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.”
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