1. Doing a job to perfection
The reason why Indian service industry is so popular
2. Showing aggression when you succeed
The reason why the world fears when India succeeds
3. Feeling ashamed when you have to act on instructions
The reason why bosses don't want to order Indians
4. Mastering something and persisting after that
The reason why people are happy having Indians in their teams
5. Willing to collaborate to get a job done
The reason why many teams need one or two Indians within
6. Take full responsibility of something that people expect from you
The reason why people are willing to give jobs to Indians
But thinking it from the other angle, I see some subtle differences where our culture, our society, our education system and our rewarding system modulate and tune us so much that we lose our individuality in the process (Indian cricket fast bowlers for example). I just rephrased the bullets 1-6 above to give them a slightly different mood.
1. Indians: Do their assigned tasks so well.
Americans: Create work that can assign them tasks.
2. Indians: Sledge at the batsman walking out.
Australians: Sledge at the batsman walking in.
3. Indians: When you don't know to lead, you find it difficult to follow too.
Chinese: Everyone knows he has to follow if he can't lead.
4. Indians: When you get into your comfort zone at a task, you want to manage the team.
English: When you get into your comfort zone, switch to the next where you aren't comfortable.
5. Indians: You don't know something, ask around, take help and get it done.
Russians: You don't know something, look around, analyze, give your best, you'll find the solution.
6. Indians: When you can't meet the date, stretch, finish it and let know everyone you stretched.
French: When you're not on schedule, stretch, complete, but tell yourself this is not the way.
An American kid is taught to do everything on his own at school while an Indian kid is told that Parents, Teacher and God are always there watching you, guiding you and making you better. An Indian kid is made to believe that the best success is the one with minimum investment, an American kid is taught to believe that no success can reach you unless you respect the hardships that you have to put into for it. An Indian walks into a supermarket and asks the helpers around if he doesn't know where an article is, an American walks into a new store and asks for help only if he can't find the article. I am not saying that one is better or the other is worse, but these are just different ways to do the same thing. There is no question about the family values or the social fear that keeps a permanent check on Indians and about which India can definitely boast of, but this is not yet another "Vande Mataram" or "Jai Hind". These are just my "Intuitions and Introspections".
May be some of you might agree, many would disagree, but this is what I have been learning. I intend to change myself, I want to take the positives from both the worlds and be a better man going forward.
