True Story 1.12
British trainer’s style irritates his German trainees
The setting for this story
Trevor, a British corporate trainer, had been engaged by a German–American joint venture to deliver a two-day training course for a group of high-potential managers from both nations.
A story of misaligned minds14
During the second day, Trevor facilitated a role-play exercise in which participants were to apply learnings from the first day. One of the role-players, an American, performed abysmally, making every possible mistake.
When the debrief began, Trevor addressed the inept player as follows: “Walter, I liked the way you inhabited your role and weren’t a shy performer. But, um, maybe some of the other aspects of your performance … well, you might want to think about other approaches. Do you think maybe you could have …”
During Trevor’s years as a corporate trainer, he had learned to “read the room.” That skill now alerted him that the American trainees were relaxed but the Germans were rolling their eyes and whispering among themselves. His way of dealing with Walter seemed to be irritating them.
Trevor’s question
Why is my approach with Walter upsetting the German trainees but not the Americans?
Critique of story 1.12
Most Germans expect to communicate with others, and to be communicated with in turn, in a factual, explicit manner that leaves no room for ambiguities. Germans have little tolerance for social niceties. A German trainer likely would debrief the role-play by saying, “Walter, that was awful! You missed the point of yesterday’s training. The way you should have played that role is …”
For the Germans, Trevor was pussyfooting so gingerly that Walter might not even realize how badly he applied the learnings of the previous day’s training. Their perspective was: We all have only two days here to learn new skills; why leave Walter unclear about what he got wrong?
On the other hand, had a German trainer debriefed Walter, the Americans would have been irritated by his seemingly rude, intemperate manner, which they would say lacked empathy and embarrassed Walter in front of the group. (In this regard, American and British perspectives are similar.)
And that’s not all. Let’s note other differences in training style and methods that might have surfaced during this culturally mixed corporate training event. Here are four:
- It’s likely that, before this course was even one hour old, Trevor had irritated the Germans. Most likely, he opened the first day by asking the trainees to publicly share something about themselves. Trevor would claim that this establishes familiarity among all the trainees, smoothing the progress of the two-day course. The Germans would view it as a colossal waste of time.
- We can guess that Trevor had been interjecting jokes into the proceedings and doing his best to make the two days about enjoyment as well as about learning. The Germans would have little patience with this attitude; professional learning is serious business.
- Trevor probably had called for a brainstorm at least once. He would say that brainstorming draws on the trainees’ store of relevant experiences, which in the United States is a bedrock tenet of teaching anything to adults. The Germans would say that they’re attending a training event to learn from an expert, the trainer. Those who want to share experiences should hold a seminar.
- The German trainees likely disapproved of Trevor’s role-play. For Trevor, role-plays enable participants, in the alleged “safe space” of the training room, to apply what they have learned. For the Germans, role-plays are “make-believes” that can never replicate real-world complexity.
For thought
Trainers often travel great distances to fulfill their assignments. Sometimes they’re the only culturally different person in the room, so it’s up to them to do most of the adapting. These days, trainers can become informed about some, if not all, of their trainees’ culturally influenced preferences and expectations. Information about the norms and values of several dozen societies is readily available in books, magazine and journal articles, and the internet.
Related stories
Stories 1.10, 7.02, and 7.10 also describe culturally misaligned corporate training events. Story 1.05 describes the differing patterns of thought exhibited by British and French people.
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Endnotes:
14 Kainzbauer & Dickie, 390.
Full citations are available at misalignedminds.info/References.