2022. Deutsche Welle. The opening of Germany’s first LNG import terminal is a milestone in the country’s plans to find alternate sources of natural gas. The terminal, floating off the North Sea coast, was built in a record time of just under 10 months.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greenlit the LNG projects on February 27 this year — just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine. The facility opened off of Wilhelmshaven is slated to feed an estimated 6% of Germany’s gas demand into the energy grid each year.
BBC. 2020. For centuries, Germany has been synonymous with order. So how can a rule-abiding nation also have an anything-goes spirit?
In the nearly four years I’ve lived in Germany, that woman’s reprimand was just one of many examples I’ve experienced of Germans strictly adhering to the rules in the name of preserving Ordnung (order). Because in Germany, as the famous expression goes, “Ordnung muss sein” (“there must be order”). In fact, this proverbial saying is so well-ingrained in the German psyche that it’s become a cultural cliché for Germans around the world, and a way of life for them at home.
“Most of this isn’t particularly unique to Germany (except the famous end of speed restriction on the Autobahn and the standard speed limits in different areas). Germany mostly follows the Vienna Convention standard signs, as opposed to the American/Japanese/Australian ones which have different colors and shapes and often use text instead of symbols.”
“I love that the German word for a traffic sign is ,,das Schild” (“shield”). Makes me think of knights and turtles.”
“I found this very interesting. I wonder how strictly Germans obey das Stopp-Schild. In the USA we have identical stop signs, but most drivers just treat them like a Vorfahrt gewären Schild. They will slow down and check for cross traffic, but won’t usually come to a complete stop unless they see someone coming.
Interestingly, we also have a sign that looks exatly like the Vorfahrt gewären Schild, except that it says YIELD in the middle. It basically means the same thing. However, because most drivers treat the stop sign like a yield sign, some people will be even less careful at a yield sign, which can be very dangerous.
My hometown recently replaced all of the yield signs with stop signs because of this. There is no equivalent to the Vorfahrtsstrasse-Schild in the USA. If an intersection does not have a stop sign (or yield sign or stop-light or similar) then you can assume that you have the right of way, because there will be a stop sign (or similar) on the intersecting road.
The closest thing to a Vorfahrtsstrasse-Schild in the USA would be a green light an intersection. You only see this at intersections with high traffic, where the priority road constantly changes, such as on a highway, or a town’s main street. As for speed limits, our signs look very different, but the speeds are very similar (after the conversion to MPH). I also wonder how strictly Germans obey speed limits, because in the USA you can usually go 5-10 MPH faster without getting pulled over, at least in my experience.”
Perfectionism is a complex characteristic that according to experts, can be adaptive (healthy, positive, functional) or maladaptive (unhealthy, negative, dysfunctional).
This article explores the drives and concerns associated with perfectionism, along with theories that offer insight into this fascinating personality trait.
In Brussels, the eurozone countries have agreed on an emergency rescue plan for Greece. The plan involves International Monetary Fund assistance supplemented by loans from individual countries.
What effect will it have on Germany? What do economists and entrepreneurs say about the compromise – and what do German voters think? Our reporter Kerstin Schweizer went to find out.
Planning was one of the cornerstones of management, but it’s now fallen out of fashion. It seems rigid, bureaucratic, and ill-suited to a volatile, unpredictable world. However, organizations still need some form of planning.
And so, universally valuable, but desperately unfashionable, planning waits like a spinster in a Jane Austen novel for someone to recognize her worth. The answer is agile planning, a process that can coordinate and align with today’s agile-based teams. Agile planning also helps to resolve the tension between traditional planning’s focus on hard numbers, and the need for “soft data,” or human judgment.
For Americans a plan is an approach, a way to proceed. A good plan guides people who are collaborating. A good plan keeps them on a path towards a target.
Vox. 2016. Hillary Clinton has made short-term thinking in corporate America — also known as “quarterly capitalism,” a reference to the pressure companies feel to meet quarterly earnings predictions — a central issue in her campaign.
That issue has been bubbling beneath the surface of policy discussion for years, but it’s gained fresh attention as influential investors such as Warren Buffett and Lawrence Fink (of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset holder), and politicians like Vice President Joe Biden, have stepped up to warn of the perils to our economy of turning away from a long-term perspective.
The Atlantic. 2016. There was a time, half a century ago, when what was good for many American corporations tended to also be good for America. Companies invested in their workers and new technologies, and as a result, they prospered and their employees did too.
Now, a growing group of business leaders is worried that companies are too concerned with short-term profits, focused only on making money for shareholders. As a result, they’re not investing in their workers, in research, or in technology—short-term costs that would reduce profits temporarily. And this, the business leaders say, may be creating long-term problems for the nation.
September 2022. Many of the problems we face today, from recent global recessions to climate change, can be traced back to short term thinking. This week, host Elisa is joined by Ari Wallach, futurist and author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors our Future Needs.
Ari acutely notes that we are at a significant turning point in history, one when bold change is needed to lay the groundwork for future generations. Yet, many Americans remain distracted by division and focused on the here and now.
How do we compare to other nations that might be taking a longer term view of themselves? And how can we rethink our political, corporate, and education systems to better adapt to, and take leadership in, establishing the innovations to come?