Executive Summary of the

1st Expats Collaborative workshop by

Chennai Expats Expertise is a professional network to share and develop professional skills.

It is open to working and accompanying expats,

from all nationalities and all professional backgrounds!

5 nationalities

8 different industries

6 different functional

backgrounds

Outstanding discussions

In your job,

think of one thing

you find

challenging

Worried about offending or upsetting

Make people responsible of what they do

Make sure that my request will be achieved (answer is

always yes but delivery doesn’t match sometimes :-)

People giving very little honest feedback esp. when

things go wrong or project is late

RELIABILITY / RESPONSIBILITY

RELATIONSHIP / COMMUNICATION

Passivity of students.

Lack of responsiveness

Following-up through emails, escalating issues, …

Communication and understanding of expectations

Too much delegation, so that important work

is done by the least qualified people

How to put a positive and constructive

pressure to solve crisis

Solve the root cause of problems

Different values in terms

of education/social life

TIMEMeeting deadlines

Project achievement vs deadlines

Lack of time awareness

Slow motions in operations

BUREAUCRACY

The weight of the Indian

administration (private or public)

CLOSE MANAGEMENT

Repeat again and again the same teaching.

Check and see the same mistakes.

Excessive supervision required

INNOVATION

Try to bring something new

in an existing organisation

In your job,

think of one thing

that energizes you

Learning every single day about my job and

the cultural differences within my team

Having real cultural exchanges

with the students, the parents,

the teachers and the companies

Dealing with the intercultural aspect of my job:

dealing with the Indian potential to reach high

standards

Making connections and

learning to leverage them

Recruitment

Some people really able to excel

given the right environment and

encouragement

Hope? We all know what

is wrong and how to fix it

Team appetite

to learn

Enthusiasm an the ability

of my team to change

and work in a changing

environment

People willing to work

hard and go above and

beyond

The freshness of

Indian spirit

The innovation and

creation

I have to create new

processes from scratch

and ensure it is efficient

The positive attitude

Smile always

When we are doing

weekly workshops

with workers and

managers in the factory,

I am energized to see

and push team work,

involvement and success.

People never

complain

Great appetite to learn

and change

Watching the students succeed

Loads of energy

The positive

mood of my team

Far from HQ to build a

team from scratch and to

create efficient new

processes in a

challenging context

ENERGY

LEARNING

CREATING

This

picture

represents

how I feel

about my

job,

because…

Chatrooms

Out of the group discussions, four challenges

emerged to be of a great importance:

- Finding the right balance

- Selecting the best from both cultures (and coping

with the worst)

- Delivering the expected results and outcomes

- Building up team spirit and cohesion for efficiency

and performance improvement

Chatroom 1 – Finding the balance

Quick Summary of the challenge

• How to balance home office company requirements and

Indian office reality? – “I always feel I am walking on a tightrope trying to balance

between the two.”

• How to balance between being culturally sensitive (i.e.

friendly) vs. maintaining authority?

A couple of tools / initiatives / best practices

• Break the work down in portions

• Encourage your Indian colleagues to give their opinions

• Give them autonomy within their comfort zone

• Designation is more important than real function : use it!

Chatroom 2 – Picking the best

Quick summary of the challenge• Indian Best: reactivity, flexibility, motivation, willingness to work hard and learn

but no anticipation skills or ability to plan

• Things are not completed

• Don’t know to say NO or that things go wrong or they made a mistake

• Bureaucracy

• Hierarchy breaks innovation (good employees are threats to managers)

• No communication between teams

A couple of tools / initiatives / best practices• Be pedagogical : spend time to repeat and make them rephrase

• Give the rules of the game : you want feedbacks, point of views, true info, you

belong to the same team

• Close management : detailed task definitions & instructions, regular follow up

• Find out who is experienced, leader, trustworthy in your team and use him as a

support

• Reward program : employees can nominate by email someone else who did a good

job or improved something => his name and action are mentioned at a monthly

meeting

Chatroom 3 – Being result oriented

Quick summary of the challenge

• Implement new process and create accountability– How to make acheiving excellence a cultural value?

A couple of tools / initiatives / best practices

• Break down into steps (small chunks of info, delivered to

small teams) and continually monitor progress

• Clarify targets, co-create objective standards & reporting

dashboard

• Encourage individual accountability while nuturing a

culture of safety

• Create urgency

• Increase information sharing (up and down hierarchy)

Chatroom 4 – Building up team spiritQuick summary of the challenge

Team spirit (or cohesion) is among the top factors in improving efficiency and performance, in India as

anywhere else.

In building team spirit, the main ideas we discussed were :

o The role of the team boss (importance of hierarchy) in giving the vision (common goal) and the

“spark” (exemplarity)

o The loyalty to the boss (as a person) rather than to the strategy (even if this is conflicting with long

term interest of the company)

o The need to understand each team member’s drivers (motivations) at work (notably if career and

status are the main drivers, it is often playing against team cooperation)

o The importance of investing in personal relationships (but this makes it more complicated in case of

conflicts, as you have to deal with emotions and egos)

A couple of tools / ideas / best practices

• Use you authority / hierarchy position to shift energy from “who is to blame in case of failure” to

collective / collaborative / constructive problem solving

• Find the persons who are already good team players (hopefully there are some!) and rely on them to bring

/ promote change in behavior through recognition of their skills

• “Babysit”: invest time and energy on a day-to-day and one-to-one basis to make sure behaviors are

changing

• Be practical rather than spending too much time on explaining: “show how”, “walk the talk”

• Set up collective goals and rewards collectively versus individually

• Convince: the best team players are the best managers !

• Respect seniority and expertise: team spirit does not mean everybody is equally competent; it means

everybody can have a specific contribution and shared knowledge and experience which will benefit all.

Discuss real situation

Participants had the opportunity to discuss in small groups

specific challenges that they are having in their roles. The

group supported the discussion by asking clarification

questions, sharing their own experiences and offering

possible actions.

The path is not easy

but what an adventure!

There is no better story

than an Indian story

Take the best of

everything and everyone

Challenges are the doorway

to determine creative solutions

Forget your

Initial idea(s) !

75% rule is key

Focus your energy

on small and clearly

defined tasks

Everything is possible

Always check !Start with regimentation…

get to innovationKeep calm and

carry-onFirst put them in a box,

their imagination will

open the box…

… In time

Rising Sun

Black coffee Sir?

Great Indian day to come

Patience is key

In India, you will loose

your mind but you will

also find the way…

Listen with your heartShare Knowledge & experience about

how to get the best out of people

You will not change them.

Adapt yourself or burn.Nothing is more important

than relationships. Nothing.

Everything is

negotiable

What next?

Join

“Chennai Expats Expertise”

Group on

• Post any questions?

• Share your initiatives and best tips!

• Share any good articles that you found in the newspaper.

• Forward the group details with your friends and colleagues!

We are happy to welcome in the group any working or trailing

expats here in Chennai. So spread the word!

Spread the word!

And stay in touchchex.expertise@gmail.com