Vibhav Dhawan quoted in Economic Times, 10th June2011

Vibhav Dhawan speaks to Shreya Biswas of Economic Times about the recent trend of companies hiring younger Leaders

Bridging the Cultural Gap- When going local is not just about saying “Aloha”

Indian companies entering other markets face a set of diverse cultural challenges in integration and assimilation because they are not traditionally, the multinationals of the world.  In that respect, there is a certain amount of skepticism in countries where Indian firms try to take root.

Potential employees or business partners usually up their guard when it comes to dealing with an Indian outfit, because the global impression is that Indian firms are more skewed towards cost minimization and commercial efficiencies than towards cultural sensitivities.  Coupled with the fact that Indians are believed to be lacking a structured approach towards systems and processes, things really don’t become any easy for those companies trying to break this perception and establish India and their own entity as a viable, employable, commercial option.

Amongst the many challenges that Indian firms face when they establish themselves at overseas locations is that they try to do exactly what they are doing back in India. Indians are very happy dealing with ambiguity. As a culture, we grow up in an environment that fosters and creatively tackles ambiguity. However, European or even other races do not understand it.

A curious element in culture sensitization for Indian companies looking at foreign markets is to not just adapt to and assimilate foreign cultures, but also to not let our own cultural idiosyncrasies overwhelm the cultural exchange. 

South East Asian people, specially the Thai, the Malay or for that matter even the Japanese are a soft-spoken race. Aggressive physical gesturing or high-pitched conversations like how Americans usually do, tend to rattle and confuse them. From a business point of view, it is not only necessary but also critical to respect their culture and their values if one hopes to make a positive long lasting impact.

Another interesting phenomena and a challenge is the absolute inability of Indians to give bad news upfront. Even though culturally we have great discomfort giving anyone unhappy news, it is important to set realistic expectations and to deliver on those expectations or to be upfront in crisis situations.  The laidback attitude might work in India, but it has serious counter-productive implications if implemented in new age economies.

Most Indian companies don’t establish strong support functions like finance and HR, to supplement these international offshoots. There is usually a poor attempt to understand local labour laws and people-related rules and policies, which again leads them to operate how they would function in India.  

An appointment letter made in the Indian format not getting accepted internationally, compensation structures in India differing from international standards are little things but go a long way in adding to the frustration that Indian companies can face when they go outside of their home-country comfort zone.

Understanding and appreciating the other country’s work ethics has always been one of the biggest challenges that continues to be an Indian affliction. A 9-to-5 work schedule with weekends considered sacrosanct still stumps Indians till date, although we have seen significant improvements towards the same end within India.  Expecting foreigners to work on the same extended work schedule while not factoring in work-life balance can throw a huge spanner in the works.

Some ethnic races do not consume alcohol or are largely vegetarians. Africans, Japanese are zealous followers of business protocol. Indonesians do not take business decisions on Fridays.  Insensitivity towards such minute but indispensable details about your employees or business associates can cause huge embarrassment as well as loss of face and credibility.

Hence, it is vital that when companies look at cross border geographies to expand their business, they should look at not just the people and the processes but the value systems and cultural nuances. One such Indian foray that saw tremendous success was the Arcelor Mittal deal.  With a Frenchman as their Head of HR, the company is a cohesive but a distinct mix of the French and Indian cultures.

Some companies go the other extreme by hiring only Indians even for their overseas locations. Alienating the local community is again a wrong example to set. Each global location that a company ventures into needs to retain its local flavour, its distinctiveness. Embarking on a global expansion should involve a process to absorb cultural singularities before actually landing on foreign soil.

Unless Indian companies expecting to have a multi racial workforce show respect for culture and ethnic peculiarities, the road to global expansion will always be paved with these potholes.

We at Positive Moves believe that Executive Search is not just about finding the right talent in overseas markets, but its also about helping both the client as well as the candidate find a common “cultural connect”. Nothing is more disheartening than to have a candidate leave his employment due to difficult “cultural” challenges. With our extensive research, and hence understanding of the cultural perspective for every global search that we undertake, we have helped innumerous Indian Business Houses and other clients to minimize risks that they would otherwise face while hiring talent for overseas markets. Our industry specialists are also armed with significant ammunition to tackle geography and ethnicity-specific issues peculiar to the process of global hiring.

 

Positive Moves is one of the fastest growing Executive Search firms in India. We are also the Emerging Markets specialists in the global markets of Middle East, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean and Africa. 

Positive Moves launches London operations!!

Positive Moves, a leading Executive Search firm, has opened its second  European office in London today, as part of its ambition to be a global executive search leader.

London is a key office for Positive Moves, given its strategic advantage of being the financial center of the world. The firm looks forward to harnessing the potential that a lucrative market like England offers for leadership executive search firms.

“It gives me great pleasure in announcing the launch of Positive Moves’ London office today. Most of the largest global corporations have significant global or regional head quarters in London and thus offer fantastic opportunities for a firm like ours. The launch of this office is a Quantum Leap in the Internationalization of Positive Moves”, said Vibhav Dhawan, Managing Partner, Positive Moves.

As part of our stated vision of servicing global multinationals across diverse geographies in diverse geographies across developed & emerging economies , our new office located at  Berkeley Square House in London will serve as a Gateway to Europe, US and Mediterranean markets.

“Our domain knowledge and research capabilities have been instrumental in ensuring a six-sigma level of service delivery to our customers and we intend creating a centre of excellence for Europe in London as well. We have full faith that this venture will exceed all expectations and strengthen our position in the executive search industry" shared Managing Partner, Praveen Malhotra.



Positive Moves London Office address is: 

Regus

Berkeley Square House

Berkeley Square, London W1J 6BD

Direct Line : +44 207 887 6319

About Positive Moves



Amongst the leading Emerging Market Global Executive Search firms, Positive Moves has shaped its vision aimed at client centricity and a cutting edge cross border talent acquisition platform. In almost two decades since its inception, Positive Moves has consistently grown its global presence - the firm's history is entwined with the economic progression and transformation of emerging markets across the region.

Positive Moves established its dominance in multi cultural and multi linguistic Asian markets through its strong understanding of the complexities of the emerging markets.  

Today, the firm offers world class Centres of Excellence in Financial Services, Telecom, Consumer & Retail, Oil & Gas, Energy & Infrastructure, Industrial & Engineering etc. Positive Moves is acclaimed for an excellent knowledge base across segments, a large network of relationships with business leaders, the finest human capital in the Executive Search industry and global best practices and processes in service delivery. 


Indian Multinationals : Generation Y (Not??)

The Tata Corus deals that finally culminated in April of 2006 and 2007 involving Corus and Jaguar/Land rover not only took the world by storm, it also firmly planted the Indian flag across the global map.

The fact that an Indian company had gone across borders and acquired globally renowned brands is not the only fact that made heads turn and eyebrows arch- it was also the fact that the world never expected a company from India to actually make this big a splash. 

Whats new about it?

The truth is, Indian companies going abroad and hiring local talent is not something new. But what’s definitely new about this trend this time is that Circumstances, Ambition and Geographic Spread are different!

In 2009, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published a report that said the  world's leading multinationals were facing an unprecedented competitive challenge from a new group of fast-globalizing companies based in rapidly developing economies (RDEs). In that report, the Chinese companies dominated the list, numbering 36, followed by firms from India (20), Brazil (14), Mexico (7), and Russia (6). For the first time, the Middle East was represented, with 4 companies from the United Arab Emirates and 1 from Kuwait.

20% of the world’s fast globalizing challengers came from India!

Circumstances:  This is the post recession India, free from the uninhibited free-fall optimism that shackled Corporate India just before the global markets crashed. Circumstances today mean that Indian companies are much more sure footed, cautiously optimistic and financially much more stronger to play in the global playground.

Smaller players have come out of the shadow of larger ones and established their own credentials across borders. Most of the recent buyouts were seen in the energy, telecom, mining and metal industries. Even Companies in traditional agriculture and allied industries  have also seen a spate of cross-border acquisitions. Eg  Renuka Sugars have made two acquisitions in Brazil.  Companies in industries usually considered the bastion of monopolistic mammoths (Like Telecom, Pharma Infrastructure etc) are also getting heavy competition from younger counterparts.

Right behind Bharti, Reliance, BSNL and even MTNL are the likes of GTL International and Acme TelePower who have also acquired foreign telecom licenses.   

Adani Enterprises, India’s largest importer of Coal bought coal mine assets in Queensland for USD $2.7 billion

Ambition: This is where the diminutive score over the mighty. Smaller companies with gigantic ambition to take on the world seem to be crawling out of India’s woodwork.  This is not to say that India’s 200 largest companies are running low on determination to conquer foreign markets- but the sheer number of Indian origin companies (not part of the top 200) trying to get a foothold in overseas market is mind boggling. 

Size, in this case, does matter. These organizations are cash rich, quick on taking decisions and even if family-held, believe in giving enormous power and autonomy to the leadership of the firm.

They have surprisingly very few challenges in hiring local talent on competitive salaries, are able to attract good talent, and are able to cue-in to cultural nuances fairly quickly to succeed in overseas markets.

Geographies:

The direction that the Indian bandwagon has taken towards making global acquisitions or entering into foreign partnerships has very clearly changed towards developing and emerging economies. Though United States, UK as well as the rest of Western Europe still command a lot of business interest from India, it is the BRIC countries as well as Emerging Markets like Africa, Middle East, North China and Eastern Europe that now the most exciting business destinations of the world.

Markets like Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Egypt etc are some of the countries that are seeing significant influx of business from the Indian subcontinent, in spite of having either sporadic and irregular bursts of economic progression or very demanding entry barriers. Add to the fact that the political climate in these countries is volatile to that say least, Indian companies entering these countries have definitely proved their mettle by proving to be highly aggressive, very ambitious and with a high risk taking ability.

Positive Moves has been hiring for such Indian Business Houses and has tasted success with searches executed across diverse geographies. The key to hiring in these countries is to always be ready with the market understanding of the talent available, appreciate local sensibilities of conducting the recruitment process, the clients’ approach towards candidate assessment parameters and keeping in mind client priorities and requirements.

Positive Moves is one of the fastest growing Executive Search firms in India. We are also the Emerging Markets specialists in the global markets of Middle East, Eastern Europe, Mediterranean and Africa. 

Social Media for Executive Search: Worth a Shot ??

If you were to tell someone that you don’t have a Facebook account or a Twitter page or even a LinkedIn id, it would probably be considered a social blasphemy!  In today’s day and age, when our “social circles” are made up more of virtual friends across different parts of the world and our “business associates” are identified by the number of 1st degree connections on our LinkedIn id, it's no surprise that reaching out to people for career opportunities has also gone virtual.  

No longer are people discreet about looking for job opportunities. Finding a job is no longer restricted to a game of Chinese whispers, rather, it’s a game of enterprise and resourcefulness. More and more professionals over the years have started to proactively reach out to the “right “ channels that can actually help them get a better step-up in their career. Networking with batch mates or reaching out to Executive Search firms like us are all ways of ensuring that at least one such channel delivers.

Executive Search traditionally has always been a bastion of age-ripened relationships and the exchange of confidentialities.  But of late, as is the case with almost everything else, even Executive Search modalities have entered Public Domain.

Whether it’s good or bad is anyone’s guess.

For search firms like us that always rely on collating real time data through headhunting rather than leaning on existing databanks, taking our search process public makes us enormously uncomfortable. It’s our ability to be discreet, handle candidate engagements carefully and ensure client delight through a quiet personalized approach that we consider our hallmark. But with the emergence of social media and the growing comfort amongst job seekers- specially at lower and middle management levels- to make their intentions known has made certain that most of the Search firms have had to realign the way they execute searches.

Having worked on International searches for over a decade now, Positive Moves has been using the Social Media judiciously to accomplish searches with the fastest turn around time specially those that come in markets where our networks are still building.

That is not to say that our approach in such cases comprises the sole use of such sites to reach relevant professionals, (who may or may not respond to your “invites” or mails). Unlike our competitors who use these networking platforms as the only way to identify potential talent, these sites act only as the guiding compass for us - to direct our searches to the right catchment areas of talent- and nothing more. 

As the Emerging Markets’ specialists, we have tasted sweet success in geographies like South East Asia, Africa, South Asia, Europe and Middle East, not just by relying solely on the information on websites and online resumes and other such social media channels but also by mobilizing search processes that have proved successful year on year. We still build our own information bank on the talent that exists in these countries, reach out to them directly and validate their information, evaluating their personal profiles and then presenting our recommendations to our clients.

In our experience, despite the popularity of LinkedIn, Naymz etc and the inherent temptation to rely heavily on such sites because of easy access to generous information, we have still closed searches with speed and within challenging turn-around-times through traditional streamlined headhunting that gives us extremely accurate results.

Yes we do send out messages on LinkedIn, update “career opportunity” statuses on Facebook and send out Tweets to prospective candidates, but eventually, it’s our own customized search process that bears fruit.

 So is Social Media still worth considering? We would say definitely- but know its limits. Using a holistic blend of the best headhunting approach combined with state of the art technology best meets the need.

Vibhav Dhawan.3GP

When Small Becomes Big

Organizations aren’t born big- neither do they come with an expected accoutrement of defined policies and systems. They are born from an idea to incubate the fledgling into an independent and capable entity. And the journey doesn’t stop here. It then becomes a pursuit of growing from small to big and then big to bigger.

But how does a firm do it? What takes it to reach a milestone and then head for another? Is it the people or is it the way it functions, independent of people? My reasoning is that organizations equip themselves with human talent and skills, within the framework of processes to reach common goals, and that people are a bigger factor than anything else. But does it always stay the same way?

But how do humans adapt to the firm’s need for growth, and how do they bring their own pace in equilibrium with that of the organization’s?

A clutch of employees make up a firm in its initial days, all part of tacitly creating and maintaining a work culture that all conform to and contribute to. And it’s easier to do that when there are just a handful of them. In a compact organization, employees exercise their social as well as hierarchical influence to determine culture, work ethics and ethos. The sum total of this influence is greater than the whole that the organization itself would exert.

However, when an organization starts to spread its wings, the culture undergoes a change as well. It braces for impact from new ideologies and ways of functioning from the plethora of new employees or new processes inducted. Existing employees realize that they need to go with that understated current of metamorphosis but the transition always comes with a cost.

The organizational framework that worked just fine when the firm was smaller now seems to creak with the additional weight of people, pace and expectations. Decisions that earlier took a day and a single meeting to make now take a committee and a week extra to make. Productivity is a factor of technology and not so much as human effort. Communication is done through slotting it in our calendars rather than walking across cabins. Is growth then at the cost of human engagement?

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler’s studies state that personal influence is a short-range phenomenon, dissipating entirely at three degrees of remove from the person who exercises it. This has implications for business, where the success of campaigns to foster, say, creativity or worker safety may hinge on enlisting employees to influence colleagues’ behavior.

Somewhere, the enduring culture that earlier defined the firm and its people gets mooted and so do the emotive qualities of association with the firm. The firm is no longer a cohesively tight knit version of a social family; rather, the ties are stretched to accommodate more claims to the same social structure and the family makes way for a larger, loosely bound social network where colleagues define the intensity of closeness or familiarity with each other as the founding columns of the organization’s ethos. Culture then becomes a melting pot of collective congruity.

Work environment that is no longer under direct control of the senior management becomes vulnerable to exploitative emotions, political energies and the segregation of the individual effort in favour of collaborative thought.

At this stage, creating a circle of influencers within the firm’s setup helps the leadership of the firm oversee and control the reins of the firms better. These select people lend stability to the firm and help define and give direction to the firm’s work environment as well value systems that hold the firm together. In the absence of this elite circle, the firm operates as an entity independent of its employees, an event that can wreak havoc on the firm’s long term plans and company’s future.

The urge to seize every opportunity to expand is understandable, but in your quest to surge ahead, are you taking your employees along with you? Are you sharing your vision, your goals with them to the extent that they fully understand your approach to reach them? Who will you for increased attrition when the firm goes through a phase of transition/change or even accelerated growth?

Or are you expecting your circle of “influencers” to prep up the employees to follow suit while you focus on growing the company big. Even though it is the Leadership team’s responsibility to groom the subsequent layers of authority to be the microcosm of the firm’s ideologies, how many times is it actually done?

My contention is that there are certain things that, even in the frenziest of times, need to taken care of, like the expected organization-wide inertia in tackling changes and the need to be patient when things demand so. The biggest reason why an organization grows is because the human effort behind it is in full synch with the shared vision. Again quoting Nicholas Christakis’s study of 3 Degrees of Influence mentioned above, unless an organization has tremendous faith in the layers of its senior management to effectively transmit organizational cues down to the lower levels, it is really up to them to engage at all levels and to ensure that they “carry” the firm along with them. Reluctance or omission to do so could make the firm looks like a truck running on bicycle wheels. The vehicle does move but obviously not at the right pace nor with the right machinery.

Do people, then- in the pursuit of greater excellence- become inexplicably expendable? Or are they just an unfortunate casualty in the search of bigger bottom lines?

We at Positive Moves help you understand and pre-empt human resource needs by deciphering your human resource dynamics and the processes under which they operate in your firm. Our firm not only helps identify the right talent from a cultural context, we also try and ensure that this is a long term association for both the employee and the employer.