Who has the say about processes is often a bloody battle. It’s about power. Central functions groups go to battle against each other. The also go into battle with and against line management. Nabelschau. Navel-gazing. It’s a German tendancy, often more than just a tendancy. Instead of concentrating on winning
I’ve never had any kind of formal professional experience with or training in processes. I studied the liberals arts. History was my major. I’m non-technical. I can barely chang a lightbulb. When my son, Daniel, was a young I dreaded the Christmas gifts we gave to him, the toys which
A few years back I interviewed an American expert on processes. He works in a German multinational company with a very large presence in the U.S. He and his German colleagues had been working for months on aligning their processes. The Germans wanted very much to harmonize the processes. “harmonize”
So many people on the German side. Especially in central functions. Who have so much time on their hands. Producing so many powerpoint presentations. Conduct so many long-winded discussions. Going into such great detail. The Americans call them bureaucrats, who create processes, in order to justify their jobs in the
Maybe I, as an American, like in any culture, have blinders on. Maybe, despite after more than twenty-five years in Germany, I still have a national-cultural blindspot. Perhaps we in the U.S. are just as interested in norms and standards as in Germany. We seek them out, want them, want
Recently I interviewed an American process expert working in a global German company with a very significant presence in the U.S. He and his colleagues have been working for quite some time to integrate the processes on both sides of the Atlantic. The term used is „harmonisieren“ or „harmonize“, which
The intense German focus on processes unsettles Americans time and again. It limits, cramps their flexibility. In the U.S. processes are seldom viewed as an effective alternative to agility, speed, creativity. Americans believe that the core skills of good management cannot be forced into processes, cannot be performed by processes.
It’s a cliché that Germans are inflexible, that their processes are inflexible. I, too, believed that for many years. This is a complex topic. It depends on the process, of course, and on the particular step within a process. In some cases, Germans, like any other culture, would say: “At
Many Germans note, and sometimes complain, that Americans don‘t seem to take internal processes seriously enough. They‘re surprised to discover that for many Americans processes simply aren‘t a high priority. Americans „wurschteln vor sich hin“, which loosely translates into they „get the job done some way or another.“ The processes
„So macht man das nicht“ – that’s not the way one does that. „Wir machen es nicht so“ – that’s not the way we do it. „Das ist nicht richtig so“ – that’s not right. „Das ist falsch, wie Sie es machen“ – you’re doing that wrong. „Ach, Sie gehen