Friday, March 19, 2010

Indian Style of Management

I am interested to get comments on Indian Style of Management as opposed to American or Japanese Style of Management. Any comments ?

3 comments:

  1. sir,

    read made in japan by akio morita. there is a direct comparison available in a separate chapter. who better than the japanese business icon himself?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Experiential learning" is what I call the most effective here. Working in an indian setup is akin to reading dozens of books on the indian style of management (so to say)!

    The most annoying of what I found, during my two year tenure with one of the largest hospitality groups in India is, there is such a tangible concept of "Face time", which simply meant the number of hours you are "seen" at work. The longer you stayed after work hours, the more diligent you are. Now, its altogether a different concept whether you were actually contributing to the objectives of the company or simply amusing yourself with Emails, Chat or talking on the phone (lots of people do this amazingly well with an affected tone of being in the process of finding a cure for cancer). And, how does it all help? Gradually, such people create their enigmas of really hard-working, sacrificing their personal lives..blah blah. Oh yeah, and this applies to weekends too. And, we talk about seminars on work life balance! How does life and the company treat such hardworking individuals? Well, it simply results into better performance appraisals and forces everybody else to follow suit. This trend has a downward spiralling effect and most importantly, it doesnt contribute to the company's growth!

    I have been living in the United States nearly for the past one year. Asking someone to work extra means overtime, extra pay and it hurts the employer. Also, asking someone to work on a weekend in the US is like asking him to donate his kidney!It is unheard of.

    ReplyDelete
  3. By my experience, the Indian style of management seeks to favour those who fit in well with the manager's personality style. Also in my previous company where I worked, I found my colleagues who used to flatter and butter up the managers well were the ones who got good appraisals and promotions at the cost of the honest hard worker.
    In order to fare well under an Indian manager, we need some traits - Thick skin, Cunning mind, Ability to flatter, Attain instant visibility as a hard worker, and for God's sake, never do anything that makes your manager look bad. Learn to appeal to what gives your manager the feel good factor, not necessarily what is best in the interests of your company.

    ReplyDelete