American companies identify and label a cohort marked for advancement, with separate development programmes and accelerated moves. The judgment is about trajectory rather than about current performance.
words
The list price
Der Listenpreis. German suppliers publish price lists, and the list price is the price. Deviating from it requires a reason that can be stated: quantity, contract term, a documented specification change. The list is not an opening position. It is the answer to the question.
Value
The central American product word, and it is a ratio rather than a property. Good value, value for money, best value. A thing is not good or bad. It is good or bad for the price.
The Chief Revenue Officer
Along with Chief Customer Officer, Chief Growth Officer, Chief Commercial Officer. American companies create C-suite titles around market-facing functions. There is no equivalent proliferation of titles around internal procedure.
Kept among us
Unter vier Augen — under four eyes, meaning between two people.
Das bleibt unter uns — that stays among us.
Schmutzige Wäsche wäscht man nicht in der Öffentlichkeit — one does not wash dirty linen in public.
Der Flurfunk — corridor radio, the German word for office rumour, and it is what a public hearing is understood to feed.
The title
American job titles proliferate and are read carefully — associate, senior, staff, principal, director, vice president. Companies create levels partly so that people can be moved between them, and the title travels on the email signature and the LinkedIn profile.
With eye-measure
Mit Augenmaß — with eye-measure. The German phrase for judgment exercised in proportion, and it is praise.
Fingerspitzengefühl — fingertip feeling. Sensitivity in handling a situation, and it is what experience is supposed to produce.
Nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen — to the best of knowledge and conscience. A formula used in German declarations and reports where certainty is not available.
Disposable and durable
Durable goods is a category in American economic statistics, defined as goods expected to last three years or more. Three years. The official threshold for durability in the United States is a period a German would not consider a product life at all.
The talking-out
Die Aussprache. A talking-out. The German word for the conversation in which a difficulty is worked through between the people involved. It is arranged, it is expected to take a while, and it happens without spectators.
Specialist and generalist
German uses both words, and only one of them is a compliment. Generalist is not an insult exactly. But it describes an absence, and in a German professional context the absence is of a field.