Please, screw up (on European corporate culture) | Hacker News Reader

Please, screw up (on European corporate culture)

rodpetrovic.com

45 pointsrodp34 comments

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!

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.

It's not at all representative!

Why do you believe that all Europeans have got the same corporate culture?

Firstly Western Europe is still nothing like ex-communist block countries. Hell, parts of Russia lies with Europe.

Then even looking at individual countries France != Germany != UK != Holland, etc.

We all have wildly different histories. Different labour laws. Different business laws. Different tax rates. Different GDPs. Different natural resources.

There's no common corporate culture as the business climate is so varied.

Perhaps the best example of this is Britain and France. Britain and France are separated by 23 miles of water. In France, egalité reigns supreme. Many places are union driven. The unions are all powerful. People aren't permitted to work more than 35 hours per week and get a large amount of holidays relative to their cousins 23 miles away.

Meanwhile, in the UK there's an opt out to allow people to work more than 40 hours a week, people get 25 days holiday on average and unions have little power in most cases, or act in ways that often damage peoples' jobs in others.

The differences between doing business in England and France are much more vast than the 23 miles that separate them. They're a product of France executing their aristocracy and the British not. A product of the French considering work 'travail' (toiling, or otherwise arduous activity) and the English not. And of course of the English being part of the industrial revolution early, meaning that the English could be more productive than everyone else with less resources, and of the French having to compete at a disadvantage. Add to that the other differences in French history and it's no wonder that many Brits (I wouldn't want to claim to speak for all as even we on a tiny island aren't a monoculture) generally feel closer to Anglophonic and former imperial countries than our European friends.

Please don't use English & British interchangeably.

Sorry for that. The reason I switched from British to English is because of the distance over the channel being 23 miles, not a suggestion that Britain is essentially England or that it's a monoculture. Please don't think otherwise.

> I'm merely saying that the corporate culture in Europe discourages risk taking far more than the corporate culture in the States

But do you really think that 2 anecdotes are enough to warrant that conclusion?

Not at all. The conclusion that US corporate culture is more risk-tolerant than European wasn't made by me. It's been talked about in media for years, especially lately. My anecdotes are hardly the only ones that argue in its favor. As a European, I'd honestly like to read anecdotes that prove the opposite.

As an Englishman, I'd love to see anecdotes that establish you as a European (and us all as such) instead of something that subverts your slovenian identity.

Don't get me wrong, I thnk slovenia is a wonderful country but I think you cheapen your point by suggesting that a man in ljubjana should have the same world view as a man in London or Berlin.

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...

You go where the best chance for what you're trying to achieve is. For pg it was silicon valley, for you it's NYC, for investment funds in Europe it's going to be London, for engineering in Europe it's going to be Germany.

I don't think your analogy is that accurate, we have plenty of successes here (James Dyson, Theo Paphitis, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson) as well as the many smaller ones noone knows about. Also, failure is relative. In the industry I work in, there are people that I know well who have exited on good terms, my main business makes a fraction of what they made, but I enjoy the freedom more and (to the best of my knowledge) so do the guys that work for me.

I do agree about the difference in the cost of failure though. Personally I blame Del Boy Trotter for a lot of that.

Actually, I didn't come up with my 'upside vs downside analysis' here on HN : it's how I've been explaining why I'm in the US to anyone who asks. I've had far more nods of understanding from the people back home (in the UK) than anywhere else.

More than anything it gives me hope to here that. I've been relying on last.fm to count as the defacto startup of choice for too long. I hope it all works out for you, whatever you're doing. If you need an upvote somewhere or a celebration of what you're trying to achieve, please send me an email.

Even treating the UK as homogeneous is silly - even within somewhere as small as Scotland there is a huge amount of difference in how people view entrepreneurship depending on which region you are in:

- Post-industrial Glasgow

- Finance and government based Edinburgh

- Oil oriented Aberdeen

- Farming/fishing/tourism of the Highlands

In fact the very first time I heard anyone talking about trying to get finance for a business was a school friend of mine when we were 20 - he was trying to raise enough money to buy his own fishing trawler.

I grew up in an environment in the North of Scotland where there were no large employers and a lot of small independent businesses - starting your own business wasn't seem as a big deal.

Of course the UK isn't homogeneous - there's obviously an enduring entrepreneurial spirit everywhere. My only point was that (as a social convention) people with aspirations behave differently there than they would in (say) New York.

But there is no single "there" - that's my point.

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.

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).

Shared decision making is all about everyone having a say - it doesn't matter if the boss/manager is there and could make the decision on their own - the boss will engage his entire team to share a decision so that everyone feels part of the team. That's my point that it's a cultural difference/value - it's not seen as time wasting, it's seen as an investment in good teaming/community harmony.

I believe you are blending two different things together. Working together as a team, and making a decision.

I agree that it's good team building to work together in a large group, but do you have to carry around 16 managers for every decision? Why is one person so afraid of standing up and saying I made the decision because I feel it benefits the company, and then go into your data and facts. Then have anyone who objects come forwarded. Instead of having to cross reference every member or other departments for trivial decisions.

Here you implied that this manager has a working knowledge of what the current issue is about. Or that she knows what is good for her company.

This indeed is a case of incompetence being masked with teamwork - I see it all the time (I work for government a lot).

As Archibald Putt said: When in doubt - form a task force. If doubt persist, form a comitee.

No I'm not. That's the whole point of cultural differences. What you see as inefficiency, can quite often be cultural behavior. Let me illustrate with a different example: If you ever deal with Indians (particular in India), you will find that whenever you ask them a question, they will often say yes (even when you think the answer should be no). The reason is that when an Indian says 'yes', they mean 'yes I heard you', not 'Yes I agree' or 'Yes I have completed that task'.

In the same way, you judge that team as being ineffectual in making a decision, but unless you have the cultural understanding of that country, you could be misunderstanding shared decision making as something else. Your explanation, whilst completely logical, is from your 'lens' of the world and may or may not have any accuracy in explaining another person's behavior.

(I will point out here that I can't comment if the situation in the article is a cultural difference or incompetence. I don't know enough about the country nor the situation to comment. My only point is that I suspect Rod doesn't know either - he's judging them based on his world view without really understanding the cultural issues. However quite possibly, it's simply an incompetence issue).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The company I work for is US-based.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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