Der Projektstrukturplan. The work breakdown structure. A German project is decomposed into work packages, each with an owner, a deliverable, a duration and a number. The plan is not a list of tasks. It is a structure, and the numbering shows how each piece hangs off the whole.
business
The Super Bowl ad
American companies pay several million dollars for thirty seconds and frequently spend it on a story that barely mentions the product. The purchase being made is an emotional association, and everyone involved knows it.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good
Used in American business to end a discussion — specifically, a discussion about whether something is ready. The sentence casts perfectionism as an adversary, and the good-enough version as the thing under attack.
The bill of materials
Die Stückliste. The bill of materials. A German parts list is structured, levelled and versioned — every component, every sub-assembly, every quantity, with its own part number. The product exists as a document before it exists as a thing.
Empowerment
An American management word, and companies built programmes around it: front-line staff authorised to resolve a problem up to a stated amount without approval. The Ritz-Carlton figure, widely reported at two thousand dollars per guest, became the standard illustration.
Total compensation
An American term of art covering salary, bonus, equity, retirement contributions and the employer’s share of insurance. The employee is encouraged to think of the whole package as one number, and comparison sites publish it that way.
The dinner and the golf course
American business conducts a substantial amount of its work in settings chosen because they are not offices. The point is not the food or the round. It is the hours spent in a context where people are not performing their roles.
The waiver
American processes come with a documented path around them — a variance in a building code, an exception request in procurement, a waiver in a grant programme. The exception is not a failure of the process. It is part of the process, with its own form.
The conduct of the negotiation
The conduct of the negotiation, treated as a distinct and assessable thing, separate from the outcome. A German can say a negotiation reached a good result through poor Verhandlungsführung, and the criticism stands.
The offer letter
The American job offer states base, bonus target, equity, signing bonus and start date as separate numbers. The whole of the arrangement is a set of figures, presented for negotiation.