United States – Page 18 – understand-culture

Rules are made to be broken

In America, refusing to deviate from the rules is often perceived as negative behavior. There is a popular saying which states that “rules are made to be broken.” American General Douglas MacArthur famously expanded on this phrase and said “Rules are mostly made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind.”

Sam Walton, the founder of the Wal-Mart chain (which became the largest corporation in the world in 2002), wrote in his autobiography that the most important rule in business is to break all of the rules. He also gave preference to rule-breakers when hiring employees, as he considered them superior workers to their rule-following counterparts.

Many of the best known American scientists and engineers were also rule-breakers. Bill Gates broke the rules with his innovative software, Henry Ford with his moving assembly line and welfare capitalism, and the Wright brothers with their fixed wing aircraft, just to name a few.

Much unease

Americans become very uneasy whenever they see their German colleagues address processes with their characteristic intensity. German process discipline is almost synonymous with rigidity.

Another, more careful, look reveals, however, a contradiction. On the one side, German processes are generic, theoretical, complex and seemingly not fully focused on the goal. On the other, Americans have the sense that Germans expect processes to be followed by the letter. They ask themselves how they are supposed to follow a process which is hardly described?

German procedures are also generic and not spelled out. The Germans take this as a signal to decide independently, to make their own judgement, in a given situation. Instead of requesting input or permission from their manager, they either decide themselves or discuss with an experienced colleague how to handle a given procedure within the context of its process.

To the Americans this represents a severe breakdown in process discipline. They have little understanding, thus tolerance, for processes or procedures which allow for so much independent action when that action can lead to mistakes, errors, problems, to an domino effect.

Guideline and more

Discipline: Punishment; a field of study; training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character; control gained by enforcing obedience or order; orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; a rule or system of rules. Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from discipulus pupil.

Deviation: Deflection of the needle of a compass caused by local magnetic influences; the difference between a value in a frequency distribution and a fixed number; departure from an established ideology or party line; noticeable or marked departure from accepted norms of behavior.

Flexibility: Capable of being flexed, pliant; yielding to influence, tractable; characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements.

Law: A binding custom or practice of a community; a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority; a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe; something compatible with or enforceable by established law; a rule of construction or procedure; a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions; a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions. From Old English lagu, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse lǫg law; akin to Old English licgan to lie.

Policy: Prudence or wisdom in the management of affairs; a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions; a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures; a writing whereby a contract of insurance is made. From Middle French, certificate, from Old Italian polizza, modification of Medieval Latin apodixa receipt, from Greek apodeixis proof, apodeiknynai to demonstrate.

Rule: A prescribed guide for conduct or action; an accepted procedure, custom, or habit; a usually written order or direction made by a court; a regulation or bylaw governing procedure or controlling conduct; a standard of judgment; a regulating principle; a determinate method for performing a mathematical operation and obtaining a certain result; the exercise of authority or control; a linear design produced by or as if by such a strip. Middle English reule, from Anglo-French, from Latin regula straightedge, rule, from regere to keep straight, direct.

Guideline: A line by which one is guided; a cord or rope to aid a passer over a difficult point or to permit retracing a course; an indication or outline of policy or conduct.

Value-add: A product whose value has been increased especially by special manufacturing, marketing, or processing.

Elastic Clause

The Americans tendency to treat rules more as guidelines even extends to their Constitution. In Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution there is a clause which is known colloquially as the Elastic Clause.

This clause gives Congress the ability to add, remove, or change laws as its members see fit. This can include in the judicial system – if a person breaks a law, the court can decide to ignore it and grant the accused clemency, or if a person doesn’t break a law and is taken to court, the court can decide that he/she is guilty anyway.

Astronaut John Young

In 1965, during the first manned flight of the Gemini program, American astronaut John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich onto the Gemini 3 spacecraft. One part of the Gemini 3 mission had been to test the effects of food on the astronauts, and also to see how well the two men onboard could work and eat efficiently and how bad the mess and odor would be.

Each official item of food had been specifically prepared as part of the test, however, unbeknownst to NASA (or even to his co-astronaut), Young decided to make an addendum to the prepared menu.

The sandwich did not fare well in space and made such a mess that the effects of the prepared food were largely untestable. Although Young was officially reprimanded for his action, this deviation in the accepted process did not damage his career, and he later landed on the moon in the Apollo 16 mission and piloted the space shuttle.

Rogue – vagrant, tramp, scoundrel; a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave; an individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation; to weed out inferior, diseased, or nontypical individuals from a crop plant or a field; used to describe something or someone that is different from others in usually a dangerous or harmful way. First known use in 1766.

Pragmatism

Tool: A handheld device that aids in accomplishing a task; something as an instrument or apparatus used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession; an element of a computer program that activates and controls a particular function; a means to an end; one that is used or manipulated by another. From Old English tōl to prepare for use. First known use 12th century.

Enable: To provide with the means or opportunity; to make possible, practical, or easy; to cause to operate; to give legal power, capacity, or sanction to.

Pragmatic: Relating to matters of fact or practical affairs, often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters; practical as opposed to idealistic; relating to or being in accordance with philosophical pragmatism. Latin pragmaticus, skilled in law or business, from Greek pragmatikos,from pragmat-, pragma deed, from prassein to do.

Pragmatism: A philosophical movement first given systematic expression by Charles Sanders Pierce and William James and later by John Dewey. Pragmatists emphasize the practical function of knowledge, as an instrument for adapting to reality and controlling it. Pragmatism, like empiricism, emphasizes experience over a priori reasoning (deductive, using presumptions).

Pragmatism holds that truth is to be found in the process of verification. Pragmatists interpret ideas as instruments and plans of action rather than as images of reality. More specifically, ideas are suggestions and anticipations of possible conduct. They are hypotheses or forecasts of what will result from a given action.

Navel-gazing

Useless or excessive self-contemplation; self-absorption, self-centeredness, self-concern, self-interest, self-involvement, self-preoccupation, self-regard. Navel-gazing.

Too much self. Too little other. Self being the process, how the work is done. Other being those who should benefit from the work to be done, the output, the product or service.

The deeper Germans discuss and debate how the work is done – process – the more their American colleagues fear a turn from the outward to the inward. The link is lost between process (how the work is done) and the results.

Americans often have the sense that their German counterparts believe that process can solve any problem, address any challenge, even those which do not lend themselves to process. Leadership. Decision making. Business relationships. Process works with the measurable, the quantifiable, but less so to the immeasurable, the unquantifiable.

For Americans, process is a tool. Apply where applicable.

Day planners

Early in American history, it was not uncommon for people to use almanacs as day planners. Many of the founding fathers, including George Washington, would buy almanacs and then add their own blank pages to serve as a diary and record of their daily activities.

The first book that was specifically marketed for use as a day planner was published in Philadelphia in 1773 by Robert Aitken. It was called Aitken’s General American Register, and the Gentleman’s and Tradesman’s Complete Annual Account Book and Calendar, for the Pocket or Desk for the Year of our Lord 1773, and was unsuccessful in the publishing world. Nevertheless, by 1850 day planners and their various incarnations (diaries, scrapbooks, ledgers, account books, etc.) were extremely popular.

In 1900, business innovator John Wanamaker decided to produce day planners with his store catalog and advertisements from other companies. These planners became very widespread and were a contributing factor to Wanamaker’s business success.

Today day planners are still extremely popular. Although sales of paper planners are dropping, sales of electronic planners are strong, and there are still many organizations that successfully market day planners to the American public.

Checklists

Checklists. To-do lists. Cookbook-like recipes. “Americans don’t really understand what they are doing and why. They are not trained, nor are they allowed, to think independently. There is no real mitdenken, thinking with.”

Not uncommon sentiments among Germans who interact with Americans. A misperception. Partly. Partly not.

Checklists are practical, pragmatic. They free up the mind to concentrate on more important things. They allow for self-supervision, for checking, if necessary for double-checking. They minimize unforced errors. They structure work.

For folks who do the same thing, the same way, time and again, for years, with the same colleagues, checklists surely are unnecessary. These folks can think for themselves, independently. People same. Think same. Do same.

But what about those who do different things, at different times, in different ways and with different people? Checklists become both tool and metaphor for how to manage the differences, the change, the flux.

America is constantly challenged by flux. An immigrant nation. Influx of peoples from different backgrounds, with different skill sets, levels of education. Some craftsmen. Others semi-literate. Some rooted to the land and permanent. Others who move every couple of years.

Add to this the American belief in learning by doing, and checklists – in the sense of detailed descriptions of how to do the work – become a necessity, a helpful tool, management’s assistant.

Germans learn the checklists in their extensive theoretical training. Duales Ausbildungsystem. Dual training. Over many years. Only then are they permitted to do the work. Americans learn just enough to be permitted to learn by doing. Same goal. Two approaches. Timing about the same.

Oh, and let’s not forget. Sometimes government bodies simply impose checklists.

Astronaut checklists

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is well-known for its excessive use of checklists. Over the history of this organization, checklists could be found placed all over its spacecraft, and covered everything from launch operations to spacewalk procedures and even to unlikely sudden multiple system failures. In fact, astronauts used so many checklists that Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins called his crew’s mission checklists the “fourth crew member.”

For the first few missions of a particular program (Apollo, Gemini, etc.) the astronauts have always been far less familiar with the checklists and standard procedures than the astronauts for later missions. This is because it was more likely that something unexpected would happen during the earlier missions, and the astronauts might need to “think on their feet” in order to stay alive.

In fact, it was somewhat common for the astronauts to modify their checklists “on the fly,” although they only did so reluctantly. Collins spoke about this reluctance during his post-flight briefing, saying “I don’t enjoy making changes to procedures. It seems like the crew only does that when they feel there’s some good need for it.”

Examples of NASA Checklist deviations:

Gemini 3 – the first manned Gemini mission, which had the primary goal of testing the new Gemini spacecraft. The astronauts deviated from the post landing checklist to accommodate for extra smoke from the thrusters.

Gemini 4 – the second manned Gemini mission, which included the first spacewalk by astronaut Edward H. White. Following White’s spacewalk the hatch initially failed to open, and the astronaut inside the capsule had to deviate from standard procedure in order help White to return to the spacecraft.

Mercury 9 – the last manned Mercury mission, in which the astronaut Gordon Cooper would remain in space for one full day. Electrical problems led to the failure of several systems, and as a result, Cooper prepared a revised checklist to finish his mission.

For Americans, checklists are guidelines more than fixed rules, and often are not taken very seriously. For example, NASA checklists are also places of amusement – for the Apollo 12 mission, the backup crew managed to sneak playboy pictures into the checklists which were attached to the wrists of the moonwalkers’ space suits.