Germany and the Love of Privacy

This unwillingness to discuss private time with colleagues reveals both the German distaste for small talk, but also the German desire for privacy.

Germans have a clear and robust sense of what should be in the public domain and what should not, and although there are exceptions for good friends, finding out what your colleagues get up to outside of work requires military grade interrogation techniques.

With waterboarding out of the question, I am left with little recourse other than to linguistically trap colleagues into giving away small details of their lives. The excruciating process of trial and error can last for years, until one day a colleague feels comfortable enough to actually tell you directly what they get up to when not at work.

Information Management – Holschuld

Wikipedia – Information management uses the legal terms Holschuld (obligation to collect) and Bringschuld (obligation to deliver) for the information behavior of persons or personnel who have to collect information, messages or knowledge from the owner of the information in a timely and complete manner and in a suitable form or to forward it to another person.

According to the sender-receiver model, work instructions, service instructions or a manager must clarify in advance which information is required to be retrieved (pull) and for which information is required to be delivered (push) and who is responsible for the transmission of information. There is an obligation to deliver if the sender is the initiator of the information forwarding. In the case of an obligation to collect, the recipient is the initiator and must make an effort to obtain information from a source.

As a rule, information and messages are the responsibility of the person who received this information. He must decide to which addressees it is to be passed on. In hierarchical organizations, the reporting obligation (obligation to provide) is imposed on the respective lower level, which has to report to the higher level. Management must then inform the board accordingly. Since the supervisory board should obtain all relevant information in a better and more detailed manner, it has to actively demand the executive board’s obligation to provide it and to meet its obligation to collect it to a greater extent.

Information in the project – Holschuld or Bringschuld?

Holschuld from holen, to get and Schuld, obligation. You are obligated to get or ask for the information. Bringschuld from bringen, to bring, provide, give and Schuld, obligation. You are obligated to bring, provide, give the information.

“I didn’t know that!” – “But that’s on the intranet. You should have known that! After all, information is a debt to be collected!”

This or something similar is a dialogue that is heard again and again between project employees and project managers. Whereby instead of “Intranet” there can also be “Project drive”, “SharePoint” or another medium.

Is that really true? Is information in the project really the responsibility of the project staff?

I think the project manager (or the project office) makes things too easy here. I can’t throw all the information out at the employees’ door and then expect them to pick out the ones that are relevant to them. So that we understand each other correctly: the project manager can expect his employees to read meeting minutes or other periodicals regularly if they know where to find the latest issue.

But they won’t, and shouldn’t, bother to sift out “out of line” information that affects them from the jumble of information. That’s not their job. You should work on the project, any other approach would slow down the project.

One sentence. Twelve German dialects.

German is a difficult language to learn as it is, but there are more than 12 German dialects spoken within the country. Some don‘t sound like German at all. If you‘re studying German, think twice!

YouTube comments:

“Fun fact: Plattdeutsch is so far from Hochdeutsch that it is considered as a language of its own. Also, there are many variants of Plattdeutsch itself – some of which I cannot understand, although I grew up with Plattdeutsch. Often, it takes less than 50 kilometers to find a place where you hardly understand the dialect.”

“As an American who learned hochdeutsch fluently. It took me forever to understand what people were saying in Bayern.”

“As someone who can speak the dying Lorraine dialect, I appreciate the inclusion of Letzeburgisch. It is not exactly the same, but closer then any other dialect.”

“Fun fact. In Baden we alone have dozens of dialects, sometimes significantly varying from village to village.”

Germany’s Cryptic Debate on Data and Privacy

Activists are helping lead the battle for Germans to control their data privacy.

BERLIN — In a quiet neighborhood of Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, C-base, a hackers den designed to resemble a space station – complete with LED kitsch – is a hive of activity. On a Wednesday evening, several dozen Berliners gather to socialize and hear presentations on net-related topics while sipping pilsners. This is the monthly “Internet politics” evening of Berlin’s Digitale Gesellschaft – Digital Society, in English – an organization that campaigns for civil rights and consumer protection in Internet policy.

Federalism in Germany: Small states are annoying! Glad we have them!

December 2018. 16 school systems, 16 police forces, 16 constitutional courts: German federalism often seems inefficient and outdated, most recently with the digital pact. A look at history shows what makes small states so valuable – at least when they don’t degenerate.

It seems bizarre: the federal government wants to give the states five billion euros to digitize schools – and only then should the Basic Law be changed. The mediation committee is called, a coalition is in dispute – and all because Germany is a federal state.

The constitutionally enshrined division of Germany into federal states was born out of historical experience, has grown over a long time and also shows some signs of use, almost 70 years after the Basic Law came into force.

Information as Power

Germans believe that the mere possession of information can provide almost the same value as the conversion of that information into action. In Germany knowing can be just as advantageous as doing. The German term is Herrschaftswissen.

Role in Teamwork

Germans see knowledge as the team’s primary capital. They are keen to protect and expand their knowledge base. As individual colleagues. As individual teams. Germans are particularly sensitive to how and with whom that capital is shared.

Inside Outside

When it comes to sharing information Germans work from their core team outwards. With each outer organisational concentric circle they become more careful, at times even wary, of sharing valuable internal information.

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