humor

Steve Jobs – Merciless Criticism

An article on Jony Ive, the head of design at Apple Computer, in the New Yorker Magazine from February 23, 2105 touches on how the late Steve Jobs gave constructive feedback:

“Jobs’s taste for merciless criticism was notorious. Ive recalled that, years ago, after seeing colleagues crushed, he protested. Jobs replied, ‘Why would you be vague?,’ arguing that ambiguity was a form of selfishness: ‘You don’t care about how they feel! You’re being vain, you want them to like you.’

Ive was furious, but came to agree. ‘It’s really demeaning to think that, in this deep desire to be liked, you’ve compromised giving clear, unambiguous feedback,’ he said. He lamented that there were ‘so many anecdotes’ about Jobs’s acerbity: ‘His intention, and motivation, wasn’t to be hurtful.'”

Steve Jobs. More German than American logic.

Critique and Humour

German colleagues will at times communicate critical feedback with irony, hoping to gain a smirk or a smile. This is not meant to make fun of the colleague whose work is being criticized, but rather to add a lightness to the criticism.

The person criticized is given the opportunity to accept the feedback with a sense of humour and light-heartedness. The Germans value the ability to maintain a healthy, objective distance to one‘s own work.

Humor: the ability to accept with lightness personal imperfections and those of the world, as well as the difficulties of daily life.

“No problem“

Cultures which work closely together, at some point, come up with insider jokes about each other. An insider joke is one which just about everyone in the one culture immediately understands. Hopefully, the spirit of these jokes is friendly and good-natured. The Americans have theirs about the Germans. And the Germans have theirs about the Americans.

“No problem” isn’t even a joke, it’s a phrase. More is not necessary, for every German who has experience working with Americans knows what another German means when they speak it: That Americans are often quite naive about a problem, about its seriousness, impact, complexity (from the German perspective).

So when Americans substitute the term ‘opportunity’ for the word ‘problem’, Germans can become a bit nervous. For many problems offer little to no opportunities. They are simply problems. And they need to be dealt with.

Comic Con

One way that Americans move quickly from small to big talk is holding events centered around a common theme. These themes can be anything from the Information in Engineering Conference to MerCon (a mermaid-themed conference). At these conferences, it’s customary for people to only use a little small talk, then quickly segue into big talk based on the conference theme.

One of the best known examples of one of these events is Comic Con.

The first Comic Con was held in San Diego in 1970, when a group of comic and science fiction fans decided to showcase some of their favorite comic books and other forms of popular art.

The one day event was such a large success, attracting about 100 people, that its founders decided to throw a three day convention later that year (which attracted over 300 people).

Over the decades, Comic Cons have become so popular that they can be found all over the world, and some of the bigger events can have more than 200,000 people in attendance.

Supermarket checkout

At the supermarket check out somewhere in Germany. Cashier to customers: “28,35 Euro”. The customers silently passes the 50 Euro bill to the cashier. “21,65 is your change”. The customer packs up his groceries and leaves the store.

This type of limited conversation at the supermarket check out is not a rarity. Until a couple of years ago this was a common interaction. Nowadays, you will get a “good day” or “have a nice day” from the cashier before he puts the groceries in your shopping cart to make space for the next customer.

However, the cashier would never asked the flour- and sugar-buying customer if they are going to bake today. Furthermore, if a customer buys cereal and milk the cashier would never ask, with a winky face, if they are someone that likes breakfast for dinner. The cashier would also not say how much he likes cookies if someone was buying some. The check out is a place where you pay, not for small talk.