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 #2 (permalink) Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:12 am Intercultural communication |
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Hi Jamie
I think there is more to it than just how direct Germans or Americans are. (But I do think that Germans can be amazingly direct despite the mile-long words and sentences that tend to show up in German.)
One thing that I witnessed fairly frequently in Germany was that my German students often wanted/needed to have heaps of background or historical information for a project while their American counterparts often simply viewed this need as "water under the bridge" and therefore tedious. So, in essence, there'd be two people theoretically working on the same thing, but looking in opposite directions. Each became frustrated because their counterpart wasn't placing enough importance on or looking at the "right" thing.
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| #3 (permalink) Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:57 am Intercultural communication |
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| Yankee wrote: |
| One thing that I witnessed fairly frequently in Germany was that my German students often wanted/needed to have heaps of background or historical information for a project while their American counterparts often simply viewed this need as "water under the bridge" and therefore tedious. So, in essence, there'd be two people theoretically working on the same thing, but looking in opposite directions. Each became frustrated because their counterpart wasn't placing enough importance on or looking at the "right" thing. |
Yes, this is true. My nephew experienced this in business training seminars in Germany, and he found that the Germans often want much more information than is necessary and can't finish the project by the deadline. The German approach can even be dangerous, as, for example, when thousands of people are being killed in Bosnia RIGHT NOW.
What would you make of this situation: You're an American manager, and you've done what you think is a good job at assembling a stable team of assembly line employees who know how to do their jobs efficiently and meet quality standards. A German colleague, not considering the quality of their work, tells you right to your face that you are using "temporary, unskilled workers", because Germans train for 10 years to be assembly line workers and almost never leave their jobs, while your people have learned on the job and will probably move on when they outgrow their jobs or get a better opportunity. This strikes me as sheer arrogance. |
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| #4 (permalink) Sun Jul 22, 2007 17:00 pm Intercultural communication : German & American attitudes to life & work |
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Greetings Jamie(K) & Yankee,
I would like to add to your posts.
I have lived in Germany for many years and can agree with your comments and experiences.
Germans tend to think on a very long term basis and want to build long term relationships (which is laudable) but to them also means taking time to produce quality products and do deep studies and research - longevity is there maxim.
That?s why they don't appreciate what they think are superficial American ways.
Instant this, instant that, which I think they consider short lived cheap products.
A person who has studied or learned a profession which has taken anything for 3 to 7 years (or more) should stay with that and improve on it their whole life otherwise you are wasting a good investment.
The unemployment in Germany is not only a political joke of incompetence when viewed from the US, GB, Canada, Australia, NZ, and non-English speaking countries because the politics and bureaucracy is an inflexible elephant that discusses and talks themselves to death justifying themselves in details while the ship is sinking instead of waking up to find an immediate solution to the problem by being creative and practical.
The American way is very dynamic, energetic, practical improvement and solution orientated and I know that quality to Americans (British, Canadians etc.) is just as damn important as it is to a German.
What the Germans probably don't appreciate is that quality doesn't just come from time.
It also comes from a will, energy, enthusiasm, and dynamic to get a product out to satisfy a market need as fast as possible and at the same time, continually improving the product and manufacturing processes etc. etc.
I get the impression that the German mentally is somehow stuck in a rut.
Maybe because of tradition and not questioning previously tried and trusted workable solutions (which took years to perfect) which don't apply to todays technological progress. Knowledge is after all progressive.
The German employment market is suffering because they only have a so called Employment or Labour office where people register AND receive employment all from one civil servant who is supposed to serve 200 or so people.
That?s just bloody inefficiency, inflexibility, stubbornness, idiocy and an insult to a nation of people who are just as capable as any country to pull itself together and produce wonders.
I say that this situation is steered from a politic that doesn't really want Germany to move forward.
(We could move to the conspiracy theory/fact and explode that comment no end.)
When I compare the British method of Employment or Labour office PLUS a JobCentre where you go and chose your job and get employment very quickly, then I ask myself why the politicians have not simply copied the idea as any individual with common sense would do.
It's that easy.
Now, I shall get down from my soap box.
Best wishes, Bruce.
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| #5 (permalink) Sun Jul 22, 2007 18:00 pm Intercultural communication |
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hi Jamie, Yankee and Bruce
I do agree with all observations, especially the Arbeitsamt ones.
However I must say that some of the small and medium sized businesses I have trained are not quite so stiff in their approach.
Take for example http://www.spreadshirt.net or http://www.reprotechnik.de They are innovative and forward thinking, as well as willing to change.
There are many more I could mention.
But the problem is often as Bruce mentioned, the red tape, add to this big companies that are so large the are lumbering dinosaurs. It no longer amazes me that such global players as Siemens are so resistant to change. They have such complex and over regulated systems that trying to get them to do anything different or accept difference is damn hard.
However this can happen with many companies.
Look at the car industry of the UK. Many of the companies were old and out dated in their approaches.
Returning to the looking for a job, I also think really any successful business person will have other avenues than a job center to pursue employment.
cheers stew.t.
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| #6 (permalink) Sun Jul 22, 2007 18:12 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| What would you make of this situation: You're an American manager, and you've done what you think is a good job at assembling a stable team of assembly line employees who know how to do their jobs efficiently and meet quality standards. A German colleague, not considering the quality of their work, tells you right to your face that you are using "temporary, unskilled workers", because Germans train for 10 years to be assembly line workers and almost never leave their jobs, while your people have learned on the job and will probably move on when they outgrow their jobs or get a better opportunity. This strikes me as sheer arrogance. |
The years of training and education "difference" was also pointed out to me quite often in Germany, but I don't view it as arrogance. I see it more as a closed mind and/or a failure to view things objectively for what they are rather than what they're called. However, this isn't unique to Germans. There are plenty of Americans who are equally sure that their way is the best way and/or the only way.
What Germans often ignore or fail to recognize is the fact that, during those 'years of training', their now educated, highly skilled employees were working as temporary, unskilled workers, possibly in the very same company. Or after those 'years of training', the worker (student) would move on to become a permanent employee somewhere else. Those temporary, unskilled trainees were working on the assembly line during their years of training. The only difference is that they were referred to as "students" or "apprentices" (and, by German standards, probably also paid peanuts) during that time. Technically, they weren't yet permanent "employees", but rather "students".
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| #7 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:13 am Intercultural communication : German & American attitudes to life & w |
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| Bruce wrote: |
| Instant this, instant that, which I think they connsider short lived cheap products. |
Alexis de Tocqueville reported in his book "Democracy in America" in the early 1800s that he had asked an American shipbuilder why more care wasn't taken in building really solid, permanent ships. The American's answer was that there was no use designing and building permanency into ships when their technology would be obsolete in just a few years. People from the two continents were discussing the same issue 200 years ago.
| Bruce wrote: |
| A person who has studied or learned a profession which has taken anything for 3 to 7 years (or more) should stay with that and improve on it their whole life otherwise you are wasting a good investment. |
It is only considered a waste by someone who doesn't understand that knowledge and skills can transfer from one field to another. They think that if you can't draw a straight, blunt crayon line from the name of your degree or certificate to the name of your job, then you've "wasted" your education. This isn't true, and even what seem like the most divergent fields can complement one another.
Example: One guy got his master's degree in English -- specializing in Shakespeare -- and in psychology. He had always been good at swinging a wrench, and he wound up working in a petroleum facility as a technician. People would say he "wasn't using his degree", but his communication and psychological skills helped him on the job a lot, and after he became expert in the machinery, he became as perfect a technical writer as one could ask for.
An even weirder example: People think I'm "not using my art degree" because I wound up studying linguistics and teaching languages. However, the only reason I was able to do well in linguistics, I'm convinced, is that the professional study of painting had given me the ability to quickly create concrete visual images in my head of things that were abstract. And when a student of mine is having trouble with something in a language, I get a visual image in my head of his mental process, as a sort of structure. In other words, I use my painting degree every day.
P.S. Bruce, if you download and install the Firefox browser, or Safari for Windows, you'll find they underline your misspellings as you type. This would keep you from posting repeated misspellings such as "practicle", etc. You're a native speaker, and we all need to set as good an example as possible (at least in language). |
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| #8 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:17 am Intercultural communication |
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| stew.t. wrote: |
However I must say that some of the small and medium sized businesses I have trained are not quite so stiff in tehir approach.
Take for example http://www.spreadshirt.net or http://www.reprotechnik.de They are innovative and forward thinking, as well as willing to change.
There are many more I could mention. |
Stew, I'd enjoy reading what you think is particularly interesting about these companies and counter to the stereotype people have of German thinking. We hear a lot about slow-moving German conventionalism, but we don't hear about the opposite there. Is there anything you consider characteristically German about their type of advanced thinking and approach to innovation? |
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| #9 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 3:27 am Intercultural communication |
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| Yankee wrote: |
| The years of training and education "difference" was also pointed out to me quite often in Germany, but I don't view it as arrogance. I see it more as a closed mind and/or a failure to view things objectively for what they are rather than what they're called. |
I see it as part of an extreme process orientation, sometimes at the expense of a results orientation.
| Yankee wrote: |
| What Germans often ignore or fail to recognize is the fact that, during those 'years of training', their now educated, highly skilled employees were working as temporary, unskilled workers, possibly in the very same company. Or after those 'years of training', the worker (student) would move on to become a permanent employee somewhere else. Those temporary, unskilled trainees were working on the assembly line during their years of training. The only difference is that they were referred to as "students" or "apprentices" (and, by German standards, probably also paid peanuts) during that time. Technically, they weren't yet permanent "employees", but rather "students". |
That's an extremely good point that I wouldn't have been able to put together for myself.
Now try this one, Amy: A high-level technical manager has to work in Germany with a colleague who is stiff, official and cold as ice. The American thinks it's going to be mighty hard to get things done with this guy if he doesn't loosen up. So the American does what he would do in the States, and he invites the coworker out for a beer after work. At the pub, the German relaxes and becomes a very warm, open person, and it's clear to the American that this improvement in their rapport will make their cooperation on the job easier. After all, it would in the US. However, Monday comes and the German's personality goes back down to 20 degrees below freezing, and he's as hard as ever to work with.
Something similar has happened to me also, and the only thing I could think was that Germans are extreme in compartmentalizing their time and behavior. The job is for stiffness, the bar is for looseness, and never the twain shall meet.
What do you think? |
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| #10 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 15:40 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi Jamie
In regards to the what could be said to be innovative, I do not think that you can say something is typically German. However with these companies there is no fear of technology, application of that technology or adaption and absorption of other work patterns. They also recruit outside of conventional inflexible job market of Germany.
Let's take spreadshirt. It is very good as a simple on-line presence and shop. If you look at the website it is not cluttered like some and relatively user friendly. Also the employee base in Leipzig is a good mix of different nationalities, headhunted from their other daughter companies/branches, so Spain, Poland, France and UK. They have a working language of mainly English mixed with occasional German, and this from a company that is not even working with the kind of catchment area like Siemens. I have been impressed with their simple idea that is marketable and marketed well.
If we make the point that sometimes Brits can be a little tech-phobic or this is the perception made by some, then the Germans are ahead in this respect.
What do you think from their websites? Does it give you an impression of a conventional German company?
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| #11 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 16:33 pm Intercultural communication |
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Spreadshirt didn't strike me as a typical German company, but I initially thought their website had been done from a very good template. Even so, the friendly look of the site strikes me as very non-German, in the sense that when German media want something to look friendly, they often use people with painfully exaggerated smiles or looks of surprise. The Spreadshirt site just looks comfortable and pleasant. That alone has to attract clientele.
Reprotechnik's site has, to me, a typical German look that I call "techno-mysterious". This type of site has a densely packed page layout, always with a horizontal rectangular graphic near the top that give some indication of technology and evidence of human presence, but no image of a personally identifiable human. |
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| #12 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 21:15 pm Intercultural communication |
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Hi Jamie,
You are right -- most websites of German companies are very technical or even sterile. One example is q-cells.com, its design and style reminds me of a legal text rather than an interactive website. "very German" (look at "Company ==> Facts and Figures", I guess their company structure and corporate culture are similar to that of the military). As for Spreadshirt, their founders are in their mid-twenties and I think they studied and analyzed the US market and as a result applied some principles of modern e-commerce
By the way, most German companies publish their "imprint" on the English version of their website although you will never find an "imprint" on any US or UK based website. I think this is because German companies are required by law to publish an imprint on their website and when they have their website contents translated by a translation agency, the translators can't just leave the imprint section or simply change it into "about" -- their Germany clients wouldn't accept this. So instead of trying to "localize" the website or create an American version of the website, they translators just translate the German "imprint" section along with all the other original German text that usually contains long and complicated sentences with lots of unwieldy nouns, etc.
To illustrate please I'd like to quote from the Q-Cells website:
"The advancement and establishment of photovoltaics as the main energy resource of the future has one requirement above all else: an industry that makes sure that solar power is not only environmentally friendly and reliable, but also affordable and competitive on liberalised electricity markets – only then will photovoltaics be able to prevail quickly and sustainably.
To build such an industry has been the goal of Q-Cells AG since its founding in 1999. Today, less than seven years later, it has turned into the largest manufacturer of solar cells in the world."
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| #13 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 22:56 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Torsten wrote: |
| By the way, most German companies publish their "imprint" on the English version of their website although you will never find an "imprint" on any US or UK based website. |
Torsten, I can't figure out what you mean by an "imprint". It looks to me like a clumsily written "about" page. There's nothing odd about it, except for the bad writing.
| Torsten wrote: |
To illustrate please I'd like to quote from the Q-Cells website:
"The advancement and establishment of photovoltaics as the main energy resource of the future has one requirement above all else: an industry that makes sure that solar power is not only environmentally friendly and reliable, but also affordable and competitive on liberalised electricity markets – only then will photovoltaics be able to prevail quickly and sustainably." |
Yes. Notice that the one sentence is a whole paragraph in itself!
I've noticed that on the worst German corporate websites (but not the best), the whole problem is that they haven't recreated the text for an Anglophone audience. There appears to be a difference between the high level of formality appropriate to the German text, as opposed to the easier, friendlier style that is acceptable in English.
Another problem is when German companies create just one TV advertisement for the whole world. Something that seems fun and upbeat when it's on TV in Europe can look disturbingly surrealistic when it's shown in the US. Ads for Mentos candy used to be famous for this. A very bad one was for Allianz, in which you were supposed to see that a little girl was rich because she dressed like (to us) girls in 1930s monster films, while her father appeared (to us) to move like a marionette. The theme of the ad was "a promise is a promise", as shown by the fact that the father promised to phone his daughter while he was away on the Formula 1 circuit and really did call. The idea was that this father keeps his promises, but I missed the whole point the first four or five times I saw it, because dads are SUPPOSED to call their families when they're traveling! The guy wasn't doing anything particularly noble!
Lately there seems to have been a trend for British-owned banks in the US to have "humorous" TV commercials that are produced by the British using American actors, or sometimes obviously British actors imitating American accents. Typically they'll show a bunch of stodgy bankers suddenly get happy and friendly for two or three seconds, and then they go right back to being stiff. The idea is that the bankers are stepping out of character for a couple seconds, and then they go back to being normal bankers. However, when Americans watch the ads, it just looks like the bankers are depressed and mentally ill, then are cured for a few seconds, and then become miserable again. The humor is pretty much lost. |
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Jamie (K)
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| #14 (permalink) Tue Jul 24, 2007 23:12 pm Intercultural communication |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Torsten, I can't figure out what you mean by an "imprint". It looks to me like a clumsily written "about" page. There's nothing odd about it, except for the bad writing. |
German companies are required by law to publish an "imprint" on their German corporate websites. When they have their websites translated, the translating agencies translate the German "Impressum" section with "imprint". Here is the English version of the Q-Cells imprint for example.
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| #15 (permalink) Wed Jul 25, 2007 13:55 pm Intercultural communication |
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TD, that looks like a sort of basic-info page.
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