Persuasion – Page 3 – understand-culture

Americans immigrants

The past, especially the recent past, helps us to understand the present. But it is only from the present, from the current starting point, that we can go down new paths, move in a different, perhaps even radically different, direction. All Americans are immigrants or descendents of immigrants. The historical consciousness of the American people is greatly influenced by the immigrant experience. Imagine what it was like for those millions upon millions of families to take that step, to leave their home and to risk the unknown.

For most of them not freely. For many it was a question of survival. For others it was about freedom. They wanted to decide their own fates, and wanted the same for their children. Nonetheless, the decision was very difficult. It meant leaving everything they knew, everything that gave them security. Once they left, however, the present and past of their native country would no longer be relevant. But what do human beings have other than their past and present? The unknown, insecurity and risk? Or do they have opportunity?

In such situations people have to make hard, tough decisions, about what they take with them from the past and the present. Of course all immigrant groups, including the waves of Germans who came to America, brought their language, customs and traditions. The older generations continued to speak their mother tongue. Foreign-language newspapers were published in all of the major American cities. All that they knew and brought over lasted, however, only for a certain period of time.

The everyday challenges of life in America rubbed and pulled away, layer for layer, the recent present and the past of the homeland. The immigrants took on, layer for layer, the realities of the current present in the United States, like having old skin replaced by new. It was painful. The time came in every immigrant family when the children no longer wanted, or no longer could, speak the language of the old world.

Many parents who immigrated demanded of their children that they assimilate as quickly as possible, that they forget the old language, customs and traditions. They had decided to leave their homes, towns and homelands. They refused to get stuck between two realities. To move forward demanded that they leave behind what they had known. It was time to go down a new path. The cares, worries and chores of the day left them no other choice.

That path to and in America was difficult, hard, rough. Many did not make, did not succeed. Every wave of immigrants had to fight for their future in America. Everything which weighed them down, every form of ballast, had to go. And that meant much that was associated with the homeland. For many, even for most, however, throwing overboard the ballast of the past set them free.

Unhistorical thinking

The Germans often consider Americans as a people to be either uninformed or uninterested in their own history, and equally uninformed about the recent history of given situations, allowing them to make decisions only based on the present. Americans appear to not think things through, not thoroughly. They can appear to Germans as Dünnbrettbohrer, literally people who only drill through the thinnest of boards.

From the German perspective their perception is not false. It’s what is behind the German cliché that Die Amerikaner gehen mit dem Kopf durch die Wand, that Americans try to go through the wall with their heads, meaning forcing solutions in situations which they have not fully understood.

But are Americans really so un- or a-historical? Partly, yes. I think of the region in which I grew up and the people there, me included. Philadelphia. Many of the most dramatic events of the American Revolutionary War against England took place in and around Philadelphia. Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia is very well known and visited every summer by countless Americans and guests from other countries.

It is where the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were drafted, debated, passed and signed. Philadelphia was the capital of the insurrection, Independence Hall the meeting point of the conspirators.

Several critical battles took place in the area. On September 11, 1777 British troops defeated the colonists under George Washington at the Battle of Brandywine. Two weeks later, on September 26, Philadelphia was conceded to the British under General Charles Cornwallis.

On that day Washington and his troops counterattacked in Germantown, roughly five miles north of Philadelphia, against just under ten thousand British soldiers. It was an attack by night, from four different directions, with the hope of forcing a quick surrender. Because communications among four groups broke down, and due to shortages of munitions, the attack failed. Washington and his men were pushed back to White Marsh.

There, between December 5th and 8th, British troops pursued and attacked the revolutionaries several times. General Howe had hoped to end the war before the winter had set in. Washington‘s men held, though. The redcoats pulled back into Philadelphia. Washington and his troops moved into nearby Valley Forge.

But how many natives of the Philadelphia area are familiar with these events? I certainly did not hear of them during grammar and high school. I don’t recall any school trips to the battlegrounds or to a museum. Nor did my parents interest us six children in them. Nor have I ever seen a documentary film on television about those battles in and around Philadelphia, my home region.

Why? Perhaps because the United States and England (UK) have been close allies in two world wars. Perhaps we Americans don‘t like reliving bad old times. Perhaps because the events, regardless of how momentous, go back to the 18th century, long before any of my ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland, Scotland and primarily from Germany. That part of American history was not a part of their history.

If Americans indeed have a less developed sense of history than the Germans, maybe because change in American history and culture is so ever-present. Maybe Americans, in comparison to Germans, are more tolerant of – open and willing – to embrace change, to drive change.

The momentous decision in and of itself to immigrate to America, to leave the homeland behind, makes almost every other decision in life seem far less dramatic. Change is less intimidating to Americans. On the contrary, the more change is accepted as a fact of life, the less relevant are the past and continuity with the past, and all that much more important it is to be able and willing to adapt to new situations.

“Make an Englishman shit”

This is also a reason why it is anecdotes, if well told and timed, are enormously persuasive in the American cultural context. For Americans anecdotes are empirical. They are reality experienced, the opposite of theory, which is often seen as abstract and unrealistic, separated from reality.

An anecdote says: “I know what I’m talking about. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. This is no theory, it’s reality!” Any American politician, for example, speaking in their legislative district or in the media about a difficult issue, such as the war in Iraq, will come across as especially convincing if they can claim to have visited that region.

Like aphorisms, anecdotes transport deeper-lying wisdom. Isn’t that what the Bible – Old and New Testament – does via one story after the other, communicate the deepest-felt, and therefore most complex, beliefs of a people, of Jews and Christians?

Isn’t story-telling the highest, the most sophisticated, form of activating (speaking to) the human imagination? Truly persuasive communicators in the U.S. plan very carefully when they draw on anecdotes. This is why we all listen so carefully when our grandparents tell their stories. They have the years of human experience.

The historians are in agreement. That Abraham Lincoln was the most masterful storytellers in American history. It has been written that he could hold audiences for up to four hours at a time.

“what holds the world together”

System. Latin systema, Greek sýstēma. A whole made up of many pieces linked together; put together, link, place together; a theoretical scheme.

For Germans the particulars of a system define themselves through their relation to each other. Particulars can only be understand through their relationships, connections, mutual influences. The particular is only significant and understandable as a part of a system. Latin particularis, a part, a minority.

“Do you recognize the system here?” is asked to test whether an event is based on coincidence. Whereas a system explains events as the logical occurrence of individual interactions.

See below Will Quadflieg and the legendary Gustaf Gründgens – Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, 1960

The Germans are inclined to say: Everything has its cause. Everything is linked to everything else. Nothing is coincidence. The world is a huge system. The Germans believe in systems, in an explanation behind all phenomena.

They seek out those systems. As Johann von Goethe stated in Faust: “to understand what at the deepest level holds the world together.“

Citibank survey

A recent survey of Citibank branches in four countries (the United States, Germany, China, and Spain) was conducted to determine the most effective persuasion methods for employees to use in order to convince their colleagues to do a favor for them. All four countries had very different results.

The survey showed that Americans are more likely to be persuaded to help their colleagues if there’s something in it for them, or if they owe their colleagues a favor. They tended to ask questions like “What will I get out of this?” and “What has this person done for me?”

Germans, on the other hand, were more likely to be persuaded to help if the favor stayed within the rules of the organization. They tended to ask questions like “According to the official regulations, am I supposed to help?”

“Interest not Reason”

“Would you persuade, speak of interest, not of reason.” Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, statesman, scientist, and philosopher

“There is nothing in the world like persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.” Mark Twain, 1835-1910, author and satirist

“People don’t ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.” Robert Keith Leavitt, 1895-1967, advertising copywriter and non-fiction writer

“Enchantment is the purest form of sales. Enchantment is all about changing people’s hearts, minds and actions because you provide them a vision or a way to do things better. The difference between enchantment and simple sales is that with enchantment you have the other person’s best interests at heart, too.” Guy Kawasaki, 1954 – , author, venture capitalist, technologist and former chief evangelist at Apple Computer

“Sales-driven cultures can really differentiate you from the majority of your competition. That doesn’t mean being salesperson oriented, just sales oriented: winning deals, smelling the blood and going in for the kill.” Josh James, 1970- , CEO of Domo, was the youngest CEO of a Nasdaq or NYSE traded company

Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) was a lecturer, writer and developer of courses on self-improvement, salesmanship, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. His How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) was a record-breaking bestseller which remains popular today.

His books and Dale Carnegie Training courses focus on building self-confidence, strengthening people and communication skills, as well as developing leadership traits. Carnegie believed that it is possible to change other people’s behavior by changing one’s own interaction with them.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is number 509 in Amazon.com’s top book list and has over 1,060 customer reviews on the website with 4.6 out of 5 stars rating.

Additionally, it is one of the top 20 “Best Sales Book” on Monster.com. Operating in over 75 countries, Dale Carnegie Training has been in business since 1912, with clients among the world’s most successful global companies.

build a better mousetrap

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” is attributed to the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson from the late 19th century.

It may, however, be a misquotation of “If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods“.

The phrase “to build a better mousetrap”, has come to signify a false belief that companies need only build a better product for them to succeed, as if the sales and marketing of that product played an insignificant role. Americans rarely believe that a product can sell itself.

Buyer‘s Market

The United States has been growing since its birth. Growing in territory, in population, in economic output. For the most part the U.S. has striven for open markets, domestically and internationally. Americans also believe in meritocracy. People should benefit directly from their hard work.

Americans believe in competition. And America has always been a buyer‘s market, with supply outpacing demand. In such an environment, success cannot be attained without active effort to win customers. In America, sales and marketing are critical to success. Simply „building the better mousetrap“ is not enough.

An Amazon.com search on “Buyer’s Market” generates 13,959 results. Book titles include Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets by Michael T. Bosworth, The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Online Video, Mobile Applications, Blogs, News Releases, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott and Buyer Beware: Finding Truth in the Marketplace of Ideas by Janet Parshall. 10.5 percent of native-born Americans between the ages 25 and 64 are employed in the sales industry.

Lemonade Stand

Many American children are encouraged at a young age to earn pocket money by selling a product or service. The lemonade stand is a metaphor for getting out there and selling something, whether it be used toys, books, or helping older people with their shopping. Sales is believed to be a skill which is always in demand regardless of the state of an economy.