How living abroad opened my mind...

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness" - Mark Twain

As I enter the 5th year of my life outside India, I reflected on how it changed me. I moved out of India in Jan 2019 with a vague sense of wanting to expand my horizon. Looking back, I have evolved in many ways though the most significant of them all is the way living abroad has debunked many strongly held beliefs and opened up my mind. Here are 6 beliefs that have been busted for me:

#1. Democracy vs. Autocracy: Living in a democracy and having learnt and experienced the merits of a democratic republic, I assumed that autocracies are poorly governed and eventually fail. When I moved from Bangalore to Dubai, I discovered the intelligent way in which the rulers of Dubai created a haven for trade, tourism and retail with liberal principles. The freedom to take risky decisions could help the autocratic state take bold bets and move fast to build world class infrastructure and support strong economic growth that uplifts the quality of life of people. On the other hand, I saw the draconian travel restrictions placed by the autocratic state through zero covid policy in China and its horrifying impact on people.

#2. Perfect Competition vs. Monopoly: In business school, I learnt why competition is good for consumers. Ecommerce in India is highly competitive and each company is trying to outdo the other by restricting their partner brands from listing selection on competing platforms. This becomes a loss-loss proposition for consumers and brands with consumers having less selection and brands reaching less consumers. In contrast, the ecommerce market leader in Europe is 10X bigger than the second largest player effectively creating a monopoly. This enables the leader to obsess over customers and offer best in class customer experience instead of trying to outdo competition by restricting selection.

#3. Capitalist vs. Socialist: Growing up, I was a fan of Adam Smith's free market philosophy. As I traveled around the world, I realized that free markets are never truly free as they are distorted by various legacy reasons. I thought China was the epitome of socialism until I built a team and business in the country and discovered how capitalist it is. I thought Europe was part of western capitalist society until I discovered the significant role government plays in actively redistributing income and regulating the market. I see the merit in a well-managed socialist state that promotes an equitable society even though there is a part of me that feels

#4. Professional-run vs. Family-run: During my MBA, I worked on a thesis to compare the long-term equity market performance of family-run and professionally-run companies and concluded that professionally-run companies perform significantly better. I had a bias against family-run companies and actively stayed away from them until I decided to take a bet on Landmark Group in Dubai. As I worked closely with the promoter family, I realized that valuation of family-run companies is often understated due to the trust deficit in management and does not reflect the fundamentals of the business. Family-run companies often invest in talent much more than professionally-run companies as they believe in long-term talent development and entrust you with much greater responsibilities once you earn their trust.

#5. Results vs. Process: In India, there is a cultural belief in being result-oriented, in getting things done. I used to be laser focused on delivering results and often took pride in breaking the rules and this behavior was reinforced through the positive recognition associated with getting things done. However in Europe, there is a deep rooted belief that the right inputs along with a well-defined process would deliver results. Whether you achieve results or not, the focus is on optimizing the process further to get things done the right way. As my wife is a sales professional, she sees this distinction clearly in her profession where process KPIs take precedence in Europe in contrast with revenue KPIs in India.

#6. Intensity vs. Sustenance: In India and Middle East, companies allow employees to carry over their leave balance to future years to offer flexibility to take leave when they need. If an employee does not take leaves, they get to encash their leave. This is true even in government institutions. In an unstated way, companies discourage employees from taking leave and look up to those who are able to do intensive work for sustained long period. I had a culture shock when I came to Europe and found out that your leaves expire by the end of the year and you do not get to encash them. This is a systemic way to encourage people to take leaves and normalize breaks as a way to recharge.

I am not advocating one approach over another as there is no one-size fits-all answer and the best approach depends on the context. I prided myself on being well read and having strong points of view on different aspects of work and life. I realized that I was more receptive towards information that reinforced my views. I have started making a conscious effort to examine my own beliefs and biases and review new information in a dispassionate way.

I used to travel within and outside India quite a bit as a tourist but never realized these benefits in the past. I realize that it was less to do with the fact that I was a tourist and more to do with the fact that I had a tourist mindset, focused on visiting places and seeing things, not in interacting with people and being curious about how people lived their lives. Living and working abroad forced me to interact with people, companies and institutions and made the travel experience a lot richer. A tourist with a traveller's mindset can achieve the same. As they say, experience is the best teacher. I hope to stretch my mind further as I resolve to navigate uncharted territories as a traveller in not so distant future :)