The shared values and attitudes of a nation determine its political, economic, and social structures and the behavior of its citizens. What the Germans as a people prioritize as core values will often differ from what, say, Americans and British people would prioritize, even if a considerable number of them originate from the same common stock. Where then, to put it simply, are the Germans “coming from”? What makes them tick, both in business and socially?
Among the first things anybody who hears the word “German” thinks of are efficiency and organization. These are not terms one would normally associate with national character, so where does this perception come from? Anywhere you go in Germany you will meet a high degree of tidiness and organization, applied down to the last detail. The Germans themselves, however, don’t think in these terms. They think in terms of order. Efficiency and organization are by-products of the search for order. Order is a fundamental German value, and it permeates everything they do.
A key concept in German life, therefore, is Ordnung, or order. The phrase “Ordnung muss sein” means that order “must be.” It reflects the belief that there is an inherent order and system in everything. The object of life is to analyze everything to find that order and system, and then to apply it. Inculcating that search for order and meaning, and showing how it is applied, is the function of German education and social training. Order is what gives a secure basis to life. Disorder is deeply unsettling for the Germans, and therefore their first aim in any difficult situation is to search for and reestablish order.
“So what?” you may respond. “Everybody likes a tidy life.” Indeed so, but in German thinking order is raised to a national idea, and it has ramifications in every aspect of national life.
An example of this is planning. A German firm will plan an event months ahead, knowing that circumstances are likely to change before the event itself. Their search for order means that they prefer to spend time replanning every time circumstances change rather than to leave the whole thing until a short time before (as the French, Italians, and Spaniards might do) and just do it once.
We all have a number of characteristics drummed into us by upbringing, education, and experience that we carry around with us as part of our individual psychological and social programing. One of these may be a need for order in our lives. But this remains an individual preoccupation, not a social one. Imagine order as a national internal principle. Imagine a situation in which it is more difficult not to pick up litter and put it in a waste bin than it is to leave it on the ground. There you have the German psyche—a national sense of internalized social order. This has all sorts of effects on people’s behavior. For example, it helps to explain why the Germans are the most ecologically minded people in Europe, and why they will readily rebuke strangers for minor transgressions, such as jaywalking, or antisocial acts that other people might silently suffer or simply ignore. If you feel insulted because a German colleague or even a stranger reminds you of the rules, remember it’s not out of rudeness, just an enhanced principle of social responsibility.
A national mindset that places value on order has a number of consequences. First, if you elect a leader, you will tend to want to do what he or she says, so respect for authority is important. Second, it means that you will approve of people who plan ahead, organize, and check, and disapprove of people who tend to improvise or do things “on the fly.” If you are by nature a “last minuter,” or, in British terms, “a muddle througher,” you will need to brush up your performance if you are dealing with the German sense of order.
All this has contributed to the widely held stereotype of a humorless nation that rigidly organizes itself and follows orders without question. This is simply not true. The Germans have as great a sense of humor as anyone and can be deeply and explosively rebellious, as the amazing and world-changing breaching of the Berlin Wall in 1989 showed. There are also differences in the way north and south Germany interpret the notion of order as a social principle. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that this organizing principle of German society is deeply rooted and must be taken into account.
An English and German manager sat down to discuss a project. After a long, analytical examination of all the ins and outs the German manager finally came up with a scheme he was happy with. “Good,” he said, “I have a clear system I feel comfortable with.” The significant word is “clear.” For most Germans it is important to be clear, and part of that clarity (Klarheit) is to have a system that outlines for everyone exactly what has to be done and who will do it. Isn’t this the aim of all business, you may ask? Yes, but elevated to a national principle? No. It is very important for Germans to be direct and straightforward, and to avoid ambiguity both in their feelings and their communications. “Alles klar,” is a common way of acknowledging instructions and explanations.
To reach that clarity is not always an easy process and Germans will involve themselves (some say indulge themselves) in long, deep, and soul-searching analyses of situations or proposals to find the clarity from which that system will emerge. Once it has emerged, the system takes on the status of a pillar of order and is not easily changed. This accounts for what people see as a certain rigidity in the German way of doing things, and a certain lack of flexibility. Also, perhaps, an over-involvement in the minutiae of categorization. One of the problems of German business can be “analysis paralysis,” where the process of analyzing a situation defeats the more important goal of reaching a decision.
Go to a bus stop. The bus arrives and at the last moment you realize you can’t buy your ticket on the bus. You ask the driver to let you on anyway. The answer may well be “No.” There is a system in place. You buy your ticket at a machine by the bus stop. You validate it by inserting it into a card reader on the bus, and everything is fine.
If you don’t know what to do, ask someone at the bus stop. Germans can be amazingly tolerant and courteous in explaining to foreigners what needs to happen and how. They will sometimes go out of their way to explain the system to you. They understand how things work in Germany. You don’t. They can help you. It makes life easier for everyone.
You can also buy tickets online and in some states on the bus.
Germany was an early adopter of printing and books, and one of the first countries to have near 100 percent literacy. The modern printing press using moveable type was invented by Johannes Gutenberg (1398–1468) in the city of Mainz, revolutionizing the process of printing, and making books—mainly the Bible at the time—widely accessible and affordable. In so doing he ushered in the original information age.
Education and culture have always been prized in Germany, reflected in the fact that one-fifth of the Bundestag members have a Ph.D. (compared to 3 percent of Congress), as have 58.5 percent of managing directors (1.3 percent in the US).
The significance of education in providing an organized framework for life (a kind of secular religion) was fundamental to German philosophers like Kant and writers like Goethe and Schiller in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It helps to explain the importance of education and aesthetics in German business and political life, the concern with ideas and “big questions,” and also the proliferation of local arts centers, opera and theater, and museums in German towns and cities. (See pages 130–5.)
To find a system that is clear and that works takes a lot of thinking and a degree of honesty. On the whole, Germans prefer to say what they think and to deal in what they see to be the truth. Frankness and straightforwardness are features of German society, even more so in the north than in the south. In negotiations, German business partners will have a much smaller gap between their entry and exit positions than their British or American counterparts. Germans and Americans both find the noncommittal nature and indirectness of much of British communication difficult to handle. It is important in Germany to say what you mean. Fear of offending your partner is not a key consideration. This means that, however friendly and supportive they may intend to be, German comments on behavior or character can often be uncomfortably direct. This isn’t helped by the German use of English. Native English speech is full of “please,” “thank you,” “would,” “could,” and “might.” Germans speaking English will use “yes,” “no,” “should,” and “must,” and may come across as uncompromising or just plain rude.
On a more serious note, what goes with this wish for honesty and clarity is a strong sense of duty. The other side of the phrase “Say what you mean,” is “Mean what you say.” For someone to say something and not do it, or at least attempt to do it and explain the problems in good time, is seen very badly. If a German says, “I’ll do my best” it means, “I will use my best efforts and probably succeed.” If an English-speaker says it, on the other hand, it may well be an excuse for likely failure. Doing your duty is a very important part of German life, and applies as much to the person walking their dog and picking up and disposing of dog mess as it does in a military or business context.
In a teamwork simulation between Irish, English, and German members of a financial services company the team makeup included two observers, one for each team. At the debrief stage the Irish member reported back, full of good humor and amusing asides, pointing out some of the flaws in her team’s presentation. Then it was Heinz’s turn. Heinz was an exceptionally good-looking, kind, and charming man from Munich whose English was excellent. He began like this. “I have ten points to make from my observation and they are these. First you didn’t …., secondly you should have done …. and you didn’t. Thirdly you didn’t ….” And so he went on.
At the break the British and Irish members got the facilitator in a corner. “Heinz really got our backs up,” they said. “We could feel our shoulders rising with tension.” The English facilitator had to agree. He had felt the same way, even though he had realized that Heinz was just following the German style of taking the good things for granted and explaining as clearly, straightforwardly, and concisely as he could what was wrong and the lessons to be learned. It was a feat of organization and synthesis, but a failure of diplomacy and rapport. Needless to say, Heinz’s natural courtesy soon won everybody back over.
This sense of duty is linked to a deeper tradition in German thought—a certain high-mindedness and a belief in higher principles that is reflected in the operas of Wagner or in the great Romantic poets Goethe and Schiller. Implicit in German intellectual life is a sense of the greater good, to which it is important to subordinate one’s own will. For the Germans the sense of Gemeinschaft (community) and Gruppenzugehörigkeit (group belonging) means that one does not act against the interests of the group, for one’s own sake as much as for the good of others. The proverb “Do as you would be done by” sums up this sentiment very well. This form of idealism helps to explain why the Germans seem to have an internalized sense of public order.
An example of this shared sense of order is the Hauswoche (house week), typical of Baden-Württemburg. The residents of an apartment block commonly set a rotation of responsibility for sweeping the street outside, washing the public corridors of the building, and so on. This is clearly a limit on personal freedom, but they are happy to do it as they see it as contributing to the public good, their own included.
To live life like this can take a fair amount of effort and it is no surprise that the Germans have a strong work ethic. Doing what needs to be done in the right way is an important part of the German psyche, and this extends as much to tidying up and organizing your personal space as it does to how you work.
An aspect of the work ethic is thoroughness, or Gründlichkeit. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing perfectly. A German employee transferred to a British company was impressed by the high targets he was set. No matter how hard he worked he never seemed able to hit his targets 100 percent. Concerned about this he approached his manager. “You’re doing really well,” he was amazed to be told. “Nobody expects you to hit more than 60 percent!”
The German work ethic is reinforced by the ideas of the Protestant Reformation, initiated by Luther in the sixteenth century and shared by northern European countries and by the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. According to this way of thinking, work is good in itself, and one’s attitude to it and the disciplined way one goes about it is character-forming and purifying. Lutheranism, the religion of much of Germany, stresses the importance of hard work and prudent living as a way of personal development. The maintenance of a stable social order and a modest and prudent lifestyle are traditionally seen as part of the good religious life. (Something similar can also be found in Japan and Korea, reflecting the Confucian ideals of hard work and modesty.) These attitudes are particularly strong in the Protestant north of Germany, influenced both by the Reformation and by the disciplined, militaristic tradition of Prussia.
Interestingly enough, you should not confuse the amount of work you do and how you organize it with the amount of time you spend doing it. Many people think that the Germans work every hour that God gives. In fact they don’t. For them overtime, staying late, and taking work home are signs of personal inefficiency or a poor job description (organizational inefficiency), and are reasons for lack of confidence in a partner rather than confidence. For a German, the work ethic means that during your paid working hours you work as hard and in as disciplined and non-time-wasting a fashion as you can, but you don’t stay late. It also means reliability. You will be there when you say you will be, you will stop when you say you will, and you will do what you have said you will do. Things are changing, however, and nowadays more and more Germans stay late or take work home and factories do more overtime.
A British trainer once asked a senior German manager what would happen if he (the Brit) was late for a meeting. The manager replied, “If you were late for a meeting the first time I would put it down to cultural differences. If you were late a second time I would never speak to you again!” But there was a smile on his face as he said it.
What holds the system in place is a strong sense of authority and status. The Germans, like anyone else, will criticize authority, but ultimately will accept it—in the home, the town council, the office, and the government. Adherence to reporting structures and systems is important. With it goes a strong sense of status. Good clothes, good food, good housing, and above all good cars are indications of status. For example, a human resources executive was organizing a conference in a small town. The occasion was the meeting of teams in a merger between two German companies, and the respective CEOs were intending to be present. In the conference hotel one CEO was offered the penthouse and the other the executive suite. But no, rather than accept the suite the other CEO preferred to stay in a different hotel. In German business, particularly, parity of status is important.
The Germans also make a strong distinction between work and play. “Dienst ist Dienst und Schnaps ist Schnaps,” they say. “Work is work and drink is drink.” Never the twain shall meet! Boundaries are important in German life, and there is a clear boundary between working time and play time. This compartmentalization is reflected in social life as well.
One possible reason they are so insistent on keeping the barriers up and in place might be their own insecurity. Situated in the middle of Europe, bordered by nine countries, and with an often turbulent political and economic history, the Germans have been able to create their own internal sense of security.
A British manufacturer had won a contract to supply parts to a company in the north of Germany. To celebrate the deal he took the German team out to a Weinstube (wine bar). The affair got very jolly, with the British manufacturer buying drinks all round and calling everyone “du” in a friendly, backslapping way. On his return home, he was astonished to receive a fax saying that the German company had decided not to go ahead with the deal. Aghast at the news he telephoned his German colleague to find out what had happened, and was told the German chairman had found it impossible to do business with him on account of his unacceptable behavior.
Nothing the British businessman had done would have been in any way out of the ordinary at home, but in German terms he had overstepped the boundary between office courtesy and private life. For the British manufacturer it was a way of making friends with his new colleagues; for the German company chairman it threatened his respect and credibility and he could not let the relationship go any farther. This admittedly rather extreme example nevertheless illustrates the importance of keeping Dienst and Schnaps firmly in their place.
Germany’s population rose from 80.6 million in 2013 to 83.2 million in 2020. It has the largest population in the EU and is the seventeenth most populous country in the world. A significant reason for this rise has been the increase in immigration via Eastern Europe and from the southern Mediterranean, especially the one million refugees accepted by Angela Merkel’s government in 2015 as part of an “open door” policy.
Although increased immigration (mainly from Syria and Afghanistan) has boosted employment and business, it has also put pressure on housing and schools and led to the greater popularity of right-wing populist opposition parties such as the AfD (Alternative for Germany), founded in 2013.
The German economy, acknowledged as being the strongest in the EU and the fourth-largest in the world after the USA, China, and Japan, has been through difficulties, at times teetering on recession, although Angela Merkel’s CDU (Christian Democratic Union) remains the leading party in government.
The German government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 was swift and efficient, imposing a national lockdown and introducing wide-ranging preventive health measures. Most people adapted well to these restrictions, although a minority protested against social distancing and Maskenpflicht (compulsory mask wearing). Major events, such as the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, were postponed. The slogans broadcast on television—“Bleiben Sie zuversichtlich” (Stay positive) and “Es gibt auch eine Zeit nach Corona” (There will also be a time after Corona)—are further examples of the Germans’ can-do, positive, and pragmatic outlook.
Angela Merkel, once described as “the most powerful woman in the world.”
