15 Mar 2020

Cross cultural communications and the coronavirus In a world ravaged by the horrific health threat and its impact of the #coronavirus and the resulting #COVID-19, people have suddenly come to realise some home truths that are far beyond boundaries (thought those are being tested to breaking point) as each one is looking at the other for solutions. Never before has the world been more ...

26 Jul 2019

Three Years
Three Years can mean so much Three years! It's been three years with my own venture: AbacusYellow, based on the principle of simplicity. I'm three years older, three years wiser and yes, three years more optimistic.  In the past few days, I’ve been flooded with congratulatory messages on my ‘work anniversary’ on LinkedIN. (I'm grateful to all those who sent me those messages and I've ...

25 Jul 2019

So who needs customer experience? For the longest time, customer experience was limited to the hotels or the hospitality industry. The world of hotels bends backwards for this. In India, 5 star hotels have tall large turbaned men welcoming you at the entrance, women in traditional attire garlanding you with the saffron flowers and walking you through marbled passageways to your luxu...

25 Jul 2019

I’ve built a stellar team that has degrees and portfolios and awards filling reams of resume pages. I’ve interviewed newbies who come with truckloads of certificates, certifications and diplomas that cover all the letters of the alphabet. I've got the skill sets, capabilities and prerequisites to run this tight shop to perfection. Truly I think I’ve arrived. And then someone from my tea...

01 Jul 2019

Cross-culture sensitization
Unaware of cross-culture sensitization During my summer internship about two decades ago, I was having a discussion with my project guide on the Indian Consumer Durables market and the psyche of a typical Indian buyer. He said, “Nishant, you are a Mumbaiker, are you not?” “Of course!” I said. “Then you don’t know anything about India”, he replied smugly. I was left gobsma...

24 Jun 2019

Cross Culture, India, Social Media, Impact
We often get asked in our cultural workshops about how social media has affected the culture DNA, especially for the Gen Z. My view? Not much. Since the 2007 technology boom, the rate of change in technology has doubled every two years (Moore’s law) and this is changing the way we are interacting with each other as well as with businesses. In her 2017 doctoral study, Is our so...

09 Apr 2018

It's called Indian English. And this list could go on and on! The very fact that  most young Indians speak a reasonable level of grammatically correct English (let's not discuss accents please) and that they listen to a range of music from ColdPlay and Justin Bieber to Pavarotti does not mean we are that steeped in what is called the "Western way" of thinking. We've taken English to its...

29 Mar 2018

Cross culture can be serious. Or it can bring a smile on your face. Here are some ways Cross Culture and Cultural Diversity can actually be funny. There's one way of looking at cross cultural teams. And there's another way of looking at it. And there's a way of looking at cross cultural communication   Diversity can be welcomed. Or diversity can be viewed with a ...

26 Mar 2018

Conflicts in Cross Culture Here's another conflict in cross culture. Heard of gender stereotyping? The blue-for-boys and pink-for-girls kind? It's not just us. It's cultures all over the world. Not exactly that way but yes, well-defined gender roles are yet another dimension of culture. And conflicts in cross culture can arise from here. Masculinity vs Femininity - A Cultural Dimension I...

24 Mar 2018

Cross culture and language pitfalls When an Englishman goes to China, he knows that he is on alien territory. The obvious part being that the people speak a different language and he is unlikely to understand a single word. But unfortunately for cultures like UK and US, when people come and interact with Indians, this is not so. With largely decent English-speaking skills, it is so...