discipline vs. deviation

Much unease

Americans become very uneasy whenever they see their German colleagues address processes with their characteristic intensity. German process discipline is almost synonymous with rigidity.

Another, more careful, look reveals, however, a contradiction. On the one side, German processes are generic, theoretical, complex and seemingly not fully focused on the goal. On the other, Americans have the sense that Germans expect processes to be followed by the letter. They ask themselves how they are supposed to follow a process which is hardly described?

German procedures are also generic and not spelled out. The Germans take this as a signal to decide independently, to make their own judgement, in a given situation. Instead of requesting input or permission from their manager, they either decide themselves or discuss with an experienced colleague how to handle a given procedure within the context of its process.

To the Americans this represents a severe breakdown in process discipline. They have little understanding, thus tolerance, for processes or procedures which allow for so much independent action when that action can lead to mistakes, errors, problems, to an domino effect.

Guideline and more

Discipline: Punishment; a field of study; training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character; control gained by enforcing obedience or order; orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; a rule or system of rules. Latin disciplina teaching, learning, from discipulus pupil.

Deviation: Deflection of the needle of a compass caused by local magnetic influences; the difference between a value in a frequency distribution and a fixed number; departure from an established ideology or party line; noticeable or marked departure from accepted norms of behavior.

Flexibility: Capable of being flexed, pliant; yielding to influence, tractable; characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements.

Law: A binding custom or practice of a community; a rule of conduct or action prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority; a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe; something compatible with or enforceable by established law; a rule of construction or procedure; a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions; a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions. From Old English lagu, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse lǫg law; akin to Old English licgan to lie.

Policy: Prudence or wisdom in the management of affairs; a definite course or method of action selected from among alternatives and in light of given conditions to guide and determine present and future decisions; a high-level overall plan embracing the general goals and acceptable procedures; a writing whereby a contract of insurance is made. From Middle French, certificate, from Old Italian polizza, modification of Medieval Latin apodixa receipt, from Greek apodeixis proof, apodeiknynai to demonstrate.

Rule: A prescribed guide for conduct or action; an accepted procedure, custom, or habit; a usually written order or direction made by a court; a regulation or bylaw governing procedure or controlling conduct; a standard of judgment; a regulating principle; a determinate method for performing a mathematical operation and obtaining a certain result; the exercise of authority or control; a linear design produced by or as if by such a strip. Middle English reule, from Anglo-French, from Latin regula straightedge, rule, from regere to keep straight, direct.

Guideline: A line by which one is guided; a cord or rope to aid a passer over a difficult point or to permit retracing a course; an indication or outline of policy or conduct.

Value-add: A product whose value has been increased especially by special manufacturing, marketing, or processing.

Elastic Clause

The Americans tendency to treat rules more as guidelines even extends to their Constitution. In Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution there is a clause which is known colloquially as the Elastic Clause.

This clause gives Congress the ability to add, remove, or change laws as its members see fit. This can include in the judicial system – if a person breaks a law, the court can decide to ignore it and grant the accused clemency, or if a person doesn’t break a law and is taken to court, the court can decide that he/she is guilty anyway.

Astronaut John Young

In 1965, during the first manned flight of the Gemini program, American astronaut John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich onto the Gemini 3 spacecraft. One part of the Gemini 3 mission had been to test the effects of food on the astronauts, and also to see how well the two men onboard could work and eat efficiently and how bad the mess and odor would be.

Each official item of food had been specifically prepared as part of the test, however, unbeknownst to NASA (or even to his co-astronaut), Young decided to make an addendum to the prepared menu.

The sandwich did not fare well in space and made such a mess that the effects of the prepared food were largely untestable. Although Young was officially reprimanded for his action, this deviation in the accepted process did not damage his career, and he later landed on the moon in the Apollo 16 mission and piloted the space shuttle.

Rogue – vagrant, tramp, scoundrel; a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave; an individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation; to weed out inferior, diseased, or nontypical individuals from a crop plant or a field; used to describe something or someone that is different from others in usually a dangerous or harmful way. First known use in 1766.

Abweichen

Duden, the German dictionary, defines abweichen as: to change direction; to be different, to differentiate. 

Synonyms are: differ, deviate, vary, veer, depart, stray, drift, digress, swerve, aberrate. But also to be at variance, to go rogue.

Caucus discipline

Members of the German Parliament are expected to vote with their party caucus. The term is Fraktionsdisziplin or caucus discipline. 

Casting their individual votes in a unified way is the result of an internal process: party conventions define the political plattform; policy positions are worked out in detail; the parliamentary members are issued their guidelines for voting.

For in the end a party’s power and influence in the Bundestag is based on its ability think and act as a unified body.

Fraktionsdisziplin, however, does not mean Fraktionszwang – caucus coercion. On certain legislation Members of the Parliament can deviate from the party line. 

They have what the Germans call the Prinzip des freien Mandats – principle of independent mandate, which on matters of conscience is greater than maintaining caucus discipline.

See the Christian Democrats in the Bundestag.

Rules

Gesetz. Law, passed by the government; legally binding directive; an inherent way of doing something, an order of things; an unchangeable set of relations in nature.

Verordnung. A directive set by a governmental body.

Anweisung. A command, order; a written document communicating what is to be done.

Richtlinie. A guideline; an indication, recommendation, suggestion of how one should behave, handle a certain situation.

Regel. Rule. Latin regula, a standard, a set of measures; an agreement about behaviour, for how to do something; how in general something is done.

Leitplanke. Literally a guard rail along a road or highway; a guideline.

Don‘t write it down

In Germany the written word has a higher level of binding character (commitment) than the spoken. Once a process – how the work is done – has been documented, and if done so in a detailed way, Germans feel obligated to work along that process in a strict way.

This reduces their freedom to deviate from the process, to improvize, based on the specifics of a given situation. For this reason, and a few other, Germans do their best to avoid documenting how they work.

The German self-understanding also comes into play. They often feel that it is simply not necessary to write down how they work. Germans are well-trained, tend to work in the same area for many years, are very familiar with formal and informal processes, can rely on the advice of their colleagues and management, and want always the freedom to work independently.

And German departments have a high level of institutional knowledge, which is passed on to younger colleagues. It is seldom necessary for colleagues sit down and document all of the things they do in order to produce good work results.