Effective decision making

Do we "Indians" have lesser ability to make decisions? I definitely cannot generalize but I would like to talk about a specific section of the people I had to deal with :-P

Drawing from my experience I have found that, in general, it is much easier to discuss deals and proposals with a non-Indian. I don't know if this is specific to my profession where we mostly talk to a foreign client who has some exposure to business and decision making. Setting the context with a set of "bulleted" points grouped as "Offering & Not Offering" or "Possible & Not possible" seems to work extremely well with these foreign clients. I have also found that my clients find it very refreshing and are happy to resolve issues when the "truth" is put across bluntly. On the other hand I have had many experiences where I had to repeat the same list multiple times and explain them over and over again when I am addressing an Indian client. On many occasions I also had to address an "umm… even then..." after all the discussions were over! We Indians just love to keep on talking and discussing for hours altogether.

This might be due to the fact that the Indian software industry is aiming for low-risk low-pay high-volume businesses and hence the people heading them also have a similar attitude or liking. Decision making requires the ability to evaluate and the willingness to take the responsibility for the consequences. In a land where taking risk, even for development (unless you are successful) is not appreciated, this need not be very surprising.

Even though I used to think that this may only be my personal experience, lately I find that most of my friends have had similar experiences.

Are we Indians genetically or by upbringing handicapped for the decision making process? Is that part of our brain under-developed? Do we have to start an unlearning process?

Aren’t we from the land of the great strategists, thinkers and mathematicians (of the old times :-))?