In the Workplace

The fallout from the achievement ethic pervades every corner of the American workplace. The most visible impact is probably with respect to the kind of behavior that is rewarded on the job, what it is that gets a person promoted.

Results

In most businesses and offices it is the high achievers , sometimes also known as the best performers, who advance. In other words, the bottom line in most workplaces is results. In the private sector in particular, many employees have quarterly or semi-annual goals, targets, or quotas they must meet. If they meet their target, they get to keep their job. If they exceed it, they get a bonus. If they exceed it by more than anyone else, they get promoted. It may be true that results are not the only measure of an employee s worth in America, but they are certainly the single most important criterion for advancement.

Promotion based on results helps explain one of the most common criticisms made about managers in the United States: that they have no people skills. This is no doubt in part because the skill set it takes to achieve ” being aggressive , competitive, impatient, and driven ” is in many ways quite different from the skill set it takes to motivate and support others to achieve. The qualities that get people promoted into the management ranks, in short, aren t necessarily the ones they ll need after they get there. So unless they already happen to have those other qualities ” and haven t suppressed them too completely in the relentless pursuit of their targets ” then they ll only accidentally be good managers. One can t help thinking there wouldn t be quite so many books published every year on leadership in the United States if leading people came a bit more naturally to those at the top.

The United States is not unique in rewarding achievement, of course; high achievers are valued and rewarded in almost all cultures, especially in the business world, and quotas or targets are likewise not peculiar to the American workplace. What is different is the somewhat single- minded emphasis on achievement in America, the degree to which performance beats out all other criteria as a measure of an employee s value to the organization.

In one survey conducted by Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars, people from a number of countries were asked the following question: Should an employee with a record of 15 years satisfactory performance with a company be dismissed because his current performance is unsatisfactory, or should his whole record and the company s responsibility be considered ? (1993, 241). Of the eleven countries in the survey, more Americans than any other nationality (57 percent) said that current performance alone should be the deciding factor. The percentages who gave that answer in selected other countries are presented below (241):

Canada	54%	Italy	28%
UK	43%	France	26%
Netherlands	38%	Sweden	25%
Japan	33%	Singapore	22%
Germany	31%

We want results, Americans are fond of saying, not excuses.

In recent years it has become increasingly common in the private sector in America to dismiss older employees with considerable experience and accumulated wisdom but whose results have started to decline. Whether or not experience and wisdom are weighed in making these decisions, they obviously count for less than performance. To many non- Americans, this tendency to undervalue such things as dedication, commitment, accumulated wisdom and experience, and loyalty makes Americans seem uncaring and even ruthless . Needless to say, any foreigners who are expecting these virtues to be admired and rewarded by their American colleagues may be disappointed.

The value placed on achievements and results, with its implicit bias in favor of ends over means, may also explain the great lengths to which managers and others are sometimes willing to go in tolerating the behavior of difficult employees. Someone who might be fired , or at least disciplined, in other cultures ” an eccentric, perhaps, or someone who is very difficult to get along with or even insubordinate ” might be forgiven these lapses in America if he or she is also a top performer, or, as Americans might put it, as long as he or she delivers (i.e., gets results). A European expatriate working in the United States for a large American multinational company recounted the story of this company s most famous employee, a man in sales who dressed entirely in black, wore a silver chain where everyone else wore a tie, and had a ring on every finger. This man, who would have been kicked out in Europe, somehow had a way of connecting with customers and was eventually made vice president of sales for the company s largest product line.

Efficiency and Quick Results

The achievement ethic also helps explain the American obsession with efficiency and with anything that contributes to or supports being efficient. If getting things done is a good thing, then getting more things done ” faster, cheaper, and with fewer people ” is an even better thing. The efficiency ethos contributes to a number of other workplace behaviors, such as the need on occasion to go around the chain of command (which is forgiven, if it works ” i.e., if it gets results ” but resented if it doesn t) and the direct style of communication (whatever else it may be, being direct is certainly efficient). To some extent the efficiency ethic even contributes to the notorious American obsession with anything that s new; new, after all, is almost always improved, and improved by definition works better and is therefore more efficient.

To some extent the achievement value also explains the shorttermism Americans are often accused of, their famous impatience for results. If self-respect and the respect of others come in large part from one s achievements, then there is a certain built-in pressure to see those achievements sooner rather than later. Americans don t like to wait very long for results, in short, because there is so much at stake. This may be one reason most American companies issue quarterly earnings reports, suggesting that three months is already a long time to wait for results. Compare this with German companies, for example, who are not preoccupied with immediate results, according to Edward T. Hall. It is important for Germans to complete action chains and so they find it inconvenient and disruptive to be asked for quarterly financial statements and reports; instead, they provide annual financial reports . [This] slow pace is hard on Americans (1990, 37).

The desire to see results quickly is partly responsible for the general lack of enthusiasm Americans have for long- term projects or for any work that has a somewhat delayed payoff. Americans not only want to do something, Lynn Payer has written in her book Medicine and Culture, they want to do it fast, and if they cannot, they often become frustrated (1989, 137). Americans are impatient, get bored easily, and by and large do not have much staying power. The drive to achieve, it turns out, is also the drive to achieve quickly.

This pressure to achieve, and especially to achieve quickly, is made all the more intense by the frequency with which people in the United States change jobs over the course of their working life ” an average of eight times for the typical American. As soon as you take a new job, the pressure to achieve, to prove yourself in the new position, starts all over again.

Is it any wonder that Americans are too intense for many non- Americans? They are so focused on results and achievements ” so competitive, driven, and ambitious ” they use up all the oxygen in the room and leave everyone else gasping. They re very charged up, come on strong, and tend to run over anything in their path . You don t really talk to Americans or work with them; you just get out of their way.

The value placed on speed also helps explain the somewhat conflicted American attitude toward quality. The fact is that quality takes time ” and Americans don t like to wait. While American companies talk a great deal about quality, they are willing to sacrifice it if it means beating the competition to the market or otherwise improving the bottom line. Or they will release a product that is not perfect, that is good enough, and work out the kinks in the new and improved second version. The Japanese and Germans, by contrast, will spend as long as it takes developing, testing, tweaking, and retesting a product, and only release it when there s no way to make it better. If the competition beats them to the market, they re confident that superior quality will eventually win out.

In their book Working for the Japanese: Inside Mazda s American Auto Plant, Joseph Fucini and Suzy Fucini note that

[t]he American manager, having been raised in a bottom-line environment, tended to look primarily or even exclusively at end results when assessing a plant s performance. How many cars was the plant producing a month? What was the defect rate? As long as he received satisfactory answers to these questions, the American manager considered the plant a success. . . . The goal . . . was to keep cars rolling off the assembly line with no interruptions. Changes, even those that could improve the production process, were regarded as inherently disruptive and therefore undesirable. (1990, 32, 33)

The good enough mentality also means that Americans are not particularly thorough or overly worried about details, about dotting the i s and crossing the t s. These things take time, and in the end they usually don t have much of an impact on the bottom line. The perfect, Americans are fond of saying, is the enemy of the good. And in most cases good is good enough for Americans.

All three cultures ” German, Japanese, American ” claim to be champions of quality; it s all a matter of degree. For German and Japanese manufacturers, quality is very close to the greatest good; for Americans, it has to compete with a number of other good things.

Planning and Teamwork

Another consequence of the achievement ethos is American impatience with planning. Somehow, preparing to do is just not as satisfying as doing. While Americans recognize that planning is essential to achieving, and may even admit that it is a kind of doing, it doesn t have quite the same cachet as an actual, measurable achievement. So it is that Americans tend to be somewhat restless and disengaged during the early stages of a project, when the foundation for action is being carefully laid, and become much happier and enthusiastic as the time to execute draws near. Americans would much rather act on a hastily designed plan and pick up the pieces as necessary than wait while the plan is being perfected.

A Newsweek article on the Daimler Chrysler merger highlighted the differing German/American attitudes on precisely this cultural phenomenon as one of the major sticking points between the two partners . Americans favor fast-paced trial-and-error experimentation, the article observed , [while] Germans lay painstaking plans and implement them precisely. ˜The Americans think the Germans are stubborn militarists, and the Germans think the Americans are totally chaotic , says Edith Meissner, an executive at the Sindelfingen plant. To foster compromise, Americans are encouraged to make more specific plans, and Germans are urged to begin experimenting more quickly (McGinn and Theil 1999, 51, 52).

The focus on achievement also explains in part why Americans generally don t like to work in teams . The esteem and respect that come with achievements require being able to easily identify the people responsible for those achievements. But when one works on a team, it s inherently difficult to determine who is responsible and should get the credit for any particular result. While it s no doubt satisfying to be part of a successful team, one that has impressive results, it s not quite as satisfying as getting individual recognition.

Needless to say, the competitive streak in many Americans likewise makes it difficult for them to be good at teamwork or even to be interested in it. The essence of teamwork, after all, is cooperation, and many Americans would rather spend the considerable time and energy it takes to cooperate with others to pursue individual results. (Teamwork is examined in more depth in chapter 6.)

The achievement ethic also influences the American attitude toward risk. One of the reasons Americans are willing to take risks is because of the reward that lies on the other side, the success and acclaim that come with achievement. In a culture where the means receive far less scrutiny than the ends, taking risks is easily forgiven. The other, almost irresistible appeal of risk in achievement-oriented cultures is the fact that while you can often get the same results without taking the risks, you won t get them nearly as quickly. Delayed results are still results, of course, but for Americans the wait can be excruciating.

Achievements You Can See

Taken to its extreme ” and Americans tend to be an all-or-nothing kind of people ” the achievement ethos leads to the belief that whatever cannot be quantified cannot be truly valued. Most Americans know better, of course, but it must be said that by and large the most satisfying achievements for Americans are those that are tangible, measurable, and visible ” in other words, easily recognized by others. This may explain why many Americans are not particularly attracted to the service sector, especially to the so-called helping professions . Tangible results are just not the norm in many service sector jobs, and they can also take a long time coming. If they are even seen at all, the consequences of having touched someone s life or given someone hope or made someone feel better about himself or herself may not be apparent until years later.

Americans are deeply conflicted about the service sector. It is important, essential work that has to be done, and Americans greatly admire people who choose to do it, but it s not the sector one chooses if one is ambitious or wants to be well remunerated. A recent survey of college students found that only 40 percent were even considering going into government service, with most citing the bureaucratic and inflexible nature of the work environment and the inability to go high as their reasons for lack of interest. They were turned off, apparently, by the perceived limits on what they could accomplish and especially on how much they could accomplish. They wanted jobs with potential, in other words ” the potential to achieve.

Their great fondness for doing tends to make Americans suspicious of most forms of not doing, especially talking and thinking. Their attitude toward talk, not all talk but talk that comes at the expense of doing, is made clear in a number of common expressions: He s all talk and no action, Talk is cheap, Put your money where your mouth is, Watch what we do, not what we say, She talks a good line, and Cut to the chase. In practical terms this wariness toward talk translates into such things as a general dislike for meetings (especially ones that are poorly run), a tendency to distrust people who are a bit too articulate ( smooth talkers ), and a general disinclination to act on the basis of talk alone but to wait and see if the person actually delivers on what he or she has promised .

Americans also tend to undervalue what we might call the achievements of the mind, things like ideas, analysis, theories , and paradigms . By and large Americans aren t interested in these things for their own sake, although they can become interested if they are shown what they can do with an idea or how they can apply a theory. In the same way, Americans don t particularly value the activities that produce these questionable outputs, things like research, study, reflection, and vigorous discussion, activities that at best only indirectly result in achievements. This is at least part of the reason Americans put down what they call academia, because many believe that the people in academia don t actually do anything; they just talk and think.

How Americans See Others

Americans sometimes regard people who are not sufficiently achievementoriented as being lazy and unmotivated. They may come across as having very little drive or ambition , as not caring very much about whether they succeed, and as not worried enough about the bottom line. They may even come across as blas or lacking in self-respect.

Similarly, if people are not willing to work nights or even an occasional Saturday (at least at the manager and middle manager level) or not willing to schedule their vacation around important milestones or due dates at work ” if they let personal or family considerations unduly influence their work life ” then they may come across to Americans as not caring enough, meaning they are not very dedicated or committed to their work.

When people spend too long on tasks that don t contribute directly to results ” too much discussion, analysis, or planning ” they may come across to Americans as obsessed with details, excessively cautious, or very indecisive. By the same token, when people worry too much about taking risks, when they want to delay a roll-out or a product launch, for example, to do more testing or have another focus group , they strike Americans as timid and needlessly thorough.

Quick Tips: Advice for Working with Americans

• Clear away obstructions that keep people from getting things done, such as elaborate procedures, a long chain of command (multiple sign-offs), or excessive testing.

• Quick decisions are almost as good as the right ones; planning, analysis, and discussion are necessary ” up to a point (and Americans may reach that point before you will).

• Never act complacent or satisfied; you can always do better.

• Don t micromanage your employees; let their achievements be their own.

• It doesn t have to be perfect; good enough is good enough for Americans.

• It s okay to be aggressive; in the end you will be judged more by your results (the bottom line) than your personality.

• Don t be surprised if Americans expect you to work late or on weekends.