Working in an Indian company, it is like living in an Indian joint family…
When I was working for Satyam in India, I felt it so strongly and I met so many people who were actually affirming being part of the “Satyam Family” that I could not resist dedicating it a post in my blog.
I noticed that many Indian families are built around 3 concepts: hierarchy, reputation and solidarity and I found exactly the same concepts in Satyam. Hence, I believe that the people who called themselves part of the “Satyam Family” were not that wrong. Let me introduce its members:
- My siblings: they were my colleagues. We were working for the same bosses, sharing the same responsibilities, the same deadlines; I felt close to them and shared my entire day with them (evenings and weekend sometimes).
- My cousins: they were the people who did not work directly with me, but I frequently had to interact with for work. Sometimes located in other cities around the world, they still made me feel we belong to the same family.
- My parents, the “senior leaders”, people to whom I owe absolute respect and obeisance. It is interesting to notice that in English, the word “senior” means “elder “but also “superior”, as if it was logically the same thing: the elder you are, the better position you get. It is a world where every white hair makes you closer to the CEO… Indian parents generally raise their children so they can support them in life; Indian managers generally hire employees to support them in their work. They want mainly executors who do not discuss the decisions. In the West, parents want to see their children independent. The Western bosses seek employees who can work as assertive partners and make decisions. Of course, advantages and disadvantages are there in both the systems.
I am sure many of you have heard about the huge financial scam happened in Satyam in January this year. Ramalinga Raju, our CEO who had an indirect but strong influence on all the members of the “Satyam Family” like a Grandfather, falsified the results which lead the company to a miserable financial state. Since June, Satyam has been taken over by Tech Mahindra and is now called “Mahindra Satyam”. Between January and June, it was the time I realized how strong was the solidarity amongst “Satyam Family” members. I was regularly receiving emails of associates grouped to help “our fathers” to save the company. They were ready to give up 2 or 3 months of their salary and were looking for more associates to rally to their cause. An impressive number of people accepted the idea and replied positively to the request! Fortunately, it has not been implemented in reality.
Furthermore, many of the emails were supporting the moral of Satyam associates in these troubled times because most of them were very afraid to lose their job. These emails were insisting how important is it to fight and to keep the head straight and most of them were ending with the famed sentence: “We are proud to be Satyamites!”
It is amazing to see how emotional people can get when the situation becomes difficult… just like in a family!
Julien Laederach
Hey, nice to see a parallel drawn between the Indian family and the Indian organizations. I think family is a concept as close to an Indians heart as an Italian. However, our generation of Indians seems to be moving away from that concept as fast as Indian MNCs are moving from giving more weightage to seniority than merit.
I feel Satyam was an example the many wrongs prevalent in the “family” system.
Firstly what it does is curb curiosity, questions are not really allowed… it’s like “yours is not to ask why”. It is expected that employees (family members) would take directions from leadership (elders/ parents) without questioning their purpose or suitability. Unless the individual possess a drive to achive something they could be reduced to mindless minions in a big labor factory, which is a shameful waste of their intellect and education. This is particularly marked in the case of Satyam where many people on being questioned about their actions said “i was only doing what the top management asked me to, I did not know for what purpose it was intended”.
Secondly, the hierarchy becomes overwhelmingly bureaucratic and supresses any innovative idea or change.
And lastly, the individuals working in such a culture become so used to it that they met out the same treatment to others coming in.
Family is good, but a redefinition is required to weed out the evil which lead to a disaster like satyam, not only on such large scale, but everyday, in a lives of people associated with these families.