Agreements – Page 10 – understand-culture

Germany. Geography. Risk.

How a people understands risk is based on its experiences as a people, on the decisions it has made and on their ramifications. Decisions take place within a concrete context, within certain parameters, such as geography. Germany lies in the middle of Europe, has always had a number of neighbors, some friends, some foe, others neutral.

Germany’s topography offers little protection. In the East vast flatlands flow into the steppes of Russia. Never a maritime power, Germany to the north has only narrow access to the high seas. With the exception of the Rhine River, there are also no natural barriers in the West offering protection.The Alps to the south offer protection, however.

Compared to such countries as the U.S., China, Russia, Germany has limited natural resources. The U.S. is a continental nation, defended by oceans to the East and West. Great Britain, once a great power, has forever enjoyed the protection of the seas as an island nation.

Any mistakes Germany made in its relations with its neighbors and the powers beyond was felt directly by its people. Time and again in its history devastating wars were fought on German territory, decimating its population and ravaging its economy. For some of the wars the German people have themselves to blame. For others they were victims.

Risiko or risk from Italian risico: to do something involving a certain degree of chance, with possible negative effects; possibility of significant loss, failure.

Germans often say auf Nummer sicher gehen, literally to play the safe number, when they want to avoid unnecessary risk. Germans prefer to “check twice and be sure”. They check, test, question, analyze. They’re often considered to be overly detailed, risk averse, even pedantic in their approach. Being particularly careful may test one’s patience, but the Germans would rather be safe than sorry.

Or lieber den Spatz in der Hand, als die Taube auf dem Dach, figuratively “better a bird in the hand than two in the bush“.

Nuclear energy? No thanks!

The German anti-nuclear-energy movement began as a social movement back in the 1970’s. It was directed against civilian consumption of nuclear energy. In comparison to other European countries, the movement has also received both the strongest and most continuous support in Germany. The anti-nuclear-energy movement is strongly connected to the environmentalist movement: Greenpeace, BUND and Robin Hood, for example, categorically reject the use of nuclear energy.

The accident on Three-Mile-Island in 1979 and the catastrophe at Chernobyl in 1986 provided the movement with new fuel. In 2000, the Schroeder-Fischer government began the process of phasing out the use of nuclear energy throughout the country.

While in 2010 the Kohl-government was gearing up for an extension of the run-time of the remaining nuclear plants, the German reaction to the nuclear incident in Fukushima in 2011 forced Chancellor Merkel, an advocate of nuclear energy, to reconsider this decision. Germany now plans to phase out nuclear energy completely by May 30th, 2022.

Fukushima ultimately resulted in an acceleration of the phasing-out of nuclear facilities in Germany. One year after Fukushima Chancellor Merkel defended her decision: “As we have witnessed, risks emerged in a highly developed industrial country, which we never would have considered to be possible. That is what convinced me that we should accelerate the phase-out”.

Meanwhile, Japan continues to invest in the nuclear industry. Great Britain is planning the construction of a new atomic plant. Even in France Fukushima could not slow the success of the nuclear industry. And in the USA, Fukushima also had no significant impact on opinions on nuclear energy held by the President and other politicians.

The German anti-nuclear energy movement and the nation’s response to Fukushima demonstrate the unique understanding that Germans have of risk.

Think first. Then act.

Germans often have the impression that their American colleagues gather too little information before making a decision. Valuable information sources are not tapped into. Comparisons are made “on thin ice.” Early indications based on subjective sources are not questioned critically.

All these reservations go against the German belief in erst denken, dann handeln – think first, then act. For richtig denken – literally right or correct thinking, in the German context means holding down (controlling) the natural impulse to act until the situation has been analyzed and the consequences of actions thought through.

It should be of no surprise, therefore, that Germans often see American analysis as insuffiently stringent. They see a narrow and incomplete focus on only certain aspects of the decision to be made. They fear that the Americans overestimate their ability to do a sauber – clean analysis.

This is underlined by what the Germans believe is an American tendancy to take subjective information too strongly into consideration. They are surprised when their counterparts do not use those tools and standards which have proven to be successful.

In the end Germans see their Americans colleagues as too pragmatic, too inaxact. Insufficient results are accepted too quickly. This is very difficult for Germans to accept as a people which places so much emphasis on avoiding errors via accepted tools and standards, errors which could be the source of a Systemzusammenbruch – literally system collapse. Germans see themselves sliding into danger which can only be stopped through analysis performed twice or even three times over.

74 Billion Dollars

On May 7th, 1998 Jürgen Schrempp, CEO of Daimler, and Bob Eaton, CEO of Chrysler appeared together at a press conference in London to announce a merger between the two companies. It was emphasized that this was not a takeover by one company of the other, but rather a fusion between equal parties. Schrempp deemed the merger of Daimler and Chrysler “a match made in heaven”.

After two years, Co-chairman Eaton announced his resignation, leaving Schrempp to be the sole head. In 2006 Schrempp passed this position on to Dieter Zetsche. By March 2007 the first speculations began to emerge that DaimlerChrysler would sell the ChryslerGroup.

Since the merger, Chrysler had reduced its net worth by 35 billion Euros, while the net worth of DaimlerChrysler has been reduced by another 50 billion by the end of Schrempp’s resignation in 2005. On May 14th, 2007 the sale of ChryslerGroup to Cerberus was announced. During a special general assembly on October 4th, 2007 it was officially decided to rename the company Daimler AG.

For Mercedes-Benz this merger to DaimlerChrysler AG seriously damaged the company’s image, which many attribute to quality issues and cost-cutting. The leading role which Daimler-Benz AG once had in the auto industry has still not been completely restored.

A study conducted by the consulting firm McKinsey estimated that the company’s value had dropped during Schrempp’s reign by 74 billion dollars.

Better a bird in the hand

“Besser den Spatz in der Hand als die Taube auf dem Dach” – better a sparrow in the hand than a dove on the roof – is a popular German saying expressing the German aversion to risk.

Aversion to risk and conservativeness go hand-in-hand. Never want too much, be satisfied with what you have.“ Den Mund nicht voll nehmen.” – Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Only 13 percent of Germans invested in stocks and shares during 2014. Despite rock-bottom interest rates, the majority of savers continued putting their money into trusted bank savings accounts and fixed-return financial products.

“Sitting out“

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was often innaccurately portrayed as the master of Aussitzen (sitting out) by journalists and political elites alike. Instead of approaching a problem directly, it was said that he would wait until it would either resolve itself or people would lose interest in it.

But even with Kohl’s retirement from politics,“sitting out“ political issues supposedly has not gone out of style. At least according to Stern maganzine, which claims that Angela Merkel has become the new representative of this style of governing. As Wochenmagazin wrote in March 2010: “Angela Kohl – wait it out, weigh it out, sit it out. Chancellor Merkel reveals herself ever more strongly to be an adept pupil of the greatest sitter-outer Helmut Kohl”.

More accurate is that Kohl was and Merkel is a master of thinking things through, patience, and building consensus.

Ways to say No in German

Nein, it’s a very popular word in Germany. The Germans use it all the time. So much so, that they have all sorts of nuanced ways to say it.

Nibelung Loyalty

Nibelungentreue is a German compound noun, literally Nibelung loyalty, expressing the concept of absolute, unquestioning, excessive and potentially disastrous loyalty to a cause or person.

It is derived from the Medieval chivalric ideal of loyalty, Middle High German triuwe, as exemplified in the second part of the Nibelungenlied, where the Burgundian kings Gunther, Gernot and Giselher refuse to hand over to Kriemhild their loyal vassal Hagen of Tronje, who is guilty of murdering Kriemhild’s husband, Siegfried. The brothers place the loyalty to their friend above their obligations to their sister or to justice, leading to disaster and the complete destruction of the Nibelungs.

The modern term Nibelungentreue was coined by chancellor Bernhard von Bülow in his speech before the Reichstag on 29 March 1909. Addressing the Bosnian Crisis, von Bülow invoked the absolute loyalty between the German Empire and Austira-Hungary to their Alliance of 1879against the threat by the Entente Cordiale:

Meine Herren, ich habe irgendwo ein höhnisches Wort gelesen über eine Vasallenschaft gegenüber Österreich-Ungarn. Das Wort ist einfältig. […] aber die Nibelungentreue wollen wir aus unserem Verhältnis zu Österreich‐Ungarn nicht ausschalten. Die wollen wir vor aller Öffentlichkeit Österreich‐Ungarn gegenüber wahren.

“Gentlemen — I have somewhere read a scornful word regarding a [German] vassalage to Austria-Hungary. This is fatuous. […] but we will not eliminate the Nibelung loyalty from our relation to Austria-Hungary. This we want to preserve towards Austria-Hungary in full public view.”

The term is adopted by emperor Wilhelm II of Germany as the German Empire declared war alongside Austria-Hungary on 1 August 1914. After the defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, the notion of th Dolchstoß (“Stab in the back”) also invoked the Nibelungen legend, invoking the cowardly murder of Siegfried.

Nibelungentreue was later, in East Germany during denazification and by the 1980s also in West Germany, applied (derogatively) to Nazi ideology, especially in connection with the Schutzstaffel motto, Meine Ehre heißt Treue. Used in this sense by Marxist commentators, the term describes a fanatical Germanic military loyalty associated with fascism and militarism.

Franz Führmann in 1955 wrote a poem called Der Nibelunge Not (“the plight/distress of the Nibelungs”, the Middle High German title of the Nibelungenlied) in which he portrays the Nibelungs as a Germanic Töterdynastie (“dynasty of killers”) who brought a curse on their descendants. The term is also occasionally found in English-language literature about Nazi Germany; thus, Steinberg (1990) describes Goebbels’ suicide as “a paroxysm of Nibelungentreue“.

Source: Wikipedia

Effi Briest

In Theodor Fontane Effi Briest the rigid adherence to social contracts and the consequences of breaking them are central. While not about business, the story reflects the broader German cultural expectation that agreements-whether social or professional-are binding and not subject to renegotiation or casual follow-up.

Nibelungentreue

A German with extensive experience living and working in the U.S. made this comment about entering into and maintaining agreements:

“I more observed that you make easier commitments in some cultures, and somewhere it takes more time. Then, in some cultures you can adjust when the boundary conditions dramatically change. And in others you stick to your word whatever happens. I guess that probably is the concept of Nibelungentreue, which has both positive and negative implications.”