Cross-Cultural Issues

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To queue or not to queue...

The ability to be flexible is often a great help in a variety of situations, no less so when going to live or work in a different culture. In fact, flexibility is one of the key skills essential to cross-cultural adaptation. Acquiring this skill involves adjusting our behaviour or communication style to suit situations encountered in our new environment, either in our personal or professional lives. We may often find ourselves in a position where remaining true to our natures would be entirely counterproductive.

Let's take a circumstance we encounter countless times in our daily lives at home - "the queue"! Now imagine you have recently arrived in New Delhi and decide one day to go shopping to the local market to buy bread and a few other items. This is not a supermarket, but the old-fashioned type of grocers. You enter the small and very crowded premises, only to find half a dozen people or more all demanding attention from the shopkeeper at the same time and he's calmly serving them, apparently at random. You find what you hope is a strategic position to wait your turn. Your ingrained instincts cause you to wait patiently. After a while, you realise you're not getting a turn - there's no queue! People are, however, being attended to, paying for their goods and leaving the shop, apparently satisfied customers. You begin to feel foolish as well as concerned. What should you do? How do you make sure you get your turn and leave with what you came for?

Here's a piece of practical advice which will also stand you in good stead in similar situations elsewhere. Immediately interrupt the conversation, state what you need assertively, keep repeating it and be as persistent as everyone else. Persevere and you will get your turn!

The cultural preference in India, along with other 'polychronic' cultures of Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, is to do several things at the same time. Hence several people are often attended to simultaneously, as in the above example. This is a stark contrast to the 'monochronic' cultures of the West where things are done one at a time, sequentially. For those of us who have queued in an orderly manner all our lives to get things done, to suddenly begin not queuing may be difficult because we would be going against our usual behaviour pattern. However, carrying on as we would at home regardless, in a situation where nobody else has a clue what we're doing, would achieve very little. Adapting our behaviour to do what the local people do works, in this situation. There will be plenty of opportunity to practice once you're there!