“Nicht über den eigenen Tellerrand hinaus zu schauen,” literally to not look beyond the rim of your own plate, is as negative a criticism as having an underdeveloped Problembewusstsein, problem-consciousness. Such people don’t recognize connections, interconnections, and interdependencies (the complexity). They sort of stumble along without fully grasping the broader context within which they do so. They have plenty of facts at hand, and can tell entertaining stories based on their experience, but fundamentally cannot “put two and two together.”

Germans are no fans of anecdotes in general anyway. They consider anecdotes to be uncertified, unauthenticated pseudo-documents, un-proofed by an official body or organization. Anecdotes are subjective, therefore invalid, worthy of being challenged. Germans expect theory which helps objectify facts and numbers, offering a clean method for understanding complexity.

Germans would roll their eyes when confronted in a typical American bookstore by those tall, narrow kiosk-like stands pushing how-to books with titles such as “10 Easy Steps to a Successful Marriage,“ “5 Simple Ways to Become a Millionaire,“ “Start Your Own Company in 3 Weeks,“ “A Successful Family in Ever Way,“ each of them amounting to no more than 150 pages.

“You stupid Americans, with your bullshit pragmatism!”

Germans are capable of being focused and to-the-point. It’s those “easy steps” which make them nervous. Perhaps it’s a part of Anglo-American pragmatism. I’ll never forget a conversation I had with Georg (yes, yet another anecdote). 1982, my very first year in Germany. He was the boyfriend of the daughter in the family I lived with in a small town south of Bonn.

Hardly had I met him and Georg got right down to business. As a junior officer in the Bundeswehr, the German Army, he asked me if Reagan and the U.S. would defend West Germany if the Russians and the Warsaw Pact attacked. I tried to give him a credible response, but was not exactly prepared for that kind of question as a twenty-two year old who had just graduated from college. I was not persuasive. Georg ended the conversation abruptly and in a huff mumbling under his breath, yet audible enough: “Ihr blöden US-Amerikaner mit Eurem scheiß Pragmatismus!”, literally you stupid Americans, with your bullshit pragmatism!

I shrugged my shoulders and continued on my way in life. In the quarter century since then I have thought often about that interaction. It was the thought that pragmatism could be “scheiße.“ To think and act pragmatically was a principle I had never challenged. What could possibly be wrong with pragmatism?

A few years back I interviewed an American expert on processes. He works in a German multinational company with a very large presence in the U.S. He and his German colleagues had been working for months on aligning their processes.

The Germans wanted very much to harmonize the processes. “harmonize” is a dirty word for the Americans. It conjures up scenes of horror. They were making very little progress. On the contrary, they were bickering. And how did the American process guy respond to my question about deductive or inductive? “What is this a university seminar in philosophy?”

He then explained. As the process expert in the organization he stays in close contact with those colleagues who move the business forward, those in the “engine room.” He knows their world, their problems, what’s going on. He accompanies, observes, asks questions, listens. Then he reflects, proposes, presents, discusses. Modifying existing processes, or introducing entirely new ones, is based on knowledge and understanding of the situation “on the ground.”

The collaboration between the doers and the process expert is close and integrated. Process people need to know the business, the key people, and the work, before they can address how the work is done.

As an American, I understand this. But, isn’t it critical that the process person take a step back, get some distance, in order to understand and analyze it all? Isn’t abstraction – getting abstract – the prerequisite for solid analysis?

Could it be that getting abstract is so self-stated in the German context, that they neglect to explain to their American colleagues that they also do their homework, that they also do the field work, interviewing and understanding those who do the work day in and day out?

I suspect that the German colleagues present their results – modified or new processes – straight from the process laboratory so to speak, after already having gotten abstract on the key factors – let’s call them principles.

This German approach implies – therefore understood by all involved – that there is a natural, and healthy, tension between getting into the details of how the work is done, and gaining enough distance from them in order to understand them. 

The logic is: “The deeper I go into the details, or get pulled into the details, the more difficult it will be to recognize the drivers, the key factors, the patterns. I need distance. I need my laboratory.”

If the German approach to processes is difficult for Americans to grasp, and therefore accept, what makes it even more difficult is their impression that their German colleagues do not understand the American market, how Americans do business. They see processes coming from the German process lab which don’t work in the U.S., that can potentially damage the business.

That big stick is wielded by Americans often and swiftly: “You folks don’t know our market, how we work, what it means to be successful here. You failed here in the U.S. with your German approach. That’s why you acquired us. So please don’t make changes to our processes, don’t introduce any new processes, without first speaking with us and then allowing us to adapt what you propose to our situation!”

„No taxation without representation!“ That was one of the battle cries of the American colonists. They revolted. The British, a world power then, were defeated. The United States of America was formed.

Americans learn at a very early age, in grammar school, that intelligence is the ability to simplify complexity, to break it down into segments, in order to understand and deal with it. Americans are pragmatic. Knowledge has true value when you can do something with it. Knowledge is of no value if it is not actionable. In English composition in school young Americans learn to construct short, clear and logical sentences. This is the pattern, the foundation, for just about all forms of written communication.

I remember all too well an at first surprisingly – but earned – poor grade I received for a paper I wrote on the Prussian King, Frederick the Great. I was a student of History at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It was the Fall semester of 1980, my senior year, the last of four years. It was a beautiful October day, warm and sunny. Indian Summer. I attended a two semester course on German History, the beginning of my fascination with Germany. I simply could not get enough of it, about Germany and the Germans, articles, books, including Gerhard Ritter’s classic.

Apparently my fascination and excitement got away from me. I produced a ten-page paper of complicated confusion – unstructured and unclear. My professor, Michael Foley, one of the greats at Georgetown, took a knife to it. Red all over it. His commentary at the end: “Magee, what kind of nonsense is this. You write like a German!” 

Professor Foley most surely did not mean that Germans can’t think, read or write. As an historian he was quite aware that the German people had produced many of the greatest historians of the modern era, and that the methods of historians originated in Germany. Instead he wanted to convey: “Dear John, first get clarity on what it is you wish to communicate. Then do so in simple, clear and straightforward sentences.”

Keep it simple, stupid!

And he was right! It is part of the American national cultural hard-wiring to believe (and say) that one has truly understood something if and when they can communicate it. “If you can’t explain it, you don’t understand it.” It’s an assumption which every American operates on: “If you can’t explain it to the average Joe, you don’t understand it.” It’s considered a high art form in the U.S. to be able to explain complex matters to the “man on the street.” It’s been said many times that Konrad Adenauer was a master of this art form.

I understood this about Adenauer many years later, during research on my Master‘s thesis about the disagreements between the Kennedy and Adenauer administrations during the Second Berlin Crisis, 1961-63. Through my studies I had become quite familiar with Chancellor Adenauer. His extraordinary ability to communicate with the “average Joe” was particularly effective in the early post-War years in West Germany. During one of the great national debates in the Bundestag about West German foreign policy Adenauer contrasts starkly his policy to that of the opposition Social Democrats by shouting: “Und wir wählen die Freiheit!” (We choose freedom!).

In the U.S. business context people speak of KISS: ‘Keep it simple, stupid!’ There, again, is the American logic about how to deal with complexity: “If you are truly intelligent, then you know how to make it simple, so that simple folks can understand it.” Perhaps this has to do with democracy and market economics. For what use is it to politicians to formulate complex arguments which are not understood by voters? Is it any different with companies marketing their products and services?

Story-telling activates the human imagination

This is also a reason why it is anecdotes, if well-told and -timed, are enormously persuasive in the American cultural context. For Americans anecdotes are empirical. They are reality experienced, the opposite of theory, which is often seen as abstract and unrealistic, separated from reality. An anecdote says: “I know what I’m talking about. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. This is no theory, it’s reality!” Any American politician, for example, speaking in their legislative district or in the media about a difficult issue, such as the war in Iraq, will come across as especially convincing if they can claim to have visited that region.

Like aphorisms, anecdotes transport deeper-lying wisdom. Isn’t that what the Bible – Old and New Testament – does via one story after the other, communicate the deepest-felt, and therefore most complex, beliefs of a people, of Jews and Christians? Isn’t story-telling the highest, the most sophisticated, form of activating (speaking) to human imagination? Truly persuasive communicators in the U.S. plan very carefully when they draw on anecdotes. This is why we all listen so carefully when our grandparents tell their stories. They have the years of human experience.

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.”

During one of her visits to Germany my mother commented: “John, when you do your management seminars be sure to remind the Germans how important it is in their dealings with Americans to smile.” Initially I thought the comment was rather absurd. But in the months, and even years, since then I have come to recognize its significance.

Especially in the public space Americans don’t exactly get the most positive impression from German facial expressions, body language, and from how they deal with each other. It‘s as if they are communicating that the sky is falling, the world is coming to an end, everything is just awful.

Maybe it is due to the strong German inclination to always look for things which don’t work or are imperfect or just substandard. Perhaps the logic is “the better you can find errors, the better you can improve them; the earlier you can anticipate mistakes, the sooner you can prevent them. Everything will be ok.” It‘s certainly an approach that works. Look at Germany. But it‘s certainly not a recipe for a positive atmosphere.

Even more problembewußt

I remember well an episode during my time in the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group. We were in the U.S., a delegation of German parliamentarians in visiting members of Congress in Washington, D.C. There were several so-called photo opportunities. The politicians stood pressed together. The photographer clicked away.

Just before the first photo was taken one of my German colleagues whispered in my ear: “John, watch how the Americans put on a huge, happy smile.” He was right. Lots of teeth. Bright and shiny. His comment kept popping up in my mind for days afterward. I sensed that it was a bit critical in the sense of: “Look at how superficial you Americans are!” I took it personally. “You Americans” as in you, John, and your family, relatives and friends. “Look, as if everything in America was just great. How naive!”

It bothered me. I felt insulted. It hurt my feelings. Ever since then I notice – at least from my American perspective – how Germans have no problem presenting the world their long faces. Especially in moments of difficulty, when optimism is critical, Germans tend to be even more problembewußt (literally problem-conscious).

When Americans see people with a long face, they ask themselves instinctively (consciously or unconsciously): “What’s their problem? What did they do wrong to put themselves in a position to be so down? What opportunity did they not take advantage of? What battle did they just lose? Why don’t they pull themselves together and pursue the next opportunity? Are they losers?”

This kind of American thinking has not only to do with the figure of speech – “Never let them see you sweat!” – which means: precisely when you‘re down, when you are nervous or unsure of yourself, always give the impression that everything is going well, and that you are capable of handling any and all difficult situations successfully.

It has even more to do with the fundamental American belief that every person is the architect of their own fortune. The American experience is that the country offers many opportunities. So many waves of immigrants have come, worked hard and succeeded. Americans, therefore, have little patience for people who don’t take advantage of those opportunities, but instead look for causes of their failure outside of themselves.

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. 

The history of Germany, as well as the historical consciousness of the German people, continue to impress and attract me. Today, just as strongly as a quarter century ago. You need only to go into a bookstore in Germany. Their books are not only solid, well bound and have great covers. The Germans have a very special relationship to books. There are always many older and newer publications about history, about their history. For those Germans who want to know their history there will never be a shortage of opportunities.

Every city in Germany, large and small, has museums in which history, but not only theirs, is told, is kept alive and relevant. In my early years in Berlin and Bonn I was astounded by how many fascinating and well-made documentary films were shown on German television. There was never a day without at least one in the evening. The German language is worth learning if only to read their books, to visit their museums, and to watch their documentaries. Although not a documentary, but one with the look and feel of one, was Heimat.

It was the summer of 1992. I watched episode for episode of Heimat. My eyes were glued to the television, my mind racing to understand every word, to pick up on as many nuances as possible. What an opportunity for me to gain insight in Germany of that time period, between the world wars. Time and again I had to turn to my German wife to get the meaning of this or that word, for the dialogue was in the dialect of that region of Germany, the Hunsrück, along the Moselle River, between Trier and Koblenz. After every episode I was in a kind of trance, reflecting about what I had just taken in.

The history of another people

Then another time. I was in the car. Driving through Bonn. Evening. I turned on the radio. Deutschlandfunk. A book review was being read. It was about the immediate post-war years in then West Germany. The first sentences grabbed my attention. They flowed: complex, clear, rich, full of substance, critical, analytical, yet elegant. That feeling had come back, from when I was a student at Georgetown. History. German History. The history of another people. In another part of the world. And when I read the books by John Lukacs. Trance.

The reader continued. I was captured, drove further, but as if on a soft cloud just a few inches above the road. I think of the many war memorials in Germany. When I walk or ride my bicycle down the hill from the Venusberg in Bonn to the former government quarter on the Rhine, I pass through Kessenich where there is such a memorial. It’s round, cement, encircling a lovely oak tree. Six pillars about eight feet high. Plenty of space between them to step in and out. The tops of all eight crowned – or held together – by a cement ring providing the tree with space to stretch out its branches. Just below the top each of the eight the face in cement of a German soldier with the iconic German steel helmet from the World War I.

Chiseled into the pillars, from the top to just about the bottom, are the names of the men who died in the two world wars. Six pillars, three sides each. Longs lists. Names. Of men, and boys, from that part of Bonn, from the neighborhood. Yes, boys, many no older than seventeen or eighteen years old. Sad. Especially sad for me, as one of five Magee boys, to read the same last names. Meyer. Schmitz. Leyendecker. Two, three, sometimes four of the same last names. Brothers. Cousins. Imagine the deep, deep sadness of the mothers and fathers who saw their boys go off to war only to kill and be killed. 1914. 1915. 1916. 1917. 1918. Four long years for an entire continent. Then on the other sides of the pillars. 1939. 1940. 1941. 1942. 1943. 1944. 1945. Many of the same names. The sons and nephews of those fallen between 1914 and 1918. The Germans suffered, too.

Americans and Germans who have been collaborating over a longer period of time have all sorts of insider jokes about the respective other culture. These jokes are certainly not meant maliciously. They do, however, signal a deep seated consensus in the one culture about certain characteristics of the other culture. And those characteristics are, in most cases, considered to be negative.

I don‘t mean cliches or prejudices, which usually are not based on any kind of fact. Instead I mean characteristics – national cultural traits – which each side observes and experiences on a daily basis and over a longer stretch of time. Each side – separate of each other – discusses these. They then develop their jokes. Because these characteristics (a part of one‘s character), or logics, are rooted in national culture, they are in almost in most cases misunderstood by the other culture. Their insider jokes are a clear indication of misinterpretation.

Often no more than a specific term or phrase is enough for the one side to know what is being said about the other. That‘s the nature of insider jokes. Take the topic product, or more precisely product philosophy. A German colleague need only wink to his colleagues and imitate an American colleague by saying „and we‘ve tested it.“

Every fellow German knows what is meant by the phrase: „Oh, here we go again, another American who believes to have developed a solution just because what they tried actually worked, but once and by chance or coincidence.“ The implied criticism is equally clear: „They (the Americans) can‘t explain how and why it worked. The solution is half-baked. In reality it hasn‘t been tested at all.“ For Germans „and we‘ve tested it“ means Americans are naive, quick to claim a breakthrough, at best not thorough.

Risk via false assumptions

Alarms go off in my head whenever I hear insider jokes on either side of the Atlantic. I jump into the conversation immediately and ask questions. For insider jokes are clear indications that the one culture misunderstands the other culture in a critical area. Insider jokes are not thought up, told and retold unless they address foundational matters. And therein lies the danger for German-American collaboration. Insider jokes become imbedded.

And what is imbedded is difficult to root out. Misunderstanding leads to (counter)behaviour. „The Americans are this or that.“ Or „The Germans think like this or than.“ If taken as fact the respective other culture adjusts its approach based on a misinterpretation. If each culture‘s operating assumptions about the other culture are wrong, or just partly wrong, the potential for Americans and Germans working against instead of with and for each other increases.

Several years ago Volkwagen was convinced it knew what the Chinese wanted in a car. With such a large population, with such high levels of population density in cities and towns, it was clear to VW that the Chinese people wanted a compact, agile, fuel-efficient automobile. „The Chinese want a Polo.“ But the Chinese did not want a Polo or any compact car. They wanted a big car. VW‘s operating assumptions in the largest automobile growth market were wrong. Very wrong. That mistake costed VW a rather significant amount of money.

Interconnections and interdependencies

„The German graph“ is one of the American insider jokes (in this case terms). It, too, is a misinterpretation. Americans see many a German graph – usually in a PowerPoint presentation – which for them are „too busy“, with far too much information on them: text, arrows, lines, symbols, etc. They‘re difficult to understand. Looked at for longer than a few minutes such graphs can give Americans headaches. They get the impression that only the presenter – a German – can understand them.

It is true that some „German graphs“ are packed too full with information. But if so, not because the German approach is nonsense, but more likely because that approach was not executed well. The actual disconnect – or misinterpretation – is that Americans are not aware of how Germans explain complexity.

If you believe in the value of explaining interconnections and interdependencies in a systematic way, you have to display them ideally on one slide. This provides overview. Otherwise you would have to break down that complexity into several slides and constantly flip forward and backward to show the system. In other words, to explain interconnections you have to show interconnections.

It really is that simple. Americans and Germans can debate about whether a presenter gets the interconnections and interdependencies right. 

They can debate about whether the presenter uses the presentation software in an effective way. But the fundamental German approach to addressing complexity as it is, explaining the system underlying it, is surely not a national cultural weakness of the German people, and most certainly not a weakness other cultures should joke about. For, in fact, grasping complexity is one of the greatest of German national cultural strengths (provided that strength is applied at the right time and in the right way).

Germans can, indeed, tangle themselves up in systems. They do have the tendancy to look at a problem from so many different perspectives, attempting to factor in so many different parameters, in order to reach total consensus, that at some point noone can recall what it is they are trying resolve.

Let‘s keep in mind, however, that there is such a thing as the (American) opposite of „the German graph.“ It is the presentation slide with maximum three statements in oversized, bold letters stating something like: „This is the challenge. This is the solution. We‘ll all make lots of money and mankind will be happy ever after.“

Political advertisements of every kind must pass the objectivity test in Germany. The Germans expect substance and convincing arguments. And although the private and personal is seeping more and more into German politics, due to the influence of American politics, politicians in Germany are still identified directly with the stands they take on specific issues. They represent the political platforms of their respective parties.

Political party conventions in Germany are held once or twice a year. Their purpose is not to nominate candidates before elections, but instead to debate and formulate policy. At the conventions the stage is dominated by the party, with up to three or four rows of ten to fifteen seats per row occupied by the party elite. Until recently the speaker’s podium was to the side. And even though it has been moved to the center, the thirty to fifty colleagues occupying the stage send a clear signal: “Sure, we have different speakers during the convention. But make no mistake, the party comes first, the individuals politicians and office-holders come second!”

In the summer of 1996, while a political adviser to the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group in Bonn, I attended the Republican National Convention in San Diego. My job was to accompany and assist Peter Hintze (then Secretary General of the CDU), Jürgen Chrobog (then German ambassador to the U.S.) and Ruprecht Polenz (then Member of the Foreign Relations Committee). Bob Dole and Jack Kemp were nominated, then in the general election beaten badly by Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

“Blow by blow” 

Along with meetings with leading Republicans, Peter Hintze was especially interested in observing the details of the convention. Part of his job was organizing and preparing the CDU conventions for Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It is well known that American party conventions serve the primary purpose of presenting to voters a high level of unity, in terms of the “ticket” and the substance of the party’s platform. Political debate does not take place, and certainly not in full view of the American public. Germany is different. The conventions are televised from start to finish. And the Germans debate, openly, directly, harshly. The German public can follow it “blow by blow” by television or radio.

The great sensation of that 1996 Republican National Convention was Colin Powell’s speech. Many had hoped that he would be their party’s candidate. Immediately after his 1992 election, Clinton asked Powell to be his Secretary of State, hoping to prevent a Powell-candidacy four years later. Powell had declined respectfully. The arena in San Diego, fifteen thousand strong, exploded in applause when General Powell walked on stage, in civilian clothes, and proceeded to speak directly to the hearts and minds of the American people. From his heart and with great intensity.

Like any and every truly persuasive speaker in the American context Powell used anecdotes, figures of speech and several brief, but very personal stories to convey his message. He wanted to move the people emotionally. Hintze and Chrobog turned to me time and again asking for an explanation of these stories. “Was meint er damit?” (What does he mean? What is he trying to say?) The atmosphere in the convention center was electrifying.

Sitting behind the two Germans, and due to the noise level, which had even surprised me, I had to stick my head forward between theirs and literally scream my responses to their questions. It was clear to all three Germans – Hintze, Chrobog, Polenz – that the convention, and General Powell’s speech, were all about emotions.

Durable products are those which last a long time. They have longevity. If improved continually they survive in the market. They develop continuity. For Germans continuity is a sign of quality, reliability, durability, in sum excellence.

German advertising, regardless of the form, stresses that continuity. Automobile manufacturers present their newest models as the natural (logical) extension of their predecessors (Vorgänger), the improved version. Rarely do they take leaps of fancy, diverging from what has been. The same goes for many other products, whether household appliances, machine tools, or business-to-business products and systems.

And this thinking is found in German companies, in how they present themselves.

“You can rely on this product.”

Especially the famed German Mittelstand (small- and medium-sized companies) stress time and again with pride that they are an inhabergeführtes (literally owner-run) Familienunternehmen (family company). Invariably this statement is followed by the company‘s year of foundation – gegründet 1905 (founded). On many company websites you can read a chronology of the company (family) history.

The message is clear: you can rely on our product, and rely on us, because we have been working on it for decades, some companies many decades, constantly improving it, incrementally and in a very focused way.

Long-lasting (durability) is a value in and of itself. It signals experience, stamina, focus, survival. Not sentimentality, but real value in dollars and cents, or in Euros and Euro cents. The German logic says that it pays to invest in a long-lasting product, even if the upfront investment is higher than in a less durable product.

Quality and durability

I still take notice of the fact that most taxis in Germany are Mercedes Benz, followed by VW and some Japanese models. Mercedes Benz, top of the line. Every now and then I ask the driver: „Your fares are reasonable. Perhaps a bit higher than in the U.S., but not significantly so. How can you earn a profit if you have to finance this expensive car?“ 

The answer is always the same: quality and durability of the automobile in general, and of the engine in particular. „I can put well over a couple of hundred thousand kilometers on it, keep my repair costs low, and it still has resale value.“ In dozens of German cities over more than two decades, that is the answer I get each and every time.

Its evident also in how they define competence. Germans tend to work in the same discipline over a long period of time, whether it is engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, or a central functions such as personnel or legal. They believe in developing depth and breadth of expertise, in maintaining continuity in approach.

Continuity and incremental improvement

The Germans as a people seek permanence. Quite literally. They move far less frequently than Americans, for example. They are rooted, strive to maintain those roots, to deepen them, are often resistant to change. They are aware of how mobile American society is, often marvel at it, recognize the advantage of having a high degree of flexibility, but seldom would choose it for themselves. They would not want it for themselves or for Germany.

Continuity. Constant incremental improvement. A focus on the long-term. These are deep-seated German beliefs, therefore characteristics of German products. Can it be any other way? Can the products which a national culture produces be, in their core characteristics, different than the culture itself, the people? German products are German.