business – Page 5 – understand-culture

“We want negative feedback”

Statement made by a German working in the U.S.: “It bothers us Germans when our American bosses give is inflated feedback, meaning too positive. Negative feedback keeps us oriented on avoiding mistakes, and it sharpens our ability to remain self-critical.

How is someone supposed to remain clear-headed and self-critical if all they ever hear is great and super. Performance which is clearly suboptimal should not be sugar-coated. Management loses credibility that way.

And feedback loses its key purpose, which is to address primarily things that aren’t working well. At some point this will hurt us. The quality of our work will suffer.”

Feedback frequency

German teams maintain long lines of communication. Feedback takes place in a formal setting, once or twice a year, according to the company‘s official internal process. Seldom do German team leads give team members spontaneous, informal feedback. Germans focus on the details of their work and less so on where they stand individually in the team at any given time.

Germans are critical of rankings

Germans prefer to measure performance less frequently, but when they do so then in detail and exact. The German media has taken to the trend of ranking, but most Germans criticize them for not being truly representative.

Several academic organizations have called for a boycott of university rankings. Ranking tv shows such as Simply the Best or The Top 10 are also criticized by the public for not being objective, for relying on viewer voting which is overly influenced by current events.

The ranking show Die ultimative Chartshow went on air in 2003, is based on reliable statistics and continues to command a loyal viewership. Das Politbarometer, The Political Barometer, broadcasts the results of its political polling each month and is watched carefully by citizens and political professionals alike.

Germans take ranking serious only if they are based on a serious methodology.

Crushed by Negative Speeches

Frankfurt. May 2015. Employees at Deutsche Bank’s headquarters week became the latest powerful stakeholder to call for its chief executives to resign. The workers council’s target: Anshu Jain.

The Corporate Center workers council, a powerful body that represents the 2,500 employees had put out a flyer entitled “Wind of Change? Wind of Jain?”

The letter called on the bank’s co-chief executive Anshu Jain to resign, stating a radical new start would give the bank back some credibility and could give rise to a real spirit of optimism.

Mr. Jain is apparently no longer able to shake off the repeated criticism so easily. There were numerous negative speeches aimed at him from shareholders over the course of the recent general meeting.

Mr. Buffett drinks Cherry Coke

Every year, tens of thousands of investors trek to Omaha in Nebraska. The Berkshire annual shareholder meeting is known as the “Woodstock of Capitalism” for the fervor of the investors — some owning only a single share — who travel to Omaha just for the chance to listen to Mr. Buffett and his longtime business partner, Charles Munger.

Several questions zeroed in on politics. Mr. Buffett, a Democrat with a close relationship to former President Barack Obama, gave careful criticism of President Trump’s policies. He made the argument that the American Health Care Act, which passed the House this past week (May 2017), was no more than “a huge tax cut for guys like me.”

When a protester from Germany delivered a long speech criticizing Coke, sugar and capitalism itself, Mr. Buffett said he would continue to drink his favorite beverage, Cherry Coke.

Woodstock of Capitalism. Sports arena. Ca. 20,000 shareholders in the audience. Long Speech. Critical. Not just of Coke and sugar. But of capitalism, also. German.

Source: “Warren Buffett, at Berkshire Meeting, Condemns Republican Health Care Bill.” Michael J. de la Merced. New York Times. May 6, 2017.

“I work for Mary Smith”

When two colleagues meet and the one asks the other what they do in the company, it is typical for Americans to state who their boss is: „Oh, I work for Mary Smith.“ The next statement might be: „in the new product marketing“ or „in global supply chain“ or „in corporate finance.“

Americans work outwards from their work, their team, the organization in which the team is imbedded, and so on. It is also common in the U.S. to hear the statement that „your most important customer is your boss.“

American team leads have influence and power over their team: strategy, organizational structure, roles and responsibilities, and, of course, compensation and professional development. The relationship with the team lead is for the team member a very important one. It influences them very personally.

That working relationship, however, can also be one which extends beyond the workplace to their private lives. It‘s common for American colleagues to be friends, close friends, friends who do things together, whose spouses and children know each other. Americans mix their work and private lives. This can include the boss.

In fact, many Americans would say that the ideal team is made up of capable people, who work hard, support each other, reach their business goals, but in addition know and like each other outside of work. Colleague and friend. Boss and friend.

Fair Critical Feedback

Germans consider critical feedback to be unfair if it does not include concrete recommendations on how to improve on weaknesses. They believe that people can only improve on what they understand to be suboptimal. Critial feedback, the Germans believe, should therefore be communicated clearly, avoiding any use of politically correct language.

The more objective and impersonal the critical feedback is stated, the less chance it will be taken personally. Feedback experts in Germany go as far as to view personal relationships within teams as a barrier to honest, effective feedback. They often recommend neutral third parties to facilitate particularly critical feedback discussions.

Nuts and Bolts

In the U.S. business environment, managers expect to be kept informed of even small developments in projects under their supervision. In practice this means that managers are often cc’ed on routine emails relating to the „nuts and bolts“ of a project, even if the content of the email does not require input from the manager. This practice is done to ensure that the manager has situational awareness of his team members’ work.

All-Employee Meeting

The All-Employee Meeting – also called All-Hands or Town Hall Meeting – is an effective and important forum American management uses to communicate directly with their entire organization. Its goal is not so much to go into the details of the organization‘s strategy, but instead to lay out its broad lines.

The AEM also allows for a question and answer period which gives both management and employees a forum to spontaneously address topics of particular concern. In addition, the AEM serves the purpose of motivating the team to work harder, faster, smarter.

Working independently

Many job advertisements will promise their employees the opportunity to work independently. An independent work environment, without constant oversight or having someone ‘looking over your shoulder’, is viewed very positively.

This is also an indicator of trust. Constant check-ins with one’s boss about the status of a project are neither necessary nor desired. In the German workplace, too many check-ins suggests an over-dependence on guidance on the part of the employee. Such ‘needy’ employees require a lot of ‘hand-holding’ – something which no German employer feels like doing.