India’s genius?

via FT.com : "Subbiah argues that if Indian companies do not understand the roots of India’s culture and genius, they will not succeed despite all the hoopla over 9 per cent GDP growth.

Why have we succeeded in software and pharma research, he asks, and gives the answer: Because in both areas, people can work on their own, figuring out algorithms or molecular structures. The negative conclusion: Indians don’t work well in teams."

Subbiah argues that the Vedic culture developed along the hierarchy of needs defined by Abraham Maslow: the lower levels of need (physiological and safety—like food and shelter) were easily met in the fertile Gangetic plain, so people focused on the highest level of need: self-actualisation.

Hence Indians’ natural inclination to want to figure things out for themselves rather than simply take instructions, to argue a point, and to have different opinions. In other words, regimentation will not work, you have to provide room for creativity and tolerate the hurly-burly of a raucous democracy.

But when it comes to applying some thought and turning out engineered products on the factory floor, the Indian worker is superior.

The idea of situational leadership that is now advocated (you chose the leader for a specific function, rather than have the same leader for all functions) is borrowed from the Mahabharata, for instance. And when it comes to the practice of statecraft, he quotes Chanakya’s prescription of the techniques to use in diplomacy: saam, daam, dund, bhed (persuade, bribe, punish, intrigue).

Subordinating your interests to the group’s does not come naturally to us, he suggests. Nor, he argues, do people plan for their succession. “Have you wondered why we don’t build institutions?”