have to be in a place like Mumbai to practice my talent and enjoy the serene beauty of nature and the weather that comes with being at a height when you are close to the equator.

And this is pretty much how senior citizens and retired people do in other developed countries. How many retired people have you heard off in America who live in New York or in London or in Frankfurt. They would all move away to distant suburbs (in case of Mumbai though there isn't one!) or quaint small little towns and spend the rest of their years in the peace and quiet of nature. If they have any property in New York or London or Frankfurt, they would probably rent it out and spend the rest of their retired life with a sense of financial security that the rent from it will always enable them to enjoy a quality of life that they have become used to. 

It is time our smart senior citizens and retired people thought "out of the box" and opted for a retirement plan that gave them the best "life" for money.