Decision-Making Archives - understand-culture

Check with Colleagues and Manager

Agreements of substance and importance have effects, ramifications, influence on the work of others. And since Americans work in teams, many of them in several teams at any given time, they are not inclined to enter fully into an agreement until they have checked out what those effects might be.

Why invest additional time discussing the details of a potential agreement, if one or two aspects of it are counter to their other responsibilities? Instead, Americans will check with key colleagues in those organizations potentially influenced by the agreement. In many cases, they will also briefly discuss the case with their direct manager.

This approach is often mistakenly interpreted as a sign that many Americans are either incapable or unwilling to make decisions on their own, without having to run to their boss for permission.

American team leads ultimately carry all responsibility for what occurs within their organization, and are therefore keenly interested in what obligations their team members make in their – the team leader’s – names.

English Composition

Americans learn as early as in grammar school to break down complexity. They are taught in English Composition to formulate short, simple and clear sentences ordered in a logical sequence. Good composition avoids sentences with complex grammatical twists and turns. Simplicity and clarity are the goals.

Complexity: The state of quality of being intricate or complicated; a factor involved in a complicated process of situation.

Grammatical twists and turns: Convoluted structures in the English language that often obscure meaning for the reader:

“Although the blue whale has been protected for over thirty years and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific, where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth’s atmosphere because there is a huge whole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.”

Ernest Hemingway, considered to be one of America’s greatest writers, shied away from convolution in grammar and style. He never used big words or complicated sentences, yet he succeeded in painting vivid images. Overly sophisticated does not necessarily equate to good writing.

Disaggregate

Disaggregate: to separate into component parts; to break up or apart. Americans not only aggregate, they also disaggregate.

A manager has a spontaneous idea, calls a meeting with more than a handful of experts to discuss it, then just as quickly disbands it noting that she and they should continue thinking about it. A corporate-internal project, generously funded at first, but which does not produce the initial results expected, has the “plugged pulled” on it quickly.

When low earnings over three straight quarters has investors grumbling, executive management reacts quickly with corrective action: close plants, layoff workers, hire a consulting firm to recommend a cost-cutting program.

At least until the end of the Second World War, the United States maintained a modest standing army, forcing it during war to ‘ramp up’ as rapidly as possible, only to then after the war demobilize just as rapidly.

Aggregate. Disaggregate. Quickly. It’s how Americans utilize resources.

Scope Creep

Scope creep is when a task or project grows beyond its original intent, requiring more people, time and money than originally planned. It is typically a result of poor task definition, change control or internal communication. A precisely defined decision limits scope creep.

Scope: The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant; the opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something.

Creep: To move slowly and carefully, especially in order to avoid being heard or noticed; moving very slowly at a steady pace; occur or develop gradually and almost imperceptibly; increase slowly but steadily in number or amount. Old English crēopan, meaning to “move with the body close to the ground”. Of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kruipen.

According to Economic Recovery Measures, Financial Rescues Have Only Temporary Impact by Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush-era tax cuts and its extension during the Obama presidency, in addition to the deficit-financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, account for “almost half of the $18 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019.” Deficit-creep.

Ecological Awareness

The Germans think ecologically. They not only draw on their resources sparingly, they also try to limit the negative effects of that use. Although Germany has a high population density, it has managed to declare almost 3% of its land as publicly-protected national parks, far above the average within the EU.

Many laws have been passed to protect the environment, including strict recycling laws for bottles, cans and other packaging material. Those who can afford it choose to buy organic food.

The Germans find more and more ways to save electricity and water, both of which are expensive. As of October 2012 only energy-saving lightbulbs can be sold. The stores offer only energy-saving lamps and lighting fixtures.

German awareness of the environment gave rise to the Green Party in the 1970s, which has developed into a major political force in Germany, and recently was the junior partner in the government with the Social Democrats. Ecological concerns have become common in all German political parties.

Aggregate

The more resources – material, budget, time, personnel – an organization has at its disposal, the more likely it will draw on them in order to solve a problem, take advantage of an opportunity, accomplish a task. Especially if the organization needs to move quickly. And conversely, the less likely it will develop approaches which conserve those resources. Americans are not known for doing more with less. Not yet.

Aggregate: formed by the collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount; clustered in a dense mass; composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments; taking all units as a whole. From Middle English aggregat, from Latin aggregare to add to, from ad- + greg-, grex flock.

Americans aggregate. When the U.S. goes to war it aggregates overwhelming force. The current debate is how to move away from this tradition. American websites aggregate content. When start-up companies “go public” – initial public offering – financial institutions aggregate investors.

Avoid philosophical discussion

Americans do not engage in a discussion about the essence of a decision to be made. If a discussion does takes place about the decision in and of itself, however, it is strictly for the purpose of defining who and/or what is to be served by making a good decision.

Americans invest less time on identifying how a particular decision fits into the broader picture. Their approach to all decisions is primarily motived by pragmatism. Decisions lead to actions, which in turn lead to further decisions to be made. Americans avoid getting weighted down in what they view as over-analysis. Forward movement is of priority.

Limitless Resources

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) – French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America – wrote: “The country appears to stretch on forever and is of limitless resources. But, no matter how fast it grows, it will remain surrounded by resources it cannot possibly exhaust.”

Energy: The United States has more coal reserves than any other country in the world and represent one-quarter of the world’s total coal supply. The U.S. has 272 billion tons of coal reserves and uses about 1.1 billion tons of coal per year. At this rate, America’s 272 billion tons of coal reserves would last nearly 250 years.

According to the 2012 article “American Oil Growing Most Since First Well Signals Independence“ by Asjylyn Loder on bloomberg.com domestic output of oil grew by a record 766,000 barrels a day to the highest level in 15 years, government data shows, putting the nation on pace to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer by 2020.

Net petroleum imports have fallen by more than 38 percent since the 2005 peak, and now account for 41 percent of demand, down from 60 percent seven years ago, moving the United States closer to energy independence than it has been for decades.

Key natural resources: One-third of U.S. land is covered by forests (302 million hectares), making forestland the number one type of land use in the United States. One-fifth of U.S. land is timberland (204 million hectares), which is land capable of producing 1.38 cubic meters per hectare of industrial wood annually. 71 percent of all timberland in the U.S. is privately owned, while 29 percent is publicly owned.

Land: The United States has a land area of 3.8 million miles² (9.8 million km²) compared to 9.7 million km² in China, 0.36 million km² in Germany and 0.38 million km² in Japan.

Population density: United States population density per square mile is 84, compared to 365 for China, 609 for Germany, and 836 for Japan.

Entangling Alliances

As a nation-state, in their international relations, Americans warn against becoming involved in complexity. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) – an English-American political theorist-activist, author, and revolutionary – instilled non-interventionist ideas into the politics of the American colonies.

His work Common Sense (1776) argued in favor of avoiding alliances with foreign powers and influenced the Second Continental Congress to avoid forming an alliance with France.

George Washington’s farewell address restated Paine’s maxim: “The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.

Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.“

Thomas Jefferson extended Paine’s ideas in his inaugural address on March 4, 1801: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

In 1823, President James Monroe articulated what would become the Monroe Doctrine: “In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defense.“

All the way or not at all

The appreciation that Germans have for individual competence and their aversion towards incalculable risks sometimes set the condition of a certain degree of caution used when working with innovations.

Therefore, it fits the bill that German companies always approach the execution of updates and improvements in a cautious and well thought-out manner. All of the pros and cons must be carefully weighed, and all influential factors taken into consideration before a critical decision is made.

In this case, a qualified expert will often be called in to assist. “Professional quality management is often the condition for the commissioning of tasks. This is often bound together with unnecessary effort, especially in the case of small businesses; often the incorporation of external consultants is better”, explained an expert from the Chamber of Crafts in an article.

And so there exist a plethora of external experts, consultants, institutions, and established norms for German business owners to turn to in case they should lose perspective in the tangle of modern innovation.

These exist to help to make well-founded and analytically grounded decisions. It has even developed into its own field of study at many technical and business colleges: studies to the systematic approach of solving problems and to the development of complete solutions have begun to fill textbooks and lesson plans.

These approaches help to calculate multiple types of risk in advance, thereby countering the deeply rooted nervousness that comes together with risks and unforeseen situations.