Americans and Germans have very different expectations about how to manage interpersonal conflicts when they arise, which can lead to huge misunderstandings. As part of an ongoing series of articles, an American consultant living in Germany offers some advice.
When Germans and American collaborate, there will be conflict. This is normal. However, their respective approaches to conflict resolution differ. These differences, if not understood and properly balanced, can hinder just and lasting conflict resolution. And unresolved conflict threatens collaboration and success.
Although Germans are known to follow written laws and directives, they reject almost instinctively any and all top-down decisions, directives or commands where management has not involved them in their formulation.
Especially when it involves the details of their daily work, Germans are very sensitive to outside influences which limit their freedom of decision making and action. Germans at all levels reject top-down decisions, based on hierarchical authority and not on persuasive arguments.
The Germans have very low tolerance for conflict resolutions which declare clear winners and losers. Do Germans do their best to avoid open confrontation because the one or the other side wants to avoid being the loser, or because their sense of humility forbids them from being the declared winner?
A look into recent history might help us to understand why Germans avoid zero-sum mentality, preferring instead win-win situations.
The so-called German-French Erbfeindschaft – loosely translated as traditional or hereditary enmity or hostility – was a term used to define the wars between the two peoples going back to King Louis the XIV up until and including the Second World War.
The Germans won the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The annexation of Elsass-Lothringen by Germany led to French desire for revenge.
The French are then on the winning side of the First World War. The Treaty of Versailles punishes Germany very harshly, making a lasting peace almost impossible. The Germans see it as political and military humiliation, which the National Socialists use to their advantage in the 1930s.
Then the Second World War. The Germans defeat and occupy France. But the Germans lose that war. But this time both sides have learned their lesson. They decide to integrate economically in order to end once and for all the so-called Erbfeindschaft. They choose cooperation over confrontation.
The Germans believe that a conflict is not resolved when one side loses and the other wins. A conflict is resolved when both sides accept the resolution.
Americans are willing to accept the resolution to a conflict which does not go in their favor. They may not be happy, but if the process was fair, they will accept the verdict and move on.
Nor will their manager, asked to intervene in order to resolve, hold any kind of grudge against either of the conflict parties. American managers know that they are paid to serve as judge in resolving internal disputes.
Historically, the United States has little experience with revanchism. Revanchism, from French revanche or revenge, is a term used since the 1870s to describe the desire to reverse territorial losses by a country after losing a war.
Revanchist politics rely on the identification of a nation, of a people, with a nation-state. This mobilizes ethnic nationalism, claiming territories outside of the state where members of the ethnic group live.
The American judicial system allows anyone sentenced in a court to appeal that sentence. An appeal is when the accused (and sentenced) can take their case from a lower to a higher court for review.
In the American business context, a team member who believes that the judgement is wrong, or the conflict resolution process was unfair, can ask to have that decision reviewed by next-level management or by a neutral third party within the company, typically the human resources department.
There have been many famous repeals or court decisions in American history. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal (the American slogan for segregation of white and black Americans) was no longer constitutional, an act that negated their earlier ruling in 1896.
The first case in the U.S. in which the court system determined that a law was unconstitutional and should be repealed occurred in 1803. It was the case of Marbury v Madison, when the Supreme Court decided that the Judiciary Act of 1789 was conflicted with the Constitution and was therefore null and void.
The case of Betts v Brady ruled that the 6th and 14th Amendments of the constitution guaranteeing a right to legal counsel does not mean that the government has to provide counsel for someone who cannot afford it. Later, the case Gideon v Wainwright overruled this decision, and anyone accused of a crime is entitled to free counsel if he/she can’t afford an attorney.
Fauler Kompromiss. False or rotten compromise. Germans believe that there can be no lasting resolution unless the parties compromise. This is the case in coalition governments, in negotiations between employers and labor, in person relationships.
Often, however, the media and the public speculate whether certain resolutions to a conflict were true compromises or faul, fake or rotten. They wonder if one party got the better of the other and that an imbalance is being covered up.
Germans seldom reach agreement when the demands of the conflict parties are in stark opposition to each other and the negotiations have become confrontational. An agreement is made when both parties take a cooperative approach. One-sided demands work against that.
If one party to the conflict is clearly stronger than the other and attempts to take advantage of the weaker party, the German conflict resolution approach will try to compensate for the imbalance.
Etwas vom Tisch fegen. Literally to brush something off of the table; to ignore something; to treat someone or something as unimportant, irrelevant; to push to the side; to conceal.
Verdict: The finding or decision of a jury on the matter submitted to it in trial; opinion, judgement. Middle English verdit, verdict. From Anglo-French veirdit, true + dictum.
Accept: To receive willingly; to give admittance or approval to; to endure without protest or reaction; to recognize as true; to make a favorable response to; to agree to undertake. Middle English, from Anglo-French accepter, from Latin acceptare,accipere to receive, from ad- + capere to take.
Revenge: To avenge (as oneself) usually by retaliating in kind or degree; to inflict injury in return for. From Anglo-French revenger, revengier, from re- + venger to avenge.
Grudge: To be unwilling to give or admit; give or allow reluctantly or resentfully. Middle English grucchen, grudgen to grumble, complain, from Middle High German grogezen, to howl.
One reason why Americans don’t mind losing an argument is that once they lose, they can be seen as the underdog. Underdogs are people who are considered unlikely to win. There is a long history in America of the Underdog finding support and overcoming difficult odds to ultimately win in the end.
In the 1960s and 1970s a cartoon superhero series about an underdog (that was even called “Underdog”) was very popular.
In 1980 the US Olympic hockey team, which was comprised of young and inexperienced players, played against the seasoned Russian Olympic team. Even though the Russian team was highly favored to win, the American team ultimately defeated them. This event later inspired the 2004 film “Miracle.”
Cowboys, as lone travelers in a foreign land, were often the underdogs in the cowboy/Indian conflicts in early American history, yet many of them were able to overcome the difficulties and survive.
At age 13, Bobby Fischer won a chess match against one of the leading American chess masters. That match became known as the “Game of the Century.”
underdog: a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest; a victim of injustice or persecution: a less powerful person or thing that struggles against a more powerful person or thing.
Robert Frost, the celebrated American poet, wrote in 1928: „I’m a poor underdog. But tonight I will bark with the great Overdog. That romps through the dark.“