Germany – Page 30 – understand-culture

Deviation from mission

In the German military context, independent deviation from the Auftrag – mission – is permitted and expected, if the situation on the ground has changed, demands a rapid response, and the commanding officer cannot be reached.

The overall mission, however, may not be re-interpreted. The tactical approach is always subject to modification. This presupposes that the junior officers and their troops are fully informed of the overall strategy which the mission serves, allowing them to choose the best path to the goal.

Those considering deviation need to ask themselves: „How would I as the commanding officer react to the changes on the ground?“ Critical is acting in accordance to the spirit of the Auftrag, the mission.

When not to obey

„Sir, the King of Prussia has made you an officer of the Prussian Army, so that you know when not to obey an order!“ Prince Friedrich Karl to a Major in the Prussian Army (1870)

„ … in those cases, in which the junior-officer comes to the conclusion that his commander is no longer in a position to judge the situation, and where his order has been rendered inadequate by events, it is the expressed responsibility and duty of that junior-officer to either redefine or ignore the order.“ Prussian officer training manual of 1906

Avoid Envy

German managers are careful not praise too often for fear that some team members could feel disadvantaged. Praise of a team member can quickly lead to envy, which in turn threatens team cohesion. A bonus awarded for good performance often leads to other team members claiming unfairness.

Furthermore, Germans do not feel comfortable working in an atmosphere of peer competition. German top performers would rather do without the praise and the bonus in order to safeguard a cooperative working relationship with their colleagues.

Envy: irritation, anger in response to the success of others; to crave for, to want what the other has in terms of material wealth, status, good health, attractive physical appearance.

Germans also believe that success of a team is often difficult to attribute to the performance of certain members. Praise in front of the team or any kind of reward can lead to an embittered discussion about how performance is defined and measured. Germans believe that it is too easy to mistakenly praise one colleague for work results produced by another. A feeling of unfairness, of injustice can arise quickly.

A “catastrofe”?

In 1996 the Germans decided to revise their rules for spelling (orthography). In 2004 and 2006 there were further revisions. In 2007 the changes became binding in all schools.

One of the goals was to modify (eindeutschen – germanize) those words rooted in a foreign language. Apoteke instead of Apotheke (pharmacy). Restorant instead of Restaurant. Katastrofe instead of Katastrophe.

The pushback from the Ministries of Education in several influential German states blocked it, however. But protests were also loud among the press, in important literary circles and among academia. The high point was when the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) rejected the modifications and returned to the former rules of spelling.

In 2007 the attempt was made to implement the changes in the school system. Consistency was the overall goal. Certain spelling modifications could be ignored, however, if they simply made no sense.

Long and difficult consensus-building. Conscious ignoring of decisions made. Resistance to any kind of change. All this was at play in the German attempt to modify their rules for spelling.

Sabine Krome, a Member of the Council for German Spelling Reform at the fifteenth anniversary of the reform:

“The original intention of the reform was good. To bring German rules for spelling up to date, which had not been modified over the previous one hundred years. Had we known, however, how difficult the path would be to reach the results we have, it may have been better to wait another hundred years before taking on the task.”

Humility

Bescheidenheit or humility is the character trait of a person who is unassuming, not demanding, seeks little for themself, who allows others to go ahead. From Latin prudentia, sapientia, scientia, discretio.

Bescheidenheit ist der Anfang aller Vernunft. Humility is the beginning of all reason. (Ludwig Anzengruber) Die wahre Ruhe der Gemüter ist Tugend und Genügsamkeit. True peace of mind is based on virtue and humility. (Christian Fürchtegott Gellert)

Abgehoben sein: to view oneself as above others; to lose grounding, to lose a sense of measure, proportion; unable to read situations realistically. Sarkasmus, sarcasm: biting, hurtful, condescending ridicule; to make fun of another person in a cutting way; to be mean, ugly.

Rational / Personal

On the one side, the Germans strive hard to be objective, to reduce, even eliminate the subjective.

Rational, logical, scientific. Filtering, screening, separating fact from gut feel, from intuition.

Communication: Say what you mean, mean what you say. Honest. Not meant personally. Persuasion: Separate message and messenger. Take yourself out of the equation. Decision making: Sober, scientific, self-skeptical. Feedback: The focus on weaknesses as authentically constructive input. Processes: Stripping down, compressing to the core, machine-like.

Yet, the Germans are personal, emotional, subjective.

Agreements: Think it through carefully. Your word is your bond.

Leadership: Hire talent. Train and equip. State mission. Then get out of the way. Product: Deep curiosity and concern for the user. Do it right. Customer: Do what is best for the customer, even if it jeopardizes the relationship.

Germans. Objective subjective. Rational personal. Perhaps a false dichotomy.

Stringency

Analysis. Latin analysis, Greek análysis: to pull apart, dissolve into parts; to study something by taking it apart and considering its individual components; investigation into the particulars of a whole.

Analytical thinking is in those professions critical where a system is understood via its parts. A psychoanalyst pulls apart the patient’s past experiences. The financial analyst considers the entire spectrum of transactions in order to get into the details of specific market movements. Police investigative work, all approaches in medicine, every type of research and development must employ sophisticated methods of analysis.

Stringent. Latin stringens: strict; convincing based on logical arguments; logical, clear, without internal contradiction.

Stringent analytical methods are particularly important in the academic fields, whether the natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics or the humanities. Master’s or Ph.D. theses in Germany are not accepted without meeting high standards of analytical stringency. All professions based on deep analysis depend on stringent methods.

Penetranz. Penetration: Latin penetrare: to place into; to enter into, get into, to move in a certain direction.

To be penetrating has a negative connotation in Germany: overly direct, bearing in on a point, intense. A certain perfume can be too penetrant. A person who dominates a conversation, making long speeches and moralizing is penetrant.

In the positive sense penetrant means dogged, focused, determined, working to understand something at as deep a level as possible. Like an archeologist who digs deeper, forever searching for evidence, for insight into the lives of our human ancestors. The same goes for analysts of any kind, for the medical profession, for linguists, historians and research in all of its forms.

Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) comes to mind, the German archeologist who discovered the ancient cities of Troja and Mykenes. Many years of painstaking research led to archeological and historical proof that these two cities had in fact existed.

Political Consensus

Gerhard Schröder was chancellor of the red-green – Social Democrats plus Green Party – government from 1998 til 2002, and then after reelection from 2002 til 2005. In his first term the Social Democrats and the Greens had a majority in the Bundesrat, the Upper House, where the sixteen German states are represented to co-decide with the federal government on national policy. The Schröder government had little difficulty passing the legislation they had proposed during the election campaign.

In 2002 the situation began to change, however. Federal elections led to another majority for the Social Democrats and the Greens. But at the state level they lost their majority within a few years. The opposition – Christian Democrats and Free Democrats – had gained the majority in the Bundesrat and were able to block legislation proposed by the Schröder government.

Nonetheless, Schröder‘s coalition was able time and again to craft legislation in a way which served the interests of those state governments led by opposition parties. His government was able to compromise and collaborate with those critical German states led by the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats.

The Allies and Mitbestimmung

“Herewith the establishment of works councils is permitted within all of Germany.”

German Mitbestimmung – co-determination, employee participation in high-level company decision making – is a tradition, law and an institution which most certainly is a source of headaches for American business partners and investors. At the same time the works councils are a source of great pride and self-understanding for all German labor unions as well as for many German citizens.

And although German Mitbestimmung had had a long tradition in Germany, it was the Western Allies, primarily the Americans and the British, who insisted immediately after World War II that the newly established West German state reinstitute it.

After their takeover of power in January 1933 the National Socialists had outlawed the Mitbestimmung, and forced all labor unions to be unified within the so-called Deutsche Arbeitsfront – literally German Workers Front. The goal was to prevent any potential resistance to the regime from among the working class.

With strikes in 1905 in the coal mining Ruhr region the unions had won the right to establish works councils. In the years thereafter the councils gain increasing influence. During the Weimar Republic these gains were written into law.

The works councils represented the economic and social interests of the workers over and against management. It was no surprise, therefore, that the Nazis saw in them potential opposition to their demand for absolute power. In 1934 the Nazis banned all independent unions and works councils.

It was no surprise, therefore, that what had been a thorn in the side of the Nazis was reinstated by the Allies. Kontrollratsgesetz Nr. 22 – Allied Law No. 22 – in the Spring of 1946 put works councils back in business.

Since then there has been no better instrument to prevent total control by management. Those who pick a fight with a works council go against the self-understanding and pride of the German movement for worker rights.

Independent. Self-managing.

In many job postings German employers promise eigenständiges Arbeiten – literally independent work, meaning the freedom to do the work with little influence from next-level management. Selbständiges Arbeiten – self-managing work without constant status checks, without anyone “looking over your shoulder”, is highly attractive to German employees and job-seekers.

It is a sign of trust in the person’s ability. Constant feedback to the boss on the progress of work is neither necessary nor desired. Too much communication between levels of hierarchy is in the German context a sign of Unselbständigkeit – inability to work independently, self-managing. They need to be “taken by the hand” (hand-holding). And noone in Germany, neither team lead nor member, wants to waste time doing that.