Is sycophancy different there? I think in many places employees often praise their managers and agree with everything because it’s a survival strategy. Or maybe a misplaced hope to get recognized that way. I assume that’s all this is too?

In India loyalties run deep. It can come along the lines of religion, region, caste, family, color, class etc.

Many times novices to this game, work mad hours, only to realise a year or two down the lane, some guy who practically did no work but comes from the same state your manager does, is now promoted above you.

> some guy who practically did no work but comes from the same state your manager does,

I took over a unit where 80% of the engineers were from one state, and mostly from the same college as the previous hiring manager.

There was one particular misfit - competent engineer but didn't have any skills for my BU.

I tried to transfer him to the hiring manager's new unit, and he refused. So I told him I would have to fire the misfit. Guess what, the next day he found a req and took the misfit.

This was a pattern everywhere I worked. So when I was able to dictate hiring policies, one rule was that we would never visit the same college twice in row. This of course made me very unpopular with HR. Now they had to work harder to maintain connections with placement departments.