The Germans says: “Only servants need be reachable at all times.” It’s a figure of speech many German managers use to signal that they cannot always respond immediately to team member questions, nor can they be reached directly. Team members are often asked – and trained – to only contact their boss if it is truly important.
“Teutonic Obsession“?
The British newspaper The Telegraph published an article by Jeremy Warner about the geopolitics of the European Central Bank and the Euro-Crisis. The fact that the bank had only now started the process of quantitative easing was in large part due to Germany’s previous efforts to resist this.
However, the German’s resistance against these measures taken by the ECB was not due to the German’s experiences with hyperinflation during the time of the Weimar Republic, but rather traces back to much profounder factors found deep within the German psyche: the ancient Teutonic obsession with legality and rules.
Could this also be the reason why the German response to proposals for money-saving measures, bail-outs, and troika made by the Greeks is a always the same resounding statement: “The Greeks must stick to the rules”?
But where do rules become necessary, in order to assure reliability, stability and continuity, and where must one deviate from them due to changes in circumstance? Does not every change in strategy incorporate breaking the rules of a time gone-by?
Is Jeremy Warner’s statement about a so-called ancient Teutonic obsession with legality and rules even historically accurate?
Don‘t write it down
In Germany the written word has a higher level of binding character (commitment) than the spoken. Once a process – how the work is done – has been documented, and if done so in a detailed way, Germans feel obligated to work along that process in a strict way.
This reduces their freedom to deviate from the process, to improvize, based on the specifics of a given situation. For this reason, and a few other, Germans do their best to avoid documenting how they work.
The German self-understanding also comes into play. They often feel that it is simply not necessary to write down how they work. Germans are well-trained, tend to work in the same area for many years, are very familiar with formal and informal processes, can rely on the advice of their colleagues and management, and want always the freedom to work independently.
And German departments have a high level of institutional knowledge, which is passed on to younger colleagues. It is seldom necessary for colleagues sit down and document all of the things they do in order to produce good work results.
mitdenken auf Augenhöhe
“Bei aller Strategie bleiben wir menschlich: Wir hören zu, denken mit und kommunizieren auf Augenhöhe.” In English: “Yes, it’s about strategy. But more importantly it’s about people. We are people. We listen. We think with. And we communicate at eye-level.”
Think with. At eye-level. That’s it. The German logic. In black and white. Clear as a bell.
The quote is from gambit. A Germany-based marketing and communications agency. Specialists. Serving companies who build buildings. gambit understands architects and interior designers.
I stumbled across gambit when noticing how superb the Simonswerk website is. Created by gambit. Simonswerk. A German mid-sized company located near Hanover, with a strong presence in France, Italy, and most importantly in the United States.
And why the term gambit as the name of their agency? They provide the definition on their website: “gambit [gæmbit], n. (Schach) einleitender Schachzug, (in conversation) einleitende Bemerkung.”
From MerriamWebster: “A chess opening in which a player risks one or more pawns or a minor piece to gain an advantage in position; a remark intended to start a conversation or make a telling point.”
Arguing with Leonard Bernstein
The 1970s. Israel Philharmonic. Mahler. Christa Ludwig, a German, argues with Bernstein about tempo. Bernstein describes this passage as “always impossible” and suggests that the audience won’t understand the words anyway, so what’s the big deal? Awkward. For both. Conductor and soloist.
Bernstein is clearly the boss. Ludwig, however, is the specialist. They’re not at eye-level (Augenhöhe) with each other, but they’re pretty darn close. And Bernstein accepts this. Here is another clip with Bernstein and an orchestra. The trumpet players interact with the conductor.