So, the stroller site is not progressing as happily as I would like it to. I’ve been stalled because my project manager in India has been sick. I’ve also been hamstrung by the fact that I did not provide them with a spec as I assumed that they would speak up if they were missing anything. Note to self: never assume – especially when dealing with a remote team that speaks English as a second language and who lives in another country with major cultural differences.
A friend of mine named Chris has worked quite extensively with outsourced offshore teams. He told me this hilarious story describing the differences between working with a team from India and another from Bulgaria. When you get status from a team from India, they typically will tell you that everything is going great, but when you press them, their response will be that the project is going to be about three months late. When you work with a team from Bulgaria, it’s the exact opposite: they will tell you that the project is an irreparable disaster and will be late. But when you dig a bit deeper to find out how late, they’ll tell you that their plan is tracking one hour behind.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the power distance index (PDI), something first introduced to me when I read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book Outliers: The Story of Success – one of my all time favourite books and one I recommend to anyone and everyone.
Conceived in the 1960s and 70s by psychologist Geert Hofstede, the PDI ranks countries according to how much its culture values or does not value hierarchical relationships and respects authority. A low PDI score, like Canada’s 30, means that the society leans towards egalitarianism, blame is shared between superiors and subordinates, and managers socialize with their employees. On the other hand, a high PDI score, like India’s 77, means that there is generally more class division, subordinates expect clear guidance from above and are expected to take blame when things go wrong.
Incidentally, the PDI isn’t limited to countries. As far as I can tell, it also applies to corporate culture. In my last company, I saw two VPs at the helm. The first VP was friendly and entrpreneurial. I had known him for 8 years and felt very comfortable with being extremely informal with him. I wanted to be very approachable to my staff and generally had an open door policy where people could consult me on basically anything and everything that was on their mind. My staff regularly shared information with my own boss and I never felt threatened by them doing so. We definitely modeled a low PDI.
When the new VP and his regime joined the company, everything seemed to change. Speaking up was viewed as “self-entitlement”. All communications were to be crafted and deliberate. What a difference.
My troubles with getting my stroller site launched is largely due to these cultural differences. For example, I did not provide the India team with a spec document because I expected the company to speak up if they needed something. Wrong – it wasn’t until the very end that I determined that they did not understand my requirements and could not efficiently function without me providing much more guidance. Also, although I felt completely in the right, I did expect them to put up much more of a fight when I challenged them on some of the items they were considering to be out of scope. Instead, they immediately conceded and said that they did not want to debate every single point and that their goal was to make me a happy customer.
Here is world map of Hofstede’s Power Distance Index.
Here are some tips when dealing with a country with a higher PDI than yours:
- Ensure that your directions are clear and direct. Emphasize deadlines.
- Don’t expect your outsourced company to take initiative and identify when things are not progressing.
- Employ a much more direct and authoritative management style. I sometimes feel downright bossy, but that’s my own cultural sensibility kicking in. It’s what’s required to overcome the distance in the power relationship.
- Expect more bureaucracy. My outsourced team is much more about protocol and procedures than I am accustomed to.
Cross your fingers that the site will be much more closer to launch worthy this week!
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