I’ve never had any kind of formal professional experience with or training in processes. I studied the liberals arts. History was my major. I’m non-technical. I can barely chang a lightbulb.

When my son, Daniel, was a young I dreaded the Christmas gifts we gave to him, the toys which needed to be put together, and then explained. At one Christmas I mentioned this to my mother. She laughed and said that my father was the same. I felt relief. I’m not as bad a father as I had feared. For my father was very capable man, more capable than I will ever be. And that’s ok.

The technical world never quite caught my interest. The natural world, though. Gazing at the stars during a warm, clear summer night in suburban Philadelphia in the 1970s. Climbing trees. Jumping in and out of streams. Running with the wind. Racing on paths through the woods on my bike. Jumping waves during the summer at the Jersey Shore. Smelling and feeling the freshly cut grass on the football field, as a twelve year old, on a Saturday morning during the last days of Indian Summer.

It’s all still very much in me. Yet, little to no interest in how it all came to be, how it works, how it continues to develop. Even though it is our world. We live in it. Technik – the technical world – what man creates, is of even less interest to me.

Processes are mission critical in the technical world. When large numbers of people are involved, when the work is complex in nature, when many steps need to be taken to get the job done, coordination is essential. Well thought through processes guaranty uniformity, quality, efficiency. That is the logic, at least.

It wasn’t until I began supporting Americans and Germans with their integration that I began thinking about processes. For who in their everyday lives invests time in thinking about how they do what they do in concrete steps?

Usually we focus on the results, the outcomes, of what we do. We think more about people, our interactions, our conflicts, than about work steps. It’s people who make our lives either easier or more difficult. So we think.

The less mechanical-mechanistic an activity is, the less process-driven (or -influenced) it is. People don’t behave like machines, not like objects. People have been neither created nor programmed by people.

In many of my management seminars I ask the German and American participants which factors are critical to the success of their companies. I can see them now in my mind’s eye. In breakout groups with their flipcharts. The Germans in one corner of the room, the Americans in the other.

It’s early Spring. We’re in a small town southwest of Nuremberg. A lovely little village with a stream running through it. Or seminar location no more than 100 meters from the town square. Everywhere evidences of German history, of the Middle Ages. I’m in my element.

Americans and Germans of today, working together, hoping to combine their inherent strengths as two cultures, in order to succeed. My job is limited, but focussed and not unimportant: to support them in their dialogue. To initiate, nudge, even jolt that dialogue. To formulate the questions. Questions which guide, steer, lead us in our imagination.

I walk over to the Germans. As always they’re deep in discussion. Deep dive. The way the Germans are. Success Factor #1 People. #2 Processes. Then innovation, quality, financial stability, etc.

And the Americans? “Processes” are nowhere to be seen on their flipcharts. Not mentioned. In other words, process is not a success factor. Instead they’ve written down: leadership, market knowledge, customer relationship management, speed, financial engineering, flexibility, product portfolio.

These folks – Germans and Americans – clearly differ. In fact, greatly differ. And, I believe that Germans cite people as the top success factor for reasons of political correctness. 

I suspect that if it were acceptable in German society – and in German labor law – they would not put people ahead of processes but the other way around. That sounds rather harsh. The German economy is, however, technical. They produce physical products. Mechanical engineering. The Germans build machines. Machines which other companies use in order to make products for end users.

So often I hear it in their discussions. I listen in. Germans and processes. Concrete. Focused. Penetrating. Discussing time and again the how. They don’t focus on the results but moreso on what needs to be done in order to reach those results. It’s all about how they apply their craftsmanship.

It’s winter. Christmas-time. I’m at one of the German Middle Ages Christmas markets. The guilds have their stands: smith, tanner, potterer, candle-maker, baker. They’re family names, too. Smith. Tanner. Potter. Baker. Shoemaker. Nomen est omen. Name is omen.

They are what they do. What they do is who they are. I and the other visitors stand there transfixed. It’s cold, windy, raw. The guildsfolk are dressed up as they would have been back then, centuries ago. They speak an antiquated German. Thou instead of you. Seeth instead of see. The stalls of the craftsmen are warm, however, due either to their fires or the psychological sense of security their craft gives them, and us.

The work, their craft, our work gives us stability, security, a job to do, a place to be. Like the others, I look with fascination at the face and the hands of the craftsman. The simplicity. Calm. Almost reflective. To be one with one’s work. A deeper calm. A part of, at one, with the world. An integral part. Geborgen: safe, secure, sheltered. 

The eyes and hands of the crafstman, the Meister, perfectly coordinated, in agreement. The steps of the process centuries-old: tested, improved, tested, improved, taught, learned, tested, improved. It becomes a part of a people’s flesh and blood. Becomes a part of their seeing, sensing, doing.

„If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right“, my mother would say time and again. Maybe the many unsoliticed pieces of advice the Germans have given me over the years were not that bad after all. Maybe they’re not the chronic know-it-alls, we Americans think they are. Maybe that’s just being German. 

Don’t hold the hammer like that way, but like this. That’s not the way you knead the dough, but like this. Work the leather like this to make it smoother. Success in Germany means to do things in a certain way, and not in another way. All this so that the customer says: “Yes, that’s the way it should be done. That’s the right way to do it.”

Who has the say about processes is often a bloody battle. It’s about power. Central functions groups go to battle against each other. The also go into battle with and against line management.

Nabelschau. Navel-gazing. It’s a German tendancy, often more than just a tendancy. Instead of concentrating on winning the battle in the market, against the external competition, Germans invest a great amount of time in debating and defining which box goes where on the organizational chart, as well as who owns the box, who is put in the box. Org charts and processes are the battlefield – one of them – where Germans fight their fights. It can distract them from their work.

2000. A German DAX30 company with a critical presence in the U.S. I was interviewing a high-level American manager. He had done a three-year delegation in Germany, spoke some German, was clearly an intelligent and reflective person. He said: 

“The Germans are constantly fighting internal turf wars, like battles for territory. It’s like in the Middle Ages. The one person sits high up in his castle and looks into the distance at the lands possessed by his neighbor in the next castle, scheming about how he can take some of his land. And the other guy in his castle? He’s thinking the same thing.”

And it often really is so in German companies. Prestige, influence and power are directly linked to – based on – size. Compensation, too, is typically based on the size of one’s organization. Literally, how many people you have “under you.” So the wars for power are fought over size, structure and processes. How the work is done. 

It’s a cliché that Germans are inflexible, that their processes are inflexible. I, too, believed that for many years. This is a complex topic. It depends on the process, of course, and on the particular step within a process. In some cases, Germans, like any other culture, would say: “At this stage of the process stick to the letter of the law. There is little to no room for interpretation.” In other cases, they would say: “Here we have room to interpret, to make our own decision based on the particulars of the situation.“

Now, when the process is documented in black and white, and in detail, it is in the German culture clear that one needs to stick to the process. When, however, it is generally formulated, is not in detail, then it signals that one has the flexibility to interpret. This has to do with the differences between the written and the spoken word in the German context. The written word has a very high level of binding character. The longer, the more detailed, the more restrictive, the less flexible. And the opposite. The shorter, the less detailed, the more flexible. But this is a topic for another day.

2005. I was on a bus from the center of town in Bonn headed home up on the Venusberg. After about twenty minutes we arrived at my stop. I went to the front of the bus and got off. Since more passengers were getting off and on I knew that the bus had a minute or so before it would continue on. So instead of walking twenty feet along the sidewalk to cross the street where the pedestrian crossing was indicated by the wide white stripes, I decided to save a few seconds by walking directly in front of the bus, leaning around it where the driver was sitting in order to see if any cars were coming.

Responsible, according to the German logic

Normally, cars are not allowed to drive around a bus while it is still loading or unloading passengers. Just to be safe, though, I looked. A car was just beginning to maneuver around the bus. Plenty of time for me to scoot across the street with my long legs. I decided to do it. Barely across the street, I heard a very loud screech. The car had come to a very sudden stop, hitting the brakes hard. I pivoted around immediately only to see a young boy, no older than seven or eight years old, standing just in front of that car, trembling, with no more than a foot or two separating them. He then scurried across the street onto the sidewalk.

Had the driver not reacted so quickly, chances are that boy either would not be with us today, or would be in a wheelchair, or worse. It shook me to the core. Time and again, over the years since, I recall that moment. I shudder. According to the German logic – social logic – I was partly responsible for that boy’s behavior, for choosing to cross the street directly in front of the bus and not at the official crossing point. Now, I am not sure if I would have been legally responsible, had he been hit by the car, but that is not the message here.

German thinking goes like this: “You are an adult. You know the rules. There are good reasons why we have official crossing points, and why they are marked with wide white stripes. So that drivers of cars, buses and trucks know to be careful at those points. And so that pedestrians cross at those points and not simply wherever they want. We want to minimize accidents between vehicles and human beings, especially children. So be a role model for children. If you pass at those official points, that will reinforce what they have been taught by their parents, teachers and the crossing guards who volunteer in the mornings and afternoons near the Kindergartens and elementary schools. If you do not stick to the rules, they will be tempted to do the same, possibly with tragic results.“

“They obey the rules no matter what.“

The American in me thinks that children should be responsible for themselves. Their parents, in the end, have to teach them good judgement, and not too simply do what others do. “Am I responsible for the actions of children of other people?” This, too, is certainly a topic for another day. It’s an important one, but far too complex for this story.

Little red man. Little green man. Many of us non-Germans are familiar with the traffic lights in Germany. The cars look for red, yellow, green. Pedestrians crossing streets look for the red man and the green man. The red man signals: “Don’t cross the street. You might come into contact with a car, bus or truck, and it won’t be terribly pleasant.” The green man signals: “Ok, you’re good. Cross the street.“

Many of us have stood at a street-crossing looking at that little red man and at the same time seeing no car, bus or truck far and wide. We look around and notice that the Germans are waiting, many stiff, still, often a grim look on their face. We, at least we Americans, wonder what in the world are they waiting for. Why aren’t they crossing the street? No cars coming. Many of us conclude: “Oh, they’re Germans. They obey the rules no matter what. How ridiculous.“

“Do you think you’re someone special?“

2005. Up until then, after seventeen years in Germany and I’d say that at I had received a comment barked out at me least a dozen times when I crossed the street while that little red man was still shining bright. “Hey you idiot, are you color blind?” or “Do you think you’re someone special?” or “Don’t you see that there are children standing here?“

That last comment is the key one, it goes to the heart of German social logic. For many years, when the target of such barks, I thought: “Mind your own business. Get a life. Get a job. Who made you a policeman?” In some instances I barked such things back, but in a more colorful language. “Those arrogant, busybody, know-it-all Germans”, I thought, “obeying silly rules like mindless slaves.”

Until that day. That day when a boy of seven was almost struck by a multi-ton chunk of steel, on sleek wheels of rubber gripping the concrete, with the power of well over a hundred horses, and often an impatient driver at the wheel. It was on that day that I understood why Germans in some cases are very inflexible.

2005. My son, Daniel, was also seven years old. Average height. Light as a feather. Tender. His grammar school was around the corner from our house. He needed not cross the street when walking from home to school and back. On another day, in another part of Bonn, however, that seven year old boy could have been mine. And that car could have been another car. Not as quick to stop.

The intense German focus on processes unsettles Americans time and again. It limits, cramps their flexibility. In the U.S. processes are seldom viewed as an effective alternative to agility, speed, creativity. Americans believe that the core skills of good management cannot be forced into processes, cannot be performed by processes. For them processes are tools which offer support.

In my early years here in Germany as an American I was put on the defensive when asked about my processes, my approach, how I do my work. Or at least I felt defensive, perhaps because I was not prepared to respond.

Then I went into the opposite direction. When asked about my work and its value for my customers, I would go into great detail about how I do the work, my thought and work processes, and spend too little time explaining the value of it all.

Intensity bangs into bafflement

My first website did little more than simply show my four-step process, in the sense of: „Do you want to know who I am, what I do, what value it could have for you and your company? Just take a look at my methodology.“ As you can imagine, the site did not attract much attention.

Well, you can also imagine what happens when Germans and Americans come together to discuss internal work processes. Intensity bangs into bafflement. Precise questions get imprecise answers. Impatience meets impatience. Each side shaking their heads about the other.

We Americans see long, detailed discussions about processes as a form of German navel-gazing. It‘s all well and good to do some thinking about the how, every now and then, but not too often, and certainly not for too long. The more you spend analyzing internal things, the more quickly you distance yourself from external things, such as the market, customers and their needs, from reality.

Proud but not arrogant

It was a discussion I had with Egon in the summer of 1991. In Bonn. He was married to a classmate of my German wife. Very intelligent guy. Mathematician in the Max Planck Institute. Friendly, courteous, sensitive, analytical. His wife, a linguist, outgoing, lively, funny.

Our conversations were always fascinating. Serious topics. Intellectual substance. We were eating in an Italian restaurant. A warm day with a lovely breeze wafting up from the Rhine River. The windows of the restaurant wide open. The long, black container boats on the Rhine, but also the private boats darting about, all waving their large German flags, black red gold. Germany had become reunited in October the year before. For a brief moment the Germans felt they could show feel, and show, patriotism.

Poets and thinkers

In the summer, especially in the early hours when the sun shines, Bonn has an almost Mediterranean flair. The air is clear, fresh, sweet. The water‘s surface reflects the rays of the sun in a soft, inviting way. If you look across the Rhine into the distance, starting to the North, then pan to the East, then South, you can see the transition from the Lower Rhine (flatland) to the Middle Rhine, to the Seven Mountains, pointing to the south, where the Rhine snakes to and through the towns of Koblenz, Mainz, into the Palatinate, on to Northern Baden, where the river becomes the border between Germany and France.

We discussed German history. I should have noted down what Egon had said. Only some of the details can I recall. But his thesis seemed more than plausible. Time and again over the years the conversation came back to me.

The Germans, Egon said, were in their history always a bit boxed in, geographically, and politically. They turned inward. The land of Dichter und Denker, of poets and thinkers. A land of people who reflect. Whereas the British, French, Dutch, Spanish and the Portugese looked, and went, outward.

They are Seevölker, literally sea peoples, maritime nations. They had overseas colonies, traded across the oceans, became naval powers. Many of their finest, the most talented, looked outward, went out, chased adventure and ventures outside of their countries. In Germany, the best looked inward, worked inward, stayed within.

So many people on the German side. Especially in central functions. Who have so much time on their hands. Producing so many powerpoint presentations. Conduct so many long-winded discussions. Going into such great detail.

The Americans call them bureaucrats, who create processes, in order to justify their jobs in the company. “Make work.” German bureaucracy is there, say Americans, “to feed the village.”

Germans and Americans come together to discuss their collaboration, including to discuss their processes. They don’t know each other, are wary of each other, want to defend and protect their work, how they work, demonstrate that their processes are effective.

In many cases – perhaps most – people are convinced that their processes are good, and that they live them. But many Americans have a cliché-view of the Germans. They strike the table with their fist and say: „We will do it this way and not that way!“ And German behavior can at times appear to support that cliché.

The truth is, German colleagues are also convinced that their approaches work. And why not? Unfortunately, many of them are not proficient enough in English, and they, too, are unsure of themselves, perhaps feel the need to force their point across, strongly, vehemently. I don’t have a problem with that. But, many Americans do: „totally inflexible Germans with their inflexible German processes.“

In addition to these tensions you have the fact that Germans tend not to document their processes. Often they refuse to do so. When they do document, however, the formulation is usually general, with little detail.

Why? For one, the written word in the German culture has a high degree of binding character. Germans are very reluctant to tie their hands via detailed processes and procedures which then obligate them to do their work in specific ways. Another reason is that many Germans don’t want to share their knowhow. They don’t want it to be transferrable.

This is not so much about “information is power”, but far more about job-security. And then, of course, they see very little value in taking the time to carefully and clearly write things down. Their thinking is: Institutional knowledge is there. Folks know what they are supposed to do, when, how and why.

And, Germans develop competences differently than Americans. First learn, then do. They work in specific areas for a longer period of time, developing deep-dive knowledge and experience. And they get a sense for the what other departments close to theirs do. 

Depth and breadth. Continuity and consistency. Kaminaufstieg – move up within the smokestack or the silo – is the term they use. They build expertise, become experts. And experts, Germans would say, don’t need document how the work is done. They have it in their heads.

Documented or not documented, either way it remains a mystery to Americans when Germans “stick to the letter of the law” (process discipline) and when they permit themselves to ignore the process (process deviation). 

On the one side stubborn, dogmatic Germans and their inflexible processes. On the other, little to no process documentation, and doing things they way they simply want to. And when they do deviate from the process they may not even bother informing their boss. Very confusing.