CI-CD Centre for Inter-cultural Development

The fully participative workshop outlined below was provided for customer service managers at BT, National Rail Enquiries, Barclays Bank, MBNA, in 2007. It incorporates practical Cross-cultural Communication skills needed by UK executives and/or managers who go to India, whether for trading/marketing, negotiating supplier contracts, managing joint ventures, and/or outsourcing contact centres with IT / BPO partners / providers.

All CI-CD workshops for 'Doing Business in India' are customised from this template agenda to the specific needs and job functions of the attendees.

Built from 3 years 'on-the-ground' experience of change management in India (chiefly in Noida and Bangalore), the workshop includes simulations and unique documentary video evidence demonstrating how cultural differences and 'Indian-English' speaking style all-too-commonly produce communication breakdowns (a) in meetings and negotiations between UK and Indian senior managers, (b) in UK/Indian joint project management, and (c) between Agents/Customer Service Representatives and UK consumers in outsourced contact centres.

It focusses on the practical skills for (a) (b) and (c) to prevent damaging cross-cultural misunderstandings, and to handle interactions to achieve positive outcomes for all parties.

1. Introductions (practised in Indian style) + exchange of Indian experiences to date

• Names exercise: Practising Greetings; Getting Indian names right; What to do if difficult to pronounce.
  (Small group-work with feedback and illustrative Indian DVD extracts)

2. Expectations of the workshop? What if anything concerns you? What have you heard about India?

• Tackling stereotypes/ myths
  (Small group-work with feedback and illustrative Indian DVD extracts)

3. DVD documentary evidence of UK managers' mistakes

• Illustrating how and why UK styles of negotiating, project managing, and customer relations do not simply 'transplant' to Asia
  (Interactive viewing of documentary case-studies)

4. Briefings on sensitivities to Indian Social Background, drawn from current Indian sources

• History - National Identity issues; Residual effects of Raj - attitudes to British
• Status / Use of English as 'language of commerce': care for nationalist feelings
• Underlying social realities
• Economics / Politics; Religion; Family values; Women's changing roles in business/society; Travel, Food, Shopping, Sport, Film; and the safest small talk topic: Cricket

5. Briefings on Business Culture in India
(Quiz/Questionnaire discussed and completed in small groups, with feedback and de-brief of practical implications for business behaviour)

• India's Business History pre and post 1991 (GDP growth c. 8.5% a year):
• Strongly 'bureaucratic' inherited ethos; Hierarchical structures; Managerial Roles/Status
• From manufacturing to services: Typical Decision-making, Problem-solving processes
• Leadership style; Approaches to innovation/change, and to staff Consultation/Motivation
• Saving Face in bargaining (eg, pitching costs, or terms of partnership joint management, to allow 'wriggle room' and scope to be 'bargained down')
• Formality in group meetings; Informality with individuals
• 'Indian time' - slower than customary in UK; need to adapt to professional patience
• Respect for age; and for academic qualifications; current inter-generational developments
• Process-analytical mindset: priority on quantifiable deliveries via spreadsheets (implications for negotiation; plus tackling difficulties for implementing qualitative change management)
• Humour - what's funny/not funny in India: contrasts with UK self-deprecrating irony

6. East/West Business Relationship

Differing concepts of what constitutes 'Business Relationship' plus its ramifications for successful mediating practice. Input around analytic Handout + DVD interactive documentary illustrating the commonest Western mistakes in face-to-face negotiating in Asia.

7. Indian negotiating style

Characteristic Indian bargaining assumptions and conventions; plus commonest Western 'mistakes'; plus influential 'buzz words' helpful in India; plus tactical approaches for success

8. Cross-cultural Communication in India
(Role-play simulation to illustrate how unwitting misunderstandings occur in India; with follow-up documentary DVDs of UK/India workplace interactions - LT; Sandhu/Parekh; Sharma/Green; Vijay; Ritu; Rama; Openings +small group analysis)

• Economic facts do not speak for themselves: they are used in communication that either wins confidence as 'someone we can do business with' or loses it. Why and how to avoid unwitting 'neo-colonial cultural imperialism' ie, coming across unintentionally as arrogant or disrespectful or dominating the agenda. How to win confidence by behaviour and speech that demonstrates genuine mutual respect.
• Indian responsive warmth of manner can mislead: 'Yes' may mean courtesy of 'It would be too unkind to say 'No', rather than personal commitment to undertaking responsibility / action
• Nodding; difficulties of UK conventions of sarcasm and irony; and confusions of literal/figurative idioms
• Indian indirectness of 'narrative style' in giving answers
• Apparent 'bluntness' (absence of 'softeners', Please or Thanks) in Indian style of making requests, giving instructions (ie, wrongly perceived as 'rudeness/demanding')
• Differences of 'Indian-English' and 'British-English' grammar and intonation: for training Trainers, Quality, TLs, CSRs
• Common idiomatic expressions that cause confusion
• Different ways of showing diagreement
• Ways of speaking most helpful to Indians who learned their English at school
• Checklist of the 12 key cross-cultural communication differences

9. (if relevant) UK customer dissatisfaction with Indian-based IT/BPO services

• Evidence of the problem; Causes of the problem; Solutions of the problem.
• The managerial conditions for successful training development/change
• (Handouts of media reports (2007 - 08) + group exchange/discussion of resulting hidden costs and damage to brand image.)

10. (if relevant) Checklist Review of Communication skills to equip Indian CSRs to meet UK customer expectations

• Full handout list of 40 skills, OR summary handout of 20 skills; with interactive analysis of selected customer service call recordings

11. Summary of 'What to do differently': culturally sensitive practice in India for successful outcomes

• Making marketing presentations; negotiating senior company-level terms of agreement
• Influencing joint agenda-setting, problem-solving, decision-making, change/project management meetings at managerial level
• (if relevant) Designing training in context of Indian IT call centres services, with tools for measuring training/coaching impact and/or C Sats

The facilitator is Director of CI-CD, John Twitchin, one of the UK's longest experienced specialist in international business communication across cultures. In charge of all management training output at BBC TV for 25 years; director of over 100 broadcasts (illustrating and analysing business interactions in India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, UK, USA, Australia); producer of BBC 'Business Club' for SMEs; trainer of UK Trade and Investment Advisors and UKTI SME clients; author of 50 publications on cross-cultural diversity; consultant to 40 global companies; lecturer at 96 universities; lead speaker at 40 international conferences. Founder-tutor of UK's only formally accredited post-graduate degree in applied socio-linguistics: 'MA in Intercultural Communication', Business Studies, University of Bedfordshire.

Copyright: John Twitchin and Centre for Intercultural Development, 2006