The Western Indian Employee

A long time ex-colleague and now a dear friend called me to wish me for the new year. He was speaking of the time he was able to take off from work. He was drained with all the incessant calls that today most of the world is forced to attend as part of their work from home routine. Then yesterday I was interviewing a manager for a position at StoveKraft when he mentioned that he would like to move on within a year of joining as there is no work from home option and even after the lockdown when the world was working from home, he was forced to attend the office. He found it "inhuman". I have observed that with the flattening of the earth we have access to all kinds of data which is luring us towards the Western philosophy of making the employee responsible for himself but the Indian employee is not yet ready. Thus he is stuck having an Indian work ethos but a Western expectation.

Parenting

The root of all the mismatched or misplaced expectations comes from the way we have been brought up. No Indian kid has been left to fend for himself. He has always had his mom, his grandmom(s), his aunts, or his nannies taking care of his every need. No Indian kid has slept alone in a separate room till he is old enough to go to college. Sometimes due to lack of space but mostly because of the attachment the mother feels towards her child. The kid is always fed by someone, never has had to clean himself, pick up his dirty dishes, or even take a swing at attempting to wash clothes. Everything has been given to him on a platter. Every Indian boy and girl are raised like princes and princesses in their homes no matter what their socioeconomic background. This robs us of our independence. We stop thinking, we stop being responsible for ourselves. Contrary to this, most homes in the West have both the parents working and hence the children are left to fend for themselves from the day they are born. They are taught the skills to be responsible for themselves as soon as they are able to learn. From the first night, they are made to sleep alone in a separate room than their parents. This starts a long but fulfilling journey of learning to adapt as per the environment and making decisions independently of anyone else. When this poor Indian child grows up and is lured by the glitz and glitter of the Western corporate culture, he but naturally wants it. He even gets lucky to be a part of it within India, but most Indian employees fail miserably at trying to be responsible for themselves.

Subservient Nature

A large part of the country is subservient to the Western folks. Maybe it is to do with the fact that we were ruled by the British or maybe it is to do with our own insecurities as a country or maybe even due to the fact that we are in awe of everything that they have! Have you ever seen a line of Indian graduates wanting to join Indian companies? (I would not consider Tatas, the exception proves the rule). But come a global name to campus and we have the whole cohort applying. The same behaviour replicates when you get a job. You will bring out the red carpet for any fair-skinned Western executive but you won't do the same for your colleague from another branch office! "Fair" is equal to "Beautiful" in personal lives of us Indians, in our professional lives, it translates to "Fair" is equal to "Superiority". Things are changing with the "kids" born in the 2000s. But they are just about finishing their formal education and will take some time to come to terms with the fact that their outlooks might have changed, but the world around them is still the same.

Time in the Pandemic

With work from home being a norm, logically commute time is next to nothing. Efficiency should go up and one should feel a lot more buoyant! But I have heard quite the opposite. Most people are complaining of working harder than when they were in office. They are complaining of no breaks between calls, finding it harder to follow up and review direct reports, and of no lines drawn between the start and end of the day! But since we are never taught to be responsible for ourselves, we do not believe that time is finite. We think that it is perfectly ok to be late for a meeting, well, sometimes, we purposely want to be late for meetings to show people how busy we are. Indians also think it is ok to be late and then not apologise as like for us, for everyone, time is infinite. 95% of the meetings that I have attended in my career in India since 2005 have never started on time. Why is it so difficult for us when the rest of the world can follow it? Indians are not used to having an agenda for a meeting and then following the agenda. They believe that a formal meeting is akin to meeting your friends over coffee and we can let the conversation take its own course as long as we have a broader topic in mind. With no agenda and almost all meetings starting late, we are bound to end beyond the normal working hours. As the online meetings start to take up time beyond 6:30 pm and before 9 am, you are bound to miss your family time and your personal time. You will eventually start hating "WFH".

Home from Work

There is nothing like working from home. For every Indian sitting at home at a computer, it is "Home from Work". Like everything else in life, the 80/20 rule also applies to intelligence. Maybe a lot more like 90/10. 90% of the intelligence is with 10% of the world's population. In a swarm, there is only one queen bee. Essentially ALL bees have only one and the same thing to do, but alas, there is A queen bee. The large part of the workforce is classified as the worker bee. They need to be told their daily job and they need to know who their queen is. That is all there is. Indians definitely know who their queen is but because we are incapable of doing anything ourselves, someone on a daily basis needs to tell us what we need to do and keep us on track. Now imagine how hard it is when everyone is in different parts of the country and working. The more intelligent workers will manage to navigate the "space-time" continuum but the rest won't be able to. The disparity between the basic education in the West and in India sets up this remarkable disadvantage for the country and hence while the Western workforce can manage to operate remotely, the Indian workforce lacks the maturity to police themselves. The laziness set by the parents in childhood sets you up with a certain hubris to "slack off" at work while getting paid. The only solution to this is to force everyone to get back to the office. Being in front of colleagues and away from home will lead to less burnout in the long term and greater productivity.

The StartUp Mirror

After the 1990s, 1% of the world's income grew manifold faster than the rest of the 99%. This led to a greater disparity in the wealth distribution across the globe. A new industry was born - Venture Capital. As the new money started chasing new ideas, it fuelled the youth to pursue their dreams and convert them into reality. Some of these startups became behemoths and in turn further fuels the VC craze. Today there is abundant capital available for new entrepreneurs. The VCs are looking for the next Zappos, Amazon or Google. There is so much money that the valuations for the handful of those marginally successful reach dizzying heights. This becomes a vicious circle as more and more professionals are turning entrepreneurs to chase the dream "unicorn" status. Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem has been built over generations of hard work and cash profits creating companies like Dabur, Godrej, Tatas, RIL, Infy, Wipro just to name a few. The keyword here is generations. No one glorifies the 25%+ CAGR in the stock price that Infy or Wipro have been able to return, but the media is quick to glorify the Walmart buyout of Flipkart. No doubt, it is a phenomenal success and a proud moment for India, but there will only be one Flipkart in our generation. With the lure of becoming a billionaire in a few short years, most entrepreneurs start chasing valuations and not a business. Unfortunately, this is the sad truth about the Indian VC-Startup scene. Most startups get lost in paper valuations while forgetting their true calling. I have been one of them. If only we are able to create a true north that can do nothing but guide the lost soul of the passionate entrepreneur back to his roots.

Life is a Marathon

The only sport where you are racing against yourself is a marathon. There are no shortcuts to completing a marathon. Without putting in the hours of disciplined training for a marathon, you will never be able to complete it. Getting rich also requires you to put in that grind, that discipline, without which there is little or no success. Starting too fast and not pacing yourself in a marathon will lead to a dropout or an injury. The same goes for life, do not be hard on yourself, learn to know who you are, and pace your life's journey. You cannot look at the person in front of you and start trying to overtake him. You have to follow your race as per your training. Stop looking at your colleague's lifestyle or your friend's car and try to match up. You do not know what they have been doing to get to that stage. You are your only competitor. The more you train, the more you dedicate yourself to your craft, the greater the chances of you reaching your goal. The same goes with your job, the more you work with passion and determination, the more you will shine. And when you do cross that finish line, both in life and in a race, only your family and friends will cheer for you, no matter what the outcome, and remember your struggles.