An excerpt from the diary of a global traveler
It was a Saturday morning and I found myself standing in front of a room full of 50 women, half of them German and the other half American. My task was to help these executive and team assistants to understand the other culture. This is how I got there.
When a German company purchased a large American competitor, I was invited to assist the cultural integration so that the two companies could function efficiently as one in the shortest possible time. I felt strongly that the mistake other companies had made in the past was to focus their intercultural awareness training only on the middle levels of the company. Senior executives were excluded because it was presumed they were either too busy or already possessed such skills. Clerical personnel were generally ignored in a belief that it wasn’t worthwhile to invest time and money on training them. I encouraged the training of people at all levels of the two companies which were meant to come together.
Weeks before the event, I had met with the assistant to the German boss. She was to be a participant and was also charged with organizing the logistics for the meeting that was to take place in the German headquarters. I pointed out that Americans frequently prefer to drink still water rather than the fizzy variety that is far more common in Germany. I mentioned our American addiction to cola products and ice cubes at the breaks. And I asked her to please prepare name badges for each person showing first names prominently. As an afterthought, I mentioned that no academic titles should appear on the badges, including the name badge of the boss, Dr. X who would be the only man other than myself participating in this program. Showing his name without his academic title would promote a more collegial and less hierarchical atmosphere.
You would have thought that I just suggested that he show up shirtless! She gave me quite the lecture that in Germany someone who achieves a PhD has it legally and permanently added to their name. And so to leave the title off would be a clear and unforgivable mistake. I tried to argue that we weren’t including this man’s middle name on the badge even though it is also a legal part of his name, but she would not budge on this topic.
Actually, it didn’t surprise me because I hadn’t been in Germany long before I encountered a Full Professor from a local university who had earned two PhDs — quite an accomplishment. But it surprised me somewhat that he was addressed Professor Dr. Dr. Schmidt. Yes, his professorship was stated when he was addressed along with both of his doctorates.
So, let’s return to the auditorium and the now-assembled 50 women. I started my presentation by showing a picture of a pig and asking what comes to mind when they see this image. Having done this many times before, I anticipated responses like food, dirty and farm. But not this time. The first woman to speak, a German with excellent English language, said “men”. That was good for some awkward laughs which I encouraged by looking around the stage as if to see where I might hide in case the mood got more aggressive. But we moved on and I got the usual responses which gave way to my pointing out that a pig can invoke many more connotative meanings. Whereby it may be food in some places, it is forbidden to eat in others. And what about the significance of a piggy bank. In Germany also many people give little plastic images of pigs to one another on New Year’s Day as the pig is a symbol of luck for the new year.
When we took our morning coffee break the woman who had answered my question by saying “men” came up to me. I assured her that I took no offense and that I appreciated her honesty if perhaps she was having a difficult time in a personal relationship right now. To my surprise she explained that it was nothing like that. As she was parking in front of the office building, the last song she heard on the radio was a German hit of the time entitled Männer sind Schweine which translates to “men are pigs”. This further enhanced my training point that words have literal meanings and then they have the meanings that we assigned to them because of personal or cultural experiences (connotative meanings).
No sooner did she walk away, but the woman in charge of organization, the one who insisted on having “Dr.” on the name tag of her boss, came up to me and asked to speak privately. She was distressed because her American counterpart, the executive secretary of the US boss, had done something which caused this woman to think that she might have offended the American. The evening before, the American addressed the woman with whom I was now speaking with first name and the German reciprocated in kind. But that morning the American was addressing the German formally using her last name. In German culture such a behavior (changing from informal to forma address) hints that some affront may have occurred. She was greatly relieved when I pointed out that her German colleagues were addressing her by last name because that was the culture of the office and so the American overheard the behavior and decided that perhaps it was inappropriate for her to use first name.
Take-aways: We commonly refer to these things as explicit culture, the behaviors which can be observed and can be corrected by simply agreeing on how to handle them. It is the implicit culture, those values and assumptions that people hold deep inside of themselves, that are much harder to resolve. Your best help in such intercultural situations is a good sense of humor and a readiness to apologize for any unintentional affront.
Herb