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Dienen

As is the case with many English terms, the Germans prefer to use the word service instead of dienen. The term dienen can be traced back to the 8th Century, when it meant runner, messenger, serf. Dienen in today‘s German means to serve, to be helpful, to be useful.

Dienen, however, also implies – and this is what Germans hear – subjugation, to place oneself below the person being served. Germans feel a loss of independence, personal sovereignty, autonomy, when dienen involves focus on the individual needs and wishes of the other person.

In such situations Germans sees themselves almost as slaves, as imprisoned, as unfree. They feel that their free will has been put on hold in order to serve the free will of the other. They no longer have the say over themselves.

Dienen, though, can have a positive meaning in the German context – namely when individuals freely choose to serve a common purpose, which is to the benefit of all, a greater good.

This all gives us a sense for why Germans avoid using the word dienen and instead prefer the English term service or the German-English combination Kundenservice, literally customer service. Germans have no problem subordinating their freedom when it comes to serving a purpose they believe in: Einer guten Sache dienen.

They do have a problem, however: serving exclusively the needs and desires of another individual. Such phrases as Ihr ergebener Diener, your loyal servant, or stets zu Diensten, at your service, have died out in Germany, and with these phrases the thinking behind them.

Servitium

Serve: The English term service implies graciousness, helpfulness and to a degree selflessness. To serve is to be humble. Serve stems from the Latin word servitium, which meant the condition of a slave. Service, at its roots, involves one person serving another or several. It is inherently personal.

The term service in the context of American business involves the notion of servitium: to respond to the needs of your customer, to serve that customer personally and individually. But service also anticipates compensation: payment, customer loyalty, growth of the business.

Service is both personal and commercial. They go hand-in-hand. Impersonal service seldom leads to commercial success. Personal service without fair compensation is servitude. And, indeed, some business relationships are so one-sided that the one serving feels more like a slave than a free person.

Personal: Of, relating to, or affecting a particular person; done in person without the intervention of another; carried on between individuals directly; relating to the person or body; relating to an individual or an individual’s character, conduct, motives, or private affairs often in an offensive manner; being rational and self-conscious; of, relating to, or constituting personal property; intended for private use or use by one person. From Latin persona.

Helpful: Of service or assistance, useful.

Selfless: Having no concern for self, unselfish.

Humble: Not proud or haughty, not arrogant or assertive; reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission; ranking low in a hierarchy or scale. From Latin humilis low, humble, from humus earth.

Consensus via Dialogue

Precisely because it is so important to Germans to work in an independent, self-managing way, and because they usually have a clear picture in their mind of what the end result should look like, it is critical that customer and supplier reach as high a level of consensus as possible about what is to be achieved and how. All too often, however, the supplier simply asks for an okay from the customer about certain details.

When the details of collaboration need to be worked out, then colleagues from both sides sit down together and discuss them. Germans strive to work in integrated ways, including work processes. German customers and suppliers do their best to work as partners.

To clarify details is to address the how, whether it be a technical matter, how a given process is interpreted and lived, or how the organization is structured. Germans place great importance on clarifying as many details upfront as possible. They want to anticipate possible problems. Participating in and contributing to this upfront clarification process is critical to the success of customer-supplier relationships in Germany.

Abstimmen. Clarify, decide on, together; to decide based on voting; to bring things together, harmonize, agree on; to co-decide, to discuss with another person; to listen carefully and consider the other point of view, then find a joint solution; to establish consensus together.

Critical Loyalty

Capable consultants not only provide good advice, but they also denken mit, think with. With the client about solutions, ideas, approaches to implementation. Therein lies the added value. That is why consultants are paid. Mitdenken, thinking with, however, also means thinking independently, including correcting or contradicting the customer.

A good consultant is not an order taker. Instead she knows when to challenge the customer, when to point out what is best for the customer, even when the customer does not recognize it, believe it or want to hear it.

Criticism and critique are in general positive in the German culture. To accept criticism, though, is not easy for anyone. Criticism can be interpreted as disloyalty, even though constructive criticism is in many ways the highest degree of loyalty. Criticism points out dangers, identifies ways to optimize, helps to make difficult decisions.

Germans are a direct people, including how they communicate criticism. But they also see it as their duty, as their responsibility, to point out to their colleagues, boss or customer what does not or will not work. Discreet conversations under four eyes which address critical issues is what capable consultants do. These conversations are a sign of loyalty and trust.

Kritische Loyalität. Literally critical loyalty, or loyalty which voices criticism, which address critical topics.

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.

Mandate

Mandate. Latin mandatum, task, job, order to do something for another; to represent another legally; an elected office to represent the voters.

A mandate is a broadly defined task where the service provider – consultant, attorney, architect, subject area expert – advises the client. The business relationship is not made up of small, individual tasks.

Instead, the service provider – the person who has been granted the mandate – serves, represents, and advises the client in a complex area involving many different kinds of issues and interactions.

Attorneys represent their clients in legal matters. Political office holders represent their voters. A mandate obligates the adviser to act in the interest of the client even without the client‘s expressed permission.

Tail wags dog

Germans. Augenhöhe. More consult than serve. Ok, fine. American customers can work with the German approach. Maybe even work better, if the approach is understood by both sides and is applied carefully.

But even if so, it can look and feel to the American customer as if the tail is wagging the dog. The customer is the dog. The German supplier-vendor-consultant is the tail. Germans don’t want to be the tail. Who does? But the American customer is clearly the dog. And that dog doesn’t want to be wagged by its tail, German or any other culture.

Balance customer and supplier

Augenhöhe. Literally eye-level. To be at eye-level with each other. Germans reject any form, even the slightest indication, of a one-sided customer-supplier relationship. One-sided in the sense of imbalance, a working relationship in which the one is master, the other slave.

For Germans, implicit in any business relationship is a transaction, an exchange, a trade. A problem is solved. A need is satisfied. A lack of expertise in a particular area, on a specific question, is provided from the outside. Manufacturing needs better technology. The company needs advice concerning tax law. Another company needs help with marketing, logistics, personnel, product packaging, research and development.

The list of possible business transactions is infinite. People, teams, companies collaborate, work together, because one has something the other needs, and will exchange it for something of value.

Germans are very sensitive to maintaining balance in any form of collaboration. The German customer wants in a supplier, service provider or consultant: someone who insists on working with them at eye-level, who is self-confident, knows her own worth, and rejects any working relationship which can lead to an imbalance.

The German customers want the best possible work results, input, support from suppliers, service providers, and consultants. They do not want those who react immediately to each and every desire, idea, or spontaneous thought they might have, as if the client had issued a purchase order.

Often the customer is not in a position to recognize what is best for them. And every customer is, in turn, a supplier, service provider or consultant to another company in another business relationship. That’s what business means. Today customer, tomorrow supplier.

The Germans would far more prefer to consult than to serve. Consulting is knowledge- / expertise-based. To give advice. Two parties standing at eye-level to each other. Balance. Listen, discuss, decide, act. The one side pays for it. Of course. But for the Germans, the customer is never king. And the supplier, service provider, consultant is never slave.

Masters of their work

Germans – both management and employees – strive to work independently, on their own, with as little supervision as possible. Most importantly, Germans expect of themselves and each other a high degree of mitdenken, of thinking with.

Mitdenken not only reduces the need for management oversight – it also means that management need not get too involved in the details of the work on the tactical level, the how. But can German management fully rely on their employees to do their work in the best interest of the company? Germans answer this questions indirectly with a yes.

Whenever cases are uncovered where Germans employers use technology to monitor their employees’ behaviour and/or performance, there is immediate and loud protest not only from those employees, but from the German public in general.

For Germans, to self-manage, to work independently, means a high level of trust between employer and employee, between team lead and team. For Germans, the permission to work in an independent fashion is a sign of recognition, of ability and trustworthiness.

For German employees, it is a clear sign of recognition when they are given a task to complete on their own. They are proud to take on the task, proud of their ability, regardless of whether management voices praise or offers any kind of monetary benefit.

Through the ability to work independently, to need little management supervision, German employees see themselves less as Diener, those who serve, and more as Berater, as collaborating almost as partners with their manager.

Autonomy !

Autonomie. Autonomy. Greek autonomía, independent, free, self-determining; acting based on free will.

Autonomy has a negative connotation in the German culture. Those who demand their autonomy are often seen as being uncooperative, as wanting to be totally free, not connected, not tied to or related to others.

To be autonomous in Germany sounds like not being connected to the whole, not belonging, rejecting it. The term autonomy is often used in a political context. Alarm bells go off in the German head when groups demand more autonomy. A well-known radical group on the left refers to themselves as the Autonomen.

On the other hand, institutions such as universities often seek more autonomy from state regulation. In that sense autonomy stands for independence, self-reliance, and transparency. There is a very fine line in the German culture between autonomy and independence.