Business is the result of how the market behaves and how the organisation behaves, and so cultural beliefs and assumptions are critically important to businesses, according to Devdutt Pattanaik in a talk given at Ted India last month. Cultures which believe that you live only once have an obsession with binary logic, truth, and standardised, absolute and linear practices. Cultures which believe that you live many times are more concerned with fuzzy logic, opinion, and contextual, relative and curvaceous practices.
In Western cultures, we have standard business models, with mission, vision, values, processes. It is like the journey through the wilderness to the promised land, with the commandments held by the leader, and if you comply you will go to heaven. In India there is no “The Promised Land”; there are many promised lands. Businesses are not run as institutions; they are based on the idiosyncratic tastes of individuals.
In India, business is not about documentation and contract; it is about conversation and faith. It is not about compliance; it is about “setting”, getting the job done by bending or breaking the rules. India today is rapidly changing, diverse, chaotic, ambiguous, and unpredictable. Best practices developed in other countries will not work in India.