"Traveling. It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a story-teller" - Ibn Battuta
One such official visit made me stumble upon a totally different culture that existed in a small part of a large organization, and how! Of course, I had come across traces of this culture in my IT days, but seeing it in real is a different experience!
A customer walks in at 11 AM with some queries. In any other branch of this bank, the staff replies something and the customer walks away. Done.
In this branch (location not revealed for obvious reasons) most of the customers are from other countries. There is no option to give them some reply and move on to the next customer. You need to give them undivided attention. One glance at some other person and boom, the reply comes
"You want to finish talking to her first? Okay... I will wait" (with a glare)
And that puts you in a delicate position, isn't it?
It is quite common in Indian set-up to multitask; say 'Hello' to another customer who is walking in, answer phone call from a friend, reply to boss and do many other infinitesimal things while handling a customer at front office. Here though, it is all different - One person, One thing at a time!
And no messing with facts. The customer checks with google and other references before closing the discussion. Every query, every anxiety has to be addressed by the staff before moving on with life. It was a pleasant surprise to see these things happening. I decided to spend more time in the branch to absorb these things.
The more time I spent, the more I came to know...
1) Customers contact the staff over phone at least one or two days before showing up. And they arrive on time as informed over phone - no slip ups!
2) The folks do their own ground work before coming to meet the staff - something that Indians hardly do!
3) When they provide an appointment to the sales guy, it is highly recommended to stick to the time. A five minute delay and you would find, well, disappointment!
4) When the white people promise they will do something 22 days later, they will do so - no follow ups required!
It's amazing to see people giving so much value to their own time and others' time, their words and others' words. While I have always been a big fan of being on time and ending meetings, among a million other things on time, I have personally found it very difficult to adjust in a culture where nothing starts/ends on time. This phenomenon goes back to my MBA days when we studied about high-context and low-context cultures, and how my work ethics resembled more to British culture than Indian. May be it was just a 'similar to me' effect that I liked this branch so much - I don't really know, and I don't pretend to hide my bias! I still fondly recollect those client calls those days which start at 6 PM IST and end sharp at 6:30 PM IST, and on the rare occasion where the client, let's call him Mike, took two minutes extra, he would apologize for extending the time!
It's not just about time and punctuality, the discipline exhibited by them is impeccable. They were more than willing to wait in queue for their work to be done. Some literature on the internet, or other articles might claim this to be a cultural phenomenon - I don't buy that. Maintaining queue is common sense. It helps to respect people and wait in queue to get things done, rather than rushing and pushing as if one human being is more equal than the other.
There were more interesting stuff ;)
- The foreigners treat you so well; they knock the door and ask permission to meet a Manager. (Well, I don't even want to mention the comparison to other locations here - Am sure the general public has seen customers barge in to a branch manager's cabin as if it is their birth right to demand time from the employee)
- If they don't have an appointment and still showed up at the office, they tell you that they don't have an appointment (No, don't cry; get used to manners!)
- They say "Thank you" after a transaction, with a lot of heart and happiness (I know, right!)
- And yeah, some give hugs too! (Free hugs, anyone? That too in a bank, which is an otherwise not-so-happening place to be!)
Of course, there are some tradeoffs - they find it hard to take 'No' for an answer, and sometimes struggle to understand Indian banking regulations. But these are far and few to resist looking at the positive learning we can get from them!
I spoke to the employees. Never before have I heard someone saying "It's a gift for me to work in this location!" - and he said that thrice over a ten-minute conversation (yes, I counted the number of times he said that to me). And those were not just words that one would say to please another person - they were genuine, heart-felt and truthful. The support staff were all praise for the Manager for guiding them so well. Honestly, I have not encountered such an appreciative atmosphere in other places - it is fair to say that we do not appreciate or celebrate enough in office (an opinion widely shared by Jack Welch). Somewhere down the line, I am sure the staff at this location have picked up the culture of appreciating others from the customers!
The level of complexity and the sophistication with which these folks were handling the customers were just a treat to watch. Needless to say the branch was quiet and beautiful - there was no commotion or the general noise that one can usually associate in a typical branch. The decorations made for Diwali were still in place, bringing more color to the environment... well, I did not feel like leaving the place - a fleeting emotion that was experienced first time in many of the official tours I have undertaken till date. As time would have it, I left the place with fond memories...
Lessons learned:
1) Value of time - self, others
2) Appreciation helps - at work, or otherwise
3) Empathy (How often we think that the other person might get offended if we pick a phone call while talking to her? Hmm.)
Over a period of time, we get used to a certain way of doing things, and we conveniently choose to believe it happens the same way elsewhere in the organization. We couldn't be more wrong - there are a lot of things we do not know. Culture is more complex than meets the eye. Travel, see through the chaos and find out!
Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment to keep!
Happy festive season to all!
Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal.
One such official visit made me stumble upon a totally different culture that existed in a small part of a large organization, and how! Of course, I had come across traces of this culture in my IT days, but seeing it in real is a different experience!
A customer walks in at 11 AM with some queries. In any other branch of this bank, the staff replies something and the customer walks away. Done.
In this branch (location not revealed for obvious reasons) most of the customers are from other countries. There is no option to give them some reply and move on to the next customer. You need to give them undivided attention. One glance at some other person and boom, the reply comes
"You want to finish talking to her first? Okay... I will wait" (with a glare)
And that puts you in a delicate position, isn't it?
It is quite common in Indian set-up to multitask; say 'Hello' to another customer who is walking in, answer phone call from a friend, reply to boss and do many other infinitesimal things while handling a customer at front office. Here though, it is all different - One person, One thing at a time!
And no messing with facts. The customer checks with google and other references before closing the discussion. Every query, every anxiety has to be addressed by the staff before moving on with life. It was a pleasant surprise to see these things happening. I decided to spend more time in the branch to absorb these things.
The more time I spent, the more I came to know...
1) Customers contact the staff over phone at least one or two days before showing up. And they arrive on time as informed over phone - no slip ups!
2) The folks do their own ground work before coming to meet the staff - something that Indians hardly do!
3) When they provide an appointment to the sales guy, it is highly recommended to stick to the time. A five minute delay and you would find, well, disappointment!
4) When the white people promise they will do something 22 days later, they will do so - no follow ups required!
It's amazing to see people giving so much value to their own time and others' time, their words and others' words. While I have always been a big fan of being on time and ending meetings, among a million other things on time, I have personally found it very difficult to adjust in a culture where nothing starts/ends on time. This phenomenon goes back to my MBA days when we studied about high-context and low-context cultures, and how my work ethics resembled more to British culture than Indian. May be it was just a 'similar to me' effect that I liked this branch so much - I don't really know, and I don't pretend to hide my bias! I still fondly recollect those client calls those days which start at 6 PM IST and end sharp at 6:30 PM IST, and on the rare occasion where the client, let's call him Mike, took two minutes extra, he would apologize for extending the time!
It's not just about time and punctuality, the discipline exhibited by them is impeccable. They were more than willing to wait in queue for their work to be done. Some literature on the internet, or other articles might claim this to be a cultural phenomenon - I don't buy that. Maintaining queue is common sense. It helps to respect people and wait in queue to get things done, rather than rushing and pushing as if one human being is more equal than the other.
There were more interesting stuff ;)
- The foreigners treat you so well; they knock the door and ask permission to meet a Manager. (Well, I don't even want to mention the comparison to other locations here - Am sure the general public has seen customers barge in to a branch manager's cabin as if it is their birth right to demand time from the employee)
- If they don't have an appointment and still showed up at the office, they tell you that they don't have an appointment (No, don't cry; get used to manners!)
- They say "Thank you" after a transaction, with a lot of heart and happiness (I know, right!)
- And yeah, some give hugs too! (Free hugs, anyone? That too in a bank, which is an otherwise not-so-happening place to be!)
Of course, there are some tradeoffs - they find it hard to take 'No' for an answer, and sometimes struggle to understand Indian banking regulations. But these are far and few to resist looking at the positive learning we can get from them!
I spoke to the employees. Never before have I heard someone saying "It's a gift for me to work in this location!" - and he said that thrice over a ten-minute conversation (yes, I counted the number of times he said that to me). And those were not just words that one would say to please another person - they were genuine, heart-felt and truthful. The support staff were all praise for the Manager for guiding them so well. Honestly, I have not encountered such an appreciative atmosphere in other places - it is fair to say that we do not appreciate or celebrate enough in office (an opinion widely shared by Jack Welch). Somewhere down the line, I am sure the staff at this location have picked up the culture of appreciating others from the customers!
The level of complexity and the sophistication with which these folks were handling the customers were just a treat to watch. Needless to say the branch was quiet and beautiful - there was no commotion or the general noise that one can usually associate in a typical branch. The decorations made for Diwali were still in place, bringing more color to the environment... well, I did not feel like leaving the place - a fleeting emotion that was experienced first time in many of the official tours I have undertaken till date. As time would have it, I left the place with fond memories...
Lessons learned:
1) Value of time - self, others
2) Appreciation helps - at work, or otherwise
3) Empathy (How often we think that the other person might get offended if we pick a phone call while talking to her? Hmm.)
Over a period of time, we get used to a certain way of doing things, and we conveniently choose to believe it happens the same way elsewhere in the organization. We couldn't be more wrong - there are a lot of things we do not know. Culture is more complex than meets the eye. Travel, see through the chaos and find out!
Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment to keep!
Happy festive season to all!
Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal.
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