Features of Russian development

By occupation, I often communicate with various Russian and Western teams. A very common question is - is there any specificity in our work and how does this affect the development?

There is a very good book about the specifics of Russian work in general. It is called "Russian model of management." It was written by A.P. Prokhorov (another, not an oligarch). I will not retell it. The basic idea is that Russians, by their nature, can only work in two modes. In an unstable state, they can move mountains. At this time, the motivation is very high. In a stable, relaxed state - when no one kicks - the Russians seem to work poorly and do not bother much.
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The book is wonderful and really explains a lot in our history. Be sure to read, if not read. But I am not ready to recommend it as a direct guide to action. The conclusions from it follow quite unambiguous and not very flattering for the country as a whole. However, in fact, everything is not so bad. Our specifics are not completely counterproductive. It gives both advantages and disadvantages.

Another disclaimer: the prevailing culture in a) the team b) the organization c) the country affects the real behavior of people. And in this order. There are “pro-Western” companies, where the influence of our cultural codes is very small. In purely Russian companies, it is simply huge. But you can really notice the difference only by seeing how different cultures collide with each other.

I will give the influence of various factors in order of their importance and power of influence. The higher - the harder it is to change and the greater the effect it has.

Conflict escalation

Imagine your teammate nakosyachil. You do not like it. But will you go to your general manager to share information about the incident? If you were born on the territory of the former USSR - the answer is unequivocal NO. Even if you end up hitting you. You are not a snitch. This is completely unacceptable in our culture. And this is absolutely normal in Europe and the USA.

Some years ago, when I was a junior programmer, our boss Kolya summoned me to him and began to sand me. Do you know that Don (our American project manager) is complaining about you?

I don’t remember exactly what I did wrong. But I can not forget the feeling of insult to this Don. Only five minutes ago, we talked quietly with him, and he did not hint that he did not like something! And in general, it seemed to me that we have practically friendly relations. I was seriously offended by Don then.

Everything goes from early childhood. So we were raised. And not only the yard and school friends. When my eldest son went to kindergarten, I heard with my ears how the teacher inspired a sobbing child who complained to his comrade who had pushed him that it was not good to snitch.

When I tell this story to colleagues from the States, their eyes are rounded. Their teachers explicitly prohibit direct conflict and require children to solve problems through adults.

We do not knock. Change is almost impossible. No Western culture can eradicate this. Even if our spend many years in the US, they never inform.

What does this lead to? We try not to talk too much to the management and the customer about our internal problems. Managers are in themselves - we are in ourselves. They know less - sleep better. A kind of "Don't ask don't tell" in Russian.

If your subordinates can correct the problem themselves, they will not tell you anything. That is, you hear only 10% of the information. Does it bother you? Although to whom I am telling, you are also acting in relation to a higher manager. ;-)

It turns out that our leadership very often remains in the dark about the problems inside. As a result, the risks remain unanswered. Managers learn about the problem when it is too late to influence.

Direct feedback

In 2007, we organized the first open Scram certification training (CSM) in Russia. The training was conducted by Mike Wizdos. Exercises were quite curious.

For example, one of them was like that. It was necessary to give feedback to each other. Cases were of this type: “Your colleague turns on the radio at the workplace. It bothers you. Ask him to turn it off. ”

Mike gave something for about 15 minutes to exercise and screwed somewhere. The people at the training managed for 2-3 minutes and remained in incomprehensible. Well, really, how long can a phrase like “turn off the radio, please” take?

They began to ask me, as an organizer, what exactly should I do? How do I know? I answered something in the spirit that you say too directly. “Aha!” Said the people, “a politeness exercise. Well, this is already more difficult!”

As soon as Mike arrived, I pounced on him with a question - what was the exercise really about?

“Well,” he said, “the people are embarrassed to give feedback. And she is needed for the success of Scrum! And then there's the pressure of time! They will have to speak straight! ”

Ours of course were not shy. The truth was cut uterus, so to speak.

This is also a part of our culture, the reverse side of the unwillingness to escalate problems. We are used to giving feedback to our comrade much more openly and directly. We are not so shy to conflict, as our Western colleagues.

What does this lead to?

Colleagues on the team quickly find out what others think about their work. This is actually very useful and usually leads to the fact that the weak are pulling up faster.

It seems to me that the phase of the formation of the team (as long as everyone doesn’t bother), ours are quite active. A lot of conflict and seething, throwing on the fan and active trolling. But then the teams become stronger and more united.

As a result, the energy level within our teams, it seems to me, is higher than that of the western ones. If we make a scale, from one end of which there will be “sloopoki”, and on the other “hysterical squirrels”, I would say that ours are closer to squirrels compared to western ones. Our foreign colleagues are generally calmer and more friendly.

Loyalty and authority

I once attended one important international gathering of one multinational company. He played a fairly high manager. He painted a rather rosy picture of the future. At the end you could ask questions. It was interesting to observe the difference in how questions were asked. The Europeans mostly tried to clarify the unclear points. Even if they disagree, at first they praised the speech and only then did they make a suggestion in the form of a certain question. Ours were either silent or immediately began to troll. Almost all the questions were with a tuck, and not in the eyebrow and in the eye.

The attitude to the authorities is generally suspicious. The average Russian engineer of authorities does not recognize and, by default, treats them incredulously.

However, it’s more likely that we are generally more suspicious of everything in the world. Life has taught us everywhere to look for a dirty trick.

By the way, it seems to me, for this reason, we get good engineers from ours. Affects the habit of reaching everything with your mind, not trusting proven recipes.

What does this distrust lead to? Worldwide, the arrival of a higher manager is being done to increase the motivation of the team. An American arrives, speaks in a charismatic way - and it's done! "Developers, developers, developers!"

We have not. I did a lot of polls: in 80% of cases, the motivation of Russians in this case only decreases. All omissions and omissions are interpreted not in favor of the company. Have you come to motivate? Wait for the wave of departures :-)

What can you do about it? As always, the medal has two sides.

At the conference, a guy somehow approached me, introduced himself and began to ask questions. His name seemed vaguely familiar to me. After a while I remembered. He was dismissed for his lack of competence by a friend of mine CTO, who tried his best to bring order to the rotten organization. Out of pure curiosity, I asked someone who approached what he thought of the dismissal of his CTO. The answer struck me. He said that he had never met a more intelligent and competent manager in his life.

Do you want to earn the respect of the Russian team? The only way is actions. Here we are susceptible to them. Ours are capable of completing all the rest by one proper act. Prove that you are cool!

Our completely boyish denial of authorities and non-child paranoia leads to another consequence: unfortunately, ours are on average less loyal to our company.

That is, the western colleague is by default loyal. You have to do a lot of bad things so that he becomes negative.

Our defaults are disloyal. Their loyalty must be earned. They will look closely at your actions and evaluate your character. They will troll and closely monitor the reaction.

But if you are firm, your actions are consistent, your principles are immutable, your faith in success is unshakable, our loyalty will be very high. They will not abandon you for anything.

Do not get me wrong, I do not claim that in other countries people do not care about the actions of managers. They are extremely important for everyone. Just ours understand only them. Words don't work.

Making decisions

Our trust people who have proven their superiority. And real leaders get used to making decisions on their own and never meet with resistance.

This can be great. If you take the kids for a walk. Or trying to control the prisoners in the zone.

But if you are developing a complex product, you are under-utilizing the potential of your team. Blind trust leads to the fact that people simply do not connect the brain. There is a conditional Peter, who can ask - why should I think?

Therefore, in Scrum, decisions are made command and jointly. Need the right people to collect and discuss.

This is relatively simple in Scandinavia. For some Swedes, consensus is a stitched cultural code. It is simple and natural.

Our leaders have to teach this. Not that it was impossible. It's just a little unnatural and does not come immediately.

But in general, that's all.

There are other features, but they are not fundamental in terms of management features. They must, of course, be taken into account, but from experience they do not represent anything terrible. They are easy to find in the literature. I still bring them in the article, just to complete the picture.

Political correctness

In one of the exercises that I give at the training, someone in the team needs to give a “hard and uninteresting” task.

At one of the trainings in such a team, a girl came across. The guys somehow immediately decided that the girl could rest, they could handle it.

The training was attended by Americans. I quietly translated them. They were naturally shocked. Most of all they were amazed that the girl was clearly pleased with this outcome. I tried to explain that this is part of our culture. And yet I clearly saw that it was unpleasant for the Americans.

For Americans, gender equality is a very sensitive issue. If you open the door to a woman, you will offend her. This is not a joke, they really feel uneasy, try not to do that.

I don’t think it affects anything. Just an interesting fact to take into account.

High Context

There is such a famous joke:

- Devices!
- 15
- What is 15?
- And what about the devices?

Such communication is called high context. We mean the presence of a large amount of context in the interlocutor. The apotheosis for me was once the email from the admin with one word "Yes." What "yes? It turns out that I asked him something in the corridor and he promised to look.

Americans and some Europeans belong to low context. On the contrary, they describe everything in detail and neatly, as for an idiot. They expect this from us.

The language barrier

There are plenty of difficulties. It is not only a matter of knowing words, but rather some nuances of use.

As an example: your American colleague clarifies with you: “Do you know that deadline is friday?”. You answer: "Yes."

You mean exactly what you said. You know about the deadline.

The American takes out from this conversation that you will have time to do everything by Friday. I don’t know where they’re pulling it from (it's not obvious to me personally), but this has happened several times in my practice.

If an American heard such a conversation:

- Do you know that deadline is friday?
- Yes
- Will you meet it?
- No

... it would have torn his brain!

Talk is not about work

We consider it normal to talk during business hours on non-working topics. Some Europeans and Americans are shocked. This is not accepted.

Lateness

I once led a mixed US-Russian training in one company. American managers and our engineers. Exactly at 10 am, there were only Americans in the audience and not a single Russian. All of our catch up in 15-20 minutes.

We are a few minutes late. Compared to some Italians, it’s even cool. But the Americans, for example, it infuriates.

Results

As you can see, there is Russian specificity. For me personally, she does not seem to be absolutely destructive. Well, yes, meeting is more difficult because of trolling. But you more or less understand what people really think about you. This is a very wonderful quality. It makes communication more open and effective.

If someone smiles at you, then he is definitely glad to see you!

Yours sincerely,
Askhat Urazbayev, AgileCoach, ScrumTrek