Managing Offshore IT

Mohan,

It’s good to learn about your book. I went through the summary and that is something I am looking for.

When I read your post, though you differed with the quote from Basab’s blog, you made the same points. :) The quote said that the ‘education system’ in US emphasizes articulation. You mentioned that Indian businesses (not her education system) had to train their work force in those skills. This is probably because her education system did not stress it enough.

The other point – that US businesses overemphasize on oral communication skills during 'hiring' [while Indian companies are better at recruiting not-so-articulate-but-good-otherwise… this is my inference] - you gave an example where you would hire not-so-articulate and ‘map’ them with more articulate. Assuming you are Indian and working for an Indian company, this is an example of a non-US company hiring not-articulate—which is the point from the quote.

If I missed something, please articulate. :)

Chaitanya,
You are right, I was agreeing in part with the Basab’s blog entry.

I was meaning to add other similar anecdote to the blog: my experiences in interviewing and hiring candidates in North America for Infosys. And here articulation has a slightly different twist: I have had to reject articulate natives who lacked sufficient consulting exposure or technical depth. And speaking of cultural context, I had an opportunity to interview a few very articulate (read: American accented) candidates of foreign/Indian origin, some of whom again lacked sufficient technical depth. Did they cut it?

Now, the point I was trying to make: interviewers, even in the west, need to be able to cut through (just) the articulation abilities of candidates and discern the merits of their innate skills.

Mohan, have you observed that developers (average developer / software engineer) from Russia, China, and Brazil (as compared to India ) are more bold and articulate with their thoughts, what they want and are never afraid to present alternative solutions to the customer. This is because being articulate makes you feel confident. They are not afraid to ask the right questions to senior people or managers and support it with a very robust solution which they articulate very well. This quality is always appreciated by the customer.

Being Articulate is to learn to Express Your Thoughts with Clarity (Written or Verbal) and this quality is important at every stage of your career (especially if you are customer facing)

A CEO needs to articulate his vision
An IT director needs to articulate his vision for technology, aligned with Business
A Project Mgr needs to articulate his vision, plan and execution strategy for the project
A Business Analyst needs to articulate his requirements very clearly to the Design and Development team
A Developer needs to articulate about what he wants in his technical and functional specs and how his code fits into the overall solution and his alternate solutions

I am surprised to read Basab’s views…maybe because he is from sales :)

Thank you for bringing such nice posts. Your blog is always fascinating to read.

First of all, I concur with Kelly that this is an excellent topic. Secondly, I’ll jump in and respond to Chetan's point about boldness and confidence as it speaks directly to my own extensive experience in multilingual/multicultural professional environments. I say “jump in” because I think we could expand on this topic at great length if we chose to.

While Chetan is 100% correct that "being articulate makes you confident", I would suggest that the confidence itself is arguably more important than polished articulation…or at least distinct from it in a pragmatic analysis. To explain, I have to do a little stereotyping (which I loathe but accept as occasionally useful). I have worked with hundreds of European resources (Dutch, French, Belgian, German, English in rough order of numbers) all in work environments where English was the standard. The Dutch have the strongest English of the English as a Second Language (ESL) group and thus map perfectly to Chetan's observation of the correlation: they are confident and comparatively articulate in generalized comparison to their European counterparts. However, the French, and to a lesser extent the Belgians and Germans, are often bold regardless of their level of articulation, and it clearly bridges the gaps that would otherwise occur. In other words, on this topic of articulation I feel very strongly that the foundation (particularly for leaders) should be that we recognize the reality of multilingual environments, and champion results over polish. While an individual may wish to include additional language competency on their own development path, they should NEVER shy away from communicating due to the natural self consciousness that can arise from a lack of complete fluency (while I do not face this challenge in English, I know for certain it has been a key principle in my use of Spanish in professional and personal contexts. I welcome the laughter of language gaffes because it reminds me I am not shying away from inevitable mistakes as I learn). Again, I feel the French in particular exemplify this prioritization best (bold/confident/persistent over polished).

I would like to add this distinction though, which I feel brings us to some observations working with ESL Indians (with whom I have also worked with many dozens if not a few hundred): the success of those willing to be bold and confident despite a lack of articulation or fluency needs to be accompanied by persistence and the knowledge that things are almost ALWAYS lost in translation (even in highly articulate contexts between native speakers). These are subtle skills made far more difficult when face time is sparse or nonexistent (reading physiological clues and tonality is a topic unto itself), but for years I am convinced that they are what sets certain resources (independent of language skills/articulation) apart from others in achieving consistent clarity of communication. Repetition and written follow-up to enable review are a few basic elements in this skill set. Patience and a willingness to tenaciously insist things are repeated when unclear (often an uncomfortable situation that can feed into the aforementioned self consciousness all too easily) are a few others.

Again, all of this can be made easier when leaders remain aware that these are central aspects of offshoring partnerships (and our globalized business world in general) that affect virtually all levels of communication, or in other words everything :-). As to my reference above to Indians, I was hinting that I have noticed often the confidence is there, but the persistence and the recognition of ever-present gaps is not as common. I love getting into animated discussions with my friends from India. I come from New Jersey just outside of New York, and we are used to talking very fast here. I have found (again: in general) that Indians speak English very quickly and I enjoy it and find it adds a layer of rapport to our interaction at times.

The danger in contexts requiring clarity of communication is that this proficiency with speed does not always correlate to the level of articulation that we are aiming for in this discussion. As such, confidence can be a detriment in certain situations if a shared understanding does not exist that accents, long distance communication, crowded conf calls with poor mute button utilization and the subtle differences in colloquial speech and/or fluency require vigilance if we are to avoid costly miscommunications which lead to all sorts of mischief on projects. Even the basic skill of gauging each individual we work together with and being aware of who we are communicating with is a good starting point. To be honest, while I realize my dumb luck that English is the dominant language of business and my mother tongue, I find these multilingual communication challenges an area I have always taken seriously and thus an area I have managed to gain some ground on my competition as a consultant. I enjoy tackling head on the fear and confusion that accompany communication challenges. This fosters learning and trust between teams and can be tons of fun. Oh, and I am well aware this is not a static situation and is very much a two way street: another fine topic for a gup shup might be the predictions of some that Hinglish might emerge fairly soon as the most widely spoken form of English in the world. It is not for me to define how to speak pukka, but it is for all of us to continually improve our ability to communicate effectively in whatever context we find ourselves.

I’ll close by adding that perhaps Chetan’s observation is as much cultural as it is related to articulation. In general, a developer from India deals with more hierarchy and expected deference to authority than a developer from France (or Russia for that matter, although I confess I have only a smattering of experience with Russian developers). Could this contribute to a lack of assertiveness as much as communication skills? Ahhh, Mohan, yet another topic for another post perhaps…is an organizational flattening of the Indian giants on the horizon?

Wow, this topic has certainly generated some insightful comments. I will have to reflect on some of it and connect the thread in another blog.

And speaking of blogs and being articulate: this new medium helps some of us - including self - to get more articulate...at least in penning one's thoughts. :-)