American economics teaches it as a legitimate and often efficient practice: charging different customers different prices for the same good according to what each will pay. Student discounts, senior rates, coupons, loyalty pricing, regional pricing. The practice is normal enough that most Americans do not notice they are inside it.
education
The sandwich
American management training teaches delivering criticism between two pieces of praise, and the technique is common enough to be mocked by its own recipients. The structure exists to cushion the middle. What is being cushioned is not the information — it is the person receiving it.
Separate the person from the problem
American negotiation and management training teaches it explicitly, from Getting to Yes onward, and it appears in feedback courses, mediation training and manager onboarding. It is taught because it does not come naturally. A culture where work and person were already distinct would have no curriculum for prising them apart.
The full cost calculation
German business education teaches Vollkostenrechnung — costing that carries every overhead through to the product, rather than looking only at the additional cost of one more unit. A decision taken on marginal cost looks better than it is. The German training insists on seeing what the thing actually consumes.
Subsumption
German legal method teaches a formal syllogism, called Subsumtion: state the rule, establish the facts, apply the one to the other. Law students are drilled in it, and examination answers are marked on whether the structure was followed. Deduction is taught as a procedure with a name.
The one-minute praising
Blanchard’s method is specific: tell the person exactly what they did right, tell them how it makes you feel, pause, and make physical contact — a hand on the shoulder, a handshake. A choreography, taught to millions of American managers, for delivering approval.
The specialist physician
Becoming a Facharzt takes five to six years of full-time hospital work, following six years of basic medical training.
Each state’s Weiterbildungsordnung specifies the minimum content and duration for every specialty. All training periods must be recorded in a logbook and confirmed by the supervising trainer, after which the doctor registers for the specialist examination before the state medical association.
Eleven or twelve years before the title. The German patient asking for a Facharzt is asking for that, and knows it.
Universities – Career Development
Career Development offices at American universities advise on personal branding tactics in order to improve the career prospects of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. Yale University, for example, helps students understand how best to use LinkedIn in order to network with contacts and employers.
When uploading a photo, students are advised: “To be mindful of the image you want to project. Be sure that it is appropriate for the audience who will be viewing it.”
The office also recommends that students join Ivy League groups and alumni networks to take advantage of connections with other elite universities. Further, Yale students are advised “to connect with those with whom you share common interests.“
Show ‘n Tell
As children Americans learn at an early age to be on – or to be put onto – center stage. As early as Kindergarten, in Show and Tell, they are asked to bring something personal into school: a toy, a stuffed animal, one of their favorite books. They stand before their peers and present.
They practice not only speaking in front of a group – the first experience with public speaking – they learn how to speak about themselves and their feelings. And when they do, they seek from the other children attention, positive feedback, ultimately approval. They are in presentation mode.
It is the same with letter-writing. American children are taught not only to feel free to begin sentences with I. They are encouraged to write in the active, not passive, form. They should write from their individual, personal perspective. Letters are per definition a personal and consciously subjective form of communication.
Personal Branding
Personal branding is not new. People have always taken into consideration how they are perceived by those they are trying to persuade. It is natural that the marketing techniques used to sell products are being applied to selling a person, or a person’s skills, experience, value.
Books, seminars and companies advise individuals on how to best manage their reputation in the Internet. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other forums and communities exert influence on how people are perceived. Perceptions are personal and subjective. Branding means presenting the messenger in the most positive light.
See what books Amazon offers on personal branding.