Feedback Archives - Page 12 of 19

Rational / Personal

On the one side, the Germans strive hard to be objective, to reduce, even eliminate the subjective.

Rational, logical, scientific. Filtering, screening, separating fact from gut feel, from intuition.

Communication: Say what you mean, mean what you say. Honest. Not meant personally. Persuasion: Separate message and messenger. Take yourself out of the equation. Decision making: Sober, scientific, self-skeptical. Feedback: The focus on weaknesses as authentically constructive input. Processes: Stripping down, compressing to the core, machine-like.

Yet, the Germans are personal, emotional, subjective.

Agreements: Think it through carefully. Your word is your bond.

Leadership: Hire talent. Train and equip. State mission. Then get out of the way. Product: Deep curiosity and concern for the user. Do it right. Customer: Do what is best for the customer, even if it jeopardizes the relationship.

Germans. Objective subjective. Rational personal. Perhaps a false dichotomy.

Manager as Neutral Party

German team leads have an impersonal, business-like relationship with their team members. They maintain emotional distance from the team in order to guaranty neutrality and fairness. Especially when providing feedback on performance do they focus on results and not on the person.

This sachlich – impersonal, neutral, business-like – approach can be observed in the personal interaction between manager and team. When providing feedback German team leads are reserved, unemotional, their body language limited to a handshake. Neutrality is the key.

Whether discussing past performance or formulating new goals, the Germans focus on the facts, ideally on what is measurable. A discussion about development addresses professional skills and less so personal development. Critique is communicated in a respectful and serious way. Humour is considered disrespectful and unprofessional.

If the feedback discussion includes criticism, German managers strive to be particularly neutral, unemotional, fact-oriented. This reduces the potential for an escalation of emotions. The two parties should focus on performance. The discussion is impersonal and objective.

Humility

Bescheidenheit or humility is the character trait of a person who is unassuming, not demanding, seeks little for themself, who allows others to go ahead. From Latin prudentia, sapientia, scientia, discretio.

Bescheidenheit ist der Anfang aller Vernunft. Humility is the beginning of all reason. (Ludwig Anzengruber) Die wahre Ruhe der Gemüter ist Tugend und Genügsamkeit. True peace of mind is based on virtue and humility. (Christian Fürchtegott Gellert)

Abgehoben sein: to view oneself as above others; to lose grounding, to lose a sense of measure, proportion; unable to read situations realistically. Sarkasmus, sarcasm: biting, hurtful, condescending ridicule; to make fun of another person in a cutting way; to be mean, ugly.

Praise and Motivation

Germans believe that too much praise can lead employees to „rest on their laurels“, to not continue to work at a high level of intensity. In order to avoid that effect, Germans praise good work in moderate terms. This signals that there is more upside potential. It aims to motivate.

Germans seldom score work results as near perfect or perfect. „Close to perfect“ is the best one can expect. German business psychologists see a weakness in this approach, though. They believe that more praise would increase employee motivation and thus productivity.

Sich auf seinen Lorbeeren ausruhen. To rest on one‘s laurels. To relax after having produced good work results; after success to not strive for more. During the Middle Ages laurels were a sign of fame. The winner of a jousting tournament or a battle had a laurel wreath placed on their head.

Deflation. When the price for products and services decreases; when money loses its value. German economic and monetary policy aims to maintain the value of goods and services, but most importantly to prevent inflation. When it comes to praise, Germans take a conservative, restrictive, deflationary approach.

Deflationary. In feedback discussions the Germans consciously use deflationary terms. Honesty and transparency are seen as guarantees for effective, clear communication. „Say what you mean and mean what you say“ is the German logic. People should speak their minds freely and without inflationary euphemisms.

Den Tag nicht vor dem Abend loben translates into „Don‘t praise the day until the night has arrived“; don‘t count your accomplishments before the day is over; don‘t be confident of something until it has actually happened.

“Coach me“

Americans expect to be coached by their team lead. If the team lead has accurately identified weaknesses in a team member, and has communicated them clearly, fairly and diplomatically in a feedback talk, then it is expected that the team lead then coach her „player.“

Just as a basketball coach will take extra time with a player after practice to work on dribbling or shooting skills, so too a good manager in the American business context will take the time to explain to the employee how to perform certain tasks better: give presentations, write reports, perform calculations, attach the part to the machine, handle customer issues, work with external suppliers, and manager their own team. The list is endless.

If the team lead, however, is not in a position to coach her player directly – due to time constraints or perhaps she is not a master of the skill herself – then she should, at a minimum, know where to send that team member in order to be coached, taught, instructed, advised.

Coach. Player. Americans want to be coached. American sports coaches are deeply involved in how their players play.

Constructive Criticism

Critique: A detailed analysis and assessment of something, especially a literary, philosophical, or political theory. Derived from mid 17th century from French, based on Greek kritikē tekhnē ‘critical art”.

Constructive criticism is legitimate criticism – fair, objective, well grounded. It is constructive when its purpose, tone and spirit aim to help the other person recognize, understand and then correct their weaknesses. Constructive criticism is helpful.

Employee evaluation helps management to measure performance while maintaining motivation and reducing employee turnover. It has three components: praise work well done; address areas of improvement; recommend improvement measures. Employee evaluations also serve as documentation of future goals to be reviewed at a later date.

There are 58,885 books on self-improvement on Amazon.com. The most popular areas for self-improvement are money management, healthy living, attitude, speaking skills, time management, and interpersonal relations.

Popular titles include “The Power of Self-Coaching: The Five Essential Steps to Creating the Life You Want” by Joseph J. Luciani, “The Secret Art of Self-Development: 16 Little-Known Rules for Eternal Happiness & Freedom” by Karl Moore, “50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus” by Tom Butler-Bowdon, and “I Had It All The Time: When Self-Improvement Gives Way to Ecstasy” by Alan Cohen.

Steve Jobs – Merciless Criticism

An article on Jony Ive, the head of design at Apple Computer, in the New Yorker Magazine from February 23, 2105 touches on how the late Steve Jobs gave constructive feedback:

“Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious. Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, ‘Why would you be vague?,’ arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: ‘You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.’

Ive was furious, but came to agree. ‘It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,’ he said. He lamented that there were ‘so many anecdotes’ about Jobs’s acerbity: ‘His intention, and motivation, wasn’t to be hurtful.'”

Steve Jobs. More German than American logic.

“Whattya want from me?”

The 2014 Soccer World Championship. Prelims. Germany vs. Algeria. It’s a nerve wracking game, but in the end Germany wins 2:1. It was a tough game for the German team, but in the end they prevailed. Grounds to celebrate, one would think.

Boris Büchler, however, the ZDF television reporter who interviewed center back Per Mertesacker directly after the game, saw things differently. After a short “congratulations” he went straight to his criticisms: “What made the German players so sluggish and vulnerable?”

Mertesacker, already slightly annoyed, emphatically stated that the victory is all that matters: “I don’t give a ****. We’re in the final eight and that’s what counts.”

But Büchler won’t back down: “But this cannot possibly be the level of playing at which you expected to enter the quarter-final? I think the need for improvement must be clear to you as well.”

Mertesacker can no longer keep his cool: “What do you want from me? What do you want, right now, immediately after the game? I don’t understand.” But Büchler stays firm, and repeats his criticism: “Firstly, I congratulate you, and then I wanted to ask why the defensive plays and turnovers did not go as well as one would have liked. That’s all.”

Mertesacker: “Do you think think there is a carnival-troupe (meaning a bunch of clowns) amongst the final 16 teams or something? They made it really hard for us for 120 minutes, and we fought until the very end to prove ourselves. It was a real back-and forth Of course we allowed a lot from them. But in the end our victory was well deserved…”

Mertesacker once again emphasizes how the German team won, in spite of his concession that not everything went as one might have hoped.

But not even this was enough for Büchler: “An absolute show of strength. A high-power performance. Do you think that we will see the same sort of wow-effects again that we saw in the 2010 World Championship, so that the team’s game will improve?”

Mertesacker: “What do you want? Do you want a successful World Championship, or should we just step down and call it a game already? I just don’t understand all of these questions.”

Germany won 2:1. But there will always be something left to criticize. In this case: Just because you won does not mean that you played the game well.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMJJMpufE2g[/embedyt]

Diane Krueger

mobil. Magazine of the German Rail. December 2017. An interview with the actor Diane Krüger. Question: “Colleagues for your earlier years claim that you were extremely ambitious. Is it true?”

Krüger: “When I was a little girl my mother never said to me: ‘You’re the best, the greatest, the most beautiful’. Instead all she ever said was: ‘Work harder. You can do better.'”

Germans are critical of rankings

Germans prefer to measure performance less frequently, but when they do so then in detail and exact. The German media has taken to the trend of ranking, but most Germans criticize them for not being truly representative.

Several academic organizations have called for a boycott of university rankings. Ranking tv shows such as Simply the Best or The Top 10 are also criticized by the public for not being objective, for relying on viewer voting which is overly influenced by current events.

The ranking show Die ultimative Chartshow went on air in 2003, is based on reliable statistics and continues to command a loyal viewership. Das Politbarometer, The Political Barometer, broadcasts the results of its political polling each month and is watched carefully by citizens and political professionals alike.

Germans take ranking serious only if they are based on a serious methodology.