Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

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What you're running into is a cultural clash where you have someone from a low power distance and highly individual culture [1] dealing with people from a high power distance and distinctively collective culture. Thus while literal communication might be clear, you're not getting the sort of culturally clear communication you might expect.

In short, you have to deal with offshore teams in a way that is different from the way you'd deal with someone in your office. You either have to manage them in a way that is effective for them - but probably feels foreign to you - or you need to go back to local teams (or at least teams from cultures closer to your own).

Essentially, if you were a pilot, and your indian dev-lead was your co-pilot, you'd both probably crash a plane because he would be too polite to tell you that you forgot to put the wheels down. His way of saying this would be something like 'we found that more research into the wheels problem might be a useful idea', rather than 'hey captain, you idiot, the wheels aren't down!'.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede's_cultural_dimensions_...

It's certainly a cultural difference but it's gone beyond politeness when they actually lie to you because they don't want to admit they don't already know something, when we're already in a training session!

You're most likely spot on about the cultural reasons for the behaviour, I just wanted to point out that it doesn't come across to me as nice. It comes across as passive and obstructive.

And I'm English, we're pretty good at passive...

I don't know whether they are lying because they are dishonest - I don't know enough about the particular indian culture you're dealing with. It could be just an imcompetent set of people, or it could be the sort of thing that some cultures acceptably lie about (like when we say 'no, you don't look fat in that'). You see it as the height of rudeness, perhaps they see it as saving face or something.

I guess my point is that unless you're well versed in the culture, it's easy to trip over these things.

It's been multiple experiences with a variety of teams in the megacorp I used to work for, as well as third party contracting/outsourcing firms.

I have no doubt it's a cultural misunderstanding rather than an attempt at deceit, but then... how the hell do you communicate technical knowledge to people who won't tell you what it is they need to know from you?

>I have no doubt it's a cultural misunderstanding rather than an attempt at deceit, but then... how the hell do you communicate technical knowledge to people who won't tell you what it is they need to know from you?

Well, I have been in that same boat. My answer? Don't hire them in the first place, and try and avoid projects if that decision is made for you.

Indeed. Why can't people just act like rational automatons? Its almost as if they think that their emotions, feelings, perceptions of social status, cultural 'way its done' behaviors etc. matter to them!

Actually, I just want to point out if you've had any training on how to run a training session, you ought to know that asking "do you understand?" is pointless in every culture. From an asian culture it can even come across as threatening and dominating. Its like asking "do you want to keep your job?". Who is going to stand up and say "actually, no I don't" to that? Work in a western company is often the very first time in peoples lives where voluntarily admitting you don't know something doesn't carry significant penalties.

I believe that's true but you're verging on going too far in the direction of cultural relativism. Regardless of culture it's still the case that intelligent people should see the value of answering "do you understand" as a straight question.

>> Actually, I just want to point out if you've had any training on how to run a training session, you ought to know that asking "do you understand?" is pointless in every culture.

I've never phrased it as confrontationally as you're assuming, it's always been a genuine offer of help.

Never has been pointless when dealing with European, American or Australian resident engineers (regardless of racial or cultural background), it's simply opening the floor to new questions. So now's who's guilty of sweeping assumptions?

Regardless, the original point still stands - this is not niceness, it's cultural conditioning to be non-confrontational to the point of dishonesty, and it's highly counterproductive.

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