A German Meister is trained and examined in the trade and then exercises judgment within it — which materials, which method, when to stop. The qualification is the licence to depart from the obvious procedure.
Years in the field
German job advertisements specify years of Berufserfahrung in the relevant field, and it is what the culture treats as the source of judgment. Discretion is granted to people who have been formed, not to people who are clever.
The reasoned deviation
German quality systems permit departure from a documented procedure where it is justified, assessed and recorded. Deviating is allowed. Deviating silently is not.
The rule with a presumption
German rules are commonly drafted as a presumption: in der Regel, as a rule, this applies — with departure permitted where the case justifies it, and the justification recorded. The exception is anticipated in the drafting.
The general clause
German statutes frequently use deliberately broad terms — good faith, reasonableness, good morals — which courts fill case by case. The law is written to require judgment rather than to eliminate it.
Discretionary scope
Ermessensspielraum. German administrative law grants officials a defined room for judgment within a rule, and a decision can be challenged for failing to exercise it as well as for exceeding it. The discretion is part of the rule, with its own boundaries.
Working to rule
Dienst nach Vorschrift — service according to regulation. Doing precisely what the rules require and nothing beyond.
In Germany this is a recognised form of industrial action. Following instructions exactly is understood to damage the employer, because the organisation depends on people exercising judgment the rules do not describe.
It is also used as an insult about an individual. To say somebody does Dienst nach Vorschrift is to say they have stopped thinking.
Mission tactics
Auftragstaktik. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder set it out in his 1869 instructions for large-unit commanders and it was codified in the 1888 drill regulations: higher command defines what must be achieved, and subordinates decide how to achieve it when orders no longer match conditions on the ground.
Moltke defined it as the actions a subordinate takes in the absence of orders that support the senior commander’s intent. Officers were educated to think for themselves and to keep going when communication failed.
The doctrine passed into NATO practice and into US Army doctrine as mission command. Its origin is a German answer to a specific problem: the person on the ground can see something the person issuing the order cannot.
Abweichen
Duden, the German dictionary, defines abweichen as: to change direction; to be different, to differentiate.
Synonyms are: differ, deviate, vary, veer, depart, stray, drift, digress, swerve, aberrate. But also to be at variance, to go rogue.
Rules
Gesetz. Law, passed by the government; legally binding directive; an inherent way of doing something, an order of things; an unchangeable set of relations in nature.
Verordnung. A directive set by a governmental body.
Anweisung. A command, order; a written document communicating what is to be done.
Richtlinie. A guideline; an indication, recommendation, suggestion of how one should behave, handle a certain situation.
Regel. Rule. Latin regula, a standard, a set of measures; an agreement about behaviour, for how to do something; how in general something is done.
Leitplanke. Literally a guard rail along a road or highway; a guideline.