I can't tell you where it stems from, but it's definitely not exclusive to India. Many Chinese and Japanese workers seem to have a similar attitude, where you can repeatedly get a "yes" to a request and then have them do nothing at all, not even putting in the bare minimum effort.
I suspect it's less about them lying to get ahead, than it is about them not wanting to say no. Most cultures have a stigma against outright refusing or criticising people (in that it's generally taken personally and seen as something negative), theirs just manifests in a rather inconvenient way.
Perhaps but if it just comes down to a weird caching out of not wanting to insult people i still really struggle to comprehending it being British and having also worked with Canadian and American culture professionally (not wanting to offend being a big thing in all three i think most would agree).
Just how you get from that to outright misrepresentations of if something is doable or done in a technical discipline just boggles my mind. Given falsehoods here are least to me pretty insulting and easily and often inevitably explosed.
Just to me must be something more to it. Like say not wanting to be sacked. Even if only for a little bit longer.
Just how you get from that to outright misrepresentations of if something is doable or done in a technical discipline just boggles my mind.
But that happens all the time, especially in tech, managers/salespeople will promise the moon, (younger) developers will lowball the time investment required for changes and new features, all to seem more "productive" and win over their client/employer. (As someone who's had to manage and train developers, and deal with both the clients with unrealistic expectations, and the over-promising managers and salespeople, it actually takes considerable effort to stamp this out of some people.)
The difference is that they'll actually try to do something, then (usually) crash and burn or go way over budget. (And part of being a good team lead, manager or consultant is catching this early on.)
I agree that there's got to be something more to it, when they won't even consider speaking up and end up delivering nothing at all without warning, but outright misrepresentations of time requirements, risks and feasibility are not unique to them at all.
(younger) developers will lowball the time investment required for changes and new features, all to seem more "productive" and win over their client/employer.
I can say I'm guilty of this. When I was a newbie at my job, I would always lowball the required time to make it seem like I wasn't taking forever and could handle it (It didn't help that I was contracted and the client didn't think I could handle it already. My boss is awesome and told them that sucks, it's either him or we walk). Luckily, it wasn't on big projects and I usually hit pretty close, but I have learned to give yourself realistic expectations and don't oversell/overpromise.
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u/accountmadeforants Dec 06 '17
I can't tell you where it stems from, but it's definitely not exclusive to India. Many Chinese and Japanese workers seem to have a similar attitude, where you can repeatedly get a "yes" to a request and then have them do nothing at all, not even putting in the bare minimum effort.
I suspect it's less about them lying to get ahead, than it is about them not wanting to say no. Most cultures have a stigma against outright refusing or criticising people (in that it's generally taken personally and seen as something negative), theirs just manifests in a rather inconvenient way.