Resist the beginnings. From Ovid’s principiis obsta — oppose it at the start, before the disease gathers strength through delay.
In Germany it is used with unusual weight, above all in political speech about the 1930s. The lesson drawn was not that the end should have been fought harder. It was that the beginning should have been.
A whole national argument about prevention, carried in four words.
German political and business speech treats consensus as the objective rather than as an unusually good outcome. Konsensfähig — capable of consensus — is a compliment applied to proposals and to people. A position that cannot attract agreement is described as defective rather than as merely unpopular.
German engineering practice separates two documents, both defined in DIN 69901-5 and VDI 2519. The Lastenheft is written by the customer and states what is required and why — deliberately solution-neutral. The Pflichtenheft is written by the supplier in response and states how it will be built.
The what and the how are different documents, by different authors, in a fixed order, and together they form the contractual basis of the project.
Altersteilzeit, negotiated into many German collective agreements: the employee moves to half hours over several years, with the employer topping up the pay and the pension contributions. The exit is treated as a process to be arranged rather than a date.
German public administration has its own universities, its own career tracks and its own body of administrative law governing how decisions must be reached. Procedure is the subject matter, not the overhead.
Mauscheln. To do a deal in the dark. Along with Kungelei and Klüngel, German words for an arrangement reached between the right people out of sight. They are used in political journalism constantly, always as an accusation, and they all name the same offence: the outcome was arranged rather than reasoned.
The German Leistungsbeschreibung is written before quotations are sought, and a supplier who receives a vague one will say so. A client who does not yet know what he wants is not regarded as an early-stage opportunity. He is regarded as not yet ready to have the conversation.
Die Küchenmaschine. German kitchen appliances are built with attachments that share a single drive unit, sold separately and added over years. The machine anticipates uses the buyer has not thought of yet.
Danger recognized, danger banished.
The claim in the phrase is very strong. Not that recognizing a danger helps, or improves your odds. That recognizing it is the act of removing it.
Which tells you where the culture believes the work happens.
Mitbestimmung. German company law places employee representatives on the supervisory boards of large firms, half the seats in those above two thousand employees. The structure assumes that a decision reached without one side represented lacks something — and builds the representation in before any conflict arises.