United States – Page 69 – understand-culture

“Have it your way!”

“The customer is always right” is a very common phrase in American business. It was first made popular in the early 20th century when it was used as the slogan for Marshall Field’s Department Store in Chicago and London’s Selfridges Store (founded by American Harry Gordon Selfridge).

Both of these stores became extremely profitable, primarily because they had a reputation for good customer service. As a result, many American businesses have attempted to model their processes on the principle that “the customer is always right.”

In 1911, in an attempt to promote a local business, the Kansas City Star newspaper included an article about the business owner George E. Scott, saying “Scott has done in the country what Marshall Field did in Chicago, Wannamaker did in New York and Selfridge in London. In his store he follows the Field rule and assumes that the customer is always right.”

Many American companies have slogans that show that they care more about customer service than anything else. Examples:

Burger King – “Have it Your Way”

UPS – “What Can Brown Do For You?”

United States Postal Service – “We Deliver for You”

Mounds and Almond Joy – “Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, Sometimes You Don’t”

Processes provide clarity

Processes provide clarity. They allow employees to concentrate on core activities. They lead to cost reductions by identifying and eliminating unnecessary work steps. Thinking in terms of processes – how the work should be done – strengthens conscientious work and allows for quality control.

Well documented processes are critical for orienting new employees. Processes make transparent, make understandable, each and every segment of complex work methods. They are the basis for optimization, for reducing mistakes, for root cause analysis of systemic errors. All of these benefits lead to increased product quality. Work processes, however, must be understood and accepted by those doing the actual work.

In Germany it is critical that processes do not take on the character of laws, but instead remain guidelines. German workers expect a certain level of freedom in terms of how they perform their daily tasks. Processes should not become a kind of straightjacket.

Checklists

Checklists. To-do lists. Cookbook-like recipes. “Americans don’t really understand what they are doing and why. They are not trained, nor are they allowed, to think independently. There is no real mitdenken, thinking with.”

Not uncommon sentiments among Germans who interact with Americans. A misperception. Partly. Partly not.

Checklists are practical, pragmatic. They free up the mind to concentrate on more important things. They allow for self-supervision, for checking, if necessary for double-checking. They minimize unforced errors. They structure work.

For folks who do the same thing, the same way, time and again, for years, with the same colleagues, checklists surely are unnecessary. These folks can think for themselves, independently. People same. Think same. Do same.

But what about those who do different things, at different times, in different ways and with different people? Checklists become both tool and metaphor for how to manage the differences, the change, the flux.

America is constantly challenged by flux. An immigrant nation. Influx of peoples from different backgrounds, with different skill sets, levels of education. Some craftsmen. Others semi-literate. Some rooted to the land and permanent. Others who move every couple of years.

Add to this the American belief in learning by doing, and checklists – in the sense of detailed descriptions of how to do the work – become a necessity, a helpful tool, management’s assistant.

Germans learn the checklists in their extensive theoretical training. Duales Ausbildungsystem. Dual training. Over many years. Only then are they permitted to do the work. Americans learn just enough to be permitted to learn by doing. Same goal. Two approaches. Timing about the same.

Oh, and let’s not forget. Sometimes government bodies simply impose checklists.

Customer Reviews

Customer reviews can make or break a company in the US. Especially now that the internet gives customers a way to instantly compliment or complain about service (and to make sure that their opinion is available for anyone to see) one good or bad review can drastically change the number of customers a company has.

In 2012, after Brandon Cook from New Hampshire posted a Facebook story about a Panera manager named Sue making a special order of clam chowder for his grandmother and giving her a free box of cookies as well. The restaurant became much more popular. Several people who would not otherwise have eaten at this restaurant went there, and commented about it online. Some of the Facebook comments that people made were:

Cyrus Twirpwhirler: “My family is eating at Panera tonight because of this story. Way to go Sue and Panera! Snow Case: That is so cool, I’m a customer already, but I like them even more now. Daniel Julian: That is so cool!!! Have to visit Panera soon.”

Day planners

Early in American history, it was not uncommon for people to use almanacs as day planners. Many of the founding fathers, including George Washington, would buy almanacs and then add their own blank pages to serve as a diary and record of their daily activities.

The first book that was specifically marketed for use as a day planner was published in Philadelphia in 1773 by Robert Aitken. It was called Aitken’s General American Register, and the Gentleman’s and Tradesman’s Complete Annual Account Book and Calendar, for the Pocket or Desk for the Year of our Lord 1773, and was unsuccessful in the publishing world. Nevertheless, by 1850 day planners and their various incarnations (diaries, scrapbooks, ledgers, account books, etc.) were extremely popular.

In 1900, business innovator John Wanamaker decided to produce day planners with his store catalog and advertisements from other companies. These planners became very widespread and were a contributing factor to Wanamaker’s business success.

Today day planners are still extremely popular. Although sales of paper planners are dropping, sales of electronic planners are strong, and there are still many organizations that successfully market day planners to the American public.

Purpose of processes

Procedures, policies, guidelines, compliance, and other types of structure. In the end, however, most business cultures would agree that the purpose of processes and procedures is to structure how the work should be done, and allow for repeatability, consistency, and quality control.

Processes as a success factor: If asked which are the key success factors in any enterprise most Americans would name: market/customer orientation, innovation, speed, price, service. Seldom, if ever, would they cite internal business processes.

If American customers were asked which factors are key to them when choosing a product or service they would name, among others, value and service. Value is the relationship between quality and price. It would never occur to them to say the internal business processes of the company whose product or service they are purchasing (or workmanship).

In other words, although American companies have many processes and procedures, Americans are not inclined to believe that these will ensure success.

Navel-gazing

Useless or excessive self-contemplation; self-absorption, self-centeredness, self-concern, self-interest, self-involvement, self-preoccupation, self-regard. Navel-gazing.

Too much self. Too little other. Self being the process, how the work is done. Other being those who should benefit from the work to be done, the output, the product or service.

The deeper Germans discuss and debate how the work is done – process – the more their American colleagues fear a turn from the outward to the inward. The link is lost between process (how the work is done) and the results.

Americans often have the sense that their German counterparts believe that process can solve any problem, address any challenge, even those which do not lend themselves to process. Leadership. Decision making. Business relationships. Process works with the measurable, the quantifiable, but less so to the immeasurable, the unquantifiable.

For Americans, process is a tool. Apply where applicable.

Pragmatism

Tool: A handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task; something as an instrument or apparatus used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession; an element of a computer program that activates and controls a particular function; a means to an end; one that is used or manipulated by another. From Old English tōl to prepare for use. First known use 12th century.

Enable: To provide with the means or opportunity; to make possible, practical, or easy; to cause to operate; to give legal power, capacity, or sanction to.

Pragmatic: Relating to matters of fact or practical affairs, often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters; practical as opposed to idealistic; relating to or being in accordance with philosophical pragmatism. Latin pragmaticus, skilled in law or business, from Greek pragmatikos,from pragmat-, pragma deed, from prassein to do.

Pragmatism: A philosophical movement first given systematic expression by Charles Sanders Pierce and William James and later by John Dewey. Pragmatists emphasize the practical function of knowledge, as an instrument for adapting to reality and controlling it. Pragmatism, like empiricism, emphasizes experience over a priori reasoning (deductive, using presumptions).

Pragmatism holds that truth is to be found in the process of verification. Pragmatists interpret ideas as instruments and plans of action rather than as images of reality. More specifically, ideas are suggestions and anticipations of possible conduct. They are hypotheses or forecasts of what will result from a given action.

Skinning cats and Westward Ho!

There is a popular American phrase which states “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” This phrase is used to express that there are multiple processes which produce the same result, and that as long as the result is achieved, the approach taken does not matter how.

It was first used in 1840 by American humorist Seba Smith in The Money Diggers, in which Smith wrote: “There are more ways than one to skin a cat, so are there more ways than one of digging for money.”

This phrase was (and still is) so popular that it inspired many variations. In 1855, Charles Kingsley’s Westward Ho! used the phrase “There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream.” Many other popular variations include killing cats (and sometimes dogs) by hanging, choking with butter, and choking with pudding.

The phrase has also appeared in many American books, including Mark Twain’s 1889 book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in which the author wrote “she was wise, subtle, and knew more than one way to skin a cat.”

Henry Ford’s Assembly Line

One of the few Americans to focus on processes was Henry Ford. Born in Michigan in 1863 Ford began an apprenticeship as a machinist at the age of 16, and in 1891 he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Five years later, he constructed his first model of a horseless carriage, which he called the Ford Quadricycle. In 1903, Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company, and soon began selling the Model A.

But Ford’s legacy was less in automobile design, and more in his manufacturing processes. Between his assembly line, which allowed cars to be assembled quickly with standardized parts, and his decision to add small amounts of vanadium to his steel, which made the steel production process much easier (not to mention resulted in stronger and more durable steel), Ford revolutionized the way that cars were produced, allowing them to be produced quickly and cheaply – which in turn allowed them to be sold in large numbers at a low price.