Qualität setzt sich durch — quality asserts itself, prevails, gets through. Said in German about a product competing on something other than price.
Auf Dauer setzt sich Qualität durch — in the long run quality prevails. The addition of auf Dauer is the concession: it may take a while, and it will happen anyway.
The claim inside the phrase is that quality is a force rather than a feature.
Die Zielvereinbarung. German employment practice fixes objectives for the year in a documented conversation, often with a bonus attached, and reviews them at the year’s end.
Agreed once, assessed once. Between those two points the manager is not scheduled to ask how it is going.
The word is an agreement rather than an assignment — the objectives are negotiated and signed by both, which is part of why they are not revisited every fortnight.
Ins Gesicht sagen — to say to the face. Offen aussprechen — to speak out openly. Kein Blatt vor den Mund nehmen — to take no leaf before the mouth, meaning to speak without covering.
And the opposite: hintenherum, behind-around, and hinter dem Rücken, behind the back. Both are accusations.
The German objection is not to being criticised in front of others. It is to being criticised where you cannot answer.
Nüchtern. Sober. Applied to a negotiation, a report or an assessment, and it is praise. The opposite is not passionate or committed. It is emotional, which in German business speech is close to an accusation of unreliability.
German has no native word for small talk. It uses the English one, written as one word — Smalltalk — and it entered the language along with the practice it names.
Plauderei and Geplauder exist, but they mean chatting or prattling, and neither describes the specific business function. The thing had to be imported, and the word came with it.
The term Sachverständiger, expert, is not legally protected in Germany. Anyone insufficiently qualified may call themselves one and offer their services on the market.
So German law built a second tier: öffentlich bestellt und vereidigt, publicly appointed and sworn. Only specialists whose knowledge lies considerably above average are appointed, after an exacting examination procedure, and their work then stands under the permanent supervision of the appointing body — the chambers of crafts, of industry and commerce, of architects, of engineers.
One line from the guidance issued by the Regensburg chamber states the principle exactly: performing your profession properly is not yet sufficient proof of special expertise.
Doing the job well is the floor, not the qualification.
In the 2015 shareholder letter, Bezos divided decisions in two. Type 1 are consequential and irreversible — one-way doors — and must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. Type 2 are changeable, reversible, two-way doors, and should be made quickly by high-judgment individuals or small groups.
He gave the irreversible kind one sentence. The rest of the passage warns that large organisations apply the heavyweight process to reversible decisions, producing slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, insufficient experimentation and diminished invention.
The framework is not a case for careful analysis. It is a case for identifying which decisions do not need it.
Dienst nach Vorschrift — service according to regulation. Doing precisely what the rules require and nothing beyond.
In Germany this is a recognised form of industrial action. Following instructions exactly is understood to damage the employer, because the organisation depends on people exercising judgment the rules do not describe.
It is also used as an insult about an individual. To say somebody does Dienst nach Vorschrift is to say they have stopped thinking.
To avoid being bound, a German offer must carry an explicit disclaimer — freibleibend, without obligation, or ohne Obligo. The escape has to be stated. Silence does not preserve your freedom, it removes it, which is why Germans are careful about what they put in writing.
Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price. The word in the middle is suggested, and it appears on window stickers, packaging and price tags across the American economy. The producer states a number and simultaneously concedes it is not binding.