A willingness to take risks and a desire to make decisions are the basic requirements for starting a business. Germany is not a land of entrepreneurs.
According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an annual joint publication of the University of Hannover and the Institute for Jobmarket and Career Research of the German Federal Agency for Employment, only 2.5% of adults in Germany started a business which they could live from. This placed Germany in spot 10 of the 22 compared.
Rolf Sternberg, an economist, considers one reason for the weak culture of entrepreneurship to be the widespread desire toward security:
“The tendency to strive towards security is much more prevalent in Germany than in Anglo-American countries”. This is the flipside of having a well-developed social security system.
Yvonne Stolpmann of Chamber of Commerce in Nürnberg summarizes the situation as such: “Those who give up a permanent position here stand to lose a lot of security. It’s different in the USA”.
Germans love insurance policies. According to the magazine Stern, the average German household paid an average of 2,771 EUR annually for private insurances in 2002, 106 EUR more than in the previous year. They are clearly willing to spend on their security.
However, the avoidance of risks in this way is often not rational. According to Stern, every other German is insured for legal representation, yet only one in ten have disability insurance. Statistically, however, one out of four people will be unable to work for an extended period of time during their lifetime due to illness or an accident.
The investment counseling agency KSK-Südholstein makes a similar attest: “Germans love to be rooted and secure. That is why they are so keen on insurances. For this reason, there is an incredible variety of insurances available on the German insurance market.
Amongst these policies you will find some which are sensible, and others which really are not, because not every value must be insured. Much to the dismay of experts, there is a tendency in Germany to insure small amounts of damage with high initial ventures.”
In February 2015 Christian Lindner, the head of the Free Democatic Party (FDP), gave a speech in Dusseldorf, the capital of the German state Northrhine Westphalia.
“Entrepreneurship is a signal of confidence in a culture’s future. When people start new companies, they are not only creating a better future for themselves, they’re creating jobs for others.”
Hardly into his speech a state representative from the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) called out smugly that Lindner, indeed, had had personal experience with startups.
Lindner pounced on the opportunity. “Aha, look here. You say that I have experience. It is true, dear colleague. During the highpoint of the new economy I founded a company. It was not successful. But the leader of your party, the premier of this great state, in her speech today stated clearly that Germans should not stigmatize those whose startups fail.”
Lindner continued: “There you have it, in your own caucaus, Madame Premier, a colleague who doesn’t listen to you. This is exactly one of the reasons why so many people prefer to work as civil servants, instead of starting a company. For if they are successful then you Social Democrats want to tax and reallocate their profits. And if they are not successful, then they are derided.”
Auf YouTube wurde die Rede bereits millionenfach angeklickt. In DIE ZEIT vom 19. Februar 2015 schreibt Feliks Eyser, ein Gründer, der im zweiten Anlauf erfolgreich war, in einem Artikel mit dem Titel „Wer wagt, verliert“:
Within hours the speech was uploaded to YouTube and clicked on over a million times. A week later DIE ZEIT, a respected political weekly, published an article by Feliks Eyser, whose first startup failed but whose second succeeded.
The article’s title was „Wer wagt, verliert“ – those who risk, fail. This is the opposite of the well-known German figure of speech “Wer wagt, gewinnt” – those who risk, win.
“Failure is a part of entrepreneurship just like sore muscles are a part of sports. Those who start a company run the risk of failure. Courage is essential. Perhaps more people in this country would have that courage if a busines failure were not seen as human failure.”
Interestingly, Eyser wrote scheitern not seen as versagen. Both terms translate into failure. Could this mean that Germans see in failure human or personal failure?
In a May 2015 article Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Höttges was asked what his biggest management mistake had been thusfar in his career.
Höttges responded that in his days as the head of T-Mobile Germany back at the beginning of the 2000s, he was very motivated and came up with at least one new idea every day of the week.
He admitted to demanding too much of the managers and employees. In doing so he overwhelmed the entire company. Höttges said that he had learned over the years. Today he focuses only on what has been agreed upon. Even if he has ten other good ideas.
Root cause analysis is a problem solving method which identifies the original cause of error, as opposed to simply addressing the symptoms.
Root cause analysis is critical in those areas in Germany where sustainability is important, where seemingly minor mistakes can lead to major damage, where error occurs time and again, especially in technical areas. Every type of quality analysis relies on root cause analysis.
If products are returned as defective, roots cause analysis is employed immediately. Each and every form of research and development works at the root level. Where more is required than treating symptoms, root cause analysis comes into play.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Faust. In Faust, the protagonist’s journey is marked by deep introspection and a long process of weighing choices and consequences. Goethe’s narrative emphasizes the importance of reflection and patience before making life-altering decisions, warning against impulsive actions and highlighting the value of allowing time for understanding and wisdom to develop.
The Handelsblatt Global Edition from April 23, 2015 reported: Philipp Gloeckler’s business idea was a failure, and he doesn’t mind admitting it. He had what he thought was the perfect concept, an impeccable business plan and great press coverage. Yet, his app, Whyownit, was a disaster.
This is how he found himself at the F***UpNight event in Berlin, a get-together where failed start-up entrepreneurs pick through the bones of their mistakes in the hope that they can do better next time.
“Business failure is often equated to personal failure in this country,” said Rolf Sternberg, a researcher at Leibniz University in Hanover, who recently co-authored a study on young entrepreneurs. “We would win a lot if we would accept failure as a new chance,” he added.
Other than SAP, the software giant founded in 1972, no German tech company has made it onto the global stage. Instead German entrepreneurs are better known for their pursuit of perfection, and finding success within established structures, such as the car industry.
“I am convinced we need to talk about mistakes,” said Béa Beste, whose toy app, which allowed users to subscribe to a toy delivery service for kids, collapsed with the loss of all her investor’s capital as well as her own €300,000 ($322,000). “The worst mistake is being afraid of mistakes,” Ms. Beste said.
Venture capital is scarce in Germany’s risk-averse, conservative economy, so entrepreneurs usually turn to bank loans for funding. But if their business fails and debts are called in, they must go through a lengthy insolvency process which can demand up to six years of “good conduct” before the slate is wiped clean.
Hermann Hesse – Siddhartha. The novel follows Siddhartha’s lifelong quest for enlightenment, during which he repeatedly pauses, reflects, and allows time to shape his decisions. Hesse’s narrative suggests that true wisdom and the right decisions come only with patience and the willingness to let things unfold naturally.
In his blogpost Stoicism & Star Trek: Think like Spock – Act like Kirk Jen Farren at the University of Exeter writes:
„Gene Roddenberry (creator of Startrek) says that he deliberately: ‘Took the perfect person and divided him into three, the administrative courageous part in the Captain (Kirk), the logical part in the Science Officer (Spock) and the humanist part in the Doctor (McCoy).’“
Farren then quotes Stephen Fry: „You have the Captain in the middle, who is trying to balance both his humanity and his reason. And on his left shoulder, you have the appetitive, physical Dr. McCoy. And on his right shoulder you have Spock, who is all reason. And they are both flawed, because they don’t balance the two, and they’re at war with each other, McCoy is always having a go at Spock. And Kirk is in the middle, representing the perfect solution.“
Kirk tries to balance emotion and reason, but he never loses sight of taking action. His choices and actions make him take risks for the common welfare, even when the purely logical thing might be to do nothing. In the words of Captain Kirk himself: ‘Gentlemen, we’re debating in a vacuum. Let’s go get some answers.“