anecdote

Many Germans note, and sometimes complain, that Americans don‘t seem to take internal processes seriously enough. They‘re surprised to discover that for many Americans processes simply aren‘t a high priority. Americans „wurschteln vor sich hin“, which loosely translates into they „get the job done some way or another.“ The processes they do follow are neither well thought out, nor consistent nor particularly efficient.

From the German perspective, processes in the American business context are not used effectively enough as a management instrument. They wonder how complex companies can be managed if not with the help of processes.

A German engineer was in the U.S. as a long-term delegate. A capable guy, from Berlin, intelligent, focused, big fan of the Berlin soccer club Hertha BSC. And an open, honest person. We met just by coincidence. I was in town doing management training.

I asked how he was doing, what his first impressions were. He had been in the U.S. less than six months. „The processes here are a catastrophe. There really aren‘t any. A lot has been documented. The book cases are full of binders about processes and procedures. But they aren‘t lived in a consistent way. We‘re trying to clean it all up, put some system to it.“

Not results, but value of results

Such statements aren‘t unique. Germans sense time and again that Americans just don‘t put enough effort into reflecting on how they do the work. Germans often ask, but don‘t get a clear, black and white answer. Americans, from their German point of view, haven‘t mastered their craft. They don‘t reflect and analyze enough.

I think back on my initial sales calls within a very large German global company. It was in 2000, after having transitioned from the German Bundestag back into the business world. Sitting across from German managers I‘m asked to describe exactly what I do, and most importantly, how I do it.

Less so about the final results or the value of those results, more about: „Herr Magee, how do you proceed? What‘s the process step-by-step? Background interviews. Workshop design. Workshop execution. What are the topics? How do you address them? In what sequence? Why?“ Question after question.

What via How

The focus was on my method, on my work process. The discussions were exhausting, penetrating, analytical. The Germans gave very little feedback. But it wasn‘t uncomfortable or unfriendly. It was polite, respectful, almost caring about getting it right. The Germans want to do the right thing. Stated another way, do the thing in the right way.

Perhaps it had to do with the fact that my approach is for many new, different, a bit foreign. Perhaps in order to put my approach to work, folks need to first understand it, the what and the why.

It’s a cliché that Germans are inflexible, that their processes are inflexible. I, too, believed that for many years. This is a complex topic. It depends on the process, of course, and on the particular step within a process. In some cases, Germans, like any other culture, would say: “At this stage of the process stick to the letter of the law. There is little to no room for interpretation.” In other cases, they would say: “Here we have room to interpret, to make our own decision based on the particulars of the situation.“

Now, when the process is documented in black and white, and in detail, it is in the German culture clear that one needs to stick to the process. When, however, it is generally formulated, is not in detail, then it signals that one has the flexibility to interpret. This has to do with the differences between the written and the spoken word in the German context. The written word has a very high level of binding character. The longer, the more detailed, the more restrictive, the less flexible. And the opposite. The shorter, the less detailed, the more flexible. But this is a topic for another day.

2005. I was on a bus from the center of town in Bonn headed home up on the Venusberg. After about twenty minutes we arrived at my stop. I went to the front of the bus and got off. Since more passengers were getting off and on I knew that the bus had a minute or so before it would continue on. So instead of walking twenty feet along the sidewalk to cross the street where the pedestrian crossing was indicated by the wide white stripes, I decided to save a few seconds by walking directly in front of the bus, leaning around it where the driver was sitting in order to see if any cars were coming.

Responsible, according to the German logic

Normally, cars are not allowed to drive around a bus while it is still loading or unloading passengers. Just to be safe, though, I looked. A car was just beginning to maneuver around the bus. Plenty of time for me to scoot across the street with my long legs. I decided to do it. Barely across the street, I heard a very loud screech. The car had come to a very sudden stop, hitting the brakes hard. I pivoted around immediately only to see a young boy, no older than seven or eight years old, standing just in front of that car, trembling, with no more than a foot or two separating them. He then scurried across the street onto the sidewalk.

Had the driver not reacted so quickly, chances are that boy either would not be with us today, or would be in a wheelchair, or worse. It shook me to the core. Time and again, over the years since, I recall that moment. I shudder. According to the German logic – social logic – I was partly responsible for that boy’s behavior, for choosing to cross the street directly in front of the bus and not at the official crossing point. Now, I am not sure if I would have been legally responsible, had he been hit by the car, but that is not the message here.

German thinking goes like this: “You are an adult. You know the rules. There are good reasons why we have official crossing points, and why they are marked with wide white stripes. So that drivers of cars, buses and trucks know to be careful at those points. And so that pedestrians cross at those points and not simply wherever they want. We want to minimize accidents between vehicles and human beings, especially children. So be a role model for children. If you pass at those official points, that will reinforce what they have been taught by their parents, teachers and the crossing guards who volunteer in the mornings and afternoons near the Kindergartens and elementary schools. If you do not stick to the rules, they will be tempted to do the same, possibly with tragic results.“

“They obey the rules no matter what.“

The American in me thinks that children should be responsible for themselves. Their parents, in the end, have to teach them good judgement, and not too simply do what others do. “Am I responsible for the actions of children of other people?” This, too, is certainly a topic for another day. It’s an important one, but far too complex for this story.

Little red man. Little green man. Many of us non-Germans are familiar with the traffic lights in Germany. The cars look for red, yellow, green. Pedestrians crossing streets look for the red man and the green man. The red man signals: “Don’t cross the street. You might come into contact with a car, bus or truck, and it won’t be terribly pleasant.” The green man signals: “Ok, you’re good. Cross the street.“

Many of us have stood at a street-crossing looking at that little red man and at the same time seeing no car, bus or truck far and wide. We look around and notice that the Germans are waiting, many stiff, still, often a grim look on their face. We, at least we Americans, wonder what in the world are they waiting for. Why aren’t they crossing the street? No cars coming. Many of us conclude: “Oh, they’re Germans. They obey the rules no matter what. How ridiculous.“

“Do you think you’re someone special?“

2005. Up until then, after seventeen years in Germany and I’d say that at I had received a comment barked out at me least a dozen times when I crossed the street while that little red man was still shining bright. “Hey you idiot, are you color blind?” or “Do you think you’re someone special?” or “Don’t you see that there are children standing here?“

That last comment is the key one, it goes to the heart of German social logic. For many years, when the target of such barks, I thought: “Mind your own business. Get a life. Get a job. Who made you a policeman?” In some instances I barked such things back, but in a more colorful language. “Those arrogant, busybody, know-it-all Germans”, I thought, “obeying silly rules like mindless slaves.”

Until that day. That day when a boy of seven was almost struck by a multi-ton chunk of steel, on sleek wheels of rubber gripping the concrete, with the power of well over a hundred horses, and often an impatient driver at the wheel. It was on that day that I understood why Germans in some cases are very inflexible.

2005. My son, Daniel, was also seven years old. Average height. Light as a feather. Tender. His grammar school was around the corner from our house. He needed not cross the street when walking from home to school and back. On another day, in another part of Bonn, however, that seven year old boy could have been mine. And that car could have been another car. Not as quick to stop.

The intense German focus on processes unsettles Americans time and again. It limits, cramps their flexibility. In the U.S. processes are seldom viewed as an effective alternative to agility, speed, creativity. Americans believe that the core skills of good management cannot be forced into processes, cannot be performed by processes. For them processes are tools which offer support.

In my early years here in Germany as an American I was put on the defensive when asked about my processes, my approach, how I do my work. Or at least I felt defensive, perhaps because I was not prepared to respond.

Then I went into the opposite direction. When asked about my work and its value for my customers, I would go into great detail about how I do the work, my thought and work processes, and spend too little time explaining the value of it all.

Intensity bangs into bafflement

My first website did little more than simply show my four-step process, in the sense of: „Do you want to know who I am, what I do, what value it could have for you and your company? Just take a look at my methodology.“ As you can imagine, the site did not attract much attention.

Well, you can also imagine what happens when Germans and Americans come together to discuss internal work processes. Intensity bangs into bafflement. Precise questions get imprecise answers. Impatience meets impatience. Each side shaking their heads about the other.

We Americans see long, detailed discussions about processes as a form of German navel-gazing. It‘s all well and good to do some thinking about the how, every now and then, but not too often, and certainly not for too long. The more you spend analyzing internal things, the more quickly you distance yourself from external things, such as the market, customers and their needs, from reality.

Proud but not arrogant

It was a discussion I had with Egon in the summer of 1991. In Bonn. He was married to a classmate of my German wife. Very intelligent guy. Mathematician in the Max Planck Institute. Friendly, courteous, sensitive, analytical. His wife, a linguist, outgoing, lively, funny.

Our conversations were always fascinating. Serious topics. Intellectual substance. We were eating in an Italian restaurant. A warm day with a lovely breeze wafting up from the Rhine River. The windows of the restaurant wide open. The long, black container boats on the Rhine, but also the private boats darting about, all waving their large German flags, black red gold. Germany had become reunited in October the year before. For a brief moment the Germans felt they could show feel, and show, patriotism.

Poets and thinkers

In the summer, especially in the early hours when the sun shines, Bonn has an almost Mediterranean flair. The air is clear, fresh, sweet. The water‘s surface reflects the rays of the sun in a soft, inviting way. If you look across the Rhine into the distance, starting to the North, then pan to the East, then South, you can see the transition from the Lower Rhine (flatland) to the Middle Rhine, to the Seven Mountains, pointing to the south, where the Rhine snakes to and through the towns of Koblenz, Mainz, into the Palatinate, on to Northern Baden, where the river becomes the border between Germany and France.

We discussed German history. I should have noted down what Egon had said. Only some of the details can I recall. But his thesis seemed more than plausible. Time and again over the years the conversation came back to me.

The Germans, Egon said, were in their history always a bit boxed in, geographically, and politically. They turned inward. The land of Dichter und Denker, of poets and thinkers. A land of people who reflect. Whereas the British, French, Dutch, Spanish and the Portugese looked, and went, outward.

They are Seevölker, literally sea peoples, maritime nations. They had overseas colonies, traded across the oceans, became naval powers. Many of their finest, the most talented, looked outward, went out, chased adventure and ventures outside of their countries. In Germany, the best looked inward, worked inward, stayed within.

Recently I interviewed an American process expert working in a global German company with a very significant presence in the U.S. He and his colleagues have been working for quite some time to integrate the processes on both sides of the Atlantic.

The term used is „harmonisieren“ or „harmonize“, which for many Americans had become the equivalent of a four-letter word. They have made little progress. Folks continue to disagree. When I asked about whether American processes were the result of deductive or inductive thinking, he looked at me as if saying: „What kind of question is that? Are we in an Introductin to Philosophy class at some university?“

Instead he said, he does his best to remain in close contact with his colleagues who make the business go: their world, problems, effects, observing, asking questions, listening carefully. He then reflects, analyzes, suggests, discusses. He only recommends changes to processes, especially to the key ones, if they are based on a solid understanding of how the work is done, on reality, after having been „on the ground“ with the people who use the processes.

Abstraction as a requirement for understanding

He collaborates very closely with the people whose work he is analyzing. Process experts, he says, have to understand the business, the people involved, and the workflow before they can engage in a discussion about whether a process can and should be modified.

As an American I understand this. But, I think, is it not essential to then separate yourself from that which you have observed and studied, in order to truly understand it? Isn‘t abstraction a requirement for understanding?

Could it be that the German process experts often forget to inform their American colleagues that they, too, get into the details of the processes they review? Are they misperceived by the American side as being too abstract, of not „getting their hands dirty“, not digging into the details?

Tension between depth and distance 

I suspect that the German colleagues present the results of their process analysis „right out of their process laboratory“, where they get abstract, but after having studied the details. Perhaps they do not get into the details as much as their American counterparts, who embed themselves in the processes.

Germans are reluctant to embed themselves based on a fear that they will lose perspective, lose Überblick (overview), not be able to recognize patterns. In their process lab they have the peace and quiet to reflect on, to understand what they have observed and studied.

The big stick

Making acceptance of German processes in the U.S. even more difficult is the impression many Americans have that their German colleagues do not understand the U.S. market. They see in many German processes a threat to their business: „Their processes won‘t work here. They‘ll ruin our business.“

It‘s the big stick which many Americans use to beat back the importation of German processes, or even the partial integration of American and German processes. In some situations, where the American organization had been an independent company bought by a German one, one can hear Americans say: „You don‘t know our customers, how we work, what it takes to be successful here. You failed in the U.S., that‘s why you bought us. So please, no processes from Germany, at least not without first discussing with us how to modify them so that they help more than harm.“