Germans consider critical feedback to be unfair if it does not include concrete recommendations on how to improve on weaknesses. They believe that people can only improve on what they understand to be suboptimal. Critial feedback, the Germans believe, should therefore be communicated clearly, avoiding any use of politically correct language.
The more objective and impersonal the critical feedback is stated, the less chance it will be taken personally. Feedback experts in Germany go as far as to view personal relationships within teams as a barrier to honest, effective feedback. They often recommend neutral third parties to facilitate particularly critical feedback discussions.
In the German context feedback about one‘s work is in and of itself not personal. Germans – team leads as well as members – can argue vehemently about business topics and at the same time have a friendly, collegial working relationship. German management can criticize harshly an employee but still respect and personally like that individual. In Germany feedback is not personal.
In German team meetings open, honest, direct feedback is not only permitted, it is desired. Weaknesses in individual performance are addressed by team lead and members alike. The criticism, however, is not meant, and is not taken, as a personal attack, not jemandem etwas ins Gesicht sagen (to tell them off), but more to „get a it on the table“, in den Raum stellen.
Jemandem etwas ins Gesicht sagen: to say something critical to another person‘s face; to say something mean, unfair, provoking; to tell someone the unadultered truth; to give another person „a piece of your mind.“
Etwas in den Raum stellen: to put something in the room; to raise a question, a problem; to comment on, to make an observation; to bring a subject into the discussion.
Critique is taken personally in the German culture when it is communicated in a condescending or aggressive way. Germans react very sensitively to personal insults or attacks. There is absolutely no place in German feedback discussions for any form of personal insult.
The ongoing Euro crisis has tested the nerves of both political and business leaders alike in Germany. Chancellor Merkel‘s former Chief of Staff, Ronald Pofalla, criticized harshly a colleague by saying Ich kann Deine Fresse nicht mehr sehen – „I‘m getting tired of seeing your mug“. Fresse is an idiom for an animal‘s mouth. He was forced to apologize in front of Parliamentary Caucus, but remained in his position.
Talent shows have been popular in Germany for many years. Amateur entertainers take the stage, perform their act, are then judged by a panel of three.
The most famous judge in Germany is Dieter Bohlen, a former pop singer in Germany in the 1980s. Bohlen is known for the crass, aggressive and insulting way in which he criticizes the amateur entertainers. After ten years Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Germany seeks a Superstar) with – or perhaps due to – Dieter Bohlen remains the most popular talent show.
The clearest contrast to Bohlen is Stefan Raab, currently Germany‘s most popular talk show host. Raab, a member of the jury for the Eurovision Song Contest, provides his feedback just as openly and directly as Bohlen or any other German, but in a diplomatic way, often using self-irony, so that the contestants can laugh at themselves.
Raab praised the Eurovision winner, Lena, by addressing her unique way of breathing: „You sing totally differently than is taught in professional voice schools. Your breathing technique is utterly unique, it‘s nowhere near what is considered standard practice.“ Lena smiled back at Raab and said: „I don‘t have a breathing technique.“
German colleagues will at times communicate critical feedback with irony, hoping to gain a smirk or a smile. This is not meant to make fun of the colleague whose work is being criticized, but rather to add a lightness to the criticism.
The person criticized is given the opportunity to accept the feedback with a sense of humour and light-heartedness. The Germans value the ability to maintain a healthy, objective distance to one‘s own work.
Humor: the ability to accept with lightness personal imperfections and those of the world, as well as the difficulties of daily life.
With the recent popularity of YouTube and other amateur video websites, people have been staging scenarios and filming people’s reactions to them. This is particularly popular in the U.S., where, in addition to amateur reaction videos, in 2008 ABC created a television show called What Would You Do?
In the show, actors and actresses pretend to be in situations in which they would benefit from unsolicited advice (domestic abuse, drugged beverages, etc.), and the show collects statistics on how many people offer advice or warnings.
Typically, most Americans who witness these situations don’t get involved. In one episode, in which a caregiver in a park berates the elderly man for whom he’s supposed to be caring, and refuses to take the elderly man home when asked, only one-quarter of the people who witnessed the interaction intervened. Other episodes typically have similar statistics of intervention.
Many Americans are the descendants of people who left their homes to escape what they considered to be imposing or coercive laws in their native countries. As such, they’ve been raised to consider any interference (even unsolicited, but well-meaning, advice) as an attack on their freedom as Americans.
This in the sense of: ;„Who are you to tell me how to live? This is America. A free country. I can live the way I want! Americans are very fearful of one group in the U.S. dictating to another how they should live.
coerce: to restrain or dominate by force; to compel to an act or choice; to achieve by force or threat. Middle English cohercen. Anglo-French cohercer. Latin coercēre, to shut up, enclose. Synonyms: force, compel, constrain, dragoon, drive, impel, impress, make, muscle, obligate, oblige, pressure.
In 2008 leading literary pundit Marcel Reich-Ranicki was supposed to receive the German television award for his life’s work. Reich-Ranicki also came to the awards show and listened to the laudation by Thomas Gottschalk. However, in his thank-you address he had little thanks left for the award that he a just been presented with.
Instead, he explained, that he had already received many important prizes in his life, and that it had never been difficult for him to say thank you. But today, he was “in a very horrible situation“, as he was forced to “somehow react” to the prize which he had received, and was asked to be “not too harsh”.
“I don’t want to offend anyone. No, I don‘t want to do that. But I would just like to come out and say that I will not accept this prize. If the prize had come with money I would have given the money back, but it didn’t come with money. I can only fling this object […] away from me, or throw it at someone’s feet. I cannot accept it! And I also found it terrible to have to suffer this event for five hours.”
Reich-Ranicki’s speech left his audience perplexed. During his speech the cameras continued to capture shocked expressions amongst the members of the audience, here and there and embarrassed grin, a few laughs. Reich-Raniki was bold enough to call the German Television award, which many of the attending actors and producers used to sing their own praises, ‘rubbish’. Freely and without restraint. Controversial. Typical Reich-Ranicki.
Germans believe that if a person does not have anything valuable to offer in a given discussion then it is better that they say nothing at all – die Klappe halten.
Klappe is a cover, lid, flap. Halten is to hold or keep shut. Germans do not consider it to be impolite if in a discussion one or more people say little or nothing. Seldom do they ask, prompt or summon those who are silent to participate.
To talk about the weather in the German context means to talk about nothing of importance, to have a meaningless conversation, to be superficial. It is a signal to both parties that they have nothing to say to each other. It‘s embarrassing for both.
There are some things which the Germans do not address openly. One is money, salary, personal wealth. If they have much, they avoid showing it. Boasting, bragging, swaggering in any way is considered to be very bad taste.
Respected and honored are those with wealth who live it in a dezent (discreet) way. This is true especially for senior-level executives who demonstrate deep subject-area expertise combined with a staid, conservative manner or demeanor.
“Showmasters” and “speech-makers” in Germany can be entertaining, at times even motivating. But those who are truly listened to and valued are those who put substance (subject matter) before form (person).
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, former Minister of Commerce, then Minister of Defense, is a case in point. When he became minister in 2009 it was clear from the outset that there was a rather slick public relations approach to highlighting his political work and private life.
Guttenberg was a constant presence in the German media: the worldly man about town at Times Square in New York City; the rough and tough man dressed in a special forces uniform visiting the troops in Afghanistan; and as a man of the people on the popular variety tv-show “Wetten, daß ….?”
Guttenberg became very popular very quickly. He had brought fresh air into stodgy German politics. Over time, however, he gained more and more critics, who began to question his expertise. When it was then proven that he had plagiarized in his doctoral dissertation, he resigned his office in disgrace and disappeared from the German political scene.