Cilla Henriette

STRATEGIC REVIEW
The Indonesian Journals of Leadership, Policy & World
affairs

7 THINGS THAT HOLDING BACK

INDONESIAN FROM SUCCESS
 • Indonesians count heavily on external factors in
dealing with life.
• We thank God for our achievements and blame nature
or circumstances when we are unable to keep our
commitments, instead of giving ourselves credit when
good things happen or taking the responsibility for the
bad.
• Working in an international environment, where
1. EXTERNAL people tend to plan, find a strategy to deal with issues
FACTORS or develop a system to make things work, has made
me realize that this inability to anticipate and plan
may be seen as incompetence.
• We Indonesians seem like an army of doers (those
who need to be told what to do) rather than thinkers
or leaders (those who take the initiative and action).
This may cause people from other cultures to
underestimate our competence.
 • Indonesians do not want to fight to be the best or to be the first or to be the
most.
• We are a culture where everyone is comfortable to be the average Joe. On one
hand, it makes us noncompetitive, and, even better, we genuinely care about not
taking credit from someone else’s work or achievement.
• We do not claim what is not ours, and whenever possible, we give way to other
people to shine. Almost altruistic.
• The trap is, though, without realizing, we often hide. We hide from speaking our
minds because we don’t want to stick our heads up.
• We hide from our own abilities to excel. We do not want to be the person in
charge, as this can mean too much responsibility or invite jealousy from others.
2. THE RACE TO • We like to swim among with the mediocrity of the group, so we do not expose
ourselves.
MEDIOCRITY • The manifestation of this is seen in the classroom. Indonesian classrooms are very
quiet, with not many students raising their hands when invited to answer
questions. It is rare to see students who raise their hands for every question, as
we prefer to keep our thoughts to ourselves.
• When it comes to the workplace, this attitude persists. Take Tina, a talented
statistician in a research company. Although capable of running challenging
projects, and actually enjoying the work, she never expresses herself to her boss.
• After a few projects, her boss identifies that she is really good at her job and tabs
her for promotion. Her boss proposes the promotion idea to Tina and is expecting
that she will be excited about the opportunity. On the contrary, when receiving
the news, Tina is shy and responds that there is no rush for her to go to the next
level.
 • It is a tendency to take things as they come. Indonesian is not a culture of anticipation or
planning. As the sun shines for 365 days, if not 366, we like to leave it to “God” or “nature,” and
the line between what is under our control versus what is outside of our control becomes blurry.
• If we look at the Indonesian education system, there is little training of structured thinking.
• There is very little focus on performing research and collecting data to compose arguments. As a
consequence, we are often unable to give structured answers to questions.
• As far as I have observed, Indonesians stop at the first layer of an answer, and then when further
pressed, “Have you thought about this?” or “Have you done this?” the response is often silence.
Because the truth is, the thoughts or solutions have not been exhausted. This also impacts the
way we think about our own actions.
• As an illustration, when a boss asks, “What happened with the task I asked you to do
yesterday?” Rather than explain what happened, such as, “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to
3. GO WITH THE complete it, and I have some questions I need to ask you, and right after that I can complete it,”
many Indonesian just start to speak without thinking. For example, “Oh, yes” – a hanging
answer with a thousand meanings and one hope, that no further questions will be asked.
FLOW • The inability to think in a simple structure – what happened, what have I done, what needs to
be done now, and how do I communicate this – has led Indonesians to an unstructured way of
operating.
• We often do things as we feel, we forget to prioritize, and that may lead to further issues. As
much as this strategy of going with the flow, say what may come, works within the Indonesian
context, it is not acceptable in many other cultures.
• Answering without facts, structured thinking or arguments leads to the perception of
Indonesians being incompetent or unprofessional. People from other cultures need a coherent
answer to a question because it gives them a sense of control.
• By giving an incomplete answer, we mess up their sense of understanding and control, and this
is often frustrating.
 • Inertia – the tendency to stay in a comfort zone; comfort zone – the known areas that make us
feel comfortable; and mager – a colloquial Indonesian term that means too lazy to move.
• This cultural phenomenon of “being too lazy to move” manifests in our attitude, behavior and
way of thinking. We are OK staying in one position if it’s comfortable.
• As a result, we often do not push ourselves to go beyond our comfort zone, despite being
capable of it. We embrace inertia for the wrong reasons, and after a few years, we ask
ourselves: why haven’t things changed?
• In the context of the professional environment, the overindulgence in comfort (zone) is not
always beneficial. Although it may seem that one is satisfied or grateful with their position, the
trap of inertia (mager) is actually bigger than we think, because it is blocking us from new
initiatives.
• As we are too comfortable with what is happening around us, we do not try different ways to
approach tasks or solve issues, which too bad because Indonesians are actually very creative
people.

4. INERTIA • Where taking the initiative keeps us on our toes, and keeps growing our capabilities, a lack of
initiative stops us from growing.
• Imagine a situation where we do our work the same way over and over again. Pretty soon we
are on autopilot, doing it for the sake of doing it, with minimal passion and desire to grow.
• In the long run, this leads to dissatisfaction with our job, and we will probably start to blame a
lot of things other than ourselves. Growth is a fundamental part of human nature, and growing
makes us happy. When we give ourselves too much inertia, we deny ourselves from growing,
and therefore deny ourselves from being happy with ourselves.
• In Western culture, it is common to speak about outgrowing yourself. Mager is the opposite,
as it is “de-growing” ourselves. Being comfortable in inertia may make us accept things in the
wrong sense.
• And when we break free from inertia, we are growing into new thinking, new ways of doing
things and new skills. This will make us grow in our jobs, our relationships and, eventually, in
life.
 • Leadership has many definitions, but in this case is loosely translated as the ability
to anticipate, take control and give guidance and direction to the people around
us.
• Lack of leadership is often the consequence of a lack of initiative. In a culture
where people indulge in inertia, there are not many who are willing to break
through and find new ways of thinking, doing or being. Leadership is often
associated with taking risks, and Indonesians are not big on this.
• As we are a culture that is easily satisfied with where we are, we do not often
push ourselves to think of what’s next and what else can be done, what we can
learn from an event to help us grow.
• The ability to analyze a situation or problem will help us anticipate problems
before they happen. This is how the ability to take the initiative is honed. This

5. LACK OF ability to take the initiative, anticipate a problem and take control is the
foundation of leadership.
• Take Ratih, a young manager at a hospitality business who regularly deals with
LEADERSHIP guest issues. Complaints from guests are a normal part of life, and that means
there is an opportunity to identify recurring complaints and create a systematic
way of anticipating or solving the issues.
• After being in the business for a couple of years, Ratih is still diligently reporting
the issues to her superior. Given all the experience Ratih has gained, her superior
is surely interested in what Ratih has done to solve or anticipate the problems.
• But as Ratih has not reflected on the problems and the causes, she hasn’t been
able to identify solutions. Ratih has not taken the initiative to pause, review and
take constructive action, and therefore she hasn’t been able to demonstrate
leadership in her duties.
• A lack of leadership happens to many of us, and instead of taking the initiative,
Indonesians often wait to be told what to do.
 • While in some parts of Indonesia, such as North Sumatra or North Sulawesi,
where a certain degree of confrontation is seen as positive, fear of
confrontation seems to be rooted in the Javanese, the dominant culture in
Indonesia.
• In Javanese culture, many decisions are dictated by pakewuh: the feeling of
discomfort or hesitation to say or act in a way that will offend or make others
feel uncomfortable. When someone feels pakewuh about saying something
or taking action, that person will usually choose just to remain silent.
• Indonesians tend not to want to unnecessarily disrespect or hurt others. But
if we look deeper, the discomfort is very much rooted in ourselves.
• We do not confront others because we are not comfortable confronting
6. FEEDBACK ourselves. We are not trained to look at confrontation as a way to improve.
• In the workplace, the culture of confrontation avoidance has resulted in us
SHY being feedback shy. The ability to give or take feedback is one of the keys to
success.
• Unfortunately, in Indonesia, we shy away from giving or receiving feedback
because we take it personally or emotionally.
• Once we understand that the point of feedback is to achieve common goals,
to recognize our strengths and weaknesses so we can construct a better way
of working, then we can take feedback rationally instead of personally.
• Try listing your strengths and weaknesses, and what areas need
improvement. When we are able to systemize feedback, we can then focus on
and minimize unnecessary points. This way, we can learn to not be feedback
shy and embrace feedback as a constructive way of working and growing.
 • Acceptance is certainly a dominant culture in Indonesia. We accept
mistakes and say “ya, udahlah” (loosely translated as, “It’s OK, let it go”)
more often than not.
• We let go of things in the blink of an eye, and we have a lot of
understanding when someone does something they are not supposed to.
• We are a culture of acceptance, and therefore it is important not to
linger on someone’s weaknesses or mistakes, because it feels wrong to
be unaccepting.
• On the one hand, this super-accepting and forgiving culture is positive
and saves us from constant conflicts; on the other hand, it leads us to
being inconsistent, indecisive and defensive.
7. TOO MUCH • Inconsistency is the quality of being unreliable in what we say or do. And
this happens a lot in our daily lives in Indonesia. Many people say one
ACCEPTANCE thing and then something else in the next sentence. We do this because
we know the other person will understand, so we don’t have to explain
WILL KILL YOU what we really mean.
• Indecisiveness is the inability to make decisions or lingering in a situation
without any direction or decision. As it is acceptable for us to delay
making a decision, on the assumption that other people will understand
or they can wait, we do not train ourselves to be sharp in making
decisions. We linger in indecisiveness, hoping that things will sort
themselves out on their own.
• Defensiveness is the quality of not wanting to admit our weaknesses or
mistakes. It is rooted in our perception that in the end, other people will
understand our mistakes, so there is no need to admit them or to discuss
them.