Please, screw up (on European corporate culture)

[_b8r0]

Wow. I'm amazed. You're tarring the whole of European culture with the same brush based on experiences in Slovenia. The experience may or may not be typical of your part of Europe but Europe has no 'countrymen', we're all very different from each other with different corporate cultures.

I find your post insulting on two levels - one the idea that Europe is a monoculture, and two that somehow 'being more like the USA' means that we'd be more dynamic risk takers. There are risk takers all over Europe. The main man behind Ycombinator is English for crying out loud!

[mdda]

While it's interesting to note pg is English, for some reason he chose CA to set up in. I'm English too, but based in NYC. As I told everyone when I started my humble startup :

If I tried hard and succeeded in the US people would want to emulate me, in the UK they would wonder who I had to screw over to get there. If I tried hard but failed in the UK people would remember me as a failure, in the US people recognize someone who tried...

[rodp]

Point taken. Some parts of Europe have better corporate culture than others and Slovenia is probably not the best representative of the entire continent (although it's not the worst either). But you misunderstood me: I'm not saying that Europeans are not risk takers -- I know quite a few of them that are -- I'm merely saying that the corporate culture in Europe discourages risk taking far more than the corporate culture in the States, which is why there is no shortage of successful European entrepreneurs on the US market.

[tobtoh]

If I were to peel back the blog post to the relevant point (ie US culture is more risk accepting), I would agree. As someone who just completed 'cultural' training last week, risk profiles for various countries have the USA as very risk tolerant whilst other countries are very risk adverse (some of Europe, India etc). And I think most would agree that risk-acceptance is necessary for innovation/startups.

But wow, the rest of the material wrapped in that blog post ... stereotypes based on a couple of anecdotes, tarring an entire continent as a single monoculture, and inflammatory text such as 'Her cowardly behavior is the eventual result ...' says to me that this post was more about about someone's lack of understanding of culture (and dare I say attempt to appear superior) rather than any 'informative insight'.

Edit: I felt I should explain my objection to this post a bit more. In many cultures (particularly asian ones), communal harmony is valued more than individual success. This can often lead to decision by consensus (an extreme version being the one Rod saw). Is decision by consensus bad for innovation - quite possibly so (I believe it is myself). Is it cowardly? Absolutely not. Did it occur because mistakes were stigmatized? Again no - it's simply that shared decision making is valued for the community harmony. Different cultures, different values.

Edit 2: One of the tools we used on my course was Country Navigator (www.countrynavigator.com). You answer a short quiz which gives you your individual 'cultural' profile and you can then compare how closely you match other country culture profiles. It compares things like risk-taking/avoiding, do you relate as an individual or group etc. It was quite an interesting tool especially comparing how different countries related to me.

[sp4rki]

I didn't seem to get the impression that this was a rant based on his superiority, nor did I get the feeling this person doesn't understand the culture. I actually got this feeling that he does understand the differences in culture and the purpose of the blog is to make a social commentary about how this behavior stifles innovation and in most cases increase cost.

You're right, some countries value 'communal harmony', but that is not what this is about. It's not about having to meet 6 different people to get a sign-off because they have important input and will be directly involved with the product, it's about having to deal with one person who could easily make most of the decisions herself and having her take managers from everywhere because she just doesn't want to be responsible for any future disagreements.

This wasn't a brainstorming session. The manager's decision costed the time of 16 extra people and probably made the meeting go for a lot longer than needed, and at the end, instead of responding to the last question, they pass the torch to legal. To me this doesn't seem like avoiding responsibility, to me it's being irresponsible (at least towards other people's time, not even taking into account other people's sanity).

[JanezStupar]

On misunderstanding of culture. Speaking as a slovene I have to tell you that it is you in this case who is guilty.

This IS the way bussines is done in Slovenia. The company he is talking about is probably one of the state owned, monopolist, socialist leftover, dinosaurs. Basically it's your average government affair.

[alextgordon]

As the European economy tries to stand up straight, while the American risk-taking, innovation-powered economy runs forward...

What?! "Running forward" is not a term I would use to describe the American economy at the moment. And not all of Europe is struggling to stand up straight.

[pavlov]

Dysfunctional working environments are found everywhere, but they are not alike. You'd find quite different approaches in US, Japan, Italy and Sweden, for example. In all these countries, the operating environments of corporations are essentially similar on paper, but the praxis is totally different due to local factors and history (e.g. the state of the society when modernization began).

I agree with other commenters that "Europe" is not such a culturally homogenous region that this generalization would be warranted, though.

[cherenkov]

Petrovic,

Your experience isn't that far-fetched. While your observation about risk taking and entrepreneurial spirit may be true in the US, the culture of risk avoidance exists in the US too. Unlike what we see on TV, there is a whole other side to America that people outside America do not see. (I say this as an immigrant myself).

However, I do agree that having 16 managers preview a site pre-launch and having to resort to "getting-back" on the answer to yes/no question appears lethargic. It appears that the organization's legal folks had not been engaged at the right juncture to comment on the content.

[drinian]

I agree -- Dilbert shows that the US is just as prone to these problems.

[mdda]

There's selection bias in the fact that they were pitching the US company on the phone. The non-risk-takers in the US wouldn't have taken the call.

[cherenkov]

I think we ought to cut him some slack. A lot of folks responding don't seem to take too kindly to the way Europe was represented in the post. I guess the tone of the post is evident in the title itself, "please screw up." It is an exaggeration of sorts, hyperbole if you will. Lighten up, please.

[known]

Refugees viz Albert Einstein & H1Bs viz Linus Torvalds contributed to the prosperity of America.

[Silhouette]

I don't understand the implicit assumption of this article that risk taking is a good thing. Unnecessary bureaucracy and CYA behaviour is damaging, but taking excessive risks without adequate oversight/safeguards is the main reason the global economy got into its current precarious state. This is not a black and white issue, and the most successful businesses will be those that balance each risk against the expected reward if it pays off to decide which risks are acceptable.

[dennisgorelik]

I wonder what that "cowardly" manager would say when she sees that article? While we cannot identify her from the article, she can recognize herself.

[harscoat]

Agree, clumsy post, still the main point it wants to change is that Failure is very frown upon in Europe.