Germany – Page 33 – understand-culture

“Coach me“

Americans expect to be coached by their team lead. If the team lead has accurately identified weaknesses in a team member, and has communicated them clearly, fairly and diplomatically in a feedback talk, then it is expected that the team lead then coach her „player.“

Just as a basketball coach will take extra time with a player after practice to work on dribbling or shooting skills, so too a good manager in the American business context will take the time to explain to the employee how to perform certain tasks better: give presentations, write reports, perform calculations, attach the part to the machine, handle customer issues, work with external suppliers, and manager their own team. The list is endless.

If the team lead, however, is not in a position to coach her player directly – due to time constraints or perhaps she is not a master of the skill herself – then she should, at a minimum, know where to send that team member in order to be coached, taught, instructed, advised.

Coach. Player. Americans want to be coached. American sports coaches are deeply involved in how their players play.

Constructive Criticism

Critique: A detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory. Derived from mid 17th century from French, based on Greek kritikē tekhnē ‘critical art”.

Constructive criticism is legitimate criticism – fair, objective, well grounded. It is constructive when its purpose, tone and spirit aim to help the other person recognize, understand and then correct their weaknesses. Constructive criticism is helpful.

Employee evaluation helps management to measure performance while maintaining motivation and reducing employee turnover. It has three components: praise work well done; address areas of improvement; recommend improvement measures. Employee evaluations also serve as documentation of future goals to be reviewed at a later date.

There are 58,885 books on self-improvement on Amazon.com. The most popular areas for self-improvement are money management, healthy living, attitude, speaking skills, time management, and interpersonal relations.

Popular titles include “The Power of Self-Coaching: The Five Essential Steps to Creating the Life You Want” by Joseph J. Luciani, “The Secret Art of Self-Development: 16 Little-Known Rules for Eternal Happiness & Freedom” by Karl Moore, “50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus” by Tom Butler-Bowdon, and “I Had It All The Time: When Self-Improvement Gives Way to Ecstasy” by Alan Cohen.

Steve Jobs – Merciless Criticism

An article on Jony Ive, the head of design at Apple Computer, in the New Yorker Magazine from February 23, 2105 touches on how the late Steve Jobs gave constructive feedback:

“Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious. Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, ‘Why would you be vague?,’ arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: ‘You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.’

Ive was furious, but came to agree. ‘It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,’ he said. He lamented that there were ‘so many anecdotes’ about Jobs’s acerbity: ‘His intention, and motivation, wasn’t to be hurtful.'”

Steve Jobs. More German than American logic.

Plumber, Electrician, Banker

In German companies the head of a department or project team assigns tasks to the team and to individual members, who carry them out ideally without any supervision. This logic is also at play in business relationships between customer and supplier.

When a German contracts a craftsman or mechanic – plumber, electrician, handyman – to do a job, he or she does not go beyond explaining the problem which needs to be solved. Everything else is left up to the person contracted to completed the job. The German customer expects the job to get done without any more input or oversight from them.

It‘s the same approach when one goes to the bank. The customer explains their financial situation, states their goals and then expects the financial advisor to do the rest, meaning come up with a financial plan. The bank employee, like the plumber, only contacts the customer if it is absolutely necessary.

Self-praise stinks

Eigenlob stink: self-praise stinks; it is dishonourable; those who praise themselves make themselves unpopular. Lobhudelei: tossing praise about; exaggerated praise, typically self-praise; for mediocre work. Etwas hochjubelen: to praise something or someone to the high heavens; overblown praise, undeserved, unwarranted.

The Ikarus myth. Ikarus is a figure of Greek mythololgy. His father, Daidalos, in order to escape from the labyrinth on the Greek island of Crete, built wings our of feathers and wax. Although Daidalos warned his son not to fly to close to the sun, Ikarus in his self-confidence did not heed his father‘s warning. The wax in his wings melted, he crashed to the sea and drowned. The lesson taught is that hubris – conceit, over self-estimation – leads to a fall.

Germans are very wary of over self-estimation.

Be wary. Be happy.

Germans strive to remain clear-headed, to avoid incrementally inflated euphoria, to avoid a step-by-step distancing from a sober assessment of reality. For Germans it’s not “Don’t worry. Be Happy.” But instead “Be wary. Be happy.”

Wary: marked by keen caution, cunning, and watchfulness, especially in detecting and escaping danger.

“Escaping danger.” Dangerous can be thinking too highly of oneself. Dangerous can be misreading a situation. Dangerous is unjustified happy, euphoric.

But, there is another reason to “be wary.” Neid, envy. The Germans themselves speak of their Neidgesellschaft, “society of envy”, of their Neider, the envious.

Public recognition can lead to envy within the team. Envy threatens cohesion. Germans are not comfortable with “stars” or “rainmakers” in their organizations. Neid is one reason. The other is purely rational.

In complex organizations, especially those which are highly matrixed, how can individuals or individual teams be cited as especially successful? As clearly better than others? How can that be measured?

More praise, please!

An international employee survey by the Geva-Institute of Munich from 2009 demonstrated the differences by country in the expectations of employees from their supervisors.

80% of German employees expected their boss to be good at making decisions and able to execute their plans.

Besides this, German employees prefer to take responsibility for their own work. Accordingly, three out of four people who were surveyed stated that a supervisor should provide enough freedom to their employees with regard to making their own decisions and taking action.

Nevertheless, the typical German office could use some more dolling out of praise: only half of German employees felt that their work is sufficiently appreciated.

Praise properly

The February 2015 edition of the magazine Deutsch Perfekt, published by Spotlight, whose target audience consists of people interested in learning German, contained an article dedicated to the topic of praise in the workplace:

“Praising appropriately: It is clear that praise is an important aspect of a team which works together well. So how can one give more praise in the German everyday workplace, and still be taken seriously?

In Germany, praise is something special. Great praise is not given for small deeds. Positive feedback is only given when something was truly good – differently from many other cultures.

Many foreign co-workers quickly become aware of how little praise is given during everyday life in Germany. What is interesting, however, is that the majority of Germans who were surveyed also stated that they received too little praise at their place of work.

However, if too much praise is given, the one being praised can quickly becomes distrustful of the statements. If Germans are not themselves convinced that they have done something special, but still receive praise, it is not credible to them. In such cases, Germans will simply not take the praise seriously.

For this reason you should formulate your praise precisely: What was good? Why did you like it? Praise (like criticism) should always be concrete and specific. In this way, it becomes more understandable to the recipient.”

“Say that we’re good.”

In February 2015 Reimund Neugebauer was interviewed. He is the Head of the Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany: 66 research locations, 24,000 employees and an annual budget of 2 billion Euros.

Neugebauer was asked whether German technical and industrial innovation was weakening. His response: Not at all. Germany’s innovativeness secures the country’s prosperity. Fifty percent of all so-called hidden champions (little-known global market leaders in their fields) are located in Germany. Mittelstand companies, said Neugebauer, are simply very modest.

Neugebauer recalled giving a speech at a company anniversary and deservedly praised the firm. “After me, the owner took the stage and said he felt like clarifying something, saying that the company was just one of many and that everyone in the room was good at what they did.

He was worried that the praise would not be well received. That’s so typical! In a way, I like this modesty, too. But we also have to be able to say that we’re good. Germany wouldn’t be the world’s No. 1 exporter of research-intensive goods if we had constantly missed the boat on innovations.”

Focus on Weaknesses

In feedback discussions the Germans focus on what isn‘t working. This is a shared logic. Both team lead and team members address primarily weaknesses. The Germans waste little time discussing what is working, instead taking direct aim at deficits.

This problem-orientation is considered positive, constructive and future-oriented. It is a proven approach to assessing suboptimal work results and laying the foundation for improvement. Germans are very pragmatic about reducing mistakes. They often say: „That was good work, but ….“

Every German hears at a young age the statement: Selbsterkenntnis ist der erste Schritt zur Besserung, self-critique is the first step towards improvement. Critique of others and of oneself is legitimate and necessary in order to improve. Germans believe that the individual needs first to admit their own weaknesses before being able to eliminate them.