Teamwork and Indian Culture

............ Understand Indian Culture, and ............
....... Communicate effectively with Indians .......

This book is about Indian Culture at workplace. This book acts as a cross-cultural trainer for non-Indians. If you are visiting India for business, it prepares you well to enjoy your trip. This is a good companion book to India Travel Guides. It provides guidance to people who want to interact with Indians effectively. This book analyzes the impact of Indian Culture on the workplace behavior of Indians. It provides insight into how that particular behavior evolved and also suggests techniques to overcome the negative influence of those behavior patterns. These cross-cultural ideas are communicated through a fictitious story revolving around an American, managing a software team in India.

"John, a young American manager from the IT department of a major retail chain, comes to India to execute an IT project. This is the first overseas assignment for John. Dheeraj, Program Manager at the India office, has been entrusted with the responsibility of helping and guiding John."

Each chapter highlights one typical issue. It starts with John facing a problem and then approaching Dheeraj for help. Dheeraj shares some examples of his life and expresses his understanding of the reasons behind the situation and gives suggestions on how it can be solved. This book addresses common issues such as:

* Meeting deadlines at the last minute, in spite of the team working for long hours
* Yes Sir / Yes Madam culture
* Lack of respect for punctuality
* The penchant for competing at the expense of Cooperation
* The "Indian Crab" syndrome
* Prevalent Communication problems
* Lack of dignity of work
* Resistance to using the tools
* Not sharing the knowledge
* The "Chalta-hai" attitude, etc.

This book helps non-Indians to enjoy interacting with Indians. And it also helps them to work effectively with Indians to get the best out of their collaboration. While explaining the work behavior, it touches upon - The caste system, eating habits, traffic issues, behavior at Elevators, etc.

Know the Indian Culture, and Enjoy Working with Indians!

Thota Ramesh is a Software leader by profession and a Counseling Psychologist by passion.