October 17 2021, 10:05

The main difference between all (10-15) international projects where I have worked over the last six years and 10-15 companies in Russia before that is that there has never been a visible public or personal conflict in the work environment. Of course, people are people, and everyone has their quirks and reasons to annoy others, but there is also a culture where it’s not considered proper to air such grievances outside of the immediate participants. This approach sometimes creates its own problems. For instance, an incompetent specialist or manager may remain in a project for a long time, and everyone simply endures it, leading to decreased productivity. Or they simply do not consider it their problem. As a result, a project planned for one year in Russia often takes two, whereas here it’s planned for two but takes three.

Overall, displaying negative emotions in the presence of those not involved is seen as a weakness of a manager or a specialist. If you think that employee B is messing up, it’s better to help rather than point out how bad employee B is. Whether you help quietly or publicly is a matter of self-promotion; for the outcome, it doesn’t matter. Besides the obvious benefits to the project or company, this employee B will grow and not forget (like in the joke about Pavlov, who was bitten by a dog, grew up, and forgot, but Pavlov grew up and didn’t forget).

Of course, not every project and not every company is like this. My experience simply cannot compare with the collective experience of the readers of this post. But 10-15 projects (=companies), into which I was thrown in various roles, seem sufficient for preliminary conclusions. In Russia, it is normal to point out flaws in the work of a person from a neighboring department, in the work where you are nobody, and he may be young and inexperienced, but a specialist. In Russia, it is normal to personalize criticism, attacking the person, not the quality of their work. This is not only in Russia but almost in any Asian country on local projects. This is such an observation.