Communication – understand-culture

‘No more meetings’

“Our two companies were merged about a year ago. Post-merger integration has been completed. Recently we have begun experiencing cultural problems. More and more often our American colleagues refuse to participate in meetings. They simply say ‘No more meetings!’ We don’t know how to react. What should we do?”

Well, first off, it sounds like the honeymoon is over. There was the initial euphoria. Then came post-merger integration (PMI) with all of its complexity, the many long intense discussions about workstreams, etc.

That was PMI in the technical sense. But the human part has just begun. You’re collaborating. Intensely. Day-in. Day-out. The influence of cultural differences on that collaboration are exerting their influence.

“No more meetings!” is a clear sign that you’re experiencing rather serious problems in your cross-Atlantic collaboration. Ok, no big deal, this is normal. In fact, it is healthy.

Instead of giving a long, detailed response to your question, let me make a few points and include links to further material to read and reflect on, and then ideally to discuss with your colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic.

Communication
There are significant differences in how Germans and Americans communicate. Those differences, if not understood, can inhibit communication. And I mean communication in the literal sense: A not understanding what B has said.

Decision Making
You and your colleagues are meeting in order to make decisions, in order to move forward. It sounds like your American colleagues would like to do less talking, less discussing and more acting, more moving forward.

Well, the fact is that Americans and Germans makes decisions in accordance to different logics. Compared to their German colleagues, Americans want to move much more quickly, after having done less analysis, accepting a higher level of risk.

Leadership
And remember that in the American context decisions – especially important ones – are made with far less consensus-building than in Germany. Americans need less time to discuss, analyze, and decide. They “get out of the blocks” much more quickly than is the case in Germany. Whether their decisions, and their implementation, is better, that is a discussion for another day, and a very complex discussion.

Power
Finally, this could be about power. Not all conflicts or differences of opinion or misunderstandings in cross-border collaboration are caused by cultural differences. Often it is simply a divergence of interests, self- or organizational interests.

For whatever reason, perhaps your American colleagues just don’t want to discuss and debate with their German colleagues a certain topic or issue or decision. They want to act.

Let me offer some consolation, which I stated at the beginning of my response. This problem you are experiencing – “No more meetings!” – is normal in the Germany-USA space. I have experienced it, witnessed it, been involved in it many many many times.

Read this response of mine. Reflect on it. Read the material I have linked to. Read and reflect on that. Send this Q&A to your colleagues, both German and American. Speak together about it. Germans and Americans. You might be surprised how quickly you find a resolution.

Get in your face

“I like my German colleagues. They are intelligent, focused, hard-working. But sometimes they can really get in your face. I experience, and observe, that they give other colleagues advice, whether it was asked for or not. I find this rather annoying, at times even arrogant. Why do they do that? I wish they would cease and desist.”

Ok, this is a really serious cultural difference. I need to pull it apart. Please be patient with a rather long response from me. This is also very personal to and for me.

Good People

First things first. The German people are good people. I mean really good people. Deeply good people. Please take my word on this. I have lived and worked here in Germany, and with the German people, for three decades. I could write a book full of anecdotes of how and why they are good people.

Helpful

As good people, the Germans want to be helpful. That includes your German colleagues. Think about, we’re all working anywhere between forty and sixty hours a week, some weeks even more. We spend most of our life working. That means, in turn, we spend most of our life interacting with colleagues, customers, suppliers. If we are good people, if it is our natural inclination to be helpful, well, then we’ll display that behavior in the workplace.

Obligation

Broadly speaking, painting with a broad brush, the German people are more collectivistic than we Americans. This is not about political theory. This is not about philosophy. This is not about forms of government or socialism or communism or communitarianism or any other ism. It’s much more simple, more basic.

The German people work from the group back to the individual. They first and foremostly see the individual as a member of a group. First group, then individual. We could say first the state, then the individual. We Americans are different. Almost the opposite. Individual, then group. Individual, then state. Individual, family, neighborhood, broader community, and so on.

Because the Germans see individuals as only viable within a community, they believe that each individual has obligations over and against their fellow individuals. That’s what community means, a balance between individual needs and wants and those of the community. We’re talking about the balance between rights and obligations. Germans feel that it is their obligation to help each other.

Advice as Help

And giving advice to a colleague, whether requested or not, is a form of help. If a German colleague sees you heading towards a landmine – a mistake, an error, a problem, a blowup – that colleague will point that out to you, and hopefully in time so that you avoid the landmine.

In fact, German thinking goes so far as to say: “You saw your colleague heading right for that landmine and you did nothing about it, you did not warn them? What kind of colleague are you? What kind of human being are you?”

Let’s always remind ourselves, when the German drive us crazy, when we think that they need their heads examined, when we simply don’t want to deal with them anymore, when we think that their approach will ruin the work, ruin the business, ruin relations with our customers, that the German people have the fourth-largest economy in the world, and with only eighty million people. Folks, they must be doing something right. Their approach in fundamental areas must be right, must be working, must lead to success. Folks, it can’t be any other way.

Now, does it mean that their German approach works in every other culture, in every other country, in every other business context, in every other market? No, that is not my statement. Clearly what works in one market, country, region does not necessary translate one-to-one into another one. And that is the point of my work, of our conversations, about the influence of cultural differences on cross-border collaboration. One-to-one importation, one-to-one application, of one culture’s logic into another country seldom works. In fact, the results can be a total disaster.

Jerks

Are there no jerks in Germany, no jerks among the German people, no German jerks? Well, of course there are jerks in Germany, as there are in any culture. And one major way for a German to be a jerk is to stick their nose in other people’s business. German jerks do that all the time. The Germans can be terrible know-it-alls. Arrogant. Insistent. “I’m smart. You’re dumb.” Thirty years here in Germany, do you think I haven’t run into my fair share of German jerks? There have been many a time when I wanted to tear their heads off.

So, yes, you will experience in your collaboration the German jerk. And they will experience the American jerk. There are plenty of us. In fact, in each and every one of us Americans is an American jerk. We all have our moments when our behavior is uncalled for (one of my mother’s favorite terms), literally not called for, not requested, no solicited, unsolicited.

Just this week I wrote a message in LinkedIn which was very poorly formulated. It was stupid. The receiver shot back at me immediately. And rightfully so. I felt stupid, because my message was stupid. John the jerk. Do you think he doesn’t exist? He does, because John is a human being. And human beings can often be jerks.

“German angel, what?”

But jerks are a small minority. And the jerk in each of us is, hopefully, is only a small part of us which comes out only in certain circumstances. In the overwhelming majority of instances when you experience unsolicitied advice from a German colleague, or even from a German stranger, it is not a German jerk, but instead a German angel coming to your rescue.

“German angel, what?” Yup, I mean that literally, without getting into the theology of it. What do angels do? They watch out for us. The see us heading for the landmine and then do something to help us avoid getting our legs blown off. “What, Magee believes in angels?” Yes, he does, indeed.

Ok, let me put it in more rational, scientific, Enlightenment-era (whatever that is) terms. What could be better than to be surrounded by colleagues who want the best for you? What could be better than to be surrounded by colleagues who keep their eyes open for each other? Colleagues who have each other’s back? Who are not afraid to get in your face if they see you heading for a disaster, for a blowup, a train wreck?

And what could be better than to have colleagues who will risk pissing you off by pointing out to you that you’re about to make a serious mistake, even at the risk of harming your working relationship?

Let me tell you something, if I worked in a company – I do not, I am self-employed – I sure as sh_t would want to have those kinds of colleagues, as many as possible. But wait, I do have such colleagues. More than a handful of them. Germans and Americans. Most of them customers who have become friends. I turn to them time and again for advice. And I receive it. Good advice. And it is the Germans who, time and again, offer advice which I did not even ask for. Unsoliticed.

And here’s the thing about angels, whether Germans or Americans or from other cultures, when they save our ass, they don’t ask for anything in return. They do it out of pure care, concern, and love. That’s right, love. It’s the greatest force, the greatest power we know. It’s called love. Don’t believe me? Ask any mother or father of a child. Ask any brother or sister of another brother or sister. Ask any two friends. And wouldn’t that kind of care, concern, and love, be great among colleagues, in the workplace, where we spend most of our lives?

Or let’s flip it around. What kind of life is it to spend forty to sixty hours a week working with people who are not driven, at the deepest level, by care, concern and love? Seriously. What kind of life is that?

So, whenever you get irritated about another German giving you unsolicited advice, ask yourself the following questions: Was the advice, in its substance, accurate, correct, on point? Assuming that you took the advice, was it helpful? What did you pay for the advice, what did you have to give in order to receive the helpful advice?

I think you get my point. Yes, German colleagues often give unsolicited advice. And I thank the Lord for that. And I mean that literally.

Too blunt

“We Germans are known for being forceful, yet respectful. And we want the same from others. But we know that we are often too direct with Americans. So, when is our German directness too blunt? How do we know what degree of directness is simply too much?”

Well, this is a complex question.

“blunt” means: stumpf, plump, ungehobelt, schroff, unverblümt, geradeheraus.

Not so much because there are many different kinds of Americans, with many different kinds of backgrounds, and from many different regions of the U.S.

Getting into the shades of gray is not helpful and not necessary. It is complex because the answer to the question depends on the situation. I’ve lived in Germany now for 25+ years and I still find the Germans often to be too direct.

Now wait, not because the German are too direct. The Germans are the Germans. And they are fine. It is because we Americans are less direct. We are careful about what we say, to whom, when, how, and based on who is present. And that is the big message re: the American logic: context.

Whereas the German logic, which is just as right and good and effective as the American logic, is: say what you mean, mean what you say, don’t beat around the bush, use clear and unambiguous language, and get to the point.

Read carefully below the comments from Americans. The American logic is imbedded in each and every one of their comments.

Never full disclosure

“Information sharing with Germany is usually a one-way street. If we get anything at all it is ‘You will do this’ vs. ‘Let’s discuss.’ We all work for the same company, why not share? We Americans ask a question. We don’t get a lie. Instead only the bare minimum of information. Never full disclosure. Relevant points are left out. Our German colleagues say: ‘Because you didn’t ask for it.’ How we get our colleagues in Germany to share critical information with us?”

So many emails

“Why do our US-colleagues send so many emails?”

First, while the high volume of emails generated by Americans may seem excessive to a German, the practice is based on the clear understanding that within American organizations the flow of information is absolutely essential. The default view for Americans is that information sharing is the path to successful outcomes.

No team can succeed without the free, open, and efficient flow of information. In American organizations, the decision-making process is organic, defined by the back and forth, the give and take of information. Sharing information is at the heart of the process.

Successful action is the result of good decision-making, which in turn is achieved only when the full-range of decision options have been proposed, understood and evaluated. This requires having the most accurate, timely, and relevant information gleaned from a broad base of participants; Americans are constantly communicating, sharing and updating information.

Not surprisingly, we see these values reflected in American email protocol and its high volume of communication. For Americans this exchange of emails is not seen as excessive because they see it as simply part of the process of working through the issue confronting the team.

Emails are not interrupting the process, but are essential to it. They are a means to ensure that “the full-range of decision options have been proposed, understood and evaluated” and that they have “the most accurate, timely, and relevant information.” Emails are an important part of the process of give and take and back and forth that is the model of American decision-making.

Second, Americans as a people have it in their cultural DNA to be information sharers. Think of the iconic American town hall; when in doubt Americans communicate. In fact, they often are over-communicators. Simply observe what they reveal to each other as strangers meeting in the supermarket, café, train station, or sitting next to each other on an airplane. Sharing information just comes naturally. Is it any surprise then that most, if not all, of the major trends, tools and platforms in today’s world of communication have their origins in the United States: Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google, the list goes on and on.

Third, we’ve all heard the colorful figure of speech “cover your ass”, meaning: do what you can to avoid being blamed for something which goes wrong. As emails provide a record of actions taken, we can assume that the CYA reflex may contribute in some part to the volume of American emails. Americans are aware that sending an email is one way to show at a later time that action was taken. It’s a form of documentation, of proof.

Fourth, email provides a form of documentation in the more pragmatic sense of record-keeping. Instead of keeping notes, one can simply save emails which then can serve as a portable filing system that is always at hand. Email becomes a convenient way to document promises, agreements, decisions, etc., and to keep one informed about the flow and status of things.

Finally, using email may be seen as showing politeness or extending respect. Walking over to consult a colleague or calling on the phone without warning, may constitute an unwelcomed interruption. For this reason, American colleagues who work on the same floor will often still opt to send an email.

Why? Because it does not interrupt that colleague’s work. It does not demand that they stop what they were doing to respond to a question or request. Sending an email is a way to avoid putting them “on the spot” without warning. The outreach by email allows the colleague time to address the issue and to give a considered response. Its subtext might read: “Dear Colleague, I need to speak with you about something or I need something from you or I have something for you, but do not want to interrupt you. Please get back to me if and when you have time. Thank you.”

So many meetings

“Why do our American colleagues have so many meetings? It can appear to us Germans that they don’t get any work done.”

In many cases, it’s true that Americans have more meetings than do their German counterparts. But there are many instances where the case is the other way around. It all depends on the organization.

This is a complex topic, one that cannot be addressed adequately in Q&A format. But here are a few key points:

Meetings can be broken down into two categories: decision-oriented meetings and information-oriented meetings. Americans do, in fact, have more information-oriented meetings than their German colleagues.

And the reason for this is the importance that information-flow plays in the American model of decision-making. This model requires that colleagues meet to exchange information, and to keep each other up-to-date.

This topic is covered in the Q&A entries on emails, which will give insight into the role of information-flow and, in turn, help explain the importance of meetings in the American business context.