Intuition. Latin intuitio: immediate understanding, recognition, seeing; to understand a situation, problem, dilemma immediately and without discussion or reflection. “Dein Verlangen nach Intuition blockiert den natürlichen Fluss der Wahrnehmung.” Your desire to be intuitive blocks the natural flow of perception. (Irina Rauthmann, German writer)
“Intuition, sprunghafte Einsicht, deren Schritte nachzuholen sind.” Intuition, sudden and erratic understanding whose steps need to be retaken. (Dr. phil. Manfred Hinrich, German philosopher, professor, journalist, author of childrens books)
“Intuition ist der natürliche Gegenpol zur Konzentration – nutzen sollte man beides, jedes zu seiner Zeit.” Intuition is the natural opposite of concentration. Both should be used, but at the right time. (Rüdiger Keßler, German philosopher)
“Intuition ist Intelligenz mit überhöhter Geschwindigkeit.” Intuition is high speed intelligence. Unknown.
Jemandem das Blaue vom Himmel versprechen – to promise someone the blue of the heavens – is to promise the unreachable. It is an attempt to persuade via promises which have”weder Hand noch Fuss – neither hand nor foot.
To exaggerate, to paint a rosy picture of future developments is not in any way convincing to Germans. This might be one of the reasons why they are so sceptical about utopias of every kind.
When persuading, Germans feel obligated to present the Gesamtbild, the full picture, all of the facts, the pretty as well as the less pretty, what works, what does not.
This is a Bringschuld, literally bring or deliver obligation. The German presenter does not wait until critical questions from the audience pull out or expose the weaknesses of an argument. In Germany it is a sign of competence, professionalism, honesty and integrity to reveal openly the weaknesses of what is being presented.
An attempt to conceal the weaknesses of an argument, offering, concept or solution leaves a German listener with only two possible explanations. The presenter either is not aware of the weaknesses, and is therefore not fully competent, or the presenter is indeed aware but trying to conceal the weaknesses, and therefore dishonest.
Either way the presenter will not persuade the German listener. And worse, the presenter‘s credibility has been damaged severely.
Decisions are not made in a vacuum. American decision-making allows itself to be influenced by external factors. External customers, company-internal partners, suppliers, changing management priorities, budgets and manpower all can have impact on individual decisions. American decision making aims to be market-driven.
Market-driven in the U.S. means making decisions based on the market‘s rhythm. If necessary, Americans will skip over steps in their decision making approach.
To turn on a dime: To take a very tight turn, used especially for a vehicle; to change direction quickly. A dime is the smallest in size of American coins.
Experience: To encounter or undergo (an event or occurrence); to feel (an emotion); practical contact with and observation of facts or events; the knowledge or skill acquired by such means over a period of time, especially that gained in a particular profession by someone at work; an event or occurrence that leaves an impression on someone (a learning experience).
Down and dirty: Americans are not perfectionists. The goal is seldom the optimal decision, but instead the most effective decision under the given circumstances. Often timely decisions, even if suboptimal, are the best decisions. They can be corrected.
‘Paralysis by analysis’ – a phrase often used in the American business context – describes over-thinking that leads to a reluctance to make a decision, and in doing so exhausts the available time in which to act.
In Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Cat the fox boasts of hundreds of ways of escaping while the cat has only one. When they hear the hunting dogs approaching, the cat climbs quickly up a tree while the fox in his confusion was caught. The moral: “Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” In Hamlet, Shakespeare writes of Hamlet’s flaw of thinking too much: “sicklied over with the pale cast of thought.”
Analysis: ‘In the final (or last) analysis’ means when everything has been considered. This phrase is used to suggest that a statement expresses the basic truth about a complex situation. Late 16th century. Medieval Latin from Greek analusis, from analuein unloose.
Reluctance: Unwillingness or disinclination to do something. Ambivalence: The state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone. Hesitation: The action of pausing or waiting before saying or doing something.
Isolate: To cause a person or place to be or remain alone or apart from others; to identify something and examine or deal with it separately.
Simplicity: The quality or condition of being easy to understand or do; the quality or condition of being plain or natural; a thing that is plain, natural, or easy to understand. Late Middle English. From Old French simplicite or Latin simplicitas, from simplex.
Sophistication: The quality of being sophisticated; development to a high degree of complexity; the quality of being aware or and able to interpret complex issues; the characteristic of having, revealing, or proceeding from a great deal or worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture. From medieval Latin sophisticatus, “tampered with”.
Elegance: The quality of being graceful and stylish in appearance or manner; the quality of being pleasingly ingenious and simple; neatness.
KISS: The acronym for “keep it simple, stupid” is attributed to Kelly Johnson, an engineer at the U.S. weapons company Lockheed. Although there are several other variations, the principle states that systems work best if they are kept simple. Complexity should be avoided. Johnson had given a team of design engineers a set of tools, then challenged them to design a jet aircraft which can be repaired by an average mechanic under war conditions with these tools only.
There is nothing original about KISS, however. To Leonardo da Vinci is attributed “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”. Mies van der Rohe, widely regarded as one of the masters of modern architecture, stated time and again that “less is more”. Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the French aristocrat, poet, writer (The Little Prince) and pioneering aviator has been quoted: “It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
William of Ockham (1288-1348), an English Franciscan friar and one of the major figures of Medieval thought, wrote that “among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected”.
Let’s Stop “Throwing More Bodies” at the Problem, written by Adam Ziegler, August 8, 2013, on: smallfirminnovation(dot)com:”
“In my early days as a lawyer, there was one all-too-common phrase that drove me nuts: ‘just throw more bodies at it.’ I think it’s time to give this phrase a proper, final burial.
It’s insulting Most new lawyers enter the market as smart, well-educated and highly motivated professionals. They’re not that different than you were a few years or decades ago. And most importantly, they’re people.
It’s dumb Treating associates like cannon fodder is bad business. Associates work harder and better for supervisors that respect them.
It’s bad for clients The ‘throw more bodies at it’ mentality is terrible for clients. Treating legal problem-solving as a brute force function of the quantity of lawyers and billable hours that can be brought to bear on a situation leads to flawed, wasteful, overly expensive work.”
About the dignity of work and the rights of workers the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops writes:
„The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected: the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.“
The first step an American supplier will take is to gain a deep understanding of the customer‘s needs. Because these aren’t always so concrete, they must also try to identify the perceived needs. The relationship with the customer should be highly collaborative on all levels, from the beginning to the end.
The American supplier, vendor, consultant, constantly strives to make sure that they are “on the same page” with the client. In fact, they work literally side-by-side with the client, going to the client’s place of work and completely adjusting their schedule. They maintain continuous dialogue throughout the process so that they always understand the client’s needs and desires, especially as they change.
This includes knowledge-transfer agreements, which detail when the customer will be able to do something on his own, without supplier assistance, so that he begins to take over the process.
Results: Because the customer exerts such a certain level of control over the external expert (the how as well as the what), the expert is held accountable exclusively for the work dictated (ordered) by the customer. How the results might affect related areas within the client company remains the responsibility of the customer. Responsibility cannot exceed scope of work.
Information: For this collaborative effort to function effectively a high level of communication between customer and supplier is necessary. Information flow is guaranteed via short-term feedback between the customer and the supplier during the entire business relationship. This allow customers to modify their requests depending on changing situations.