words Archives - Page 48 of 64 - understand-culture

frequent follow-up

Interestingly, typing „frequent follow-up“ into Google leads to 179 million results. The first ten pages with ten results each all refer to healthcare:

Long-Term Follow-up of Asymptomatic Healthy Subjects. Frequent follow-up as data gathering and continued care. Colonoscopy Overuse A Result Of Frequent Follow-Up. Follow-up see eMedicineHealth. Is There a Benefit of Frequent CT Follow-up After EVAR?

The term follow-up in the medical space is about: care; staying on top of a problem; remaining proactive; constant monitoring; reacting to a changing situation.

Disaggregate

Disaggregate: to separate into component parts; to break up or apart. Americans not only aggregate, they also disaggregate.

A manager has a spontaneous idea, calls a meeting with more than a handful of experts to discuss it, then just as quickly disbands it noting that she and they should continue thinking about it. A corporate-internal project, generously funded at first, but which does not produce the initial results expected, has the “plugged pulled” on it quickly.

When low earnings over three straight quarters has investors grumbling, executive management reacts quickly with corrective action: close plants, layoff workers, hire a consulting firm to recommend a cost-cutting program.

At least until the end of the Second World War, the United States maintained a modest standing army, forcing it during war to ‘ramp up’ as rapidly as possible, only to then after the war demobilize just as rapidly.

Aggregate. Disaggregate. Quickly. It’s how Americans utilize resources.

English Composition

Americans learn as early as in grammar school to break down complexity. They are taught in English Composition to formulate short, simple and clear sentences ordered in a logical sequence. Good composition avoids sentences with complex grammatical twists and turns. Simplicity and clarity are the goals.

Complexity: The state of quality of being intricate or complicated; a factor involved in a complicated process of situation.

Grammatical twists and turns: Convoluted structures in the English language that often obscure meaning for the reader:

“Although the blue whale has been protected for over thirty years and its numbers are increasing, especially in the North Pacific, where whale hunting has been banned, it is still at risk of extinction as its habitat is being polluted by waste from oil tankers and its main food, the plankton, is being killed off by harmful rays from the sun, which can penetrate the earth’s atmosphere because there is a huge whole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.”

Ernest Hemingway, considered to be one of America’s greatest writers, shied away from convolution in grammar and style. He never used big words or complicated sentences, yet he succeeded in painting vivid images. Overly sophisticated does not necessarily equate to good writing.

Searing

Searing: Very hot; marked by extreme intensity, harshness, or emotional power.

The United States is an immigrant country. More accurately stated: a younger, more recent immigrant country. For the history of mankind is the history of man moving, settling, then picking up and moving again.

There were and are reasons for why people moved and continue to move to the United States. Many seek greater freedom of thought, of religion, of way of life. Economic opportunity was/is certainly a motivation for many, if not most. And there are those who wanted to break out of the inflexible structures of their native country.

The immigrant experience is searing. It is of great emotional intensity, forming who we are as individuals, families, ethnic communities, and as a nation. The stories, the emotions, the choices made are passed down from generation to generation.

Oddly, but understandably, an American of German descent will say: “I’m German,” meaning, “My ethnic heritage is German,” in a deeper sense, “My national cultural hard-wiring is American and German,” just as it is for others: American and Italian, American and Irish, and Vietnamese, and Mexican, and Polish, and so on.

A searing experience. People left behind all that they knew. Language, culture, traditions, friends and relatives. The risks were both high and not entirely known. The immigrant experience leads to a complex relationship with what was once home. For people take their culture with them. National culture changes only slowly and painfully.

Immigrants admire, respect, long for their home. But they also leave it behind, in some ways they reject it. Americans have always seen America as the New World. Not just a new settlement, a new country. But a new world, as if mankind were starting afresh, anew. It is a part of the American self-understanding to believe that you can strike out on a new path, question old ways, methods, traditions.

Realistic for Americans means that the present is a starting point to the future, a new starting point towards a new future, possibly different and better than the past. Yes, the present is the result of the past, but not locked into a pre-determined, unalterable trajectory. The past, therefore, has less relevance. There is less need to explain how the present was arrived at.

Whereas for Germans realistic means “keeping your feet on the ground,” maintaining a sober view of the situation, not deviating too much from known ways; “knowing where you come from.” For Americans realistic means developing a vision, imagining new possibilities, stretching beyond, reaching for more and greater things.

Scope Creep

Scope creep is when a task or project grows beyond its original intent, requiring more people, time and money than originally planned. It is typically a result of poor task definition, change control or internal communication. A precisely defined decision limits scope creep.

Scope: The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant; the opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something.

Creep: To move slowly and carefully, especially in order to avoid being heard or noticed; moving very slowly at a steady pace; occur or develop gradually and almost imperceptibly; increase slowly but steadily in number or amount. Old English crēopan, meaning to “move with the body close to the ground”. Of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kruipen.

According to Economic Recovery Measures, Financial Rescues Have Only Temporary Impact by Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Bush-era tax cuts and its extension during the Obama presidency, in addition to the deficit-financed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, account for “almost half of the $18 trillion in debt that, under current policies, the nation will owe by 2019.” Deficit-creep.

Aggregate

The more resources – material, budget, time, personnel – an organization has at its disposal, the more likely it will draw on them in order to solve a problem, take advantage of an opportunity, accomplish a task. Especially if the organization needs to move quickly. And conversely, the less likely it will develop approaches which conserve those resources. Americans are not known for doing more with less. Not yet.

Aggregate: formed by the collection of units or particles into a body, mass, or amount; clustered in a dense mass; composed of mineral crystals of one or more kinds or of mineral rock fragments; taking all units as a whole. From Middle English aggregat, from Latin aggregare to add to, from ad- + greg-, grex flock.

Americans aggregate. When the U.S. goes to war it aggregates overwhelming force. The current debate is how to move away from this tradition. American websites aggregate content. When start-up companies “go public” – initial public offering – financial institutions aggregate investors.

single-minded

single-minded: having only one purpose, goal, or interest; focused on one thing; having one driving purpose or resolve. First known use 1836.

Synonyms: bent (on or upon), bound, decisive, do-or-die, firm, hell-bent (on or upon), intent, purposeful, resolute, resolved, set. Antonyms: faltering, hesitant, indecisive, irresolute, undetermined, unresolved, vacillating, wavering, weak-kneed.

In American thinking to be single-minded is always positive. It means to be wholly focused.

Always positive?

Impatience

According to a survey conducted in 2015, even though almost 80% of Americans consider themselves patient, a vast majority of them behave in ways that display incredible impatience. For example, 96% of Americans will consume food/drink that they know is hot enough to burn them rather than wait for it to cool. Additionally, 71% frequently exceed the speed limit and more than 50% won’t wait on hold for more than one minute.

Oxymoron

An oxymoron is a contradiction in terms, such as “cruel kindness”. For Americans, “a decision making process” is in many ways an oxymoron.

Processes can offer structure, consistency, overview, monitoring. At best they can support the creation of decision options. In the end, decisions are people-driven. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgement, a person or a group of persons makes the decision.

Americans are skeptical of decision making processes, especially when they attempt to substitute them for people. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgement.

People Driven

Americans are skeptical of business processes that attempt to replace human judgment. They believe that decision-making is inherently human. Drawing on personal and professional experience, intuition and judgment, a person or a group of persons makes the decision. Processes have neither experience, nor intuition nor judgment.

Analysis defines the situation, the options, their respective risks and benefits. Experience informs about how the situation could/should be dealt with. And intuition influences the decision.

Decision: A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration; the action or process of deciding something or of resolving a question; a formal judgment; the ability or tendency to make decisions quickly; decisiveness. From Latin decidere “determine”.

Analysis: Detailed examination of the elements or structure of something, typically as a basis for discussion or interpretation; the process of separating something into its constituent elements; the identification and measurement of the chemical constituents of a substance or specimen.