Philosophy and Culture | IndusLatin

In an interview to the TOI, the current poster boy of the global car industry, Renault’s CEO Carlos Ghosn and M&M’s charismatic managing director Anand Mahindra exuded an optimism that may well set the future for joint ventures in India’s fast growing automobile business.

And the no-nonsense, tough speaking Ghosn who has worked in the world’s three largest car markets__US, Europe and Japan was clearly in awe of Indian engineering. Why? Because they managed to shave 15% off the Logan’s production costs.

This is the kind of number that has Ghosn drooling. When the car was first thought up at Renault’s headquarters, it was meant to be a no-frills car that had to be built with as little resources as possible. Ghosn thought his company had done a pretty good job with it.

“But there is a thirst for learning here [in India] and that makes the Indian engineer innovate and create a product frugally. Engineers in other parts of the world always need more resources to do the same thing,” he said.

So is there a lesson in what he has seen for global automobile companies? “Yes,” says Ghosn. “They will have to show the humility to come into this country and learn. It isn’t possible to demonstrate such innovation when you work out of markets where resources are not at a premium,” he adds.

Suprised at lessons he’s learnt in India, Ghosn’s infatuation with frugality occupied most of the conversation. “Sure, capital costs are huge issue in this business. But we are discovering through our partnership with M&M that the level of investment for a specific objective can be done frugally.”

Popularity: 9% [?]

Cultural Differences – Silence in Conversations

September 2nd, 2008 Posted in India, Latin America, Philosophy and Culture

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Today I was speaking to an Argentine business associate and he shared with me some frustrations. He was telling me how he communicates via email with potential Indian clients(government and company officials) and then does not get a response for long periods of time or not at all. I told him there could be various reasons but one of the major ones I could think of was the differing attidude to gaps in conversational silence.

Different cultures have conversations at varying rates. In the United States, there is typically almost no time lag (1 or 2 seconds) between when a person stops talking and the other person starts talking. At least, that is the expectation. If no response is heard within a 1 to 3 second timeframe, the listener could be perceived as dull, slow-witted, uninterested. So Americans use a lot of filler words/sounds in conversation to indicate they are following along – Uhuh, Yup, Yeah, Right, I hear ya, Right on. Many Westen European countries too expect a quick response (UK, Spain).

In Asia, India included, silence is used as a form of respect – to carefully consider the words of others, especially in business settings. The gaps in conversational silence in India could exceed 10 seconds. Of course, it is smaller while interacting in social settings. Bottomline, Indians are comfortable with long silences in the midst of conversations, especially while senior business people or older people are present.

This attitude extends to email conversations as well. So, longer gaps are expected between when a email is received and when a response is given. Usually, an Indian business person has to consult one or more team members and/or a boss before they can give you a response. This can take time.

A related issue is conversational tone. Latins typically vary their tone from excited to calm while Indians typically adopt a neutral tone. This should not be taken to mean lack of interest – it is just a different style.

So what – how can any misunderstanding be reduced?

1) Know that differences exist with regard to silences during conversation - both face-to-face and email

2) Set expectations – let your counterpart (colleague/client) know whether you expect a response and within what timeframe, and where applicable in what format and level of detail.

3) Follow-up with a another email and/or a telephone call – People get 100 to 200 email messages a day. Your message could have slipped through the cracks. When a week or 2 weeks have passed after sending a message, I’ve wondered if the other party is angry at me. After I make a phone call, I realize my message never reached or was caught by a spam filter.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Indra Nooyi: sueños cumplidos

September 1st, 2008 Posted in India, Philosophy and Culture

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Profile of Indra Nooyi in the Bs.As. daily La Nacion
lanacion.com

Los títulos, como una larga alfombra roja, parecían antecederla de una manera pomposa y ceremonial: “La ejecutiva más poderosa del mundo”, según la revista Fortune. “Una de las 100 mujeres más influyentes de los Estados Unidos (puesto 28)”, de acuerdo con Forbes. “Una de las 100 personalidades más influyentes de la actualidad (por arriba de gente como Steve Jobs, fundador de Apple)”, para Time. Si fuera por los rankings, la distancia entre ella y un humano de a pie sería abismal. Tal vez lo sea.

Finalmente, ella entra. No como lo haría alguien famoso. Como lo hace alguien poderoso. Aparece en la sala como si estuviera ahí, alta, firme y silenciosa, sin haber atravesado nunca la puerta. Tiende una mano enérgica, pregunta dónde se tiene que sentar y, mientras deposita erguida su metro ochenta y cinco en la silla, habla de lo que no había que hablar: pide, ruega, que no le hagamos una foto tan horrible como la de la revista brasileña. Las miradas se cruzan. Las sonrisas se congelan. El aire ya espeso se vuelve intragable. Justo antes de que la gente que la acompaña inicie un suicidio en masa, ella se ríe. Y lo hace con una carcajada tan abierta que hace que el aire vuelva a circular.

Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi tiene 52 años. Es presidenta y directora ejecutiva de Pepsico (la empresa dueña de marcas tales como Pepsi, Lays, Quaker o Gatorade) y es quien logró cambiar el modelo de la compañía, llevándolo de los snacks y las bebidas gasificadas a otro, más consciente de la salud y del impacto en el medio ambiente.

Pero, sobre todo, es una extraña excepción en el universo empresarial americano. Primero, por ser mujer (no es un ámbito muy transitado históricamente por el género femenino, y Nooyi es la primera ejecutiva nacida fuera de los Estados Unidos en comandar la empresa). Luego, por su origen: hija de un contador y una ama de casa, nació en Chennai (antigua Madrás), en el sur de la India. Y, por último, por su estilo: desenvolvió un modo muy particular de liderazgo que busca atraer, entrenar y retener a los mejores empleados. Así como dirige una potencia multinacional con ventas por 39 billones de dólares al año, operaciones en 200 países y valor de mercado de más de 100 billones de dólares, Nooyi es esposa, madre y, dice, ama de casa.

Todos quieren escuchar a la mujer que unió dos puntos que nunca
estarían tan juntos. Que supo tomar nota de los mandatos y transitó el
insospechado camino desde su India
natal hacia la cima del mundo. A la mujer que, con la dedicación y la
concentración de un malabarista, supo lanzar sus sueños al aire y
atajarlos sin que ninguno llegara a tocar el suelo.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Answers to questions a resurgent India seeks!

August 24th, 2008 Posted in India, Philosophy and Culture, Science and Innovation

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- Corporate Dossier-Features-The Economic Times

Indian youth have a huge amount of dissatisfaction, hopefully a divine discontent , and they can change things around. They have three strengths: first, persistence, second, innovation, and third, happiness. These are distinctive and are rooted in our history and genes.

PERSISTENT INDIA

Two anecdotes exemplify this:

Ramesh, a tea boy in Shahjehanpur, UP, once insisted on conversing in English. “I want to practice with you and pass TOEFL, so that I can go to America. 500 English words are enough to pass TOEFL,” he said with a ‘can-do’ look on his face.

In Mithapur, Gujarat, I asked Arvind Chudasama, a micro-entrepreneur , supported by a Tata Chemicals outreach activity, about the state of his ice cream business. Bad, he replied. Power cuts. So what about his loan? “I took a second loan to buy a chakda (like a jugad, intervillage transport contraption). I make enough to repay the loan and to invest in a battery to power the ice cream machine ,” he said, full of confidence.

Living in India is like running an obstacle race. One is overcoming obstacles , every day and all the time – poor schools, crowded cities, corrupt officials , unhelpful agents of governance. Indians have the freedom of democracy but not the liberty that is supposed to accompany democracy.

Only when common people can get ordinary, day-to-day things done without a hassle can we say that Indians have the liberty of democracy. “In India, democracy is flourishing, liberty is not,” to borrow from Fareed Zakaria’s comment (The Future of Freedom ). But let us not despair, these things take time. 80 years after the Declaration of Independence, the US was fighting a civil war. Our democracy is maturing. In the meanwhile, the never-say-die and can-do spirit of Indians like Ramesh and Arvind Chudasama holds great hope for the future. Persistent India.

INNOVATIVE INDIA

Indians solve problems. Indians are entrepreneurial in their genes and through their history. They are restless, constantly seeking new ways of doing things. They can be almost exasperating in this respect.

Dharnidhar Mahato (Balakdih, Bengal ) developed a Rs. 500/- cycle pedal paddy thrasher, which costs one-fifth and produced twice the output of a regular thrasher. Arindam Chattopadhyay (Bankura, Bengal) developed a single finger pen so that the handicapped could write (Ref: Honey Bee, National Innovation Foundation, March 2008).

The message is that India can innovate big-time like the Param and Eka supercomputers , the Nano car and the offshore software delivery model. Indians have also democratised innovations like the cycle pedal paddy thrasher and single finger pen.

For innovation to be valuable, there has to be ambition. The ambition of young Indians has increased, so the innovative spirit is poised to deliver big time. Innovative India.

HAPPY INDIA

JRD Tata once said, “I do not want India to be an economic super-power . I want India to be happy.”
The MTV Networks International published a well-being index, according to which ”young Indians are the happiest people on the planet” . Among people in the age group of 16-34 , Indians reported 60% happiness, at about the top end along with Argentina which was 70%. Guess who was miserable at the lower end? Japan at 8% and America at 30%.

Kelly Services, a Fortune 500 staffing leader company found that Indians ranked first in Asia-Pacific in employee satisfaction and seventh out of 28 countries globally, with Denmark, Mexico and Sweden at the top and, Hungary, Russia and Turkey at the bottom.

The Vedanta says that instead of searching for happiness outside of oneself, one should look for infinite joy and peace within oneself.

Here is the story of a happy Indian from modern times.

A young man, who was working in the Indian Army, could not find meaning in his life. So he decided to commit suicide. He chanced on an inspiring book by Swami Vivekananda. He took premature retirement from the army, collected Rs 65,000, and returned to his village in Maharashtra. He used the money to repair the village well, to close down liquor outlets and to mobilise the villagers to work for their own development . In a few years, his village was proclaimed a model village and he found a new meaning in life.

The name of the village is Ralegaon Siddhi, and the man who put it on the national map is Anna Hazare, who was decorated with a Padma Bhushan for his pioneering work. He found happiness within himself. The sheer adventure and scale of India’s economic growth, with social justice and entrepreneurship as its pillars, is staggering. There are beauty spots in this model and there are warts and moles, too.

This much is beyond doubt: no experiment of balancing growth, entrepreneurship and social justice has been undertaken in human history by any country on such a large canvas. Over the coming decades, India has the real chance of reclaiming its place at the top table in the League of Nations, a position she held for centuries but lost in the last few hundred years.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Death of globalisation consensus

August 2nd, 2008 Posted in Philosophy and Culture

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Business24-7

Although economic globalisation has enabled unprecedented levels of
prosperity in advanced countries and has been a boon to hundreds of
millions of poor workers in China and elsewhere in Asia, it rests on
shaky pillars.

Unlike national markets, which tend to be
supported by domestic regulatory and political institutions, global
markets are only “weakly embedded”.

There is no global
anti-trust authority, no global lender of last resort, no global
regulator, no global safety nets, and, of course, no global democracy.
In other words, global markets suffer from weak governance, and
therefore from weak popular legitimacy.

[If] globalisation is in danger, who are its real enemies? There was a
time when global elites could comfort themselves with the thought that
opposition to the world trading regime consisted of violent anarchists,
self-serving protectionists, trade unionists, and ignorant, if
idealistic youth. Meanwhile, they regarded themselves as the true
progressives, because they understood that safeguarding and advancing
globalization was the best remedy against poverty and insecurity.

But
that self-assured attitude has all but disappeared, replaced by doubts,
questions, and scepticism. Gone also are the violent street protests
and mass movements against globalisation. What makes news nowadays is
the growing list of mainstream economists who are questioning
globalisation’s supposedly unmitigated virtues.

So we have
Paul Samuelson, the author of the post-war era’s landmark economics
textbook, reminding his fellow economists that China’s gains in
globalisation may well come at the expense of the US; Paul Krugman,
today’s foremost international trade theorist, arguing that trade with
low-income countries is no longer too small to have an effect on
inequality; Alan Blinder, a former US Federal Reserve vice-chairman,
worrying that international outsourcing will cause unprecedented
dislocations for the US labour force; Martin Wolf, the Financial Times
columnist and one of the most articulate advocates of globalisation,
writing of his disappointment with how financial globalisation has
turned out; and Larry Summers, the US Treasury chief and the Clinton
administration’s “Mr Globalisation”, musing about the dangers of a race
to the bottom in national regulations and the need for international
labour standards.
…
Today, the question is no longer: “Are you for or against
globalisation?” The question is: “What should the rules of
globalisation be?” The cheerleaders’ true sparring partners today are
not rock-throwing youths but their fellow intellectuals.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Boss Nova:Harvard Law’s Roberto Unger takes on the future of Brazil

July 27th, 2008 Posted in Brazil, Philosophy and Culture, Politics

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ChronicleReview.com

Think of Roberto Mangabeira Unger as Brazil’s answer to John Stuart Mill — a century and a half later and considerably nattier — with a pronounced Nietzschean bent that drives him to certain acts of excess.

Unger is not the first philosopher to snare, so to speak, a state office of his own, or a fancy car and driver. Plato advised Dionysius the Younger of Syracuse. Hume served as an undersecretary of state. Leibniz did a stint as an imperial privy councilor in Vienna. Nobody says philosophers can’t get their hands dirty in politics.

In the category of political appointments, Unger may rate the “political miracle” award. Three years ago, he criticized the first term of Lula’s administration as the “most corrupt in our national history.” Now he meets regularly with Lula. Is he a miracle worker himself?

His political involvement in Brazil dates to the late 1970s, when military dictatorship gave way to a “political opening.” Unger offered his services to the united opposition party. In 1978 he became that party’s chief of staff, took a leave from Harvard, and spent his first stint in Brasília, six months of intense work on a new party that would unite progressive liberals and the independent left.

At various times in his writings, he’s urged a government department of destabilization to shake up “every aspect” of social life, a push toward universal freedom of movement for the world’s people, “immunity rights” that protect people against undemocratic coercion, and a rotating capital fund from which society’s stakeholders can draw, linked to government power to break up excessive accumulation of wealth.
One clear idea he’s confronted in the previous generation’s vision of Brazil’s future is what he calls “tropical Sweden.” It holds that Brazil should adapt the institutional model of the North Atlantic countries and “humanize it through compensatory redistribution.” So, Unger complains, “the humanization of the inevitable” became the “leitmotif” of Brazilian politics.

At a ceremony at Lula’s Palácio do Planalto, the president designated Unger as chief minister among Brazil’s more than 20 to coordinate the government’s future Amazon policy. “It was a great day for me,” Unger agrees. Six days later, Brazil’s minister of the environment, feeling slighted, resigned.

Asked for an analysis of his effectiveness so far, Unger says everything has gone far better than expected. He recently signed a collaborative agreement with Russia. He’s pushing Brazil’s business and labor communities to do better by the country’s many “excluded” workers. He travels regularly to the Amazon as the government’s top strategist.

“I have the only position in the government that is about everything, except for the position of the president,” Unger exults. “He has all power, and I have none. But I have one advantage over him. I don’t have to manage daily crises. I’m therefore free — as he is not — to deal with the future and to deal with our direction. It’s been fantastic.”

Technorati Tags: Brazil, Philosophy, Politics

Popularity: 5% [?]

Cervantes quote on liberty/freedom

July 17th, 2008 Posted in Philosophy and Culture

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Image via Wikipedia

This has no immediate relevancy but I came across this today, and I was inspired to post it. Don Quijote is one of the greatest novels ever written.

“La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos. Con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre; por la libertad, así como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida.”

“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens [God] gave men. It cannot be equated with the treasures that the earth locks up or that the sea conceals; for freedom, just like honor, can and should venture [guide] life.” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Popularity: 3% [?]