So many chiefs are Indians. But go easy on the cultural stereotypes
sathnam sanghera
Here’s a quiz: what do the following individuals have in common? Shantanu Narayen, chairman and chief executive at Adobe since 2007. Satya Nadella, chief executive at Microsoft since 2014. Sundar Pichai, chief executive at Google since 2015. Ajay Banga, president and chief executive of Mastercard since 2010.
Struggling? Of course you’re not. They’re obviously all Indian-born chief executives running prominent US companies, and there have been so many others — Rajat Gupta, managing director of McKinsey and Company between 1994 and 2003, springs to mind, along with Indra Nooyi, global chief executive of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018 — that I’ve occasionally wondered whether there’s something about Indians that makes them particularly suited to American corporate life.
If I’ve stopped myself from speculating out loud, it’s because, as a British-born son of Indian immigrants, I’m somewhat removed from their experience, and because the statistics give mixed signals. A 2011 Global Leadership Survey conducted by the executive search firm Egon Zehnder may have found that Indians led more S&P 500 companies than people of any other nationality (apart from American), but a 2014 article for The Harvard Business Review claimed that global companies were simply open-minded while choosing chief executives rather than being in favour of Indians.
These concerns have not stopped two self-described “stalwarts of Indian business and academics”, R Gopalakrishnan (former director of Tata Sons) and Ranjan Banerjee (dean and professor of marketing at S P Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai) from writing a book about the “little studied phenomenon” entitled The Made-in-India Manager, which claims “that a unique combination of factors has led Indian management thought and practices to become a soft power with the potential to decisively impact global managers of tomorrow”.
I picked up a copy at Delhi airport the other day and found claims which, initially at least, seemed to make sense. The authors argue, for instance, that India’s multilingualism, with “a majority” of educated Indians speaking more than one language — “the official language Hindi, English and another Indian language” — makes them at ease in American corporations. As my friend the business guru Nirmalya Kumar, has put it elsewhere, the fact that so many Indians speak English explains why, relative to Chinese immigrants, Indians are more successful in the USA: “Indians, because of their language skills, can behave in what sociologists call ‘situational ethnicity’ — at home they are Indians in their dress, food, customs and friends but outside they meld seamlessly with the natives and can play their game.”
The authors also argue that the historic fetishisation of the West in India has made Indian executives ambitious expatriates. India of the late 1970s and 1980s, they observe, was closed off to American and European culture, with “the choice of TV programmes restricted to the state broadcaster”, “product choices restricted and competition limited”, which “led to a longing for, and an attraction to, all things western, which in most cases meant all things American”. This certainly reflects my experience: the most patriotic Americans I’ve met have all been Indian immigrants who have made it there. Though having said that, I’m not sure the generalisation applies to younger Indians who have grown up exposed to the world via the internet and feel emboldened by India’s growing power, and I’m afraid this is the point at which the authors’ arguments began to lose me.
They continue to argue, for instance, that “management as a profession is largely about understanding a problem, finding multiple ways of solving it and executing the chosen approach with colleagues” and that “a person growing up in India” might be particularly good at it because they have had “a large number of diverse challenges to overcome from a relatively young age”, when the same could be said about life in most developing countries.
They claim that the instinctive Indian respect for elders and experience leads to “humility and respect” in Indian management trainees, but I’m not sure how valid this generalisation is in an India which, in the 21st century, is losing this veneration and even seeing the emergence of western-style old people’s homes.
They talk up diversity, saying that “India is home to all the Abrahamic religions”, contrasting it unfavourably “with Chinese society, which is homogenous and 92 per cent Han”, but if there were a correlation then surely many more Londoners would be running US companies. They mention close families as an asset in business life, saying that “both Indra Nooyi, former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, and Satya Nadella, presently the CEO of Microsoft, talk about the strong influence that their mothers have had on their upbringing, aspirations and values”, without really explaining why this would boost management performance.
They highlight that the desire for material gain is ingrained in Indian culture, with “striving for wellbeing and material gain (artha)” being seen as “a positive goal that every human being must aspire to”, when the same could be said about Nigeria, Sudan and a whole bunch of other cultures. Most preposterously, they claim that the Indian predilection for superstition makes Indians suited to a western management culture where important decisions are taken “intuitively, despite all the appurtenances of rationality”. Guys, there is making a decision on a hunch and then there is, as my Indian mum is inclined to do, cancelling entire trips because someone sneezed inauspiciously as they walked out of the door.
Indeed, by the end of the book I was left feeling there was little rational explanation for what may not even be a phenomenon anyway. Though if I had to put money on one generalisation that may one day turn out to be true, it would be their argument that management is more respected as a vocation in India than most other places. The authors see this reflected in the fact that India has 4,000 management institutes, but I see it in the simple fact that I found my copy of The Made-In-India Manager in the bestselling section of the airport bookshop. If enough people want something, it happens.
Sathnam Sanghera
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...go-easy-on-the-cultural-stereotypes-8hdq5g962
