[Subject line shortened by your host. Was "Downsizing Literature &
Intorduction -- Eric N. Opp"]
On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 GMBrady@aol.com wrote:
> Or come at it from another perspective, and compare the number of paid
> non-work days in America with any other industrialized country. In a
> phone conversation a few days ago, a German friend asked my wife if we
> couldn't come to Bad Godesberg for at least part of the holidays. When
> wife Joy (a technical editor) said she had to work, that if we came the
> days would be subtracted from her two week annual vacation, Norma was
> incredulous. "TWO WEEKS!!?? You're kidding! Oh Joy, you should tell
> those people you work for to stick it!"
Hello!
I have been "lurking" on the list for several months and have enjoyed
immensely the postings to this group in particular. The above posting was
the bait that made me bite!
I am a physicist by training & work for an engineering consulting &
systems integration company doing primarily engineering analysis. My wife
studied HRD at George Washington University & through her discovered
Senge's Book, "The Fifth Discipline." I have gotten hooked on applying
these ideas to everyday organizational situations. I am also trying out
some of these ideas in smaller organizations in which I have a major
leadership role. The most important of which is the Robert Bosch Alumni
Association. I am president of the Alumni Association. By responding to
the post, you will see what the significance of this Association is.
I spent one year in Germany on the Robert Bosch Fellowship for Future
American Leaders. It is a nine month professional (primarily management &
public policy) fellowship. The nine month program includes the following:
1) a one month introductory seminar, which covers how "Germany functions"
including private discussions with Chancellor Kohl & the President Richard
von Weizsaecker, 2) an three month internship in a federal ministry, 3) a
four month intership in either government at the state level or in private
industry, 4) a two week seminar on German Reunification, and 5) a two week
seminar on Germany's role in Europe. Needless to say, I got a deep
insight into the German approach to work versus the American approach to
work.
I find a strange paradox between the cultures. One the one hand, we
Americans pride ourselves on being flexible & creative in our work, and we
do not take degrees & titles very seriously. This does in many cases run
counter to the practices I have encountered, where once you have been
"assigned" a role or position within your organization or through your
resume, there seems to be a great reluctance today to let employees try
out new things and different roles. As a matter of fact, in one interview
for a marketing position for a company that was seeking to do business in
Germany, I was told that I had an impressive set of contacts that would be
valuable to them, but that since I had never negotiated a full contract,
they would prefer to hire someone with all the skills. I have run up
against similar blocks in many different places - "we would rather hire
someone, who has been trained elsewhere that can jump right in and do the
job than to hire someone, who might be better in the long run but that we
have to train a little" - the good old short term approach to all things.
On the other hand, the Germans have **very** restrictive laws concerning
work. You cannot just hire and fire the way you do here in the US. There
is a size breakpoint on this, but it is very small - 25 (? I can't recall
exactly). Once you have more than 25 employees, you must offer an
impressive array of benefits most mandated either by law, by union
agreements or by custom. These include 6 weeks of vacation for any
employee over the age of 30, full heath coverage, participation in the
company council, 38 hour work week etc. Each time you hire and fire, you
must gain approval from the company council, which includes equal
representation from both management and the workers. German companies are
much much slower to hire and they are much much slower to fire, so they
end up seeing their employees as a long term investment rather than "slot
to be filled." Much of this mandated framework does cause a German
businessman quite a bit of "indigestion," but, what we fail to see, is
that it also forces many of the cooperative practices advocated by such
literature as "The Fifth Discipline." True, the overhead rates are
crushing many companies in Europe and in Japan, but both cultures have
been forced to opt for the "cooperative, quality" path, where many other
factors besides this quarter's bottom line are accounted for. As we all
know, there are scores of examples of companies both in Japan and Germany,
who are world leaders, whose owners are laughing all the way to the bank,
who under our flavor of capitalism should succeed at all, because their
overhead should kill them. We in the US are still largely trying to figure
out how and why these companies work.
I am experimenting with implementing some of the ideas in "The Fifth
Discipline" and in "The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" in the Executive
Committee of the Bosch Alumni Association, which, by the way, include all
of the former Bosch Fellows from 11 program years. I'd also like to hear
some of the experiences of others in viewing LO ideas in an international
framework.
-- Eric N. Opp MRJ Inc. eopp@mrj.com