Watch: Return to India from Europe: Leadership Career Without Internal Transfer

3:59 Been that I have been in Denmark this in EU and then a good amount of time have been in Malaysia with some degree of exposure to Singapore and the last one is us so that's kind of the order of decreasing number of years on each of the location so yeah I hope that answers your question that's great so maybe because you have an opportunity to spend in different countries and also like a continents so from your perspective just curious in terms of the culture contrast and compare like you know just to give a flavor for you know your experience and how does that compared to you know what you're experiencing in India before and after you know within the 8 years of you know the journey yeah absolutely I think look India is clearly before the

4:46 Whole Preamble is that India has truly gone Global there is tremendous potential opportunities in India and what asess is the probably the empirical knowledge which some of us who have been a been on different geographies coming back can come and value add and kind of kind of put it back to The Cauldron of the culture what we are building internally in India as a part of Indian leadership and the way how the the the the way how the rank and file essentially is model within India right so that's a little bit of what is the preamble so but that in mind there are always things to appreciate when it comes to the different cultures and the countries so to begin with I think there has been some of the B which I look at so if I had to summarize my my journey across different countries it comes down to the balance between so let's begin with the motivation right the motivation is always an important part of it what is driving you so if you look at capitalistic economies there is

5:46 A different motivation versus a Innovative right so that also becomes a part of your day-to-day rule so it also changes by geographies some of the geographies have an innate nature to give that kind of a room they always have a buffer for Innovation and R&D as a part of your any normal assignment and some of the places there is no scope for that right so essentially you have to do stick to a process stick to a run book just get the job done because people have invested enough time and money and materials to build that run book so you take that at a face value and just move on but then there are places where there is a little bit of a always a bigle room that hey maybe there is always more we can do why don't you car out 20% of your day or 20% of your month to just think

6:49 About what can you do better and come up with the suggestions right so that cultural difference I've seen across the geographies which is pretty profound now the third thing would be psychological safety it matters a lot in different countries the ability to speak up what is in your mind very openly and coming up front it depends on a lot of complexities of culture so some cultures may feel it to be a little offended if you just open up and some cultures will really appreciate that you are being forthcoming and not going round and round right so these cultural nuances are something which I can definitely think about there are cosmetic or materialistic differen like the pay scales and you know the comfort of Life what car can you buy and what is the child's education that's always there right I'm not going to be talking about that I'm going to be talking about something which U which is more driving people with passion towards why would you stick the stickability factor beyond all this materialistic Comfort is what I'm looking

7:49 At yeah got it so maybe I think you kind of touched about after 8 years you have moved back like when was the idea of like moving back occurred and then you know in terms of the planning you know whether it's on a career side Financial like Logistics anything that you can touch base especially like you know sounds like you've been on a move right I mean you're moving from one country to the other country so I don't think this is like a big move but just curious in terms of any planning that you have done even when moving from like Denmark to Malaysia or from Malaysia to

8:22 Other countries so it still could be a similar process sure so my first exposure to onshore in Consulting we call it onshore so essentially offshore is typically a place where you have a you have a cost economical model of delivery and onshore is where you have a I wouldn't say cost economical but rather the onshore is where the business resides so that's a better way to put it right so when it comes to the way how the whole equation kind of spined up was that a good amount of time was spent I I did a good amount of Contracting time as a independent consultant in based out of South South southeast Asia and then I moved as a employee to one of the erable firm space of Denmark now when it comes to you know the journey I mean obviously when you say that what is the motivation for you to fall back U it was a mix of a strong drive for personal reasons but also it it was a very it

9:23 Was a driven consensus that how would my I pivot my professional career along with my personal Ambitions right there was obviously a need for me to step up and take care of my family post an accident which happened last December and this kind of fundamentally shifted the need for someone to step up there is always a old saying that the broadest shoulder carries the most weight so there was a need for me to essentially Step Up so came back now as a as a on a personal end I would say that the family is much more happier because there is a very tight net network of family over here the extension of whom can you meet on every weekend the possibilities are Limitless right so essentially the number of people whom you have on a speed dial is keeps going up and up and that's that's stock difference of what we had in in when we were in Europe because there were only a limited number of good friends and U you know

10:24 Relationships which we had built in the country so clearly there is a lot of things to explore upon India being a large country it has also been a a boon for us to essentially understand that until now we were I mean the the the the Zeal or that eagerness to essentially travel far off lands has kind of gone to a place where we probably would call it to be a saturation where we have kind of realized that now let's try to look inwards and let's try to travel local and try to experience the different cultures of IND so that's another way to look at it but coming back right like the overall motivation has been a mix of personal and professional but personal taking the front line the idea was always to come up with a the big question which drove me when I came back is that I was on a leadership role back when I was in my previous assignments or my previous lifetime the question was what does it mean when I come to India can I can I can I kind of continue that

11:26 Journey of leadership and I'm kind of very happy and grateful that I am able to continue that journey of leadership got it so is that just curious because this is a common question for at least people who have been living in one particular country and they're planning to come back home you know there are opportunities for internal transfer because they have an office location in India and so that could be a smooth transition or they're trying to find an opportunity or a job especially on the leadership role it becomes much more harder especially before you can relocate so just wondering in your case is that an internal transfer or did you like leave it and then you try to apply after coming here and you're able to find

12:05 Something after so the closest internal transfer I could have got is so my previous company had a department based out of Southeast Asia and the closest was thaan so I could have reached to thaan but not in India they didn't have a department in India so essentially there was no way I mean it would be probably a bit of an hyperbowl to ask that start a department just for me so that that could have been not been the feasibility over over the discussions clearly yes India is the talent and there would be a day when I hope that my previous companies they they look at the ambition of starting departments in India but then that's that's just a visual thinking at this point in time so it was not a clearly internal transfer for me so I knew for a fact that I was looking at a Runway which was very shortlived because there is only so much we can do you know working from other countries so for me I had to switch into a gears into a different job search understand what are the opportunities which fit my

13:05 Ambition so it was a complete not an organic switch over but an inorganic switch over for me okay in terms of you know life in India after spending 8 years abroad how has it been going like from a social life from a work culture from other aspects right I mean there are things that are you know different you know once you get used to certain lifestyle certain systems as you were explaining earlier you know there are these differences between different countries so how has the life been for you since or for you and the family since for the last one year sure

13:43 So to begin with right let's start from the basics of housing India has become most of the metropolitan cities finding a rental accommodation is not that hard anymore right that was the first realization we had I mean yes you need to do play end up finding a broker who can help you out in the journey if you really want some good quality houses but then it is not so hard in most of the countries like in especially in the European side where you know the I mean it's it it is a challenge I must say let's keep it that way right so it's not that easy to find a house and it's usually a pretty stressful Journey when you have to move out of your house because the amount of things the move in reports and the move out reports and essentially the amount of scratches on your floor to the amount of cratches on your walls everything amounts to a numeric value and it is like almost you're living in a in a utopian state of house and you have to find another utopian state of house and that transition is usually very

14:43 Stressful in India there is a large amount of Freedom the because the the availability of the labor now I'll come to the second part of it the availability of the labor is pretty high so even if things break or if you're you know if you're if you spill a coffee on the floor or if you put in a hot pan on the table or you know if things like U you know somebody draws the kid draws something on the wall it can still be fixed very easily so I I think that was the first level of comfort we felt so for us that coming into India was a very seamless transition on the housing side coming to the labor side we have always realized that U India has so much to offer when it comes to the additional help which you can get you can get a cook or a chef or or someone like a someone like a maid who can help you out in the journey and that's that's tremendously helpful that's liberating in a way you have so much more time to focus on what what you want to do as compared to getting caught up in the shows right that also makes me kind kind of sometimes think that once you get used to this level of

15:44 Comfort moving back would require you to become then again an independent person because these these features don't apply to other countries so how does it go so that's that's on the labor side when it comes to the schooling and the you know the the transport obviously now most of the metropolitan cities have have a good way of transportation the traffic is something which is a star contast coming from countries where public transport has been a way to go especially on the European side very effective public transportation the trains and the way how the entire network of the trains is connected it's a little bit of a stock difference that here most of the places it's a driving City so for people probably coming from us it might be a just a bit normal but from people who are coming from Scandinavia or Europe it might be a bit of a Nuance which they have to take care of because car is not just used car is only used for limited purposes over there here it is used for almost everything right now coming to the way how we need to essentially

16:46 Handle the social life to it clearly there has been a growth of Social Circle from what we last time thought but even here I feel that most of the highend apartment essentially end up having people who may be limited in Social Circles right so there's not much engagements happening because everybody just Minds their own business so it kind of gives you a comfort level to begin with because you are not having a very Stark contracts where you don't have nosy neighbors who come in and try to literally understand what's going on on a day-to-day but there is some degree of distance so finding that kind of an apartment where you have that kind of a distance can help you settle down it will it will kind of relieve view of the anxiety because think about it like parachuting into a world where you have neighbors walking into your house every day I mean I cannot take it clearly right so that that that kind of has helped us to finding the right apartment has helped us and when it comes to the overall you know children's education and

17:48 Clearly we have seen a lot of lot of I would say improvements but also lot of opportunities so the number of schools which are available and sprouting day on day in every major city it's just skyrocketing right so to be honest the curriculums the spectrum of curriculums it's like opening up a brochure and you have like 15 different curriculums and it's like going into a restaurant and looking at 15 different flavors of food so there is so much to offer there is so much to grasp it gets a little bit overwhelming to begin with when you come back to India for us it was a bit overwhelming to begin with but we kind of made some conscious choices like not to go into Apartments where you have a lot of where I would rather keep it on the positive end that we wanted to respect privacy so we have chosen places to stay we have chosen locations to stay where privacy is respected so that has kind of helped us tremendously okay so I know I think you

18:50 Kind of touched on the kids so if you're okay like you know how what kind of curriculum that you have selected and how old were your kids when mood I mean this is another common question for lot of retes yeah so any insights from that perspective so my my little one was

19:07 Almost three to four years old when he moved we moved back from Denmark I feel the smaller the kid the easier it is to get accommodated to the bigger the kid there are some challenges in the way how they interpret and understand things right like they have their own life on their own for me it was a bit easy because of two reasons the initial comfort factor which generated so it kind of worked in both sides right like covid was a factor so there was a there was a decrease right like the the there was a downward sloping of Engagement because people didn't go to school and people were essentially caught up with all the children were caught up with their parents or only the close friends so there was a decreasing over here and then the when the world open up and that's when I had to travel back so it for me it was like a smooth transition right right so because the engagement went low then we said hey you're going to meet your grandparents you're going to meet your your uncles and aunts and there was a good amount of buffering which was given in terms of video calls

20:09 And people calling him in that hey we are going to see you on the other side happy goodlucky me and happy goodl lucky you everybody's going to be coming together so there was a good amount of excitement in his eyes when he had to come back obviously all that excitement went fine for him it was easy for the transition at least till he hit India the first for him the overwhelming part was the first couple of day for a couple of weeks to join the school because the number of children in a class over here versus the number of children in a class in Europe are significantly different the methodology of how you do crowd control is significantly different the methodology of how you have the basics attention to self independent you know so for example there are several schools which promote that you should be the kids should be responsible for even cleaning of the school and cleaning the dishes and you have to be independent in

21:10 Trying to even put together and cut the you know the basics of fruits and put together the fruit salad somebody would cut the fruits and then they had to just put it into a nice fruit salad put in the honey and the mustards on the top all that is essentially here not possible in several of the schools because they assume that you're going to get your own tiffen box they don't want to take that charge of foot safety so all those essentially compound up right so there is there was at least a month of acclimatization for him before he could really get comfortable with the fact that 8:00 that's going to be a long line everybody's going to stand in a long line and somebody's going to draw a whistle and then everybody's going to go and do a PT in the morning for him it was not normal because for him 8:00 in the morning is all about oats and strawberries and berries to be put in and then some morning Carol classes right so there was a bit of a difference in the way how he looked at the world out there and here so it was for us also we had a good amount of u we had to

22:10 Psychologically make him accommodated that this is what he's going to be looking at and we we told him that it's predy normal over here so yeah I think he was a brave one he took it well I all all all all rewards go to him I mean all the all the credits go to him I I think he was able to take it well okay that's great is there any topic that we haven't covered that you would like to bring up or any advice for the future aspirants were thinking of moving back to India so one thing I would like

22:42 To say without going much into the details it does help tremendously for kids who have been so especially the someone who is at that age group less than five who has been into CO's times where significantly there could be a restriction in the social behavior or restrictions in the speech or restrictions in the you know the behavioral side of it as a product of circumstances and not as a product of you know the nature so that that can be s coming back to India could severely course correct that world because there is so much going on over here the amount of flux of information and the flux of conversations and the flux of comfort is very high over here especially if you have a large family that can truly make a remarkable difference and as a matter of fact it can completely counter negate some of those observations which you find in other countries okay that's great anything

23:43 Else from your end no that should be all okay great thank you very much pra for your time and sharing your journey you know really appreciate you taking the time and talking to us today absolutely Ian thanks for all the good work you do I think what you're doing is a incredibly important piece of bringing that experience it's a it's a big jump for a lot of us there is significant amount of running around which needs to be done and there is a significant amount of so you're shifting gears very rapidly right you're not just shifting gears in one angle I think you're shifting gears in multiple angles I I hope that whatever you're on this journey on it will help people to just have a clearer head or a leveled head when they're going through this transition so good luck with what you do thank you okay yeah thanks have a great day thank you all for joining us on this insightful journey of Dy return if you enjoyed this episode and want to explore

24:45 More stories and expert advice make sure to subscribe and hit the notification Bell don't forget to leave a comment below with your thoughts and experiences by the way check out the links in the description below for our Facebook group and social media for updates and engaging discussions as well as connecting with fellow the wrers thank you once again and until next time may your D journey be filled with joy growth and endless possibilities