Indian Vs American Team Work

What are the challenges Indians face while working with Americans and the other
way round?

Before answering, I would like take few characteristics and compare. These
characteristics are important to understand the cultural differences and what to
expect for a good teamwork.

Characteristics Indian American

1 Management Very senior people also have small
Job-Title is very important
Hierarchy titles.
2 No time-management, any Strict adherence to time
Appointments meeting needs to be waiting for commitments, all meetings starts at
and Deadlines 10-15mins before all gathers to the schedule time, time is money
start. and the country lives at it 100%.
3 Agreements view agreements more flexibly &
and can start work with vague prefer clear, detailed agreements
Commitments agreements/commitments
4 avoid conflict as some might take
disagreements will be dealt with
Directness criticism of an idea to be a
openly and straightforwardly
criticism of their personality/ability
5 Results vs. following the rules and
It’s all about results, May be little bit
Process implementing correct processes is
process.
Orientation highly valued
6 coffee machine chats, lunch-time
don’t indulge in gossiping and
chats, corridor chats and some
Gossiping unnecessary talks during office
unsolicited advices to your
hours
mother-in-law too
7 Few has this facility, some might
Work from Everyone has this facility and
take undue advantage of this
home judiciously uses it.
liberty
8 Work in groups; do not hesitate to
Working-model Very much Individual
ask for help.
9 managers expect team members to
Decision- Decisions tend to be top-down,
take responsibility and assume
Making authority is not delegated.
ownership of results
10 It is very difficult for them to say
‘No’ to anything as their as soft Mostly do not care for others
Behavior
spoken and do not want others to personal feelings,
get hurt.
11 Prefers to give solutions/detail
Responsivenes Can response to all emails ASAP.
report, hence sometime might be
s At least with the acknowledgement.
slow in response-time
12 Communication- Might have some grammatical
Very expressive
skills mistakes or not so good
 vocabulary
13 Starts early, leaves early. After
Starts late, ends late. Comes to
Long office 5pm no one is in office, Oh thank
office very late (10am/11am) and
hours good it is Friday, plans for
might stay till 9pm/10pm also.
weekends.
14 Sequential, Prefers everything to
Very good at handling multiple
be planned. Tries to plan to fit
things at the same time, can
Multitasking unexpected events without
accommodate unexpected events
evaluating how big or small is the
in the day-to-day life
action.
15 Respects seniors, managers or
Respect for
leads. This can be seen in the Not particular in business
elders
way there dress, stand, and talk.
16 Thinks what he does is the BEST
Does not show /reflect confidence
I am the BEST and feels hard to accept when it
even when he has the BEST
turns down.
17 Still at the Receiving end, either it At the Giving end, work
Giving/Taking be review-comments or work assignments or orders. Hard to
assignments accept criticism, short tempered.
18 Words like “project”, “accident”,
Overloaded “excellent”, “awesome”, “journal” , An even pre-school kid (my son)
words “thesis”, “ideology” has some uses these words.
more meaning than the natural
19 Does not appreciate or expect
Appreciate everything, even the
Appreciation appreciation unless the job is
most obvious.
done way ahead of expectations.
20 Can compromise on quality based
Quality High quality
on various things.
21 Most of them are un-experiences Only well experience people
and does need mentor or understood that without
Experiences
suggestions in almost all collaboration of both the teams
activities. business cannot succeed.
22 Has limited access to tools and
Tools Have good tools and systems.
procedures

All the above are my views. I think on averages.

I shall try to answer the question raised in coming weeks.